BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 
of April, and not before, there are cuckoos in 
every bush hundreds of exhausted travellers 
pausing for strength to complete the rest of 
their journey to Britain. Not on the return 
migration in August do the wanderers as- 
semble in the islands, since, having but 
lately set out, they are not yet weary enough 
to need the rest. The only district of England 
in which I have heard of similar gatherings 
of cuckoos is East Anglia, where, about the 
time of their arrival, they regularly collect in 
the bushes and indulge in preliminary 
gambols before flying north and west. 
Cuckoos, then, reach these islands about 
the third week of April, and they leave us 
again at the end of the summer, the old birds 
flying south in July, the younger generation 
following three or four weeks later. Goodness 
knows by what extraordinary instinct these 
young ones know the way. But the young 
cuckoo is a marvel altogether in the manner 
of its education, since, when one comes to 
think of it, it has no upbringing by its own 
parents and cannot even learn how to cry 
" Cuckoo ! " by example or instruction. Its 
foster-parents speak another language, and 
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