Oldest English Song, about 1250. Tempus adest veris, cuculus modo rumpe soporem. Ascribed to BEDE. POPULAR compend of the natural history of the Cuckoo, might be drawn up from the various vulgar opinions afloat regarding that darling bird, and the strains of the rural muse, in which these conclusions are embodied. William Howitt in his genial "Book of the Seasons," adduces a rustic rhyme of the shire of Norfolk, which commemorates, in faithful characters, the several epochs, by which its summer pilgrimage, in our clime, is distinguished. "In April, the cuckoo shows his bill; In May, he sings both night and day; In July, he prepares to fly; Come August, go he must." With not less admirable reference to the calendar of nature, in disclosing germs and odoriferous blossoms, Logan saluting the "blithe new-comer," tells us, 1 Meadow. 2 Weed. 3 Ewe. 4 Loweth. 5 Leaps about, gambles, startles Scottice Goeth to harbour in the vert or fern. Sir. J. Hawkins. 7 Cease. "What time the daisy decks the green, Hast thou a star to guide thy path What time the pea puts on the bloom, Thou fliest the vocal vale; An annual guest in other lands, Another spring to hail." In Northumberland, the peasant too cherishes his song of the seasons, appropriate to each new dispersion of the wintry shadows-he too adduces some incident in the mysterious tale, not generally observed or known. "The cuckoo comes of mid March, And cucks of mid Aperill, And gauns away of Midsummer month, When the corn begins to fill.” The cuckoo frequently makes its appearance, considerably prior to the date, when the leafing woods and the sunny valleys re-echo its “two-fold shout." Every thing about this bird is matter of wonder, and fable has not belied its functions, in detailing the marvellous relation. There were days, when the gorgeous Birds of Paradise, were believed to have existed, destitute of either legs or feet; spending their "ambrosial lives," perpetually on unwearied wing, beneath the cloudless skies, and, amid the perfumed groves of the Tropics. And the time is not by-past, when the cuckoo, was feigned to derive its summer's sustenance, from the eggs of helpless warblers whose trim nests it riffled. "The cuckoo's a bonny bird, He whistles as he flies, • To its truthfulness, as the "cuckold's quirister," it may be that Shakespeare alludes, when he sings of "The plain-song cuckoo grey, Whose note full many a man doth mark, And dares not answer, nay." Midsummer-Night's Dream. "Who would give a bird the lie," says Bottom, though he cry cuckoo never so." This is well known as a popular Northumbrian rhyme, but it is not peculiar. See another version of it in the Gentleman's Magazine for Feb. 1796, p. 117. From this delicious-speech invigorating aliment, it is, that it acquires that lucid intonation, and unfettered utterance, that enables it to keep the spring-tide groves so long resonant to its "wandering voice." When the date of the feathered tribes' solicitude is completed, and instead of fragile eggs and callow younglings, in slim, unprotected abodes, full-fledged broods flutter amid the boughs, and scuttle down into the brake beyond the reach of the prying intruder ; its once mellow notes grow hoarser and huskier, until, at length, its melodious functions are entirely suspended; "seven cucks," as an olden writer delights quaintly to express it, being united to "one cu.”* To its far-extending harrying excursions then, it would be said, we owe the never steady, ever shifting intensity of its voice; now near, now remote, now clear and now stifled, now silent and now hurried in breathless succession, now "Babbling only to the vale Of sunshine and of flowers," and now, indistinctly stirring the ancient silence of the upland waste. And in Berwickshire, and perhaps that shire is not exclusive in attributing human language and thought to a bird, that can talk so garrulously of its own name, it is the persuasion, that to this cause is to be ascribed, its harsher second note, uttered amid the leafy thickets, at uncertain intervals. This is only heard, when the vagabond bird has pounced ingloriously upon some luckless nest-it is the discordant signal for spoil—and being interpreted implies "muck it out." Unfortunately for the story's credit, this note as observation can testify, is repeated by one of the birds, when in pursuit of its mate.† In these presumed egg-hunting excursions, the cuckoo is earnestly pursued and harrassed by troops of small birds, all up in the defensive, and twittering in dismay-though if the matter would bear inquiry, it would be seen that they had misapprehended her homely, grey vesture and equivocal shape, for those of a hawk, "et hinc illæ lachrymæ." One only of that rancorous train, has she selected as her bosom friend: it is her inseparable associate, and as appertains to every upstart dependent of a tyrant, it becomes her sanguinary tool. In some places, this shadow of authority, usually an unpretending • The Germans have a belief, that the cuckoo cannot cry until he has eaten a bird's egg, and that when he has eaten his full of cherries three times, he ceases to sing.-J. Grimm's Deutche Mythologie, vol. i. 640. Annals of Natural History. May, 1844. p. 405. + The cuckoo may not be proved a direct destroyer of eggs for the purpose of food; yet the number of eggs, aunually rendered unproductive by itself or its young excluding them from the nest, is somewhat astonishing. Slaney, in his " Smaller British Birds," gives 3,560,000 eggs of the insect eating birds, as the amount. 66 meadow-pipet or moss-cheeper," (Anthus pratensis)—is entitled "the Cuckoo's titling," and why the connection exists, no one can divine; unless it be that the cuckoo has secret intentions of engaging a foster nurse, to attend to the duties of incubation, for which in her own person, she has no hearty relish or deeply urgent desire. It is the opinion of the Durham peasant, that this small bird is the "cuckoo's Sandie." The cuckoo is of the "hawk kind,”* and imitatively as well as ex natura, inclines to regale her palate with the delicacies of wild game, and so forth; but then although she can slaughter small birds in scores, by sheer poking at them, how with a bill so utterly inefficient, can she contrive to rend the savoury treat asunder? To accomplish this she assumes to herself this poor, insignificant bird, nurtures him in her evil ways, instructs him how to use his slender scissor-like chops, intended solely for the dismemberment of grubs, beetles and "hairy worms," as knife and fork, until, proficient as a valet who has profited by various service, he can mince the meat in all variety of modes that suit her taste, and cram it down her throat in such moieties as to her appetite may seem agreeable. Hence the protection vouchsafed and the inexplicable union.+ 99 From the belief that in this, her predatory vocation, with "Sandie as caterer, she talks more than she works, has arisen a popular reproach, little to her fair fame, or regarded as of literary worth, to the credit of its originators. "Cuckoo, scabb'd gowk, Mickle said, little wrought." The ancients had a proverb, that "one swallow does not make summer." The natives of Lorbottle, a small inland town in Northumberland, held ideas very different from those of the ancients, respecting the causes of this season. In the "wittengamote" of that community, in its collective capacity popularly known as the "coves of Lorbottle," it was agreed that the cuckoo, and no other abtruser, all pervading influence, brought on that pleasant time; and that if she could be secured "within a pinfold" there, the storms of winter might muster and threaten, and snell Boreas bluster and howl, but This is no recent fabrication, as we find it recorded in that tissue of fable and absur dity, the elder Pliny has left us, under the name of Natural History. Pliny affirms that the cuckoo is not only of the hawk kind, but that, during a portion of the year, it is converted, by the alteration of its voice, shape and plumage, into a real bird of prey.Plinii. Nat. Hist. lib. x. † A correspondent in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1796, says, "the peasantry of Devon and Cornwall, believe the cuckoo feeds on the eggs of other birds; and that the little bird, as they call it, accompanying him (the Yunx Torquilla, or Summer bird), searches for them for that purpose, and feeds him." p. 117. the bland zephyrs' wing would ever fan the fresh, young foliage in the groves of Lorbottle! One particular plantation was noted, whither she was accustomed most frequently to repair, and utter her notes earliest and most mellow. It was evidently a favourite haunt-where she loved to linger. This in the resolutions of the simple villagers, it was determined to environ with a wall, to render her blest stay perpetual, and give her unquiet footsteps rest. The wall was reared, in haste and with solicitude, but alas! the vanity of anticipation, just as the wall was completed and a home prepared, the capricious and ungrateful bird glided quietly over the top, "And flapped her well fledged wings, and sped away." Thus perished all hopes of Lorbottle's being blessed with a neverending summer. It is still, however, a fondly cherished opinion, among the elders of the place, unswervingly knit to the simple creed of their sires, that if the wall had only been raised a little higher, the darling project would have been achieved. Lorbottle, "Hesperian fables true," would have become, a paradise on earth.* The cuckoo is singular among British birds, so admirable in their domestic relations, for consigning its eggs and young to the care and nurture of another, which is silly enough not to detect the guile. Whence does this, one would suppose, unnatural alienation of the parent from its offspring, spring? The opinion of the muirland shepherds is, that the blame, at least, attaches not to the female party, but is entirely owing to the tyranny and brutish cruelty of the male. He a very Saturn among birds-if allowed his will-would speedily exterminate the cuckoo race. Such is his inveterate rancour to eggs or offspring, that if the female attempt to perform the customary avial sittings, he would forthwith come, armed with the authority and might of a liege lord, expel her from the nest, break the eggs, and gobble up in his wrath, their entire valuable contents. Therefore to preserve the breed, she must have recourse to all those insidious expedients, by which she contrives to have the egg conveyed out of his reach, and palmed upon some foolish dupe, that in the enthusiasm of hatching cannot distinguish an egg from a peeble stone. She Doom'd Never the sympathetic joy to know That warms the mother cowering o'er her young, Some stranger robs; and to that stranger's love Deluded, the voracious nestling feeds • A similar project was once entertained by that sage race-the wise men of Gotham -they too attempted to hedge in the Cuckoo.-Gent's Mag. June 1796, p. 636. |