ngland, and the latter farther south. We cannot hail our
black-billed as "blithe newcomer," as Wordsworth does his cuckoo.
"Doleful newcomer" would be a fitter title. There is nothing cheery or
animated in his note, and he is about as much a "wandering voice" as is
the European bird. He does not babble of sunshine and of flowers. He is
a prophet of the rain, and the country people call him the rain crow.
All his notes are harsh and verge on the weird. His nesting-instincts
seem to lead him, or rather her, to the thorn-bushes as inevitably as
the grass finch's lead her to the grass.

The cuckoo seems such an unpractical and inefficient bird that it is
interesting to see it doing things. One of our young poets has a verse
in which he sings of

The solemn priestly bumble-bee
That marries rose to rose.

He might apply the same or similar adjectives to the cuckoo. Solemn and
priestly, or at least monkish, it certainly is. It is a real recluse and
suggests the druidical. If it ever frolics or fights, or is gay and
cheerful like our other birds, I have yet to witness it.

During the last summer, day after day I saw one of the birds going by my
door toward the clump of thorn-trees with a big green worm in its bill.
One afternoon I followed it. I found the bird sitting on a branch very
still and straight, with the worm still in its beak. I sat down on the
tentlike thicket and watched him. Presently he uttered that harsh,
guttural note of alarm or displeasure. Then after a minute or two he
began to shake and bruise the worm. I waited to see him disclose the
nest, but he would not, and finally devoured the worm. Then he hopped or
flitted about amid the branches above me, uttering his harsh note every
minute or two.

After a half-hour or more I gave it up and parted the curtain of thorny
branches which separated the thicket from the meadow and stepped
outside. I had moved along only a few paces when I discovered the nest
on an outer branch almost in the sunshine. The mother bird was covering
her half-grown young. As I put up my hand toward her, she slipped off,
withdrew a few feet into the branches, and uttered her guttural calls.

In the nest were four young, one of them nearly ready to leave it, while
another barely had its eyes open; the eldest one looked frightened,
while the youngest lifted up its head with open mouth for food. The most
mature one pointed its bill straight up and sat as still as if
petrified. The wh