530 The Zoologist— January, 1867. 



For by this time the cuckoo has been in song for a month, and is 

 therefore less regarded than upon its first arrival in April, when it is 

 listened to as the harbinger of spring. 



In the same Play, Worcester, addressing the King, says : 



" And being fed by us, you used us so 

 As that ungentle gull the cuckoo's bird 

 Useth the sparrow ; did oppress.our nest, 

 Grew by our feediug to so great a bulk 

 That even our love durst not come near your sight, 

 For fear of swallowing." Id., Act v. Scene 1. 



Allusion is thus made to the popular belief that the cuckoo, after 

 being hatched and fed by the hedge sparrow, as soon as it is suffi- 

 ciently strong, turns out the young of its foster parent. 



The word " gull " is usually applied to the person " gulled," 

 beguiled. Here it must either mean the " guller " or it must have a 

 special application to the voracity of the cuckoo, as the sea-gull is 

 supposed to be so called from ' gulo'' ' gulosus? 



Tooke holds that gull, guile, wile, and guilt, are all from the Anglo- 

 Saxon ' wiglian,' * geiviglian] that by which any one is deceived. 



The "fear of swallowing" expressed in the last quotation was not 

 altogether groundless, if we are to believe the following: 



" The hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so long 

 That it had its head bit off by its young." 



King Lear, Act i. Scene 4. 



Mr. Guest (Phil. Pro. i. 280) gives a different reading of this 

 passage, and observes, that " in the dialects of the north-western 

 counties, formerly it was sometimes used for its, and so in ' King Lear' 

 we have 



1 The hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, 

 That it had it head bit off by it young.' 



that is, that it has had its head, not that it had Us head, as the 

 modern Editors give the passage, after the Second Folio. So likewise, 

 long before its was generally received, we have it self commonly 

 printed in two words, evidently under the impression that it was a 

 possessive of llie same syntactical force with the pronouns in my self, 

 your self, her self.* So in ' Timon of Athens,' we read : 



* See ' The English of Shakspeare,' &c, by George Craik. 



