Chapter X. 



CUCKOOS. 



"O blithe new-comer!" is Wordsworth's apostrophe to 

 the Cuckoo. And then he proceeds in charmingly true and 

 simple verse to characterize the harbinger of spring" in his 

 more striking traits. There is first of all the fact that one 

 hears the cuckoo a thousand times, perhaps, without seeing 

 him: 



O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, 



Or but a wandering voice? 



And the decision come to is: 



No bird, but an invisible thing, 

 A voice, a mystery. 

 To seek thee did I often rove 

 Through woods and on the green, 

 And still thou wert a hope, a love: 

 Still longed for, never seen. 



All this is as true of the Chinese cuckoo as of that of 

 British woods and fields. Cuckoos are, at their proper season, 

 plentiful in almost all lands. The common cuckoo, (Ciiciiliis 

 Canonist is found as nearly all over Asia as it is all over 

 Europe. David describes six species. In the neighbourhood 

 of Shanghai he is not so abundant as his cousin (Cuciihis 

 S^/'/£7^//s J, whose cry, instead of being one of two syllables, more 

 often contains four, and sounds more like "Kwer-kwer-kwer- 

 kwo" than the familiar "Koo-koo." There is another differ- 

 ence, too, in habits. So far as I can remember, the common 

 cuckoo in England keeps good hours and goes to sleep with 

 the sun as well-behaved diurnal birds should. But the local 

 bird is up at all hours of the night during the warmer weeks 

 he is here, and may be heard with his fourfold cry almost as 

 often at midnight as at mid-day. 



What is it, besides its connexion with spring, that has 

 made the cuckoo such an object of interest? There are several 

 reasons at which we must glance in due course. First and 

 foremost, doubtless, is the fact that it is one of the few birds 



