Common Cuckoo. 271 



powerful talons of the birds of prey. Cuckoos twenty years 

 since were unusually abundant at Yatesbury, and remarkably 

 tame, and one or more might frequently have been seen every 

 spring sitting on the iron railings in my garden, while their oft- 

 repeated cry, as they answered one another in different keys 

 from opposite plantations, was almost continually to be heard, 

 more especially towards evening, when (like many other birds) 

 they became more clamorous than during the day; but their 

 numbers are now very sensibly diminished, and they are certainly 

 becoming more and more scarce every year. Moreover, I have 

 noticed that they have lost the confidence they once evinced, 

 and are much more shy and retiring than they were. In the 

 neighbourhood of Salisbury, however, the Rev. A. P. Morres 

 describes them as very numerous, and frequenting the water 

 meadows and osier beds in that district, and speaks of six being 

 in sight at one time. But in truth they are of a capricious and 

 fanciful disposition, and, vagrants as they are, they abound for a 

 time in one locality, and then desert it for another. When they 

 have been here some time, their call becomes changed to a wild 

 stammering repetition of the first syllable, though an individual 

 which returned to my garden every spring invariably uttered 

 this peculiar call from its first arrival, and with a pertinacity 

 and in so loud a key as to attract the notice of every stranger. 



The favourite old country rhyme which is well known to 

 everybody, marks with sufficient accuracy the arrival, song, 

 change of note, and departure of the bird : 



' In April 

 Come he will ; 

 In May 



He sings all day ; 

 In June 



He alters his tune ; 

 In July 



He prepares to fly ; 

 In August 

 Go he must.' 



The singular habit of the Cuckoo of never building its own 



