SUMMER DAYS 



63 



can only suppose that some curse has been put 

 upon them which makes it necessary for them to 

 say ' Cuckoo ' all day, and that they would never 

 be able to carry enough caterpillars to feed their 

 own children, because every time that they opened 

 their mouth to say ' Cuckoo ' the caterpillar which 

 they were carrying would drop out and escape. 

 But I should like to know who did it : he must 

 have been rather a feeble magician, because it seems 

 to me that he has let them off a great deal in trying 

 to inflict a curse upon them. I shall take care not 

 to employ him when I want a good heavy curse 

 laid upon any of my enemies. The only consolation 

 is that they look so like a hawk that they some- 

 times get shot by accident ; in fact, I heard a 

 keeper say once that he always shot them when- 

 ever he got a chance, because he knew that they 

 turned to hawks in the winter. 



I wonder if the reason can be that five young 

 cuckoos in one nest would be more than any two 

 parents could possibly feed in a day, or perhaps the 

 curse is that a big bird like the cuckoo was really 

 once a hawk who accidentally killed a robin, and 

 then the curse was uttered that he should hence- 

 forth eat nothing but caterpillars for ever. That 

 would be quite a nasty curse even for me, who eat 



