The Cuckoo. 257 



would not understand my scaling the walls of the Propaganda, 

 in order to propagate the history of the solitary thrush, and 

 seeing, at the same time, that the hole at which the bird entered 

 was very difficult of access, I deemed it most prudent to keep 

 clear of the Propaganda, and to try to procure the nest from 

 some other quarter. 



The many promises which Roman sportsmen had given me of 

 a nest and eggs of the solitary thrush having entirely failed, and 

 I myself not being able to go in quest of them, on account of an 

 attack of dysentery, which bore heavy on me, I despaired of 

 obtaining the object of my wishes, and I should have left Italy 

 without either nest or eggs, had not the Rev. Mr. Cowie, vice- 

 president of the Scotch College in Rome, exerted himself, as he 

 had already often done, in the cause of natural history. This 

 learned and worthy gentleman sent expressly for a nest to the 

 vineyard of his college. It was found in the roof of the house, 

 and had four eggs \ n it. The lad who took it had succeeded in 

 capturing the female bird. Having examined the poor captive 

 as minutely as though I had been a custom-house officer, I 

 turned it loose into the world again, and as it flew away I hoped 

 it would have better luck for the time to come. I sent the nest 

 and eggs to England by a different route from that which I 

 myself pursued. Had 1 taken them with me, they would have 

 gone to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, for, in the night 

 of the 1 6th of June, 1841, my sisters-in-law, Miss Edmonstone 

 and Miss Helen Edmonstone, my little boy, my servants, and 

 myself, were wrecked off the Island of Elba. We had only 

 fifteen minutes to save our lives before the vessel foundered, and 

 we lost every thing except the clothes on our backs. 



The solitary thrush is seen in all the countries of the East, up 

 to Syria and Egypt, and probably much farther on. This bird 

 is solitary to the fullest extent of the word. Being an assiduous 

 frequenter of the habitations of man, I cannot have a doubt but 

 that it was the same bird which King David saw on the house- 

 top before him, and to which he listened as it poured forth its 

 sweet and plaintive song. Moved by its melody, and comparing 

 its lonely habits with his own, he exclaimed, in the fulness of an 

 afflicted heart, " Vigilavi, et factus sum sicut passer solitarius in 

 tecto." " I have watched, and am become as a thrush, all alone; 

 upon the house-top." 



Walton Hall, April 10. 184-2. 



Art. V. On the Cuckoo. By J. Wighton. 



Though the cuckoo's note is familiar to every one, there are 

 some things connected with its habits which are known but im- 

 3d Ser.— 1842. V. s 



