CUCKOOS. 
189 
one. The poet may well be allowed to make this favourite 
bird reply to the question — 
" Why art thou always welcome, lonely bird ?" 
" The heart grows young again when I am heard ; 
Nor in my double note the magic lies 
But in the fields, the woods, the streams, the skies." 
A species of cuckoo, very similar to the well-known Eu- 
ropean bird, is found in the northern parts of Australia. 
Mr. Gould has given it the name of CucuIms ojotatuSy and 
no less truly than beautifully remarks, that, when we are in 
countries far remote from our birthplace, our minds delight 
to seize on any objects which remind us of our own country. 
^^By the colonists of New South Wales and Yan Diemen^s 
Land, a stripling oak or an elm, a violet or a primrose, are 
regarded as treasures ; and a caged blackbird or lark is 
more prized than a bird of paradise would be here ; how 
welcome then to the settlers will be this cuckoo, when the 
part of Australia in which it is found becomes inhabited by 
Englishmen ! Here, as in Europe, it is the harbinger of 
Spring; and its voice will be heard with even greater sensa- 
tions of pleasure than was that of its representative in Eu- 
rope.^^ Many of the cuckoos in Australia are similar in 
habits to their famed namesake in Britain : they devolve the 
