Here comes the cuckoo, the solitary, the joyless, enamored of the
privacy of his own thoughts; when did he fly away out of this brain?
The cuckoo is one of the famous birds, and is known the world over. He
is mentioned in the Bible, and is discussed by Pliny and Aristotle.
Jupiter himself once assumed the form of the cuckoo in order to take
advantage of Juno's compassion for the bird.

We have only a reduced and modified cuckoo in this country. Our bird is
smaller, and is much more solitary and unsocial. Its color is totally
different from the Old World bird, the latter being speckled, or a kind
of dominick, while ours is of the finest cinnamon-brown or drab above,
and bluish white beneath, with a gloss and richness of texture in the
plumage that suggests silk. The bird has also mended its manners in
this country, and no longer foists its eggs and young upon other birds,
but builds a nest of its own and rears its own brood like other well-
disposed birds.

The European cuckoo is evidently much more of a spring bird than ours
is, much more a harbinger of the early season. He comes in April, while
ours seldom appears till late in May, and hardly then appears. He is
printed, as they say, but not published. Only the alert ones know he is
here. This old English rhyme on the cuckoo does not apply this side the
Atlantic:--

"In April
Come he will,
In flow'ry May
He sings all day,
In leafy June
He changes his tune,