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Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

300. THE BIRDS AND THE CUCKOO
Perry 446 (Plutarch, Life of Aratus 30)

Aesop says that when the cuckoo asked the little birds why they ran away from him, they said it was because he would someday turn into a hawk.

Note: The metamorphosis of the cuckoo into a hawk is referred to in Aristotle, History of the Animals 563b.

Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.