But rarely, very rarely, a far stranger cry is heard in those trees at
night, a voice as of one crying in pain the syllables 'ho-to-to-gi-su.'
The cry and the name of that which utters it are one and the same,
hototogisu.

It is a bird of which weird things are told; for they say it is not
really a creature of this living world, but a night wanderer from the
Land of Darkness. In the Meido its dwelling is among those sunless
mountains of Shide over which all souls must pass to reach the place of
judgment. Once in each year it comes; the time of its coming is the end
of the fifth month, by the antique counting of moons; and the peasants,
hearing its voice, say one to the other, 'Now must we sow the rice; for
the Shide-no-taosa is with us.' The word taosa signifies the head man of
a mura, or village, as villages were governed in the old days; but why
the hototogisu is called the taosa of Shide I do not know. Perhaps it is
deemed to be a soul from some shadowy hamlet of the Shide hills, whereat
the ghosts are wont to rest on their weary way to the realm of Emma, the
King of Death.

Its cry has been interpreted in various ways. Some declare that the
hototogisu does not really repeat its own name, but asks, 'Honzon
kaketaka?' (Has the honzon [33] been suspended?) Others, resting their
interpretation upon the wisdom of the Chinese, aver that the bird's
speech signifies, 'Surely it is better to return home.' This, at least
is true: that all who journey far from their native place, and hear the
voice of the hototogisu in other distant provinces, are seized with the
sickness of longing for home.

Only at night, the people say, is its voice heard, and most often upon