THE CUCKOO.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TH6 .SPECTATOR." J SIR,—Among this week's "records " in the vagaries of Nature, it is perhaps worth noting that the cuckoo has been singing here nearly every morning since the blizzard. In the early dawn of Tuesday I heard it trying to find its voice. It at first could do no more than produce a series of undecided double chuckles on the upper of the two usual notes. Indeed, my friends at the.breakfast-table found amusement in the theory that I had been deceived by the ordinary exultations of a lien; and but for the unmistakable characteristics of time and accent (the doable note being in the usual two-four time with
tie accent on the second beat), this accusation might have had some force. After several efforts, however, its voice broke into the regular, half-muffled, half-resonant notes so charming to the lover of spring. And so it has continued every morning since. Surely this forms a curious study in contrasts,—deep snow on Sunday, and the cuckoo's notes on Tuesday I—I am,
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