d to prognosticate that destiny."--Nares's
"Glossary," vol. i. p. 212.

And again, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 1), Bottom sings:

"The plain-song cuckoo gray,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer nay."

It is still a common idea that the cuckoo, if asked, will tell any one,
by the repetition of its cries, how long he has to live. The country
lasses in Sweden count the cuckoo's call to ascertain how many years
they have to remain unmarried, but they generally shut their ears and
run away on hearing it a few times.[193] Among the Germans the notes of
the cuckoo, when heard in spring for the first time, are considered a
good omen. Caesarius (1222) tells us of a convertite who was about to
become a monk, but changed his mind on hearing the cuckoo's call, and
counting twenty-two repetitions of it. "Come," said he, "I have
certainly twenty-two years still to live, and why should I mortify
myself during all that time? I will go back to the world, enjoy its
delights for twenty years, and devote the remaining two to
penitence."[194] In England the peasantry salute the cuckoo with the
following invocation:

"Cuckoo, cherry-tree,
Good bird, tell me,
How many years have I to live"--

the allusion to the cherry-tree having probably originated in the
popular fancy that before the cuckoo ceases its song it must eat three
good meals of cherries. Pliny mentions the belief that when the cuckoo
came to maturity it devoured the bird which had reared it, a
superstition several times alluded to by Shakespeare. Thus, in "King
Lear" (i. 4), the Fool remarks:

"The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,
That it had its head bit off by its young."

[193] Engel's "Musical Myths and Facts," 1876, vol. i. p. 9.

[194] See Kelly's "Indo-European Folk-Lore," 1863, p. 99;
"English Folk-Lore," 1879, pp. 55-62.

Again, in "1 Henry IV." (v. 1), Worcester says:

"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
For fear of swallowing."

Once more, the opinion that the cuckoo made no nest of its own, but
laid its eggs in that of another bird, is mentioned in "Antony and
Cleopatra" (ii. 6):

"Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house;
But, since the cuckoo buil