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CUCKOO—CUCKOO. 67 
while a Lancashire saying is, “ The first cock of hay frights 
the Cuckoo away ’’— a reference to the time of it departure. 
“In Northants. April 15th is called “Cuckoo Day.” 
Concerning the note Heywood has :— 
In April the koocoo can sing her song by rote, 
In June of tune she cannot sing a note, 
At first koocoo, koocoo sing still she can do, 
At last kooke, kooke, six kookes to one koo. 
The attribution of the song to the female here, must not, 
of course, be taken literally, as the female does not sing. 
A Yorkshire custom with children was to sing round a 
cherry tree :— 
Cuckoo, cherry tree, 
Come down and tell me 
How many years afore I dee. 
Each child then shook the tree and the number of cherries 
falling stood for the years of its life. 
The ‘‘ Cuckoo-penners”’ of Somerset, who believed 
they could prolong the summer by caging cuckoos, are 
alluded to by De Kay (“‘ Bird Gods of Ancient Europe,” 
. 84). 
: An Irish superstition is that unmarried persons, on 
first hearing the cuckoo, should search the ground at their 
feet, and are certain to find a hair there which will be the 
same colour as that of the man or woman they will marry. 
In England in former times this belief varied somewhat, 
the custom being for a young woman to go into the fields 
in the early morning to hear the Cuckoo, when, if she pulled 
off her left shoe she would find in it a hair of the exact 
colour of her future husband’s. This is alluded to by Gay 
in the Fourth Pastoral of the “ Shepherd’s Week ” :— 
Upon a rising bank I sat adown 
And doffed my shoe, and by my troth I swear 
Therein I spied this yellow frizzled hair. 
A more widely-spread custom on first hearing the call is 
to turn the money in one’s pocket, which is supposed to 
ensure its increase. Evidently akin to this is the belief 
in the north of England, that it is an unfortunate omen for 
anyone to have no money in his pocket on first hearing 
the Cuckoo, great care being usually taken to avoid such 
an occurrence. Howitt records a Norfolk belief that 
whatever one is doing on first hearing the Cuckoo, that one 
will do most frequently during the year. In Scotland it is 
said to be unlucky, and a sign of coming misfortune, to hear 
the Cuckoo for the first time before eating a meal. In 
Hampshire it is considered unlucky to kill a Cuckoo, and 
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