A year's "WEATHER. 387 



We are drier than last year, although February this year was 

 so wet. 



Weather 1 792, one hundred years ago : — 9th, Keen frost in 

 the morning. loth. Sycamore, elm, and many forest trees foliating. 

 Bees busily employed, and return heavily loaded. Clear sky. 

 Chimney boards put up and fires extinguished, nth. Swallows 

 observed by a gentlemen who notices they seldom appear before 

 the 17th, and from that to the 27th April, 14th, Vegetation 

 made wonderful progress. 1 8th, Cuckoo heard ; a continued 

 heavy rain for 48 hours, 3 inches of rain falling. 20th, Keen frost, 

 chimney boards taken down, and fires lighted up. 23rd, Strawberries 

 in bloom and trees in bloom, much injured by frost. 28th, New 

 potatoes in market, 2s. 6d. and is. 6d. per lb. 3 green gooseberries, 

 lod. per quart. Rainfall for month, 4*8 inches. 



The warm days in early April brought out many flowers and 

 many birds, so that our records are early this year. Mr. Earthy 

 heard the chiff-chaff on the 2ndj I saw it on the 3rd, the 

 sandmartin on the 7th. I saw the cuckoo on the i6thj it was 

 heard in song in Cuckoo Bottom, Besore, on the i8th. Mr. Morris 

 gave me the 22nd for the swallow which he saw at Shortlanes-end ; 

 they were common at Chacewater a day or two after this. The 

 tortoiseshell butterfly I saw on the third. The lilac was in flower 

 on the 22nd, and the horse-chestnut in leaf on the 26th. 



Cuckoos are plentiful this year, and will afford to those who 

 have opportunities better scope for learning the habits of these 

 birds than usual. Briefly, for in a letter of this kind one cannot 

 write the history of such a bird, I will state a few facts which 

 are known about the cuckoo. The birds do not mate ; only the 

 male birds sing, usually from a tree. Mr. Chirgwin gives me an 

 instance where he heard near Allet Chapel, on the Perranporth- 

 road, three singing at one time, on one tree. When the female 

 birds pass the male birds make a rapid descent and chase them, 

 returning to the same tree usually, and again calling out. The 

 female cuckoo does not make a nest of its own ; it lays its egg on 

 the ground — it only lays an egg now and then — and, taking the egg 

 in its mouth, places it in the nest of another bird. Many birds are 

 chosen to rear the young cuckoo, but it has a preference for the 

 hedge sparrow and the meadow pipit. The cuckoo does not sue]? 



