THE CUCKOO I41 
be thou not dismaied 
For thou have herd the Cuckow erst than me, 
For if I live it shall amendid be 
The nexte Maie, if I be not afraied. 
More recently Milton thus addresses the Nightingale: 
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, 
First heard before the shallow Cuccoo’s bill, 
Portend success in love. 
Whether any traces of this popular belief yet linger in our rural 
districts, I do not know; but I can recall my childish days in the 
west of England (where there are no Nightingales), when I looked 
forward with implicit faith to the coming of the Cuckoo, to ‘ eat up 
the dirt’, and make the Devonshire lanes passable for children’s 
spring wanderings. 
The song of the Cuckoo, I need scarcely remark, consists 
of but two notes, of which the upper is, I believe, invariably, 
E flat, the lower most frequently C natural, forming, however, 
not a perfect musical interval, but something between a minor 
and a major third. Occasionally two birds may be _ heard 
singing at once, one seemingly aiming at a minor, the other 
a major third; the effect is, of course, discordant. Sometimes 
the first note is pronounced two or three times, thus ‘ cuck-cuck- 
cuckoo’, and I have heard it repeated rapidly many times in suc- 
cession, so as to resemble the trilling note of the Nightingale, but in 
a lower key. The note of the nestling is a shrill plaintive chirp, 
which may best be imitated by twisting a glass stopper in a bottle. 
Even the human ear has no difficulty in understanding it as a cry 
for food, of which it is insatiable. Towards the end of June the 
Cuckoo, according to the old adage, ‘alters its tune’, which at 
first loses its musical character and soon ceases altogether. In July 
the old birds leave us, the males by themselves first, and the females 
not many days after; but the young birds remain until October. 
Referring to the young cuckoo’s manner of ejecting the eggs of 
its foster-parents, and the reason for this apparently cruel action, 
the editor refers our readers to Mr. W. H. Hudson’s interesting 
chapter in Idle Days in Hampshire. 
