he old birds flying south
in July, the younger generation following three or four weeks later.
Goodness knows by what extraordinary instinct these young ones know the
way. But the young cuckoo is a marvel altogether in the manner of its
education, since, when one comes to think of it, it has no upbringing by
its own parents and cannot even learn how to cry "Cuckoo!" by example or
instruction. Its foster-parents speak another language, and its own
folk have ceased from singing by the time it is out of the nest. A good
deal has been written about the way in which the note varies, chiefly in
the direction of greater harshness and a more staccato and less
sustained note, towards the end of the cuckoo's stay. According to the
rustic rhyme, it changes its tune in June, which is probably poetic
licence rather than the fruits of actual observation. It is, however,
commonly agreed that the cuckoo is less often heard as the time of its
departure draws near, and the easiest explanation of its silence, once
the breeding season is ended, is that the note, being the love-call of a
polygamous bird, is no longer needed.

In Australia the female cuckoo is handsomely barred with white, whereas
the male is uniformly black; but with our bird it is exceedingly
difficult to distinguish one sex from the other on the wing, and, were
it not for occasional evidence of females having been shot when actually
calling, we might still believe that it is the male only that makes this
sound. The note is joyous only in the poet's fancy, just as he has also
read sadness into the "sobbing" of the nightingale. There is, indeed,
when we consider its life, something fantastic in the hypothesis that
the cuckoo can know no trouble in life, merely because it escapes the
rigours of our winter. Eternal summer must be a delight, but the cuckoo
has to work hard for the privilege, and it must at times be harried to
the verge of desperation by the small birds that continually mob it in
broad daylight. This behaviour on the part of its pertinacious little
neighbours has been the occasion of much futile speculation; but the one
certain result of such persecution is to make the cuckoo, along with its
fellow-sufferer, the owls, preferably active in the sweet peace of the
gloaming, when its puny tyrants are gone to roost. Much heated argument
has raged round the real or supposed sentiment that inspires such
demonstrations on the part of linnets, sparrows, chaffinches, and