BIRDS AND BIRDS. 147 



frequent visits to the orchard. It loves hairy worms, 

 and has eaten so many of them that its gizzard is 

 lined with hair. 



The European cuckoo builds no nest, but puts its 

 eggs out to be hatched, as does our cow blackbird, 

 and our cuckoo is master of only the rudiments of 

 nest-building. No bird in the woods builds so shabby 

 a nest ; it is the merest make-shift, - a loose scaffold- 

 ing of twigs through which the eggs can be seen. 

 One season, I knew of a pair that built within a few 

 feet of a country house that stood in the midst of a 

 grove, but a heavy storm of rain and wind broke up 

 the nest. 



If the Old World cuckoo had been as silent and 

 retiring a bird as ours is, it could never have figured 

 so conspicuously in literature as it does, having a 

 prominence that we would give only to the bobolink 

 or to the wdod-thrush, as witness his frequent men- 

 tion by Shakespeare, or the following early English 

 ballad (in modern guise) : 



" Summer is come in, 

 Loud sings the cuckoo ; 

 Groweth seed and bloweth mead, 

 And springs the wood now. 



Sing, cuckoo; 

 The ewe bleateth for her lamb, 



The cow loweth for her calf, 



The bullock starteth, 

 The buck verteth, 

 Merrily sings the cuckoo; 

 Cuckoo, cuckoo; 

 Well sings the cuckoo, 

 Mayest thou never cease." 



