The Cuckoos : The Shining Cuckoo 
173 
thirteenth century, sings of the cuckoo, though the charac¬ 
teristic call of the bird is not imitated in the music. ‘‘Towards 
the middle or the end of June,” writes Yarrell, (YH, Vol. 2, 
p. 390), “its cry is no longer the ‘plain song’ that was heard 
on its arrival (in April) ; it becomes rather harsher in tone, 
and its first syllable or note is doubled. Soon after it is no 
longer heard at all.” This change of note is referred to 
by John Iieywood in No. 95 of his Sixth Hundred of Epigrams 
“Of Use”: 
Use maketh mastery: this hath been said always 
nut all is not alway, as all men do say, 
In April the cuckoo can sing her note by rote; 
In June, out of tune, she cannot sing a note: 
At first, cuckoo, cuckoo, sing still can she do, 
At last cuck, cuck, cuck,—six cucks to one cu. 
It begins early in the season with a minor third, proceeding 
to a major third, a fourth, a fifth, after which its voice breaks 
without attaining a minor sixth. 
Gungl, in his “Cuckoo Galop,” gives the call of the cuckoo 
as B natllral and G sharp. Dr. Arne, in his music to the 
cuckoo’s song in “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” gives it as C natural 
and G (IIS, p. 151). On a Swiss-made cuckoo-whistle I have, 
the notes are G sharp and E, a major third; and I have heard 
whistles with other intervals. It must be remembered, however, 
that the pitch of pianos or other instruments by which notes may 
be recorded, may differ, concert pitch on a piano being a tone or 
more above ordinary pitch. 
In Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony the notes of the nightin¬ 
gale, quail, and cuckoo are imitated; here the interval is E to C, 
a minor third, and the same interval, a semitone lower in pitch, 
n US6d , by Hum P erdinc k for the cuckoo instrument in the 
Forest Scene (Act II.) of Hansel und Gretel (FO, p. 289). 
In Browning’s poem, “A Lover’s Quarrel,” stanza 18 men¬ 
tions the call 
Here’s the spring back or close, 
When the almond blossom blows; 
We shall have the word 
In a minor third 
There is none but the cuckoo knows: 
Heaps of the guelder-rose! 
I must bear with it, I suppose. 
