24 BIRDS AND POETS 
to fit our bird better than the European species. 
Our cuckoo is in fact a solitary wanderer, repeating 
its loud, guttural call in the depths of the forest, and 
well calculated to arrest the attention of a poet like 
Wordsworth, who was himself a kind of cuckoo, a 
solitary voice, syllabling the loneliness that broods 
over streams and woods, — 
“ At once far off, and near.”’ 
Our cuckoo is not a spring bird, being seldom 
seen or heard in the North before late in May. He 
is a great devourer of canker-worms, and, when these 
pests appear, he comes out of his forest seclusion 
and makes excursions through the orchards stealthily 
and quietly, regaling himself upon those pulpy, 
fuzzy tidbits. His coat of deep cinnamon brown 
has a silky gloss and is very beautiful. His note 
or call is not musical but loud, and has in a re- 
markable degree the quality of remoteness and in- 
trovertedness. It is like a vocal legend, and to the 
farmer bodes rain. 
It is worthy of note, and illustrates some things 
said farther back, that birds not strictly denominated 
songsters, but criers like the cuckoo, have been 
quite as great favorites with the poets, and have 
received as affectionate treatment at their hands, as 
the song-birds. One readily recalls Emerson’s “ Tit- 
mouse,” Trowbridge’s “Pewee,” Celia Thaxter’s 
“Sandpiper,” and others of a like character. 
It is also worthy of note that the owl appears to 
be a greater favorite with the poets than the proud, 
soaring hawk. The owl is doubtless the more hu- 
