I 



DEPARTURE OF OUR SUMMER BIRDS 227 



away from us at an early date, and it is a remark- 

 able fact that the young Cuckoos are left behind 

 and have to find their way across oceans and 

 continents unaided and unaccompanied. Why is 

 it that this pleasing bird wings its way regularly 

 for the Winter to Central Africa and Southern 

 India, and does not make a mistake, and turn up 

 at some unexpected, out-of-the-way land where 

 it has not been previously recorded ? The matter 

 seems even to-day, when we profess to know so 

 much about birds, as great a mystery as ever it 

 was. Towards the end of August a fine young 

 Cuckoo was found wandering about in a street in 

 which I was staying in the North of England^ 

 and an examination of the bird revealed that it 

 was a credit to the foster-parents responsible for his 

 upbringing — plump, healthy, and vigorous. The 

 adult Cuckoos had by that time mostly taken their 

 departure. How could this precocious youngster 

 find his way across unknown seas and lands when 

 he himself had never previously been out of 

 England ? 



That mellow-voiced Blackcap, which charmed 

 us so with its minstrelsy in the Bramble-bush at 

 the far corner of our favourite copse — whither, 

 and when, did he vacate his haunts and leave us 

 to mourn his loss ? We experienced no difficulty 

 in making his acquaintance from mid-April until 

 June was out. Thereafter we caught sight of 



