When the evenings are perceptibly lengthened and the air partakes of the exhilarating freshness of autumn, these happy insects commence their anthems of gladness; and their monotonous but agreeable melody is in sweet unison with the general serenity of nature. These voices come from myriads of cheerful hearts, but there is a plaintiveness in their modulation that calls up the memory of the past and turns our thoughts inwardly upon almost forgotten joys and sorrows. How different are our emotions from those awakened by the notes of the piping frog that hail the opening of spring! All these sounds, though not designed particularly for our benefit, are adapted by nature to harmonize agreeably with our feelings, and there is a soothing and lulling influence in the song of the cicadas that softens into tranquillity the melancholy it inspires and tempers all our sadness into pleas

ure.

We no longer perceive that peculiar charm of spring vegetation, that comes from the health and freshness of every growing thing; and we associate the flowers of August with the dry, withered, and dying plants that everywhere surround them. In June everything in the aspect of nature is harmonious; all is greenness and gladness, and nothing appears in company with the flowers to disfigure their charms or to affect the sight with displeasure. But August presents a motley spectacle of rank and inelegant weeds, that overshadow the flowers; and the beauty of the fields is often hidden by the withered vegetation of the last month. This appearance, however, is chiefly obvious in those places which have been disturbed by cultivation. In the wilds Nature always preserves the harmony of her seasons.

BIRDS OF THE PASTURE AND FOREST.

III.

THE CUCKOO.

OUR native Cuckoos have not the free-love instinct of the European Cuckoo; and Daines Barrington, would have been delighted to quote their good parental habits as an argument in his special plea for the European bird, whom he considered the victim of slander. The Cowbird is our Cuckoo in the moral acceptation of the term. The American Cuckoo is attached to its offspring in a remarkable degree, and rears them with all the fidelity of the most devoted parents. In my boyhood, the two severest fights I had with birds on approaching their nests were once when I examined the nest of a Bluejay, and again when I examined one belonging to a Cuckoo. The young Cuckoos were equally savage when I attempted to handle them. Yet this bird bears the reputation of cowardice.

It is remarkable that the American Cuckoo, though a faithful and devoted parent, should have certain peculiar habits connected with laying and hatching, that bear some evidence that the European and American species have a common derivation. The habit of the European bird of dropping its eggs into other birds' nests is probably connected with continued laying, extended to a greater length of time than with other birds. The same fertility has been observed in the American Cuckoos. Mr. Audubon mentions the peculiar habit of these birds of laying fresh eggs and hatching them successively. Thus

it would seem that the last-laid eggs were hatched by the involuntary brooding of the young which had not left the nest. Dr. Brewer has "repeatedly found in a nest three young and two eggs, one of the latter nearly fresh, one with the embryo half developed, while of the young birds, one would be just out of the shell, one half fledged, and one just ready to fly. Subsequent observations in successive seasons led to the conviction that both the Yellow-billed and the Black-billed Cuckoo share in these peculiarities, and that it is a general but not universal practice."

Dr. Brewer mentions an interesting fact that evinces the strong attachment of the Cuckoo to its offspring. Speaking of the Black-billed Cuckoo, he says: "Both parents are assiduous in the duties of incubation and in supplying food to each other and their offspring. In one instance where the female had been shot by a thoughtless boy, as she flew from the nest, the male bird successfully devoted himself to the solitary duty of rearing the brood of five. At the time of the death of the female, the nest contained two eggs and three young birds. The writer was present when the bird was shot, and was unable to interfere in season to prevent it. Returning to the spot not long afterwards, he found the widowed male sitting upon the nest, and so unwilling to leave it as almost to permit himself to be captured by the hand. His fidelity and his entreaties were not disregarded. This nest, eggs, and young were left undisturbed; and as they were visited from time to time, the young nestlings were found to thrive under his vigilant care. The eggs were hatched out, and in time the whole five were reared in safety."

The Cuckoo is an early visitor. His voice is often heard before the first of May, proclaiming that "the spring is coming in," like his congener in England, who has always been regarded as the harbinger of that season.

His note is not strictly musical, yet we all listen to the first sound of his voice with as much pleasure as to that of the Bluebird or Song-Sparrow. I have not met a person who was not delighted to hear it. It may be called, figuratively, one of the picturesque sounds in Nature, reminding us of the resurrection of the long-hidden charms of the season. The Cuckoo is swift in his flight, which resembles that of a Dove so much that I have often mistaken them. In plumage and general shape this bird is like the Red-Thrush, with some mixture of olive.

THE COWBIRD.

Young nest-hunters, who are persistent in their enterprises, and who pursue their occupation partly from rational curiosity and not from mere wantonness, are often surprised on finding in the nest of some small bird a single egg larger than others in the same nest. In my own days of academic truancy, I found this superfluous egg most frequently in Sparrows' nests. It was not until I had made a large collection of eggs that I discovered the parentage of the odd ones. These eggs were generally speckled; but I occasionally found a large bluish egg among others of the same color, and supposed they must contain two yolks, save that birds in a wild state seldom produce such monstrosities. Can it be that the American Cuckoo occasionally follows the instincts of his European congener? In each case I considered the spurious. eggs as lawful plunder, since they were an imposition practised upon the owner of the nest either by some unknown bird or by the Cowbird, a member of a family. which are too aristocratic to rear their own offspring. But as a politician of the speculative class I feel a peculiar interest in the Cowbird, as affording me an opportunity of understanding the system of free love, as exemplified in the habits of this species.