44 
BIRDS 
hands full of the pink Azalea, to listen. 
With me, the Cuckoo does not arrive 
till June; and often the Goldfinch, the 
King-Bird, the Scarlet Tanager delay 
their coming till then. In the meadows 
the bobolink is in all his glory; in the 
high pastures the Field-Sparrow sings his 
breezy vesper-hymn; and the woods are 
unfolding to the music of the Thrushes. 
The Cuckoo is one of the most solitary 
birds of our forests, and is strangely 
tame and quiet, appearing equally un¬ 
touched by joy or grief, fear or anger. Is 
he an exile from some other sphere, and 
are his loneliness and indifference the re¬ 
sult of a hopeless, yet resigned soul? Or 
has he passed through some terrible 
calamity or bereavement, that has over¬ 
powered his sensibilities, rendering him 
dreamy and semi-conscious? Something 
remote seems ever weighing upon his 
mind. He deposits his eggs in the nests 
of other birds, having no heart for work 
or domestic care. His note or call is as 
of one lost or wandering, and the farmer 
says is prophetic of rain. Amid the gen¬ 
eral joy and the sweet assurance of 
