APRIL 49 



But this saying probably refers to the rougher 

 and hoarser voice which he produces for a few 

 weeks before flying, and to the " Cuck-cuckoo " 

 variation in the song-. 



o 



I suppose that one of the reasons why the 

 cuckoo rouses so much interest in us is that he 

 seems, as Sterculus says, to have "all the evil 

 passions of a Christian." There is no doubt, at 

 any rate, that some very human faults beset him, 

 for he is selfish, cruel, and unprincipled, and it is in 

 reality through these unworthy traits that he im- 

 presses the imagination, while professing to do so 

 in the character of harbinger of spring. I have 

 just been reading Dr. Alexander Japp's book, Our 

 Common Cuckoo, and I confess that I think con- 

 siderably less of the cuckoo's moral nature than 

 I did before I read it, while giving him credit still 

 for such powers of self-seeking as adapt him for 

 getting on in the world. 



There seems to be no doubt that the female 

 cuckoo lays her eggs on the ground, and carries 

 them at once in her beak to a convenient nest ; 

 they are found very often in nests so small and 

 so awkwardly placed that the intruding mother 

 could not by any possibility sit on them. There 

 are one hundred and twenty different kinds of nests 

 in which the cuckoo is recorded to have left her 

 eggs, but the most common is that of the hedge- 

 sparrow, who will brood with patience eggs so 

 unlike her own that it has even been suggested 

 that she is colour-blind. 



The eggs of cuckoos show a remarkable range 

 of variation. Mr. Seebohm, in his supplement to 

 E 



