Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/228

Rh met with, and which in a slightly different version are given by Mr. Yarrell :—

The double note of the male Cuckoo is known to every one; and there are few, in any degree familiar with rural sounds and associations, who do not feel a thrill of pleasure when it falls upon their ear. But more especially when, for the first time in the season, it is heard in a lovely Spring morning, mellowed by distance, borne softly from some thick tree, whose tender, and yellow-green leaves, but half-opened, are as yet barely sufficient to afford the welcome stranger the concealment he loves. At such a time it is peculiarly grateful; for it seems to assure us that, indeed, "the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come."

The Cuckoo is a bird of much elegance: the plumage of the superior parts is of a chaste bluish-grey tint; the under parts are white, marked on the belly with transverse bars of grey.