40 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 
round Ben Lui, we heard the irrepressible dissyllabic 
and trisyllabic call, “Cuck-oo” and ‘ Cuck- 
cuck-oo.”” One fellow seemed to call thirteen times 
in succession, unless an echo or a rival falsified our 
counting; and every now and then we heard the 
female’s curious “water-bubbling”’ laugh (she is 
not known to say “Cuck-oo”), upon which there 
were loud answering calls, and we saw a rush of two 
or three males, which was probably followed by a 
scrimmage. It is not quite certain that the laugh- 
ing sound is confined to the female. It must not be 
confused with a remarkable noise often made by 
the male before the utterance of “ cuck-cuck-oo.” 
Mr. Kirkman compares it to “the noise that would 
be made by a person with a rasping cough trying 
not to laugh, but with indifferent success.” 
One of the many cuckoo puzzles was repeatedly 
before us on our week-end holiday, that a little 
bird (like a hedge-sparrow is all that we can truth- 
fully say) often shadowed the cuckoo on its flight, 
and sometimes flew at it aggressively. This was 
seen with great clearness when the cuckoo and 
the little bird both alighted on the telegraph wires. 
After a brief pause the shadower would fly up in the 
cuckoo’s face—a pygmy against a giant—whereupon 
the “blessed bird” of the poets would change its 
perch. The question which the often-repeated scene 
raised was whether the little bird was a re- 
sentful parent in whose nest the cuckoo had been 
playing its well-known trick. Or was it in line 
with that mobbing of a cuckoo by a crowd of little 
