THE CUCKOO. 277 



111 the Spottiswoode district, Mr. Lockie says, the fol- 

 lowing rhyme with reference to the Cuckoo is sometimes 

 heard : — 



In April come he will, 

 In May he sings all day, 

 In June he changes tune, 

 In July away he '11 fly. 

 In August go he must. 



Mr. Hardy writes that it is popularly believed in Berwick- 

 shire, as elsewhere, that the Cuckoo keeps his voice in good 

 tune only so long as he can get small birds' eggs to suck, and 

 that when these are all hatched his musical notes grow hoarser 

 and huskier until at length his melodious functions are 

 entirely suspended.^ He also says that " it is the common 

 belief in the county that if the circumstances in which its 

 note is first heard for the season be attended to, they afford 

 unerring signs whereby the secrets of a man's destiny for 

 the ensuing year may be disclosed. In whatever direction 

 he may be looking when its tones arrest him, there he will 

 be on the anniversary of that day next year. If he be 

 gazing on the ground he is warned of an untimely fate. If 

 he has money in his pocket, it is an omen that he shall not 

 lack ; if penniless, that the cruse of oil shall not be replen- 

 ished, and that losses and disappointments shall be his lot."'"^ 

 It is likewise a popular superstition that if, on hearing the 

 first Cuckoo of the season, a girl takes off her shoe and 

 examines it, she may find inside a hair of the colour of that 

 of her future husband. Mr. Hardy gives an instance of a 

 girl, who was carrying the seed-basket for the sower in one 

 of his fields at Oldcambus on the 7th of April 1876, having 

 been observed to do this.^ The same practice appears to be 



1 " Popular History of the Cuckoo."— i^o^A; Lore Record, vol. ii. pp. 59-60. 



•- Ihid. p. 90. 



3 MS. Notes by Mr. Hardy. 



