THE WOODPECKER.

Hail to thee, woodpecker, clothed in green!
How thy verdant mantle concealeth thee;
'Mid the waving foliage scarcely seen,

As thou climbest the boughs of the forest-tree.
The theme of the villager's song art thou,
The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-bough.

Throughout all the land that song has been heard,
Yet thousands there are, who but for the song
Would never have known the name of the bird,
Or thought of its habits the woods among.
The theme of the villager's song is he,

The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.

The shepherd that rests in the beechen shade,
While his flocks in the level pastures graze:
The woodman at work in the forest-glade,
Or the sportsman threading the woody maze :
All these the green bird of the ballad may see,
The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.

Though I've marked the note of many a bird,
Wandering alone in the field or the wood,
The woodpecker's tapping but once have I heard,
As under the green boughs I silently stood;
For a shy and a timid bird is he,

The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.

ORDER SCANSORES.

The Cuckoo.

Cuculus Canorus.

THE Cuckoo is supposed to pass the winter in Africa, and usually comes to us in the month of April, when we hear its monotonous but pleasant cry of cuckoo, which seems to proclaim to us that winter is gone, and the time of flowers is coming. Arrived in England, it generally betakes itself to the woods, and appears especially to delight in those which are situated on hills and mountains s; from whence we may hear its simple, oft-repeated song, through the day, and to a late hour of the night. It feeds on insects, caterpillars, &c. and is said also to eat the eggs of small birds.

The most curious circumstance in the history of this bird is, that it never builds a nest itself, but lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. The nests she chooses for this purpose are usually those of birds smaller than herself; and she takes the precaution to deposit only one in a nest, though she lays from four to six in a season;

evidently aware that there will not be room for more than one of her great children to be cradled in so confined an abode. It has been often asked in what manner the female cuckoo introduces her eggs into nests which are either so small in their dimensions, or so contracted in their entrance, that she cannot possibly get into them. It now seems ascertained that the mode she adopts is to carry an egg in her bill, and drop it into the nest she has chosen. The young cuckoo, soon after it is hatched, usually turns out of the nest the eggs or young birds of its foster-mother. But though the cuckoo thus puts out her children to be nursed, she by no means deserts them, or ceases to feel a parental interest in her progeny. She has been seen to hover round the tree where the young bird is lodged, singing near it, and evidently answering its cries with her song; as if willing to visit and pay it kind attentions, though she cannot take the trouble of nursing. We must not blame the poor cuckoo for this peculiarity, but should rather regard the circumstance as a singular instance of the provision made by the great Author of Nature for every living creature.

The cuckoo does not seem fitted, like other birds, to undertake the charge of hatching and rearing her young; but she is directed, by the

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unfailing instinct implanted in her nature, where to seek a supply of her wants; and the bird whose nest she selects is, by a similar wonderful instinct, inclined to feed and cherish the stranger thus intruded upon her.

Cuckoos may be heard from April to the end of June, when they generally cease to sing; but they do not leave this country till the beginning or middle of September. The early cold, and the scarcity of insects and soft fruits, drive them to seek refuge in warmer climates. They take their flight at this season to the fruitful islands of the Grecian Archipelago, and into Africa; from whence they come back to us in the spring, and again cheer us with their well-known song.

Cuckoos are not usually seen in numbers, but such congregations sometimes occur. A friend of ours had, for many years, an aged apple-tree in his orchard, which he was wont to call the cuckoo-tree. Every spring this particular tree was visited, not by a solitary bird, but by perfect flocks of cuckoos, who flew around it or rested on its branches, making an extraordinary uproar; mixing with their well-known cuckoo notes various strange cries and croakings, and altogether producing a very uncommon sort of concert. Day after day, for about a week after their arrival in England, they visited the apple

tree, and after amusing themselves in this way, flew off to their various haunts.

The tree so completely acquired the name of the bird, that the fruit it bore came to be distinguished from the other produce of the orchard, as apples from the cuckoo-tree. At length the fall of the venerable tree was decreed. It was cut down a few years since; and from that time, no such flocks of cuckoos have congregated there. The cuckoo-note is still heard in the orchard, and the birds have evidently not deserted the neighbourhood; but the fall of their tristing-tree seems to have broken the charm which gathered them to one spot.

THE CUCKOO'S SONG.

Cuckoo! cuckoo! cuckoo! I cry:
I come to tell that the paths are dry:
I come to tell that the frost is gone,
And a cheerful time is coming on;

For the wint'ry storms are heard no more,
And the smiling spring stands at the door;
And radiant skies, and balmy showers,
Will cover the fields with leaves and flowers.

Cuckoo! cuckoo! cuckoo! I sing;
And welcome news to the land I bring.
I have flown afar, over earth and sea,

In England's pleasant vallies to be,