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Chap. XX

CURIOSITIES RESPECTING BIRDS.-(Continued.) The Cuckoo-The Cormorant - The Great Bustard-The Alarm Bird-The Carrier, or Courier, Pigeon-The Wild Pigeon, its multiplying Power-Singular Bird, inhabiting a Volcano in Guadaloupe-Curious Adventure of an Owl-Curious Facts in Natural History-The Chick in the Egg.

THE CUCKOO. - We shall introduce this curious bird, with the following well-known beautiful piece of poetry :- HAIL, beauteous stranger of the wood, Attendant on the spring!

Now heav'n repairs thy rural seat, And woods thy welcome sing.

Soon as the daisy decks the green, Thy certain voice we hear:

Hast thou a star to guide thy path, Or mark the rolling year?

Delightful visitant! with thee I hail the time of flow'rs, When heaven is fill'd with music sweet Of birds among the bow'rs.

The school-boy, wand'ring in the wood, To pull the flow'rs so gay, Starts, thy curious voice to hear, And imitates thy lay.

Soon as the pea puts on the blcom, Thou fly'st thy vocal vale, An annual guest, in other lands, Another spring to hail.

Sweet bird! thy bow'r is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, No winter in thy year!

O could I fly, I'd fly with thee; We'd make, with social wing Our annual visit o'er the globe, Companions of the spring This bird is described, in natural history, as a genus of the order of Picæ. Generic character: bill smooth, somewhat bending and weak; nostrils surrounded by a small rim; tongue short and arrowed; toes, two forward and two backward; tail wedge-formed, of ten soft feathers. Gmelin enumerates fifty-