THE CUCKOO. 



CUCULUS C A NOR US. 



LONG before a decided taste for ornithology had 

 possessed our youthful mind, when we ran hither 

 and thither in the early spring, to pluck the first 

 cowslip and the " nodding violet," did we start and 

 pause on hearing the Cuckoo's note ; and as we 

 watched the plain gray bird flit from the ash-tree, 

 and skim hawk-like across the meadow, we longed 

 to have him in our hands, and, childlike, see how he 

 made the noise. Where he came from, or why we 

 only saw him between April and August we could 

 not tell. There was always a mystery about the 

 bird which we could not fathom, and we never 

 listened to his note, or crept stealthily along the 

 hedgerow to try and see him, without a feeling of 

 wonderment and awe. This feeling has of course 

 long since passed away ; but even now we never 





