Cuculus Parlorensis

— If I were an ornithologist, my first effort would be to study and describe the cuckoo of the cuckoo-clock. Yet I should have to depart from the custom of my fellow students of birds, who invariably begin whatever they write about cuckoos with a quotation from Wordsworth; for, with my eye on the object, I could not ask with any conscience,

Nor could I with any fairness lay at his door — how happy, by the way, is our figurative speech!—the charge of making too free with other birds’ nests. Neither with voice nor with eggs have I known my Cuculus parlorensis to wander from the carven Swiss clock which has been his home these many years.

As an unprofessed bird lover, however, I may surely tell what I have observed of his habits. Prevented by obvious disabilities from laying in alien nests, this bird, in a kindred instinct, is closely allied with the cuckoo of the outer air. Indeed, he surpasses this wanderer in unconventionalism, and even chooses a mate from a family not his own. The little brown whippoorwill who sings the quarter-hours by his side is manifestly “the lady of the house.” Her quiet plumage, her less florid song, and, be it said, her strict attention to business mark her as the intended mother of the family, should a true springtime — “the only pretty ring time ” — ever come to the childless pair.

That other seasons, common to all birds, come in their turn to the singers of the clock, the male bird, the cuckoo himself, clearly shows. There are periods when unfailing signs tell us that he is moulting. I have not actually gathered feathers from the floor beneath him, but his drooping manner, the spasmodic utterance of his song, and, I have sometimes fancied, his haste to snap back into retirement when he has not been at his best in looks or voice, — all these things have seemed to show that he was changing the outworn garment of one year for a newer coat.

As to his migrations there cannot be a possibility of doubt. There have been years when they were enforced, when the closing of the house in which the clock has hung, and the envelopment of the clock in blankets to shield it from the winter chill, have removed the cuckoo and his mate from sight and hearing. Yet voluntary acts on the part of the bird himself have not been lacking to show his migratory habit. Indeed, at this very writing he is not with us. Unable to flock with other birds of his kind before his departure, he announced his restlessness by several unwonted bursts of song. Striking thirteen one midnight, and almost bringing me out of a warm bed to see if burglars were making way with him, was one of his first manifestations of the uneasy spirit. Soon afterwards thedinner-table was cheered by the striking of thirty-five instead of seven. The real migration, however, did not occur until one evening when, to the amazement of all hearers, sixty-two “ cuckoos ” rang forth, the weight sinking note by note until it met the base resistance of the floor. But for this uncompromising arrest the bird might have been singing still. Yet when the full stop came, I was convinced that the migration was an accomplished fact. And so it was. Not a note has been beard from the cuckoo since. If I could not begin with Wordsworth, I can at least end with him, and say in sober sadness,