CUCKOO-BUD.] NATURAL HISTORY. 79 



feathers; and it enters a hole in the earth or hollow trees; 

 there in the summer it lays up that on which it lives in 

 the winter. They have their own time of coming, ,and 

 are borne upon the wings of kites, because of their short 

 and small flight, lest they be tired in the long tracts of 

 air and die. From their spittle grasshoppers are produced. 

 In the winter it lies languishing and unfeathered, and looks 



like an Owl. Hortus Sanitatis, bk. iii. ch. xxxix. 



IF you mark where your right foot doth stand at the 

 first time that you do hear the Cuckoo, and then grave 

 or take up the earth under the same, wheresover the 

 same is sprinkled about, there will no fleas breed. And 

 I know it hath proved true. 



Lupton, "A Thousand Notable Things," bk. iii. 47. 



WHEN you first see the Cuckoo, mark well where your 

 right foot doth stand ; for you shall find there an hair, 

 which, if it be black, it signifies that you shall have very 

 evil luck all that year following. If it be white, then it 

 signifies very good luck ; but if it be grey, then indifferent. 

 It is certain such a hair hath been found accordingly, but 

 what event did follow thereof I am yet uncertain. But 

 this was affirmed unto me for a very truth. It was also 

 credibly reported to me, that the like hair will be found 

 under the right foot at the first seeing of the swallow, 

 after they are come at the spring-time ; so that you look 

 after the said swallow, as long as you can see her. 



Ibid., bk. x. 80. 

 



Cuckoo-bud. 



When daisies pied and violets blue 



And lady smocks all silver white 

 And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue 



Do paint the meadows with delight. 



LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, v. 2, 906. 



[If the learned Steevens in writing his note on this passage 

 had noticed that Shakespeare draws a special distinction between 

 the colours of " lady-smocks " and " Cuckoo-buds/' he would 

 not have suggested that Shakespeare might not have been 

 sufficiently acquainted with botany to be aware that lady-smocks 

 are also called Cuckoo-flozvers (which latter word occurs " Lear," 

 iv. 4, 4). " Cuckoo-bud " may be the Ranunculus bulbosus, which 



