Aristophanes makes one of his characters say that in former times the Kite ruled the Greeks; his meaning being that in ancient days the Kite was looked upon as the sign of Spring and of the necessity of commencing active work in field and garden; and again, “The Crow points out the time for sowing when she flies croaking to Libya.” In another place he notices that the Cuckoo in like manner governed Phœnicia and Egypt, because when it cried _Kokku, Kokku_, it was considered time to reap the Wheat and Barley fields. In our own country, this welcome harbinger of the Springtide has been associated with a number of vernal plants: we have the Cuckoo Flower (_Lychnis Flos cuculi_), Cuckoo’s Bread or Meat, and Cuckoo’s Sorrel (_Oxalis Acetosella_), Cuckoo Grass (_Lazula campestris_), and Shakspeare’s “Cuckoo Buds of yellow hue,” which are thought to be the buds of the Crowfoot (_Ranunculus_). The association in the popular rhyme of the Cuckoo with the Cherry-tree is explained by an old superstition that before it ceases its song, the Cuckoo must eat three good meals of Cherries. In Sussex, the Whitethorn is called the Cuckoo’s Bread-and-Cheese Tree, and an old proverb runs-- “When the Cuckoo comes to the bare Thorn, Then sell your Cow and buy your Corn.” Mr. Parish has remarked that it is singular this name should be given to the Whitethorn, as among all Aryan nations the tree is associated with lightning, and the Cuckoo is connected with the lightning gods Jupiter and Thor. Pliny relates that the Halcyon, or Kingfisher, at breeding-time, foretold calm and settled weather. The belief in the wisdom of birds obtained such an ascendancy over men’s minds, that we find at length no affair of moment was entered upon without consulting them. Thus came in augury, by which was meant a forewarning of future events derived from prophetic birds. One of these systems of divinations, for the purpose of discovering some secret or future event was effected by means of a Cock and grains of Barley, in the following manner: the twenty-four letters of the alphabet having been written in the dust, upon each letter was laid a grain of Barley, and a Cock, over which previous incantations had been uttered, was let loose among them; those letters off which it pecked the Barley, being joined together, were then believed to declare the word of which they were in search. The magician Jamblichus, desirous to find out who should succeed Valens in the imperial purple, made use of this divination, but the Cock only picked up four grains, viz., those which lay upon the (Greek) letters th. e. o. d., so that it was uncertain whether Theodosius, Theodotus, Theodorus, or Theodectes, was the person designed by the Fates. Valens, when informed of the matter, was so terribly enraged, that he put several persons to death simply because their names began with these letters. When, however, he proceeded to make search after the magicians