274 Cuculidce. 



herself encompassed within the hedge, flew away. " A vengeance 

 on her!" said the wise men; "we made not our hedge high enough.'"* 



Among other errors abroad with regard to this ill-used bird, 

 the English translators of the Bible included it in the list of un- 

 clean birds which the children of Israel were forbidden to eat 

 (Levit. xi. 16 ; Deut. xiv. 15). But Bochart, Gesenius and others 

 have long since proved that not the Cuckoo, but the sea-gull 

 was the species intended.t 



These are but samples of the many superstitions current in our 

 day, and in our own county, with regard to the Cuckoo ; J and it 

 is with the hope of substituting in their stead the very interest- 

 ing and peculiar economy of its real life-history, that I propose 

 to enlarge upon it here at far greater length than I have bestowed 

 on other species. 



With the exception of the Honey-buzzard (Buteo apivorus) it 

 is the largest of British insectivorous birds ; for its food consists of 

 insects of many sorts, but more particularly of the several species of 

 hairy caterpillars which abound in the early summer, and which 

 long-haired caterpillars are rejected by almost all birds, with the 

 exception of the Cuckoo : so that it has been thought by some 

 that the reason why that bird leaves this country so early, is the 

 failure by the middle of July of its favourite food. I may observe, 

 too, that it is the male bird alone which gives utterance of the 

 peculiar note which we hail so gladly as an announcement of 

 spring, though, among other popular errors, the following old 

 couplet attributes the song to the female: \\ 



1 The Cuckoo is a pretty bird, and sings as she flies ; 

 She brings us good tidings, and tells us no lies.' 



Possibly, however, this may be only the indiscriminate use of the 

 masculine and feminine pronoun so common in Wiltshire : I am 

 bound, too, in honesty to add, that the well-known cry of the 

 Cuckoo has been declared by some naturalists (though I think 



* Sharpens Magazine, vol. x., p. 6. 

 f Smith's ' Dictionary of the Bible.' 

 J Jesse's ' Gleanings of Natural History,' p. 125. 

 Wood's ' Illustrated Natural History,' vol. ii., p. 574. 

 . || Naturalist for 1852, p. 84. 



