CUCKOO. 303 



CUCULUS CANORUS, Linnams. 



CUCKOO. 



Of all our migratory songsters, there is none so 

 universally known by its note as the Cuckoo, and yet 

 how few people, comparatively speaking, know the bird 

 by sight. The same remark applies also to the night- 

 ingale, but in that case the nocturnal habits of the bird 

 make it less likely to be often recognised, yet all day 

 long that " curious voice" sounds in the distance, and 

 but for the cry of " cuckoo" on the wing, none would 

 associate that " mysterious sound" with the grey 

 hawk-like bird, so slowly flitting past. With us it is 

 always an abundant species, arriving in April* and 

 leaving again about the end of July, though the young 

 birds are not unfrequently met with long after their 

 parents have left for the south, as I have seen them 

 myself, at different times, throughout the months of 

 August and September. In the district of the broads, 

 they are more particularly numerous, the nests of the 

 various small birds placed amongst the sedges and 

 luxuriant herbage on the marshes, being particularly 

 accessible as lying-in hospitals to these most improvident 

 and reckless of mothers. In such localities during 

 May and June, I have seen as many as five or six 

 cuckoos at one time, beating over the marshes, occa- 

 sionally pursued by a clamorous throng of titlarks and 

 warblers, resenting, as it were, a too close scrutiny of 



* From a table of " Observations on the indications of spring," 

 made by a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Stratton Strawless 

 for ten years, commencing 1845 (See Norfolk Chronicle May 31, 

 1856), I find the earliest and latest records of the Cuckoo's song 

 to be April 17th, 1848 April 28th, 1850. 



