NOTES AND QUERIES. 87 
Another “popular fallacy” concerning the Cuckoo was that it hyber- 
nated, and this also has been reduced to rhyme :— 
‘Seven sleepers there be— 
The Bat, the Bee, the Butterflee, 
The Cuckoo, and the Swallow, 
The Kittiwake, and the Corncrake, 
All sleep in yon little hollow.” 
But the subject is inexhaustible, and I shall only quote one more of 
these rhymes and have done; premising, for the benefit of south-country 
readers, that however oddly the vernacular may read, the rhythm is good 
when it comes from the lips of a native :— 
‘*In Mairch, gin ye sairch, ye may find a Cuckoo, 
But it’s April afore ye can hear her ; 
When wor weel inte May, she sings night an’ day, 
Wi’ a voice that graws clearer an’ clearer. 
Come in June, very soon she’ll alter her tune, 
An’ cry kook, kook, kook, kook-coo, 
Wi’ a kind o’ a chetter, which, gin ye come at her, 
Ye’ll find is the out-comes 0’ two. 
By Julee, o’er the sea she’s preparin’ to flee, 
An’ man stairt, or the wether gets cader; 
In August gan she must, an’ her young man jist trust 
To the Cheeper, until they get ader. 
An’ dod its gey queer, how the time o’ the year 
' The young be ther sells can remember, 
But whatsever the cause, maist a’ body knaws 
They’ll a’ be away wi’ September.” 
—GxrorcE Boram (Berwick-on-Tweed). 
Cuckoos sucking Eggs.—I must express my indebtedness to Mr. J. H. 
Gurney for his very interesting paper in the December issue of ‘ The Zoolo- 
gist’ (1897, p. 568). I quite accept the evidence he has tendered on the 
question atissue. I am equally of opinion with Mr. Gurney that to describe 
Cuckoos as habitually sucking eggs by choice is misleading. When I 
originally alluded to Cuckoos sucking eggs as a popular fallacy, I of course 
had in my mind not a few peccadilloes of this kind on the part of individual 
Cuckoos, but a very generally entertained belief amongst humble folk who 
have frequently accounted to me for broken eggs in nests early on in April 
by saying, “‘ Ah! that’s the Cuckoo’s work.” ‘To such and sundry it is of 
little moment that Cuculus canorus seldom proclaims its presence in this 
country much before the middle of April H. 8. Davenporr (Ormandyne, 
Melton Mowbray). 
