[[MIDI]]
A friend of Gilbert White’s found upon trial that the note of the cuckoo varies in different individuals. About Selborne Wood he found they were mostly in D. He heard two sing together, the one in D, the other in D sharp, which made a very disagreeable duet. He afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about Wolmer Forest some in C.
Gungl, in his “Cuckoo Galop,” gives the note of the cuckoo as B natural and G sharp. Dr. Arne, in his music to the cuckoo’s song in Love’s Labour’s Lost, gives it as C natural and G.
And now “will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo.
“Ver, begin:—
I.
“When daisies pied,[82] and violets blue,
And lady-smocks[83] fall silver white,
And cuckoo-buds[84] of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight;