THE CUCKOO'S OMEN. 87 



apparently wandering aimlessly about, really has more 

 method and regularity in her habits than would seem. 



Country people will have it that cuckoos are growing 

 scarcer every year, and do not come in the numbers they 

 formerly did ; and, whether it be the chance of unfavour- 

 able seasons or other causes, it is certainly the fact in 

 some localities. I recollect seeing as many as four at 

 once in a tall elm — a tree they love — all crying and 

 gurgling, as it were, in the throat together ; this was some 

 years since, and that district is now much less frequented 

 by these birds. 



There was a superstition that where or in whatever 

 condition you happened to be when you heard the cuckoo 

 the first time in the spring, so you would remain for the 

 next twelvemonth ; for which reason it was a misfortune 

 to hear her first in bed, since it might mean a long illness. 

 This, by-the-bye, may have been a pleasant fable invented 

 to get milkmaids up early of a morning. 



The number of coarse fish in the brook which flows 

 out of the shallow mere bounding one edge of the keeper's 

 domain of woods has, he thinks, very much decreased of 

 recent years. When he first came here the stream seemed 

 full of fish, notwithstanding very little care had till then 

 been taken with their preservation. They used to net it 

 once now and then, and he has seen a full hundredweight 

 of fair-sized jack, perch, tench, etc., taken out of the water 

 in a very short time, besides quantities of smaller fry 



