110 CUCKOO. 



female, as I imagine it to be, has also a very different note, 

 which I can best liken, so at least 1 did most carefully some 

 years ago, when I heard it, to the words 'witchet-witchet- 

 watchet.' This note, preceded immediately by the ordinary 

 'cuckoo,' I heard myself most distinctly uttered from the 

 throat of one and the same individual bird, flying only a 

 few yards from me, over an open field, so that there could 

 be no possibility of any mistake; and this undoubted fact may 

 possibly suffice to set at rest the unfounded supposition that 

 the female Cuckoo does not cry 'cuckoo;' for I have not yet 

 heard it theorized that the male bird utters the note in 

 question, which has been described as a 'harsh chatter.' The 

 Italian proverb says, 'i fatti sono maschii, le parole femine' 

 'Facts are masculine, talk is feminine:' one is worth a hundred 

 baseless fancies. 



That both the male and female utter the word 'cuckoo,' is 

 also thought by Mr. Yarrell, and most decidedly maintained 

 by Mr. Blyth, who gives in the 'Magazine of Natural History,' 

 vol. viii, page 329, one unquestionable instance of a female 

 having been shot while in the act of repeating the well-known 

 note. The Cuckoo has been heard singing its song at night, 

 near Eyde, in the Isle of Wight, by T. Bell Salter, Esq., at 

 nine, ten, and eleven o'clock; and on one occasion it was con- 

 tinued, as he was informed, till two o'clock in the morning. 

 Another has been heard to commence its song at a quarter- 

 past two; and another at half-past three. At times, and 

 especially, it is said, in warm weather, it sings all through 

 the night, even though there be no moon. A young Cuckoo 

 has been known to repeat the note of a Titlark, by whom it 

 had been so far educated. The note of the Cuckoo, like that 

 of other great vocalists, is much affected by the weather; in 

 times of drought it becomes hoarse, but is mollified again by 

 the summer shower. 



At this stage of the account of the Cuckoo, its nidification 

 should be described; but, as is so well known, there is none 

 to describe. It deposits its parasitical eggs in the nest of 

 some other small bird, for which they are not too large, being 

 singularly small in proportion to its own size just one-quarter 

 what thev should be in proportion to those of small birds 

 than which they are themselves four times larger. If the 

 Cuckoo's egg were larger than it is, it would require to be 

 laid in a larger nest, with the natural possessors of which, 

 the young one, as Mr. Selby points out, would be, or might 



