is rather curious, however, that while he
combated the notion of cuckoos turning into
hawks, he fell into an error of the same sort,
and supposed that other birds which succeed
one another in alternate seasons, are transformed
one into the other. Thus he supposed the
redstart to be changed into the redbreast, and the
beccafico into the blackcap. The first, he says,
is a summer bird, and the second a winter bird,
and they differ in nothing but their colour. The
beccafico is an autumn bird, and the blackcap
is found immediately after the end of autumn.
They also differ from each other only in colour
and voice. Still, the error or otherwise of his
statement will all depend upon the exact birds
which were referred to under his Greek names,
and which cannot now be identified."

"You were saying just now that Plautus
used the word cuckoo as a term of abuse, but
I don't see why laziness should be especially
laid to its charge."

"No," returned Jackdaw, "not exactly so,
but you see the return of the cuckoo, as Hesiod
tells us, happened just when the husbandmen
had finished ploughing, and when, in fact, the
pruning and dressing of the vines, which took
place in early spring, ought to be finished.
Hence we gather from Horace, that if a
vinedresser was caught at this business late in the
season, after the cuckoo had arrived, he was
sure of encountering the raillery of the
passersby for his indolence and loss of time, and it
was customary with them to call out to him
'Cuckoo! cuckoo!' as much as to say,
'Lazybones! lazybones!' This, of course, aroused a
contest of abuse, and it seems that the
vinedressers had the foulest mouths, and usually
won the day. In Greek, the cry of 'Cuckoo!'
simply meant 'Hallo there!'"

While we were thus chattering together, we
came in sight of a barn door, upon which some
unfortunate birds had been nailed by the
gamekeeper. There were the remains of several,
some little more than bare skeletons, but among
them was conspicuous the bright metallic blue
of a recently-killed jay, pinned to the door with
a tenpenny nail. I remembered Jackdaw in
old times referring to this kind of collection as
the countryman's museum, and I reminded him
of the expression.

"You have not forgotten that, then," said
he, "but it was old Gilbert White who gave it
that name. He once picked up a good thing
from off a barn door— a variety of the peregrine
falcon it turned out to be, which was quite new
to him, and pleased Pennant vastly."

"But look here," I exclaimed, "this is not
a bird at all; why, it is a weasel, or some such
animal."

"Very likely," replied Jackdaw; "anything
is varmin which the keeper catches. But he
only does what others have done for thousands
of years before him. This method of disposing
of evil creatures is probably only a remnant of
an ancient superstition."

"Indeed! how so?"

"Well, Apuleius, in his funny story of the
Golden Ass, gives us a clue to it when he makes
some such remark as this: Don't we see, says
he, that the ominous birds, or night-birds, when
they have got into any house, are straightway
seized and nailed to the doors, in order that
they may atone by their torments for the evil
destiny which they portend to the family by
their inauspicious flight? So the keeper makes
them now-a-days atone for the mischief they have
done, or might do, to his pheasants."

"Who would have thought the custom was
so ancient? By the way, have you seen any of
your favourite swallows yet?"

"Yes, one, but only one; I am on the
lookout for them now."

"Only one," I said, seeing my way to a
masterstroke of modern satire. "Please to
remember one swallow does not make a summer.".

"Thank you for your new observation,"
Jackdaw answered. "Is there anything that is not
ancient about any common saying or opinion?
In the case of the birds, I think not. Are you
aware that the Greeks and Romans had
precisely that same proverb about the one swallow?"

"No! had they, though?" exclaimed I, taken
somewhat aback.

"That they had," pursued my friend, " with
a slight variation which showed their wisdom.
They said, one swallow does not make a spring,
which, after all, is more to the point. You will
find it in Aristotle's Ethics, and in Horace.
Aristophanes, in his jocular way, paraphrases
the proverb, and says of some poor devil with
scarce a coat to his back, that it was so
threadbare he had need of not a few swallows— as
much as to say he would want a good many
swallows to keep him at summer heat. And as
for the moderns, why the French, the Germans,
the Dutch, the Swedes, the Spaniards, the
Italians, and I can't tell you how many more
nations, have exactly the same proverb, so you
may fancy that it is pretty well hackneyed."

"Indeed it must be," I observed, "and it
shows how great and general favourites the
swallows must be."

"Yes, among the Romans, swallow was used
as a term of endearment, just as cuckoo was a
term of reproach. And Sir Humphry Davy's
rhapsody in praise of the swallow, in his
delightful Salmonia, appears to me so like the old
Greek swallow-song preserved by Athenæus,
that one might almost think it had been
suggested by it."

"You mean the song of the Rhodian boys, I
suppose?"

"Yes; they called it Chelidonisma, and sang
it from door to door, carrying with them a
swallow in a cage. The song is very pretty, for
although I fear the young rascals made the
return of the swallow a mere excuse for
wholesale begging, the pretended threats which the
song contained against those who are stingy,
are evidently all poured out in fun. It began
something in this way: 'The swallow has come!
yes, she has come, bringing with her sunny
hours, and bright seasons on her snowy bosom
and her jet-black wings!'"