The Cuckoo. 
205 
Chester writes of one of the most familiar 
of our English birds, the Cuckoo :— 
“ The spring-delighting bird we call the cuckow, 
Which conies to tell of wonders in this age, 
Her pretie one note to the world doth show 
Some men their destinie. 
“ The winters envious blast she never tasteth, 
Yet in all countries doth the cuckoe sing, 
And oftentimes to peopled townes she hasteth, 
Therfor to tell the pleasures of the spring: 
Great courtiers heare her voyce, but let her flye, 
Knowing that she presageth destinie. 
“ She scornes to labour or make up a nest, 
But creepes by stealth into some others roome, 
And with the larkes deare yong, her yong-ones rest, 
Being by subtile dealing overcome : 
The yong birds are restorative to eate, 
And held amongst us as a princes meate.” 
(. Love’s Martyr, p. 118.) 
Shakspeare is more correct in giving the hedge- 
sparrow as the foster-mother whose nest is usually selected 
by the parent bird. 
“ The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, 
That it had its head bit off by its young.” 
{Leah, i. 4, 235.) 
And again:— 
“ And, being fed by us, you used us so 
As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo’s bird, 
Useth the sparrow: did oppress our nest; 
Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk. 
That even our love durst not come near your sight, 
Bor fear of swallowing.” 
(1 Henry IV., v. i. 59.) 
Mr. Singer, in a note on this passage, remarks:— 
“ Shakespeare seems to speak from his own observation, and to have 
been the first to notice how the hedge-sparrow was used by the young 
cuckoo — a curious fact, now well known and established by the 
