514 THE CUCKOO. 



They abound so much in Malvern Hills, in England, as to 

 make the whole circuit resound with their note, which may 

 have induced Shakespeare to make Portia say in " The Merchant 

 of Venice" — 



" He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo — 

 By the bad voice." 



Or, as he says in " Henry IV." — 



" So, when he had occasion to be seen, 

 He was but as the cuckoo is in June — 

 Heard, not regarded" — 



being so common. They are not so plentiful in Fife nor 

 anywhere in Scotland ; as many in Inverness and Eoss shires 

 as in the Lothians. Shakespeare's allusions to the cuckoo and 

 to cuckolds are numerous, as if he had a spite against the bird 

 and a doubt of woman. For instance in "All's Well that Ends 

 Well" he makes the clown say to the Countess — 



Clown — "I am out of friends, madam, and I hope to have 



Friends for my wife's sake. 

 Countess — Such friends are thine enemies, knave. 



Clotvn — You are shallow, madam. E'en great friends ; 



For the knaves come to do that for me which I am 

 A-weary of. He that ears my land spares my team, and 

 Gives me leave to inn the crop. If I be his cuckold, he's my 



drudge. 

 He that comforts my wife is the cherisher of my life and 



blood ; 

 He that loves my flesh and blood is my friend ; 

 Ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend. 

 If men could be contented to be what they are 

 There were no fear in marriage ; for young Charbon, 

 The Puritan, and old Poysam, the Papist, howsome'er 

 Their hearts are severed in religion, their heads are both one. 

 They may joll horns together like any deer i' the herd." 



"For I the ballad will repeat, 



Which men full true shall find : 

 Your marriage comes by destiny, 

 Your cuckoo sings by kind." 



I have seen and heard it in the old fir park on Tentsmuir, 

 where it arrives at the same time as the wheatear. It prefers 

 moorland, where the meadow pipit (the tit-lark) abounds, into 

 the nest of which it chiefly puts its eggs. Dr Jenner (the 

 discoverer of vaccination) was the first — in 1788 — to tell that 

 the young cuckoo ejected the other young birds, and became 

 the sole possessor of the nest. He graphically tells us that — 



" Having found a hedge sparrow's nest containing a cuckoo's eg£ and three 

 of the hedge-sparrow's, next day the young cuckoo and one hedge-sparrow 



