AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



THE cuckoo-pints now make a brave show of greenery 

 in every hedge, to greet the belated cuckoos. 

 The With their great green spathes, shaped like 



Cuckoo's hare's ears, they have ever caught the fancy 

 Plant of herbalists. The name, lords-and-ladies, 



is traced to a notion that the floral club is 

 like a person of quality, sitting with dignity in a sedan- 

 chair. Gerard, in his Herbal, associated the plant with 

 bears, describing how they relished it after fasting for 

 forty days in winter. Certainly pheasants and others 

 appreciate the roots, though it is not clear why the 

 cuckoo should rejoice in the spadix. 



THE SUMMER BIRDS 



THIS week we are likely to be deceived again in thinking 

 we see our first cuckoo when it is a sparrow- 

 Cuckoo or hawk that flashes across our path. Nature 

 Hawk? seems deliberately to have fashioned the 

 two birds in the same mould. It is suggested 

 that it was done to frighten the titlark, whose nest the 

 cuckoo would violate, even though titlarks summon 

 courage to mob cuckoos. And it seems likely that they 

 mistake the weak, harmless insect-eating cuckoo for a 

 ravenous hawk. We can hardly suppose they recognize 

 the cuckoo as a parasite, or share the prejudice in which 

 many people hold the bird. 



IN April, says the Norfolk proverb, the cuckoo shows 



his bill; in May he sing, night and day; in 



The July, away he fly. Now, in Blackthorn 



Cuckoo's Winter, his two old notes are full of good 



Magnetism cheer ; though it is true they inspire mingled 



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