144 Bird- Lore
evidence, that the Cuckoos not only often called and flew about at night, but habitually journeyed through the air at a great height, apparently going far. Walking in the fields, or lving under the stars, on pleasant nights, I rarely failed to hear several utterances of the gurgling Cuckoo note very high overhead, Sometimes one of the birds would call frequently enough so that its general course could be distinctly traced; but more often a single gurgle. sounding from somewhere in the starry heavens. was the only intimation of the transit of another Cuckoo.
” High overhead " is an ambiguous expression, which needs qualifying; but unfortunately it is impossible safely to estimate the height in such a case The birds were often so far up as to be only faintly audible when directly overhead, with no obstructions interposed; and this on a still night would seem to mean an elevation of at least a hundred and fifty yards. They sometimes flew lower. however, and on cloudy nights often moved about barely above the tree tops, On foggy nights they were apt to be vociferous, but chiefly with the [nu/raw notes, and flew little. I have heard them at all hours of the night, but mainly between eight and twelve. In my last summer's journal I have thus recorded an extraordinary ‘irrup- tion‘ of nocturnal Cuckoos: HJuly 14: Every night the Cuckoos call overhead. On the evening of July Il,—a pitch-dark evening with a thunder-shower loweringithey were remarkably noisy, both sitting in trees and flying high in airi The seated ones, of which I heard only two, made the raw-(aw notes, while all the flying ones made the liquid gurgle. I heard this note overhead between thirty and forty times in the course of about three hours. during half of which time I was afoot on the road. The birds were almost all flying high, and all but one of the five or six whose course could be traced seemed to be going northward." This was the climax of my last year's experieHCe with these queer birds.
The present summer of 1903 has been a repetition of the two previous ones as far as Cuckoo antics and my observations of them are concerned. From May to September the high-sky Cuckoo gurgle has been one of the regulation nightisounds.—so very familiar as quite to lose its poignancy of interest, One new item has been added to the chronicle, however; I have heard the note at the usual height overhead from an elevation of nearly 3,000 feet on the narrow rocky ridge of ML Monadnock! Now, though this bird may possibly have been wandering about the mountain, there was every indication that he was merely passing over it, in the course of a long journey. It is precisely as if the birds were migrating; which is impossible during the three months of summer, when the performance is at its height. Moreover, in view of the fact that l have seen a Cuckoo’s nest containing an unfledged young one on September 14. at the northern base of IVIonad- hock, not even the September night-Hyers can be considered migrants,
\Vhat, then, is the meaning of this weirdly incongruous performance,—
