THE CUCKOO’S SECRET 
CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTORY 
Probably no bird has taken a more conspicuous 
place in the interests of mankind than the common 
Cuckoo ( Cuculus canorus , L.). The very name of 
the bird, “ echoic ” in origin as it is, and existing 
in phonetic parallels in the ancient and modern 
languages of Europe, is evidence of its long-standing 
familiarity to Western civilisation. Allusions to 
the Cuckoo abound both in folk-lore # and litera- 
ture ; in its character as “ the harbinger of spring ” 
* A famous example of Cuckoo superstition is the belief 
that the Cuckoo changes into a hawk and back again. This myth 
was known to the ancients, but Aristotle, writing 300 b.c., dis- 
missed it as incredible. Nevertheless it persisted through the 
ages, no doubt on account of the resemblance between a Cuckoo 
and such a bird as our Sparrowhawk ( Accipiter nisus , L.). A 
gamekeeper of Durham excused himself for shooting a Cuckoo 
by saying that “ it was well-known that Sparrowhawks turned 
into Cuckoos in the summer ” : see Burne and Jackson’s Shrop- 
shire Folklore (1883), p. 222. 
1 
B 
