Wheatear’s Nest and Eggs beneath a stone 195 Whinchat’s Nest and Eggs 203 Whitethroat on Nest 128 Whitethroat’s Nest and Eggs 127 Willow Wren bringing food to young in nest 91 Willow Wren’s Nest and Eggs 88 Willow Wrens, Young 89 Woodlark, Newly fledged 56 Woodlark’s Nest and Eggs 55 Wood Wren, Female, about to enter nest 40 Wood Wren’s Nest and Eggs 39 Wren about to enter Nest with food for chicks 62 Wren’s Nest amongst Ivy growing on the trunk of a tree 60 Yellow Hammer on Nest 215 Yellow Hammer’s Nest and Eggs 217 NATURE’S CAROL SINGERS. =THE CUCKOO.= “Not the whole warbling grove in concert heard When sunshine follows shower the breast can thrill Like the first summons, Cuckoo, of thy bill.” --_Wordsworth._ [Illustration: T]he soft, far reaching notes of the Cuckoo are loved by young and old alike, because they tell a tale of hope and gladness, of warm sunshine and sweet spring flowers. It has been regarded as “the darling of the year” all down the ages since the oldest known English lyric, in which it figures, was penned: “Sumer is icumen in, Loude sing Cuckoo.” The Cuckoo is a strange, mysterious bird whose history is not yet fully known in spite of all the careful attention it has received at the hands of naturalists for generations. It arrives in this country during April, and departs again in July, leaving its uncared-for young ones to follow, in August and September, to the winter quarters of the species in Africa’s sunny clime. [Illustration: FOSTER MOTHER TREE PIPIT STRETCHING HERSELF AFTER HAVING FED YOUNG CUCKOO.] The bird makes no attempt whatever at nest-building, but deposits its eggs singly, as a rule in those of small birds, and allows the little dupes to hatch out and rear its young. From its similarity in appearance to a small hawk the ancients believed that in the winter it changed into one. They were also firmly convinced that young Cuckoos not only swallowed all the other chicks in the nests in which they were hatched out themselves, but, as a mark of ingratitude, finally devoured their foster-parents. Although this was, of course, quite wrong, the real facts of the bird’s life and career are quite as romantic, as we shall see presently.