TEE 



WILTSHIRE MAGAZINE. 



" MULTORUM MANIBTJS GRANDE LEVATUR ONUS." — Ovid. 



ON CERTAIN 



f mtliantks in % Jife=|isiatg of i\t €xxtho, 



Haw fspcrallg foit& wfewita to t|e Colouring of its €<sgs. 



By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



Read before the Society during the Annual Meeting at Salisbury, Sept. 14th, 1865. 



"And listen to the vagrant Cuckoo's tale." 



HAVE long had the intention to write some account of the 

 Cuckoo, as I intimated in one of my former papers on the 

 Ornithology of Wilts, 1 because there is so much misconception 

 abroad about the habits of that bird, 2 and because it is one of such 

 extraordinary interest. It is even now a common popular belief, 

 handed down from the time of Aristotle that the Cuckoo changes in 

 the course of the summer into a Hawk : while Pliny, 3 who wrote on 

 Natural History, gravely asserted (and that assertion is still upheld 

 by many in these days,) that the young Cuckoo devours its foster 

 brethren, and finally its most attentive foster parents : hence the 

 Swedish proverb, "en otacksam gok," 4 implying "an ungrateful 

 fellow." Even Linnceus gave credence to this absurd slander ; and 



1 Wiltshire Magazine vol. ix., page 57. 



2 Among other errors abroad with regard to this ill-used bird, the English 

 translators of the Bible included it in the list of unclean birds, which the 

 children of Israel were forbidden to eat. [Levit. xi. 16. Deut. xiv. 15.] But 

 Bochart, Gesenius and others have long since proved that not the Cuckoo, but 

 the Sea-gull was the species intended. [Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.] 



3 Pliny Hist. Nat. lib. 10 cap. 9. 



4 11 Gok" is no other than the old Saxon "geac" and the Cuckoo is still often 

 called u gowk" in some parts of England. [Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.] 

 VOL. X. — NO. XXIX. H 



