VI 

 CUCKOO PUZZLES 



FROM various places we hear rumors that 

 the number of birds that have come this 

 year (1916) as summer visitors is below the normal, 

 and, considering the atmospheric and other dis- 

 turbances which the war has involved, we should 

 not be surprised if it were true. But no one who 

 had the good fortune to be near Dalmally and 

 Loch Awe at the end of May could have failed to 

 be impressed with the extraordinary abundance 

 of cuckoos. Whatever was true of other summer 

 visitors, the cuckoos, at any rate, were present in 

 full force. They seemed to be everywhere on the 

 hedges by the wayside, among the birch bushes, on 

 poplar trees (whose belated buds were just opening 

 into amber-colored foliage), and on the telegraph 

 wires going over the moor to Inveraray. The males 

 were shouting excitedly all day long recalling 

 Lyly's "jolly cuckoos/' We listened to him at 

 five in the morning telling " his name to all the 

 hills," and he continued to call far into the night. 

 In the midst of torrents of rain we heard the 

 "wandering voice," "at once far off and near"; 

 and all through a storm, when the thunder rolled 

 in solemn echoes from mountain to mountain all 



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