THE PIE KIND. 12* 



and provider. But it is very far from following with a friendly inten- 

 tion ; it only pursues as an insulter, or a spy, to warn all its little com- 

 panions of the cuckoo's depredations. 



Such are the manners of this bird while it continues to icside, or 

 to be seen amongst us. But early, at the approach of winter, it to- 

 tally disappears, and its passage can be traced to no other country. 

 Some suppose that it lies hid in hollow trees, and others that it passea 

 into warmer climates. Which of these opinions is true is very un- 

 certain, as there are no facts related on either side that can be totally 

 relied on. To support the opinion that they remain torpid during the 

 winter at home, Willoughby introduces the following story, which he 

 delivers upon the credit of another. " The servant of a gentleman, in 

 the country, having stocked up, in one of their meadows, some old, 

 dry, rotten willows, thought proper, on a certain occasion, to carry 

 them home. In heating a stove, two logs of this timber were put in- 

 to the furnace beneath, and fire applied as usual. But soon, to the 

 great surprise of the family, was heard the voice of a cuckoo, singing 

 three times from under the stove. Wondering at so extraordinary a 

 cry in winter time, the servants ran and drew the willow logs from 

 the furnace, and in the midst of one of them saw something move : 

 wherefore, taking an axe, they opened the hole, and thrusting in their 

 hands, first they plucked out nothing but feathers; afterwards they 

 got hold of a living animal, and this was the cuckoo that had waked 

 so very opportunely for its own safety. " It was, indeed," continues 

 our historian, " brisk and lively, but wholly naked and bare of fea- 

 thers, and without any winter provison in its hole. This cuckoo the 

 boys kept two years afterwards alive in the stove; but whether it 

 repaid them with a second song, the author of the tale has not thought 

 fit to inform us." 



The most probable opinion on this subject is, that as quails and 

 woodcocks shift their habitations in winter, so also does the cuckoo ; 

 but to what country it retires, or whether it has ever been seen on its 

 journey, are questions that I am wholly incapable of resolving. 



Of this bird there are many kinds in various parts of the world, not 

 only differing in their colours, but their size. Brisson makes not 

 less than twenty-eight sorts of them; but what analogy they bear totho 

 English cuckoo, I will not take upon me to determine. He talks of 

 one, particularly of Brazil, as making a most horrible noise in the fo- 

 rests, which, as it should seem, must be a very different note from 

 that by which our bird is distinguished at home. 



VOL, III 



