194 WOOD NOTES WILD. 
Yellow-billed Cuckoo. (See p. 89.) 
“The notes of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo do not differ distinctly from 
those of the Black-billed species, though often harsher. 
“The notes of the Cuckoo are all unmusical, and more or less uncouth and 
guttural. They are much varied, being sometimes cow-cow-cow-cow-cow, 
cow-cow, sometimes cuckoo/-cuckoo!-cuckoo!, sometimes cuckucow!, cuckucow', 
and at other times low. Many of them are very liquid, but I have heard 
one cry which has an affinity to that of certain Woodpeckers. The Cuckoo 
may sometimes be heard at night.” — Minot, H. D.: Land-birds and Game- 
bh 1s of N. E., pp. 309-310. 
Cuckoo. (See p. 87.) 
Mr. Mitford is quoted as saying of the English cuckoo that it begins to 
sing “early in the season with the interval of a minor third; the bird then 
proceeds to a major third, next to a fourth, then to a fifth, after which 
his voice breaks without attaining a minor sixth.” — Domestic Habits of 
Birds. (Lib. Enter. Knowl., p. 305.) 
The writer then goes on to say that the “usual note of 
the cuckoo is the minor third, sung downwards, thus:” 
and listened as long as the concert lasted, and whenever one of the per- 
formers flew away, which occurred several times, they were all silent 
for the space of perhaps half a minute, when they would start in again. 
Plainly they had a method, and probably a leader. I am quite sure that 
no two started in together, as even after so many were singing that I 
could not trace each voice as it began, the number of voices steadily 
increased till the whole choir was singing again. I cannot give the date, 
but it may have been as early as 1882, and must have been in June, as 
that is the bobolinks’ merriest month. Although I had never missed a 
June among the bobolinks, this was the first time I had heard a bobolink 
concert. I heard a like performance a few, perhaps three, times after- 
wards, but never so many performers; nor did I ever again hear them 
sing so long a time, I think I never heard them sing in this way twice 
in the same year, and never anywhere but in those same butternut-trees. 
No one to whom I have mentioned this performance has heard anything of 
the kind.” — Hayward, Miss C. A., in a note to the Editor dated August, 1891. 
