18 ON BOSTON COMMON. 
building their nests in one corner of our do- 
main ; and they attract at least their full share 
of attention, as they strut about the lawns in 
their glossy clerical suits. One of the garden- 
ers tells me that they sometimes kill the spar- 
rows. I hope they do. The crow blackbird’s 
attempts at song are ludicrous in the extreme, 
as every note is cracked, and is accompanied by 
a ridiculous caudal gesture. But he is ranked 
among the oscines, and seems to know it; and, 
after all, it is only the common fault of singers 
not to be able to detect their own want of tune- 
fulness. 
I was once crossing the Common, in the mid- 
dle of the day, when I was suddenly arrested 
by the call of a cuckoo. At the same instant 
two men passed me, and I heard one say to the 
other, ‘‘ Hear that cuckoo! Do you know what 
it means? No? Well, J know what it means: 
it means that it’s going to rain.” It did rain, 
although not for a number of days, I believe. 
But probably the cuckoo has adopted the mod- 
ern method of predicting the weather some time 
in advance. Not very long afterwards I again 
heard this same note on the Common; but it 
was several years before I was able to put the 
cuckoo into my Boston list, as a bird actually 
seen. Indeed it is not so very easy to see him 
anywhere ; for he makes a practice of robbing 
