Another "popular fallacy" concerning the Cuckoo was that it hybernated, and this also has been reduced to rhyme:—
"Seven sleepers there be—
The Bat, the Bee, the Butterflee,
The Cuckoo, and the Swallow,
The Kittiwake, and the Corncrake,
All sleep in yon little hollow."
But the subject is inexhaustible, and I shall only quote one more of these rhymes and have done; premising, for the benefit of south-country readers, that however oddly the vernacular may read, the rhythm is good when it comes from the lips of a native:—
"In Mairch, gin ye sairch, ye may find a Cuckoo,
But it's April afore ye can hear her;
When wor weel inte May, she sings night an' day,
Wi' a voice that graws clearer an' clearer.
Come in June, very soon she'll alter her tune,
An' cry kook, kook, kook, kook-coo,
Wi' a kind o' a chetter, which, gin ye come at her,
Ye'll find is the out-comes o' two.
By Julee, o'er the sea she's preparin' to flee,
An' man stairt, or the wether gets cader;
In August gan she must, an' her young man jist trust
To the Cheeper, until they get ader.
An' dod its gey queer, how the time o' the year
The young be ther sells can remember,
But whatsever the cause, maist a' body knaws
They'll a' be away wi' September."
—George Bolam (Berwick-on-Tweed).
Cuckoos sucking Eggs.—I must express my indebtedness to Mr. J.H. Gurney for his very interesting paper in the December issue of 'The Zoologist' (1897, p. 568). I quite accept the evidence he has tendered on the question at issue. I am equally of opinion with Mr. Gurney that to describe Cuckoos as habitually sucking eggs by choice is misleading. When I originally alluded to Cuckoos sucking eggs as a popular fallacy, I of course had in my mind not a few peccadilloes of this kind on the part of individual Cuckoos, but a very generally entertained belief amongst humble folk who have frequently accounted to me for broken eggs in nests early on in April by saying, "Ah! that's the Cuckoo's work." To such and sundry it is of little moment that Cuculus canorus seldom proclaims its presence in this country much before the middle of April.—H.S. Davenport (Ormandyne, Melton Mowbray).
