The cuckoo is a pretty bird,
She sings as she flies;
She brings us good tidings,
And tells us no lies.
She sucks little birds’ eggs
To make her voice clear;
She never sings ‘Cuckoo,’
Till summer is near.

Widely collected by the early twentieth century folk song collectors. Cecil Sharp, for example, found numerous versions, in Somerset, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire – and in the Appalachian mountains of the USA. The song was included in English Folk-Songs for Schools collected and arranged by Sabine Baring Gould and Cecil Sharp, published by J. Curwen & Sons Ltd., 1906, so it is entirely possible that George Mount’s grandchildren would have sung it in school. We have no information on George’s version beyond the verse quoted above, nor where he had learned the song.