THE SWIFTS, WOODPECKERS, ETC. 203 



monopolise the attention of their bereaved parents. It is 

 aided in this nefarious murder, so strangely does nature 

 sometimes work out her own ends, by a cavity between the 

 shoulders ; nor can there be any doubt as to the purpose 

 for which this deformity was intended, since it disappears 

 soon after the deed is done. Truly, " Nature is one with 

 rapine " ! The remarkable fascination exercised by the 

 young interloper over its foster-parents is the subject of 

 endless speculation. They need only leave the ungainly 

 little brute to die of hunger, and the shrivelled corpses of 

 their callow chicks that lie beneath would be avenged. But 

 they tend the ogre with unflagging care, feeding it every 

 hour, until, able to go out worming on its own account, it 

 deserts them without a pang, and flies over the narrow sea 

 to the fair Southern lands whither its parents journeyed 

 many days since. A case was recently recorded in the 

 ' Field ' of a young cuckoo being found dead in the nest of 

 a sedge- warbler, together with a chick of the latter species. 

 The parent warblers had evidently deserted both. The note 

 of the cuckoo has been the subject of considerable dis- 

 cussion; and even musical authorities have 

 discoursed in erudite fashion on its minor 

 third, and so forth. What is, however, worth noting is, 

 that the male has, in addition to the more familiar and, 

 to my mind at any rate, singularly wearisome note 

 uttered both on the wing and from some hidden perch, a 

 low hissing or grating noise, which I heard in the New 

 Forest not more than three days previous to the time of 

 writing. The orthodox note has also been strangely dis- 

 torted by those whose fancy is to know nature better than 

 she knows herself. In the first place, it surely requires 

 a lively imagination to supply the consonants commonly 

 supposed to have part in it; and again, it is scarcely 

 correct to describe it as a bird of two notes, for I have 

 more than once heard semitones in its cry, especially 

 when, towards the days of its silence, it reiterates its 

 cry as much as six times in close succession, often 



