248 RURAL BIRD LIFE. 



provides for the continuation of its species, together with 

 the absurd supposition of the bird changing into a Hawk 

 for the winter months, also tend to throw a halo of mys- 

 tery round this bird of spring. Even ornithologists have 

 yet to learn much in the life history of the Cuckoo. 



He arrives here about the third week in April, and 

 shortly after the woods and coppices, now fair and 

 beautiful with the tints of rapidly expanding buds, 

 resound with his joyous notes. He is found in the 

 verdant woods, in the coppice, and even on the lonely 

 moors he flits from one stunted tree to another and utters 

 his notes in company with the wild song of the Ring 

 Ousel and the harsh calls of the Grouse and Plover. 

 Though his notes are monotonous, still no one gives 

 them this appellation. No ! this little wanderer is held 

 too dear by us all as the harbinger of spring for aught but 

 praise to be bestowed on his mellow notes. His notes, 

 though full and soft, are powerful, and may on a calm 

 morning, before the everyday hum of human toil begins, 

 be heard a mile away, over wood, field, and lake. Towards 

 the summer solstice his notes are on the wane, and when 

 he gives them forth we often hear him utter them as if 

 labouring under great difficulty, and resembling the 

 syllables cuck-cuck-OG. I on one occasion early in 

 smiling May heard a Cuckoo calling treble notes. They 

 differed from his * waning ' notes by the last syllable 

 being in the majority — thus, ciick-oo-oo, aick-oo-oo — and 

 sounded inexpressibly soft and beautiful, notably the 

 latter one, which resembled the soft and plaintive cooing 

 of the Wood Dove. I at first supposed an echo was the 

 cause of these strange notes, the bird being then half a mile 

 away, but I had abundant opportunity to satisfy myself 

 that this was not the case, as he came and alighted on 

 a noble oak a few yards from me and again gave them 



