Peacock: The Cuckoo — A Study. 101 



the beck and neighbouring 1 hedges for many weeks, zealously 

 guarded by its foster-parents, and fed by them and other birds— 

 Hedge-Sparrows and Tit-Larks. 



The Cuckoo or 'Gowk,' which is 'he' in the South of 

 England and 'she' in Lincolnshire and the North generally, 

 leaves its winter quarters in Africa at the end of March, and 

 a month later is found all over Europe as far as the Arctic circle. 

 The old birds remain eleven or twelve weeks with us, and the 

 young ones retire South six to eight weeks later. The males 

 arrive first, and at once proclaim their presence to all the world 

 by their loud and peculiar cry. As soon as the female birds 

 have followed, and are distributed, furious contests take place 

 between their rival suitors, which are supposed — I only say 

 supposed, for it is a point which requires settling by careful work 

 in the field — which are supposed to be more numerous than the 

 hen birds. If night overtake the combatants, as it often does, 

 before the supremacy of one bird is decided, they continue 

 calling at intervals through the hours of darkness, only awaiting 

 the light for the renewal of the contest of love. Later in the 

 season, when the cock birds have become more distributed, each 

 would almost seem to have a district or special haunt of his 

 own, where he calls as he lists, and consorts with the hens, 

 whose more roving nest-seeking habits bring them into his 

 vicinity. As the late spring passes into the full tide of summer 

 the well-known cry is less and less frequently heard,- till before 

 mid-summer day is reached it has lost all its resonance and 

 clearness. The first syllable of the courting note is at times 

 doubled, not infrequently trebled; once only I heard it repeated 

 five times, but this was exceptional. The 'plain song' and 

 ' failing note ' of this bird are so very different that ' the stutter- 

 ing Cuckoo,' as Southev calls it, might well be mistaken for 

 another bird. It has several other notes besides its familiar cry, 

 as I said before, which almost defy description. One is a soft 

 guttural note of pleasure, 'uttered rapidly and continuously 

 repeated several times.' This is a courting cry. Another is 

 an exclamation of anger or fear, as when the bird is suddenl) 

 disturbed whilst sunning itself in an old gravel pit or an open 

 glade of the woods. It is perhaps nothing more than the cry 

 just referred to in a harsher and much less frequent form. There 

 is yet another note 'like the bark of a dog,' very seldom heard, 

 and then only at the end of the season, which causes me to 

 believe that it is but 'the remnant of a voice, 5 a * VOX el 

 pra?terea nihil' of its spring call. It is more often heard than 



1900 April 3. 



