was Put out to Nurse 
their sweet scent throughout the fields, 
and the long grass was all cut and 
turned into hay. Presently the berries 
and hedgeside fruits began to appear, 
and the cuckoos felt it was time to 
think about travelling again over the 
sea to the sunny land where they had 
always spent the winter. So away they 
flew, without troubling their heads in the 
slightest about their children, who might 
find their own way, or get lost and fall 
into the sea for all they cared. 
Now, when it came to this, and the 
young cuckoos found that they would 
have to make a long journey, they had at 
last to depend upon themselves. Their 
parents had gone off and left them. The 
hedge-sparrows couldn’t do anything to 
help them in this difficulty, for they were 
quite stay-at-home folks, and had never 
215 
