l of a cuckoo. At the same instant two men
passed me, and I heard one say to the other, "Hear that cuckoo! Do you
know what it means? No? Well, _I_ know what it means: it means that it's
going to rain." It did rain, although not for a number of days, I
believe. But probably the cuckoo has adopted the modern method of
predicting the weather some time in advance. Not very long afterwards I
again heard this same note on the Common; but it was several years
before I was able to put the cuckoo into my Boston list, as a bird
actually seen. Indeed it is not so very easy to see him anywhere; for he
makes a practice of robbing the nests of smaller birds, and is always
skulking about from one tree to another, as though he were afraid of
being discovered, as no doubt he is. What Wordsworth wrote of the
European species (allowance being made for a proper degree of poetic
license) is equally applicable to ours:--

"No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery."

When I did finally get a sight of the fellow it was on this wise. As I
entered the Garden, one morning in September, a goldfinch was calling so
persistently and with such anxious emphasis from the large sophora tree
that I turned my steps that way to ascertain what could be the trouble.
I took the voice for a young bird's, but found instead a male adult, who
was twitching his tail nervously and scolding _phee-phee_, _phee-phee_,
at a black-billed cuckoo perched near at hand, in his usual sneaking
attitude. The goldfinch called and called, till my patience was nearly
spent. (Small birds know better than to attack a big one so long as the
latter is at rest.) Then, at last, the cuckoo started off, the finch
after him, and a few minutes later I saw the same flight and chase
repeated. Several other goldfinches were flying about in the
neighborhood, but only this one was in the least excited. Doubtless he
had special reasons of his own for dreading the presence of this
cowardly foe.

One of our regular visitors twice a year is the brown creeper. He is so
small and silent, and withal his color is so like that of the bark to
which he clings, that I suspect he is seldom noticed even by persons who
pass within a few feet of him. But he is not too small to be hectored by
the sparrows, and I have before now been amused at the encounter. The
sparrow catches sight of the creeper, and at once bears down upon him,
when the creeper darts to the other side of the tree, and