274 THE CUCKOO. 



which the above lines are taken, carries us back, like 

 Wordsworth, to the days of our boyhood, and recalls " that 

 golden time again"; and Montgomery makes the Cuckoo 

 tell us why we love to hear its voice — 



Why art thou always welcome, lonely bird ? 



— The heart grows young again when I am heard ; 



Nor in my double note the magic lies, 



But in the fields and woods, the streams and skies. 



From records of the arrival of this well-known spring 

 visitor in Berwickshire for the last sixty-seven years, 

 kindly furnished by Mr. Hardy, I find that its earliest 

 appearance, during that period, was on the 4th of April 

 1833 ; whilst the latest date at which its notes were heard 

 for the first time in the season was the 27th of May 1872, 

 its advent being most frequently recorded on the 2nd of 

 the latter month. The males arrive a few days before the 

 females. 



The Cuckoo is much more plentiful in the upland 

 districts of the county, and along the edges of the 

 Lammermuirs, than it is in the Merse; certain of the 

 former localities being favourite resorts, such as Abbey St. 

 Bathans, Ordweil, Wedderlie, Ecklaw, and Ewieside, where, 

 about the beginning of May, as many as six or seven 

 birds are sometimes in view at one time. In the moor- 

 lands the Meadow Pipit, Titlin, or Moss Cheeper {Anthus 

 pratensis), is often seen following the Cuckoo, and on this 

 account the proverb, " As grit as the Gowk and the Titlin " 

 is occasionally heard amongst the country people. Sir 

 David Lindsay, referring to that remarkable habit of the 

 little bird, says, in his Com-playnt of Scotland, " The Titlene 

 follouit the Goilk and gart hyr sing Guk, guk." The 

 motive for this action is not known ; but it is supposed 

 by some of our leading ornithologists to proceed from 

 animosity, in the same way as Swallows follow a hawk. 



