86 BIRDS AND MAN 



such a note. Nevertheless I prefer it to the song. 

 The song itself — the set melody composed of half 

 a dozen inflected notes, repeated three or four 

 times with little or no variation — is occasionally 

 heard in the late winter and early spring, but at 

 this time of the year it is often too husky or croaky 

 to be agreeable. The songster has not yet thrown 

 off his seasonal cold ; the sound might sometimes 

 proceed from a crow suffering from a catarrh. It 

 improves as the season advances. The song is 

 sometimes spelt in books : 



Coo-co6-roQ, coo-coo-roo. 



A lady friend assures me the right words of this 



song are : 



Take hvo cows, David. 



She cannot, if she tries, make the bird say any- 

 thing different, for these are the words she was 

 taught to hear in the song, as a child, in Leicester- 

 shire. Of course they are uttered with a great 

 deal of emotion in the tone, David being tearfully, 

 almost sobbingly, begged and implored to take 

 two cows ; the emphasis is very strong on the two 

 —it is apparently a matter of the utmost conse- 

 quence that David should not take one, nor three, 

 nor any other number of cows, but just two. 



