194 WOOD NOTES WILD. 



Yellow-billed Cuckoo. (See p. 89.) 



" The notes of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo do not differ distinctly from 

 those of the Black-billed species, though often harsher. 



"The notes of the Cuckoo are all unmusical, and more or less uncouth and 

 guttural. They are much varied, being sometimes cow-cow-cow-cow-cow, 

 cow-cow, sometimes cuckoo 1 -cuckoo 1 -cuckoo' y sometimes cuckucow', cuckucow', 

 and at other times low. Many of them are very liquid, but I have heard 

 one cry which has an affinity to that of certain Woodpeckers. The Cuckoo 

 may sometimes be heard at night." Minot, H. D. : Land-birds and Game- 

 bh Is of N. E., pp. 309-310. 



Cuckoo. (See p. 87.) 



Mr. Mitford is quoted as saying of the English cuckoo that it begins to 

 sing " early in the season with the interval of a minor third ; the bird then 

 proceeds to a major third, next to a fourth, then to a fifth, after which 

 his voice breaks without attaining a minor sixth." Domestic Habits of 

 Birds. (Lib. Enter. Knowl., p. 305.) 



The writer then goes on to say that the " usual note of 

 the cuckoo is the minor third, sung downwards, thus : " 



and listened as long as the concert lasted, and whenever one of the per- 

 formers flew away, which occurred several times, they were all silent 

 for the space of perhaps half a minute, when they would start in again. 

 Plainly they had a method, and probably a leader. I am quite sure that 

 no two started in together, as even after so many were singing that I 

 could not trace each voice as it began, the number of voices steadily 

 increased till the whole choir was singing again. I cannot give the date, 

 but it may have been as early as 1882, and must have been in June, as 

 that is the bobolinks' merriest month. Although I had never missed a 

 June among the bobolinks, this was the first time I had heard a bobolink 

 concert. I heard a like performance a few, perhaps three, times after- 

 wards, but never so many performers ; nor did I ever again hear them 

 sing so long a time. I think I never heard them sing in this way twice 

 in the same year, and never anywhere but in those same butternut-trees. 

 No one to whom I have mentioned this performance has heard anything of 

 the kind/' Hay ward, Miss C. A., in a note to the Editor dated August, 1891. 



