92 THE RIVER-SIDE NATURALIST. 



The greater number of our cuckoos migrate to Africa, 

 and many residents in Algiers hear the familiar note about 

 the time of the blossoming of the hawthorn. Mr. Bland- 

 ford has heard the cuckoo amongst the Baluchistan Hills 

 in Northern India in the months of February and March. 

 We combine its advent with April showers and May 

 flowers, and when listening to its well-known voice call to 

 memory Logan's beautiful lines : 



" Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove, 



Thou messenger of spring ! 

 Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, 



And woods thy welcome sing ; 

 What time the daisy seeks the green, 



Thy certain voice we hear. 

 Hast thou a star to guide thy path, 



Or mark the rolling year ? 

 Delightful visitant ! with thee 



I hail the time of flowers, 

 And hear the sound of music sweet 



From birds among the bowers. 

 The schoolboy wandering thro' the wood 



To pull the primrose gay, 

 Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, 



And imitates thy lay. 



Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green, 



Thy sky is ever clear ; 

 Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, 



No winter in thy year." 



THE SONG-THRUSH. 



In early spring, sometimes indeed in the winter months, 

 if free from frost, high up among the branches of the elms 

 and poplars, the SONG-THRUSH (Turdus musicus), of the 

 family Turdidcf t pours forth its notes " from daybreak to 

 the silence of the groves." His sombre plumage conceals 

 him from view ; but his voice (softer in February, but 

 becoming much more powerful as spring sets in) rings 

 through the welkin, and can be heard at a considerable 

 distance : 



" His note so clear, so high, 

 He drowns each feather 3 d minstrel of the sky." 



