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Title: The Ornithology of Shakespeare
Author: James Edmund Harting
Release date: January 17, 2013 [eBook #41860]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Irma Spehar, Jennifer Linklater and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORNITHOLOGY OF SHAKESPEARE ***
Produced by Irma Spehar, Jennifer Linklater and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
THE
ORNITHOLOGY
OF
SHAKESPEARE.
[Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
From the Chandos Portrait]
THE
ORNITHOLOGY
OF
SHAKESPEARE.
CRITICALLY EXAMINED, EXPLAINED, AND ILLUSTRATED.
BY
JAMES EDMUND HARTING, F.L.S., F.Z.S.,
MEMBER OF THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS’ UNION,
AUTHOR OF “THE BIRDS OF MIDDLESEX,”
ETC., ETC.
[Illustration: Publisher's Logo]
LONDON:
JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCLXXI.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER,
MILFORD LANE, STRAND, W.C.
PREFACE.
Of no other author, perhaps, has more been written than of Shakespeare.
Yet whatever other knowledge his commentators professed, few of them
appear to have been naturalists, and none, so far as I am aware, have
examined his knowledge of Ornithology.
An inquiry upon this subject, undertaken in the first instance for my
own amusement, has resulted in the bringing together of so much that is
curious and entertaining, that to the long list of books already
published about Shakespeare, I have been bold enough to add yet another.
In so doing, I venture to hope that the reader may so far appreciate the
result of my labour as not to consider it superfluous.
As regards the treatment of the subject, a word or two of explanation
seems necessary. In 1866, from the notes I had then collected, I
contributed a series of articles on the birds of Shakespeare to _The
Zoologist_. In these articles, I referred only to such birds as have a
claim to be considered British, and omitted all notice of domesticated
species. I had not then considered any special arrangement or grouping,
but noticed each species _seriatim_ in the order adopted by Mr. Yarrell
in his excellent “History of British Birds.” Since that date, I have
collected so much additional information on the subject, that, instead
of eighty pages (the extent of my first publication), three hundred have
now passed through the printers’ hands. With this large accession of
material, it was found absolutely necessary to re-arrange and re-write
the whole. The birds therefore have been now divided into certain
natural groups, including the foreign and domesticated species, to each
of which groups a chapter has been devoted; and I have thought it
desirable to give, by way of introduction, a sketch of Shakespeare’s
general knowledge of natural history and acquaintance with field-sports,
as bearing more or less directly on his special knowledge of
Ornithology, which I propose chiefly to consider.
After I had published the last of the series of articles referred to, I
received an intimation for the first time, that, twenty years
previously, a notice of the birds of Shakespeare had appeared in the
pages of _The Zoologist_. I lost no time in procuring the particular
number which contained the article, and found that, in December, 1846,
Mr. T. W. Barlow, of Holmes Chapel, Cheshire, had, to a certain extent,
directed attention to Shakespeare’s knowledge as an Ornithologist. His
communication, however, did not exceed half a dozen pages, in which
space he has mentioned barely one-fourth of the species to which
Shakespeare has referred. From the cursory nature of his remarks,
moreover, I failed to discover a reference to any point which I had not
already investigated. It would be unnecessary for me, therefore, to
allude to this article, except for the purpose of acknowledging that Mr.
Barlow was the first to enter upon what, as regards Shakespeare, may be
termed this new field of research.
The labour of collecting and arranging Shakespeare’s numerous allusions
to birds, has been much greater than many would suppose, for not only
have I derived little or no benefit from the various editions of his
works which I have consulted, but reference to a glossarial index, or
concordance, has, in nine cases out of ten, resulted in disappointment.
It is due to Mr. Staunton, however, to state that I have found some of
the foot-notes to his library edition of the Plays very useful.
Although oft-times difficult, it has been my endeavour, as far as
practicable, to connect one with another the various passages quoted or
referred to, so as to render the whole as readable and as entertaining
as possible. With this view, many allusions have been passed over as
being too trivial to deserve separate notice, but a reference to them
will be found in the Appendix at the end of the volume,[1] where all the
words quoted are arranged, for convenience, in the order in which they
occur in the plays and poems.
In spelling Shakespeare’s name, I have adopted the orthography of his
friends Ben Jonson and the editors of the first folio.[2]
As regards the illustrations, it seems desirable also to say a few
words.
In selecting for my frontispiece a portrait of Shakespeare as a falconer
(a character which I am confident could not have been foreign to him), I
have experienced considerable difficulty in making choice of a likeness.
Those who have made special inquiries into the authenticity of the
various portraits of Shakespeare, are not agreed in the results at which
they have arrived. This is to be attributed to the fact that, with the
exception of the Droeshout etching, to which I shall presently state my
objection, no likeness really exists of which a reliable history can be
given without one or more missing links in the chain of evidence.
There are four portraits which have all more or less claim to be
considered authentic. These are “the Jansen portrait,” 1610; “the
Stratford bust,” prior to 1623; “the Droeshout etching,” 1623; and “the
Chandos portrait,” of which the precise date is uncertain, but which
must have been painted some years prior to 1616, the year of
Shakespeare’s death.
It would be impossible, within the compass of this preface, to review
all that has been said for and against these four portraits. Neither
will space permit me to give the history of each in detail. I can only
briefly allude to the chief facts in connection with each, and state the
reasons which have influenced me in selecting the Chandos portrait.
Mr. Boaden, who was the first to examine into the authenticity of
reputed Shakespeare portraits,[3] has evinced a preference for the
so-called “Jansen portrait,” in the collection of the Duke of Somerset,
considering it to have been painted by Cornelius Jansen, in 1610, for
Lord Southampton, the great patron, at that date, of art and the drama.
The picture, indeed, bears upon the face of it an inscription--
Æ^te 46
1610
--which gives much weight to the views expressed by Mr. Boaden.
It is certain that, in the year mentioned, Jansen was in England, and
that he painted several pictures for Lord Southampton; it is equally
true, that at that date Shakespeare was in his forty-sixth year. But Mr.
Boaden fails to prove that this particular picture was painted by
Jansen, and that it was ever in the possession of Lord Southampton, or
painted by his order.
As a fine head, and a work of art, it is the one of all others that I
should like to think resembled Shakespeare, could its history be more
satisfactorily detailed.
Many regard as a genuine portrait, the Bust at Stratford-on-Avon, which
is stated to have been executed by Gerard Johnson, and “probably” under
the superintendence of Dr. John Hall. The precise date of its erection
is not known, but we gather that it was previous to 1623, from the fact
that Leonard Digges has referred to it in his Lines to the Memory of
Shakespeare, prefixed to the first folio edition of the Plays published
in that year. Mr. Wivell relies very strongly on the circumstance of its
having been originally coloured to nature.[4] Hence tradition informs us
that the eyes were hazel, the hair and beard auburn. It must be
admitted, however, that a portrait after death can never be so faithful
as a picture from the life, while no sculptor who examines this bust can
maintain that it was executed from a cast.[5]
Those who approve of the Droeshout etching, published in 1623, as a
frontispiece to the first folio, find a strong argument in favour of its
being a likeness in the commendatory lines by Ben Jonson, which
accompany it. Jonson knew Shakespeare well, and he says of this
picture:--
“This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature to outdoo the life.
O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brasse as he hath hit
His face, the print would then surpasse
All that was ever writ in brasse;
But since he cannot, reader, looke
Not on his picture, but his booke.”
As a work of art it is by no means skilful, and is confessedly inferior
not only to other engravings of that day, but also to other portraits by
Martin Droeshout.
That it bore some likeness to Shakespeare _as an actor_, I do not doubt,
but that it resembled him as a private individual when off the stage, I
cannot bring myself to believe. The straight hair and shaven chin which
are not found in other portraits having good claims to be considered
authentic, and the unnaturally high forehead, which would be caused by
the actor’s wearing the wig of an old man partially bald, suggest at
once that when the original portrait was taken, from which Droeshout
engraved, Shakespeare was dressed as if about to sustain a part in which
he was thought to excel as an actor.
Boaden has conjectured that this portrait represents Shakespeare in the
character of old Knowell, in Ben Jonson’s _Every Man in his Humour_, a
part which he is known to have played in 1598, and this would easily
account for Ben Jonson’s commendation.[6] This conjecture is so
extremely probable, that I have no hesitation in endorsing it.
We come, then, now to “the Chandos portrait.” With the longest pedigree
of any, it possesses at least as much collateral evidence of
probability, and is, moreover, important as belonging to the nation.[7]
It has been traced back to the possession of Shakespeare’s godson,
William, afterwards Sir William, Davenant, and all that seems to be
wanting materially, is the artist’s name. The general opinion is, that
it was painted either by Burbage or Taylor, both of whom were
fellow-players of Shakespeare. It is styled the Chandos portrait from
having come to the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery from the
collection of the Duke of Chandos and Buckingham, through the Earl of
Ellesmere, by whom it was purchased and presented. The history of the
picture, so far as it can be ascertained, is as follows:--
It was originally the property of Taylor, the player (our poet’s
Hamlet), by whom, or by Richard Burbage, it was painted.[8]
Taylor dying about the year 1653, at the advanced age of seventy,[9]
left this picture by will to Davenant.[10] At the death of Davenant, who
died intestate in 1663, it was bought, probably at a sale of his
effects, by Betterton, the actor.
While in Betterton’s possession, it was engraved by Van der Gucht, for
Rowe’s edition of Shakespeare, in 1709. Betterton dying without a will
and in needy circumstances, his pictures were sold. Some were bought by
Bullfinch, the printseller, who sold them again to a Mr. Sykes. The
portrait of Shakespeare was purchased by Mrs. Barry, the actress, who
afterwards sold it for forty guineas to Mr. Robert Keck, of the Inner
Temple.
While in his possession, an engraving was made from it, in 1719, by
Vertue, and it then passed to Mr. Nicholls, of Southgate, Middlesex, who
acquired it on marrying the heiress of the Keck family.
The Marquis of Caernarvon, afterwards Duke of Chandos, marrying the
daughter of Mr. Nicholls, it then became his Grace’s property. When his
pictures were sold at Stowe, in September, 1848, this portrait was
purchased for three hundred and fifty-five guineas by the Earl of
Ellesmere, who, in March, 1856, presented it to the Trustees of the
National Portrait Gallery, in whose hands it still remains.
Notwithstanding this pedigree, the picture has been objected to on the
ground that the dark hair and foreign complexion could never have
belonged to our essentially English Shakespeare. Those who make this
objection, seem to forget entirely the age of the portrait, and the fact
that it is painted in oil and on canvas, a circumstance which of itself
is quite sufficient, after the lapse of two centuries and a half, to
account for the dark tone which now pervades it, to say nothing of the
numerous touches and retouches to which it has been subjected at the
hands of its various owners.
Notwithstanding the missing links of evidence, it seems to me that,
having traced the picture back to the possession of Shakespeare’s
godson, we have gone far enough to justify us in accepting it as an
authentic portrait in preference to many others. For we cannot suppose
that Sir William Davenant would retain in his possession until his death
a picture of one with whom he was personally acquainted, unless he
considered that it was sufficiently faithful as a likeness to remind him
of the original.
On the score of pedigree, then, and because I believe that the only
well-authenticated portrait (_i.e._, the Droeshout) represents
Shakespeare as an actor, and not as a private individual, I have
selected the Chandos portrait for my frontispiece.
By obtaining a reduced photograph of this _upon wood_, from the best
engraving, and “vignetting” it, I have been enabled to place upon the
left hand a hooded falcon, drawn by the unrivalled pencil of Mr. Wolf,
and thus to entrust to the engraver, Mr. Pearson, a faithful likeness of
man and bird.
As regards the other illustrations, my acknowledgments are due to Mr. J.
G. Keulemans for the artistic manner in which he has executed my
designs, and to Mr. Pearson for the careful way in which he has engraved
them.
With these observations, I conclude an undertaking which has occupied my
leisure hours for six years, but which indeed has been, in every sense
of the word, “a labour of love.”
Should the reader, on closing this volume, consider its design but
imperfectly executed, it is hoped that he will still have gleaned from
it enough curious information to compensate him for the
disappointment.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION. PAGE
SHAKESPEARE’S GENERAL KNOWLEDGE OF NATURAL HISTORY.
His Love of Sport.--Hawking.--Fishing.--Hunting.--Fowling.--
Deer-Shooting.--Deer-Stealing.--“The Subtle Fox” and “Timorous
Hare.”--Coursing.--Coney-Catching.--Wild Animals mentioned by
Shakespeare.--His Knowledge of their Habits.--Insects referred to
in the Plays.--Shakespeare’s Powers of Observation.--Practical
Knowledge of Falconry.--Love of Birds. 1
CHAPTER I.
THE EAGLE AND LARGER BIRDS OF PREY.
An “Eagle Eye.”--Power of Flight.--A good Omen.--“The Bird of
Jove.”--The Roman Eagle.--The “Ensign” of the Eagle.--Habits and
Attitudes.--Eagles’ Eggs.--Longevity of the Eagle: its Age
computed.--The Eagle trained for Hawking.--The Vulture: its
Repulsive Habits.--The Osprey: its Power over Fish.--The Kite.--
The Kite’s Nest.--The Buzzard. 23
CHAPTER II.
HAWKS AND HAWKING.
Explanation of Hawking Terms.--The Falcon and Tiercel.--The
Qualities of a good Falconer.--The “Lure” and its Use.--The
“Quarry”--The Hawk’s “Trappings.”--Jesses, Bells, and Hood.--An
Unmann’d Hawk.--The Cadge--The Hawks Mew.--The Royal Mews.--Origin
of the word “Mews.”--Imping.--How to “Seel” a Hawk.--A Hawk for
the Bush.--Going “a-birding.”--The “Stanniel” or Kestrel.--Origin
of the Two Names.--The “Musket” or Sparrow-Hawk.--Hawk and
Hernshaw.--Prices of Hawks.--Hawk’s Furniture.--Hawk’s
Meat.--Falconer’s Wages.--Sundries. 49
CHAPTER III.
THE OWL AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.
“The Bird of Juno.”--“The Favourite of Minerva.”--“The Bird of
Wisdom.”--Sacred to Proserpine.--Use in Medicine.--The Bird of
Ill-Omen.--Its Appearance by Day.--Its Habits misunderstood.--Its
Utility to the Farmer.--A Curious Tradition.--Its Note or Cry.--An
Owl Robbing Nests.--Evidence not conclusive.--Its Retiring
Habits.--Its “Five Wits.”--Its Fame in Song.--The Owl’s Good Night. 83
CHAPTER IV.
THE CROWS AND THEIR RELATIONS.
The Raven: a Bird of Ill Omen.--Its Supposed Prophetic Power.--Its
Deep and Solemn Voice.--The Raven’s Croak foreboding Death.--The
“Night-Raven” and “Night-Crow.”--The Raven’s Presence on
Battlefields.--Its alleged Desertion of its Young.--The Rook and
Crow.--The Crow-Keeper, and “Scare-Crow.”--The Chough.--Russet-pated
Choughs.--The Daw, Magpie, and Jay. 99
CHAPTER V.
THE BIRDS OF SONG.
The Nightingale.--“Lamenting Philomel.”--Singing against a
Thorn.--Erroneously supposed to Sing only by Night.--
“Recording.”--The Lark.--“The Herald of the Morn.”--Singing at
Heaven’s Gate.--Song of the Lark.--Soaring and Singing.--Changing
Eyes with Toad.--Lark-Catching.--The Common Bunting.--“The Throstle,
with his Note so True.”--Imitation of his Song.--The Ouzel-Cock.
--The Robin-Redbreast, or Ruddock.--Covering the Dead with Leaves.
--“Redbreast Teacher.”--“The Wren with Little Quill.”--Its Loud
Song.--The Sparrow.--“Philip Sparrow.”--Providence in the Fall of
a Sparrow.--The Hedge-Sparrow and Cuckoo.--“The Cuckoo’s Bird.”
--“Ungentle Gull.”--“The Plain Song Cuckoo Gray.”--The Song of
the Cuckoo.--Cuckoo Songs.--The Wagtail, or Dishwasher.--
Bird-catching.--Springes.--Gins.--Bat-fowling.--Its Two
Significations.--Bird-Lime, Bird-Bolts, and Birding-Pieces. 123
CHAPTER VI.
THE BIRDS UNDER DOMESTICATION.
Cock.--“Cock-Crow.”--“Cock-shut-time.”--“Cock-a-Hoop.”--“Cock and
Pye.”--Cock-Fighting.--Ancestry of the Domestic Cock.--The
Peacock.--Its Introduction into Europe, and Ancient Value.--In
Request for the Table.--The Turkey.--Date of Introduction into
England.--Shakespeare’s Anachronism.--Pigeons.--First used as
Letter-Carriers.--A Present of Pigeons.--Meaning of
“Pigeon-Liver’d.”--Pigeon-Post.--Mode of Feeding the Young.--The
Barbary Pigeon.--The Rock-Dove.--Doves and Dovecotes.--The “Doves
of Venus.”--“The Dove of Paphos.”--“As True as Turtle to her Mate:”
“as Plantage to the Moon.”--Mahomet’s Dove.--A Dish of Doves.--The
Goose.--“Green-Geese,” and “Stubble-Geese.”--“Cackling home to
Camelot.”--“The Wild-Goose Chase.”--The Swan.--“The Bird of
Apollo.”--Song of the Swan.--Habits of the Swan.--The Swan’s
Nest.--As Soft as Swan’s-down.--“Juno’s Swans.”--Cygnets. 167
CHAPTER VII.
THE GAME-BIRDS AND “QUARRY” FLOWN AT BY FALCONERS.
Sporting in Shakespeare’s Day.--The Pheasant.--Date of its
Introduction into Britain.--Ancient Value of Game.
--Game-Preserving.--Game-Laws.--Partridge-Hawking.--Anecdote
of Charles I.--Quails.--Quail-Fighting.--The Lapwing.--Feigning to
be Wounded.--Running as soon as Hatched.--The Heron, or
Hernshaw.--Heron-Hawking.--Hawk and Hernshaw--Heron at Table.--The
Woodcock.--Springes for Woodcocks.--How to Make a Springe.--A
Gin.--“The Woodcock’s Head.”--The Snipe. 209
CHAPTER VIII.
WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL.
“A Flight of Fowl.”--Habit of Wounded
Birds.--“Duck-Hunting.”--Swimming “like a Duck.”--Wild-fowling in
Shakespeare’s Day.--“The Stalking-Horse.”--“The Caliver.”--“The
Stale.”--Wild-Geese.--Sign of Hard Weather.--The Barnacle
Goose.--Barnacles.--Wild Fowl.--Divers and Grebes.--The
“Loon.”--The “Di-dapper.”--The Cormorant.--Its Voracity.--Fishing
with Cormorants.--The King’s Cormorants.--Their “Keep” at
Westminster.--Fishing at Thetford.--The Master of the
Cormorants.--Entries in State Papers.--The Home of the
Cormorant.--The Sea-side.--Shakespeare’s Sea-cliffs and
“Sea-mells.”--Gulls and Gull-Catchers. 235
CHAPTER IX.
BIRDS NOT INCLUDED IN THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS.
The Parrot “clamorous against Rain.”--Talking like a Parrot.--A
rare “Parrot-Teacher.”--The Popinjay.--The Starling.--Its Talking
Powers.--The Kingfisher.--Halcyon Days.--Flight of the
Kingfisher.--Estimated Speed.--The Swallow and “Martlet.”--The
Swallow’s Herb and Swallow’s Stone.--The “Ostridge.”--“Eating
Iron”--Bating with the Wind.--The Pelican.--Feeding its Young with
its Blood.--Explanation of the Fable.--Former Existence of a
Pelican in the English Fens.--Conclusion. 271
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
[THE HEAD AND TAIL PIECES FROM DESIGNS BY THE AUTHOR.]
PAGE
William Shakespeare, adapted from the Chandos Portrait
by J. Wolf, engraved by G. Pearson _Frontis._
Deer-Shooting, drawn by J. G. Keulemans, engraved by G. Pearson 1
Rabbit and Beagle „ „ 22
Goshawk and Hare „ „ 23
White-tailed Eagle in Trap „ „ 48
Falcon and Wild Duck „ „ 49
The Jesses „ „ 58
The Bells „ „ 60
The Hood „ „ 61
The Cadge „ „ 63
Imping „ „ 68
The Keeper’s Tree „ „ 82
Owl Mobbed by Small Birds „ „ 83
Long-eared Owl „ „ 98
Rooks and Magpies „ „ 99
Jay Stealing Eggs „ „ 122
Blackbird, Thrush, } „ „ 123
Nightingale, and Wren }
Bird-Trap „ „ 162
Birding-Piece of Prince Charles „ „ 165
Sparrow and Trap „ „ 166
Turkey, Peacock, and Pigeon „ „ 167
Dog and Wounded Duck „ „ 208
Pheasant and Partridges „ „ 209
A Springe for Woodcocks „ „ 229
Quails Fighting „ „ 234
Wild-Fowl Alighting „ „ 235
Caliver of the Sixteenth Century „ „ 242
The Barnacle Goose „ „ 247
The Barnacle Goose Tree. } „ „ 248
_From Aldrovandus_ }
The Barnacle Goose Tree. } „ „ 250
_From Gerard_ }
Barnacles. _From Nature._ „ „ 253
Black-headed Gull „ „ 270
Kingfisher and Swallows „ „ 271
Pelican and Young „ „ 298
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTION.
Before proceeding to examine the ornithology of Shakespeare, it may be
well to take a glance at his knowledge of natural history in general.
Pope has expressed the opinion that whatever object of nature or branch
of science Shakespeare either speaks of or describes, it is always with
competent if not with exclusive knowledge. His descriptions are always
exact, his metaphors appropriate, and remarkably drawn from the true
nature and inherent qualities of each subject. There can indeed be
little doubt that Shakespeare must have derived the greater portion of
his knowledge of nature from his own observation, and no one can fail to
be delighted with the variety and richness of the images which he has by
this means produced.
Whether we accompany him to the woods and fields, midst “daisies pied
and violets blue,” or sit with him “under the shade of melancholy
boughs,” whether we follow him to “the brook that brawls along the
wood,” or to that sea “whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege of
watery Neptune,” we are alike instructed by his observations, and
charmed with his apt descriptions. How often do the latter strike us as
echoes of our own experience, sent forth in fitter tones than we could
find.
A sportsman is oft-times more or less a naturalist. His rambles in
search of game bring him in contact with creatures of such curious
structure and habits, with insects and plants of such rare beauty, that
the purpose of his walk is for the time forgotten, and he turns aside
from sport, to admire and learn from nature.
That Shakespeare was both a sportsman and a naturalist, there is much
evidence to show. During the age in which he lived “hawking” was much in
vogue. Throughout the Plays, we find frequent allusions to this sport,
and the accurate employment of terms used exclusively in falconry, as
well as the beautiful metaphors derived therefrom, prove that our poet
had much practical knowledge on the subject. We shall have occasion
later to discuss his knowledge of falconry at greater length. It will
suffice for the present to observe that there are many passages in the
Plays which to one unacquainted with the habits of animals and birds, or
ignorant of hawking phraseology, would be wholly unintelligible, but
which are otherwise found to contain the most beautiful and forcible
metaphors. As instances of this may be cited that passage in _Othello_
(Act iii. Sc. 3), where the Moor compares his suspected wife to a
“haggard falcon,” and the hawking scene in Act ii. of the Second Part of
_King Henry VI._[11]
Shakespeare, although a contemplative man, appears to have found but
little “recreation” in fishing, and the most enthusiastic disciple of
Izaak Walton would find it difficult to illustrate a work on angling
with quotations from Shakespeare. He might refer us to _Twelfth Night_
(Act ii. Sc. 5), where Maria, on the appearance of Malvolio, exclaims,
“Here comes the _trout_ that must be caught with tickling;” and to the
song of Caliban in _The Tempest_ (Act ii. Sc. 2), “No more dams I’ll
make for fish.” Possibly, by straining a point or two, he might ask with
Benedick, in _Much Ado about Nothing_ (Act i. Sc. 1), “Do you play the
flouting Jack?”
But our poet seems to have considered--
“The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait.”
_Much Ado_, Act iii. Sc. 1.[12]
His forte lay more in hunting and fowling than in fishing,[13] and in
all that relates to deer-stalking (as practised in his day, when the
deer was killed with cross-bow or bow and arrow), to deer-hunting with
hounds, and to coursing, we find him fully informed.
In the less noble art of bird-catching[14] he was probably no mean
adept, while the knowledge which he displays of the habits of our wild
animals, as the fox, the badger, the weasel, and the wild cat, could
only have been acquired by one accustomed to much observation by flood
and field.
On each of these subjects a chapter might be written, but it will
suffice for our present purpose to draw attention only to some of the
more remarkable passages in support of the assertions above made.
Deer-shooting was a favourite sport of both sexes in Shakespeare’s day,
and to enable the ladies to enjoy it in safety, “stands,” or
“standings,” were erected in many parks, and concealed with boughs. From
these the ladies with bow and arrow, or cross-bow, shot at the deer as
they were driven past them by the keepers.
Queen Elizabeth was extremely fond of this sport, and the nobility who
entertained her in her different progresses, made large hunting parties,
which she usually joined when the weather was favourable. She frequently
amused herself in following the hounds. “Her Majesty,” says a courtier,
writing to Sir Robert Sidney, “is well and excellently disposed to
hunting, for every second day she is on horseback, and continues the
sport long.”[15] At this time Her Majesty had just entered the
seventy-seventh year of her age, and was then at her palace at Oatlands.
Often, when she was not disposed to hunt herself, she was entertained
with a sight of the sport. At Cowdray Park, Sussex, then the seat of
Lord Montagu (1591), Her Majesty one day after dinner saw “sixteen
bucks, all having fayre lawe, pulled downe with greyhounds in a laund or
lawn.”[16]
No wonder, then, that the ladies of England, with the royal example
before their eyes, found such delight in the chase during the age of
which we speak, and not content with being mere spectators, vied with
each other in the skilful use of the bow.
To this pastime Shakespeare has made frequent allusion.
In _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, the first scene of the fourth act is laid in
a park, where the Princess asks,--
“Then, forester,[17] my friend, where is the bush
That we must stand and play the murtherer in?”
To which the forester replies,--
“Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
A ‘stand’ where you may make the fairest shoot.”
And in _Henry VI._ Part III. Act iii. Sc. 1,--
“Under this thick-grown brake we’ll shroud ourselves;
For through this laund anon the deer will come;
And in this covert will we make our ‘stand,’
Culling the principal of all the deer.”
Again, in _Cymbeline_ (Act iii. Sc. 4), “When thou hast ta’en thy
‘stand,’ the elected deer before thee.” Other passages might be
mentioned, but it will be sufficient to refer only to _The Merry Wives
of Windsor_ (Act v. Sc. 5), and to the song in _As You Like It_ (Act iv.
Sc. 2), commencing “What shall he have that kill’d the deer?”
Deer-stealing in Shakespeare’s day was regarded only as a youthful
frolic. Antony Wood (“Athen. Oxon.” i. 371), speaking of Dr. John
Thornborough, who was admitted a member of Magdalen College, Oxford, in
1570, at the age of eighteen, and who was successively Bishop of
Limerick and Bishop of Bristol and Worcester, informs us, that he and
his kinsman, Robert Pinkney, “seldom studied or gave themselves to their
books, but spent their time in the fencing schools, and dancing schools,
in stealing deer and conies, in hunting the hare and wooing girls.”
Shakespeare himself has been accused of this indiscretion. The story is
first told in print by Rowe, in his “Life of Shakespeare”:--“He had, by
a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company,
and amongst them some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing
engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas
Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that
gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely; and in order to revenge
that ill-usage, he made a ballad upon him. And though this, probably the
first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very
bitter, that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree,
that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire,
for some time, and shelter himself in London.”
Mr. Staunton, in his library edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, says: “What
degree of authenticity the story possesses will never probably be known.
Rowe derived his version of it no doubt through Betterton; but Davies
makes no allusion to the source from which he drew his information, and
we are left to grope our way, so far as this important incident is
concerned, mainly by the light of collateral circumstances. These, it
must be admitted, serve in some respects to confirm the tradition.
Shakespeare certainly quitted Stratford-upon-Avon when a young man, and
it could have been no ordinary impulse which drove him to leave wife,
children, friends, and occupation, to take up his abode among strangers
in a distant place.
“Then there is the pasquinade, and the unmistakable identification of
Sir Thomas Lucy as Justice Shallow, in the Second Part of _Henry IV._,
and in the opening scene of _The Merry Wives of Windsor_. The
genuineness of the former may be doubted; but the ridicule in the Plays
betokens a latent hostility to the Lucy family, which is unaccountable,
except upon the supposition that the deerstealing foray is founded on
facts.”
The more legitimate sport in killing deer was by means of blood-hounds,
and in _The Midsummer Night’s Dream_ we are furnished with an accurate
description of the dogs in most repute:--
“My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-knee’d, and dew-lapp’d like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match’d in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Was never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn.”
Act iv. Sc. 1.
In the _Comedy of Errors_ (Act iv. Sc. 2), Dromio of Syracuse alludes to
“a hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry foot well,” and in the
_Taming of the Shrew_ we have the following animated dialogue:--
“_Lord_. Saw’st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.
_Huntsman_. Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord;
He cried upon it at the merest loss,
And twice to-day pick’d out the dullest scent:
Trust me, I take him for the better dog.”
Many more such instances might be adduced, but the reader might perhaps
be tempted to exclaim, with Timon of Athens:--
“Get thee away, and take thy beagles with thee.”
Act iv. Sc. 3.
We will therefore only glance at that amusing scene in the _Merry Wives
of Windsor_ (Act v. Sc. 5), where Falstaff appears in Windsor Forest,
disguised with a buck’s head on. “Divide me,” says he, “like a
brib’d-buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders
for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands.”
We have here an allusion to the ancient method of “breaking up” a
deer.[18] “The fellow of this walk” is the forester, to whom it was
customary on such occasions to present a shoulder. Dame Juliana Berners,
in her “Boke of St. Albans,” 1496, says,--
“And the right shoulder, wheresoever he be,
Bere it to the _foster_, for that is fee.”
And in Turbervile’s “Book of Hunting,” 1575, the distribution of the
various parts of a deer is minutely described.
The touching description of a wounded stag, in _As You Like It_, can
scarcely escape notice. Alluding to “the melancholy Jaques,” one of the
lords says,--
“To-day my lord of Amiens and myself
Did steal behind him, as he lay along
Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood;
To the which place a poor sequestred stag,
That from the hunters’ aim had ta’en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heav’d forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Cours’d one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on th’ extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.”
Act ii. Sc. 1.
Although the deer, as the nobler animal, has received more attention
from our poet than the fox and the hare, yet the two last-named are by
no means forgotten:--
“The fox [who] barks not when he would steal the lamb”
(_Henry VI._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1);
who, when he “hath once got in his nose,” will “soon find means to make
the body follow” (_Henry VI._ Part III. Act iv. Sc. 7); and--
“Who ne’er so tame, so cherish’d and lock’d up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors”
(_Cymbeline_, Act v. Sc. 2);
receives his share of notice, although it is not always in his praise,
and “subtle as the fox” has become a proverb (_Cymbeline_, Act iii. Sc.
3).
From the “subtle fox” to the “timorous hare,” the transition is easy.
What “more a coward than a hare”? (_Twelfth Night_, Act iii. Sc. 5.)
In Roxburgh and Aberdeen, as we learn from Jamieson’s “Scottish
Dictionary,” a hare is termed “a bawd,” and the knowledge of this fact
enables us to understand the dialogue in _Romeo and Juliet_, which would
otherwise be unintelligible:--
“_Mercutio._ A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!
_Romeo._ What hast thou found?
_Mercutio._ No hare, sir.”
Act ii. Sc. 4.
That coursing was in vogue in Shakespeare’s day, and practised in the
same way as at present, we may infer from such expressions as “a good
hare-finder” (_Much Ado_, Act i. Sc. 1), “Holla me like a hare”
(_Coriolanus_, Act i. Sc. 8), and “I see you stand like greyhounds in
the slips, straining upon the start” (_Henry V._ Act iii. Sc. 1).
Rabbits were taken, and no doubt poached, in the same way then as now;
for we read of the coney[19] “that you see dwell where she is kindled”
(_As You Like It_, Act iii. Sc. 2) struggling “in the net.” (_Henry VI._
Part III. Act i. Sc. 4.)
The Brock[20] or Badger (_Twelfth Night_, Act ii. Sc. 5); the Wild Cat
who “sleeps by day” (_Merch. of Venice_, Act ii. Sc. 5, and _Pericles_,
Act iii. Intro.); “the quarrelous Weasel” (_Cymbeline_, Act iii. Sc. 4,
and _Henry IV._ Part I. Act ii. Sc. 3); “the Dormouse of little valour”
(_Twelfth Night_, Act iii. Sc. 1); “the joiner Squirrel” (_Romeo and
Juliet_, Act i. Sc. 4), whose habit of hoarding appears to have been
well known to Shakespeare (_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act iv. Sc. 2);
and “the blind Mole,” who “casts copp’d hills towards heaven”
(_Pericles_, Act i. Sc. 1);[21]--all these are mentioned in their turn,
while the Bat “with leathern wing,”[22] “the venom Toad,” “the thorny
Hedgehog,”[23] “the Adder blue,” and the “spotted Snake with double
tongue,” are all called in most aptly by way of simile or metaphor.
We cannot forget Titania’s directions to her fairies in regard to
Bats:--
“Some war with _rear mice_[24] for their leathern wings,
To make my small elves coats”
(_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act ii. Sc. 2);
nor the comfortable seat which Ariel appears to have found “on the bat’s
back” (_Tempest_, Act v. Sc. 1).
The following striking passage must also be familiar to readers of
Shakespeare:--
“Ere the bat hath flown
His cloister’d flight; ere, to black Hecate’s summons,
The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums,
Hath rung night’s yawning peal,
There shall be done a deed of dreadful note.”
_Macbeth_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
In a printed broadside of the time of Queen Anne, in the collection of
the Society of Antiquaries of London, is the following curious fable
relating to the Bat:--
“615. THE BIRDS AND BEASTS. A Fable.
“Once the Birds and Beasts strove for the prerogative: the neuter
Batt, seeing the Beasts prevail, goes to them and shows them her
large forehead, long ears, and teeth: afterwards, when the Birds
prevail’d, the Batt flies with the Birds, and sings chit, chit,
chat, and shows them her wings.
“Hence Beakless Bird, hence Winged Beast, they cry’d;
Hence plumeless wings; thus scorn her either side.
“LONDON. PRINTED FOR EDW. LEWIS,
FLOWER-DE-LUCE COURT, FLEET STREET. 1710.”
In alluding to the “venom toad” as “mark’d by the destinies to be
avoided,” Shakespeare probably only treated it as other writers had done
before him, and, without any personal investigation of the matter,
ranked it with the viper and other poisonous reptiles, when in fact it
is perfectly harmless.
The habit which the snake has, in common with other reptiles, of
periodically casting its skin or slough, is frequently alluded to in the
Plays, where that covering is sometimes called “the enamell’d skin”
(_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act ii. Sc. 1); at other times the “casted
slough” (_Henry V._ Act iv. Sc. 1, and _Twelfth Night_, Act iii. Sc. 4);
and the “shining checker’d slough” (_Henry VI._ Part II. Act iii. Sc.
1).
It is difficult to say why the Adder is supposed to be deaf, unless
because it has no visible ears--but then the term would apply to other
reptiles. Shakespeare has several times alluded to this. In the Second
Part of _King Henry VI._ Act iii. Sc. 2, Queen Margaret asks the King,--
“What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?”
And in _Troilus and Cressida_, Act ii. Sc. 2, Hector says to Paris and
Troilus,--
“Pleasure and revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decision.”
Again, in Sonnet CXII., “the adder’s sense” is referred to in such a way
as to leave no doubt of the poet’s impression that adders do not hear.
“_Caliban._ Sometime am I
All wound with adders, who, with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness.”
_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
The “eyeless venom’d worm” referred to in _Timon of Athens_, Act iv. Sc.
3, is of course the Slow-worm (_Anguis fragilis_).
The observant naturalist must doubtless have remarked the partiality
evinced by snakes and other reptiles for basking in the sun. Shakespeare
has noticed that--
“The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun.”
_Titus Andronicus_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
And--
“It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking.”
_Julius Cæsar_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
In _Macbeth_, Act iii. Sc. 2, allusion is made to the wonderful vitality
which snakes possess, and to the popular notion that they are enabled,
when cut in two, to reunite the dissevered portions and recover:--
“We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it;
She’ll close and be herself.”
Passing to the insect world, we may well be astonished at the number of
species to which Shakespeare has alluded. Although the same attention
has not been given to the insects as to the birds, the following have,
nevertheless, been noted. Many others, doubtless, have been overlooked.
The Beetle (_Macbeth_, Act iii. Sc. 2; _King Lear_, Act iv. Sc. 6;
_Measure for Measure_, Act iii. Sc. 1). The Grasshopper (_Romeo and
Juliet_, Act i. Sc. 4). The Cricket, (_Pericles_, Act iii. Introduction;
_Winter’s Tale_, Act ii. Sc. 1; _Romeo and Juliet_, Act i. Sc. 4;
_Cymbeline_, Act ii. Sc. 2). The Glowworm (_Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 5); and
the Caterpillar (_Richard II._ Act ii. Sc. 4; _Henry VI._ Part II. Act
iii. Sc. 1; _Twelfth Night_, Act ii. Sc. 1; _Romeo and Juliet_, Act i.
Sc. 1). The Butterfly (_Troilus and Cressida_, Act iii. Sc. 3;
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act iii. Sc. 1); and Moth (_Merchant of
Venice_, Act ii. Sc. 9; _King John_, Act iv. Sc. 1). The House-fly
(_Titus Andronicus_, Act iii. Sc. 2). The small Gilded-fly (_King Lear_,
Act iv. Sc. 6). The Blow-fly (_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act v. Sc. 2;
_Tempest_, Act iii. Sc. 1); and the Gad-fly, or Brize (_Troilus and
Cressida_, Act i. Sc. 3). The Grey-coated Gnat (_Romeo and Juliet_, Act
i. Sc. 4; _Comedy of Errors_, Act ii. Sc. 2); the Wasp (_Taming of the
Shrew_, Act ii. Sc. 1; _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, Act i. Sc. 2; _Henry
VIII._ Act iii. Sc. 2); the Drone (_Henry V._ Act i. Sc. 2); and the
Honey-bee (numerous passages).
To three only of these shall we direct further attention: firstly,
because a more extended notice of all would be beyond the limits of the
present work; and, secondly, because the Entomology of Shakespeare has
been already dealt with elsewhere.[25]
These three are the Bee, the Drone, and the Fly, and we select
quotations in reference to these in order to illustrate Shakespeare’s
knowledge of the subject on which he wrote; the lessons to be learnt
from his allusions; and the sympathy which he has manifested for all
living creatures.
What better picture of the interior of a hive can be found than the
following? How well are the duties of the inmates described!
“For so work the honey bees,
Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading-up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-ey’d justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o’er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,--
That many things, having full reference
To one consent, may work contrariously;
As many arrows, loosed several ways,
Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;
As many lines close in the dial’s centre;
So may a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat.”
_Henry V._ Act i. Sc. 2.
“The lazy yawning drone” is frequently alluded to as the type of
idleness and inactivity (_Pericles_, Act ii. Sc. 1; _Henry VI._ Part II.
Act iii. Sc. 2).
And we are counselled--
“Not to eat honey, like a drone,
From others’ labours.”
_Pericles_, Act i. Sc. 4.
Who does not remember the scene in which Titus Andronicus reproves his
brother Marcus for killing a fly at dinner?--
“_Marcus._ Alas, my lord, I have but kill’d a fly.
_Titus._ But how if that fly had a father and mother?
How would he hang his slender gilded wings,
And buzz lamenting doings in the air!
Poor harmless fly!
That, with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry! and thou hast kill’d him.”
_Titus Andronicus_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
This is but one of the many lessons taught us by Shakespeare in his
allusions to the animal world, and the kindly spirit which characterizes
all his dealings with animals is frequently exemplified throughout the
Plays; perhaps nowhere so clearly as in _Measure for Measure_, Act iii.
Sc. 1, where we are told--
“The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.”
Probably enough has been said to show the reader that Shakespeare’s
knowledge of natural history was by no means slight, and if it be
thought to have been only general, it was, at all events, accurate. The
use which he has made of this knowledge, throughout his works, in
depicting virtue and vice in their true colours, in pointing out lessons
of industry, patience, and mercy, and in showing the profit to be
derived from a study of natural objects, is everywhere apparent.
The words of the banished Duke, in _As You Like It_ (Act ii. Sc. 1),
seem to no one so applicable as to Shakespeare himself. He--
“Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
But to come to the Ornithology. The accurate observations on this
subject, the apt allusions, and the beautiful metaphors to be met with
throughout the Plays, may be said to owe their origin mainly to three
causes. Firstly, Shakespeare had a good practical knowledge of Falconry,
a pastime which, being much in vogue in his day, brought under his
notice, almost of necessity, many wild birds, exclusive of the various
species which were hawked at and killed. Secondly, he was a great
reader, and, possessing a good memory, was enabled subsequently to
express in verse ideas which had been suggested by older authors.
Thirdly, and most important of all, he was a genuine naturalist, and
gathered a large amount of information from his own practical
observations. In all his walks, he evidently did not fail to note even
the most trivial facts in natural history, and these were treasured up
in his memory, to be called forth as occasion required, to be aptly and
eloquently introduced into his works.
Apart from the consideration that a poet may be expected, almost of
necessity, to invoke the birds of song, Shakespeare has gone further,
and displays a greater knowledge of ornithology, and a greater accuracy
in his statements, than is generally the case with poets. How far we
shall succeed in proving this assertion, it will be for the reader of
the following pages to determine.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
THE EAGLE AND THE LARGER BIRDS OF PREY.
At the head of the diurnal birds of prey, most authors have agreed in
placing the Eagles. Their large size, powerful flight, and great
muscular strength, give them a superiority which is universally
admitted. In reviewing, therefore, the birds of which Shakespeare has
made mention, no apology seems to be necessary for commencing with the
genus _Aquila_.
Throughout the works of our great dramatist, frequent allusions may be
found to an eagle, but the word “eagle” is almost always employed in a
generic sense, and in a few instances only can we infer, from the
context, that a particular species is indicated. Indeed, it is not
improbable that in the poet’s opinion only one species of eagle existed.
Be this as it may, the introduction of an eagle and his attributes, by
way of simile or metaphor, has been accomplished by Shakespeare with
much beauty and effect. Considered as the emblem of majesty, the eagle
has been variously styled “the king of birds,” “the royal bird,” “the
princely eagle,” and “Jove’s bird,” while so great is his power of
vision, that an “eagle eye” has become proverbial.
[Sidenote: POWER OF VISION.]
“Behold, his eye,
As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth
Controlling majesty.”
_Richard II._ Act iii. Sc. 3.
The clearness of vision in birds is indeed extraordinary, and has been
calculated, by the eminent French naturalist Lacépède, to be nine times
more extensive than that of the farthest-sighted man. The opinion that
the eagle possessed the power of gazing undazzled at the sun, is of
great antiquity. Pliny relates that it exposes its brood to this test as
soon as hatched, to prove if they be genuine or not. Chaucer refers to
the belief in his “Assemblie of Foules”:--
“There mighten men the royal egal find,
That with his sharp look persith the sonne.”
So also Spenser, in his “Hymn of Heavenly Beauty,”--
“And like the native brood of eagle’s kind,
On that bright sun of glory fix their eyes.”
[Sidenote: AN EAGLE EYE.]
It is not surprising, therefore, that Shakespeare has borrowed the
idea:--
“Nay, if thou be that princely eagle’s bird,
Show thy descent by gazing ’gainst the sun.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Again--
“What peremptory eagle-sighted eye
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow,
That is not blinded by her majesty?”
_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
But in the same play and scene we are told--
“A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind.”
And in this respect Paris was said to excel:--
“An _eagle_, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye,
As Paris hath.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act iii. Sc. 5.
The supposition that the eye of the eagle is green must be regarded as a
poetic license. In all the species of this genus with which we are
acquainted, the colour of the iris is either hazel or yellow. But it
would be absurd to look for exactness in trifles such as these.
[Sidenote: POWER OF FLIGHT.]
The power of flight in the eagle is no less surprising than his power of
vision. Birds of this kind have been killed which measured seven or
eight feet from tip to tip of wing, and were strong enough to carry off
hares, lambs, and even young children. This strength of wing is not
unnoticed by Shakespeare:--
“This was but as a fly by an eagle.”
_Antony and Cleopatra_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
And--
“An eagle flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no track behind.”
_Timon of Athens_, Act i. Sc. 1.
This last line recalls to mind the following allusion to the flight of
the Jerfalcon:--“Then prone she dashes with so much velocity, that the
impression of her path remains on the eye, in the same manner as that of
the shooting meteor or flashing lightning, and you fancy that there is a
torrent of falcon rushing for fathoms through the air.”[26]
Spenser, in the fifth book of his “Faerie Queene” (iv. 42), has depicted
the grandeur of an eagle on the wing:--
“Like to an eagle in his kingly pride
Soring thro’ his wide empire of the aire
To weather his brode sailes.”
But notwithstanding his great powers of flight, we are reminded that the
eagle is not always secure. Guns, traps, and other engines of
destruction are directed against him, whenever and wheresoever
opportunity occurs:--
“And often, to our comfort, shall we find
The sharded beetle in a safer hold
Than is the full-wing’d eagle.”
_Cymbeline_, Act iii. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: A GOOD OMEN.]
With the Romans, the eagle was a bird of good omen. Josephus, the Jewish
historian, says the eagle was selected for the Roman legionary standard,
because he is the king of all birds, and the most powerful of them all,
whence he has become the emblem of empire, and the omen of victory.[27]
Accordingly, we read in _Julius Cæsar_, Act v. Sc. 1:--
“Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign
Two mighty eagles fell; and there they perch’d,
Gorging and feeding from our soldiers’ hands.”
This incident is more fully detailed in North’s “Plutarch,” as
follows:--“When they raised their campe, there came two eagles, that
flying with a marvellous force, lighted upon two of the foremost
ensigns, and alwaies followed the souldiers, which gave them meate and
fed them, untill they came neare to the citie of Phillipes; and there
one day onely before the battell, they both flew away.”
The ensign of the eagle was not peculiar, however, to the Romans. The
golden eagle, with extended wings, was borne by the Persian
monarchs,[28] and it is not improbable that from them the Romans
adopted it; while the Persians themselves may have borrowed the symbol
from the ancient Assyrians, on whose banners it waved until Babylon was
conquered by Cyrus.
As a bird of good omen, the eagle is often mentioned by Shakespeare:--
“I chose an eagle, and did avoid a puttock.”
_Cymbeline_, Act i. Sc. 2.
The name “Puttock” has been applied both to the Kite and the Common
Buzzard, and both were considered birds of ill omen.
[Sidenote: THE BIRD OF JOVE.]
In Act iv. Sc. 2, of the same play, we read,--
“I saw Jove’s bird, the Roman eagle, wing’d
From the spungy south to this part of the west,
There vanish’d in the sunbeams.”
This was said to portend success to the Roman host. In Izaak Walton’s
“Compleat Angler,” we are furnished with a reason for styling the eagle
“Jove’s bird.” The falconer, in discoursing on the merits of his
recreation with a brother angler, says,--“In the air my troops of hawks
soar upon high, and when they are lost in the sight of men, then they
attend upon and converse with the gods; therefore I think my eagle is so
justly styled Jove’s servant in ordinary.”
“For the Roman eagle,
From south to west on wing soaring aloft,
Lessen’d herself, and in the beams o’ the sun
So vanish’d: which foreshadow’d our princely eagle,
The imperial Cæsar, should again unite
His favour with the radiant Cymbeline,
Which shines here in the west.”
_Cymbeline_, Act v. Sc. 5.
[Sidenote: THE ROMAN EAGLE.]
In a paper “On the Roman Imperial and Crested Eagles,”[29] Mr. Hogg
says,--“The Roman Eagle, which is generally termed the Imperial Eagle,
is represented with its head _plain_, that is to say, _not crested_. It
is in appearance the same as the attendant bird of the ‘king of gods and
men,’ and is generally represented as standing at the foot of his
throne, or sometimes as the bearer of his thunder and lightning. Indeed
he also often appears perched on the top of his sceptre. He is always
considered as the attribute or emblem of ‘Father Jove.’”
A good copy of this bird of Jupiter, called by Virgil and Ovid “Jovis
armiger,” from an antique group, representing the eagle and Ganymedes,
may be seen in Bell’s “Pantheon,” vol. i. Also “a small bronze eagle,
the ensign of a Roman legion,” is given in Duppa’s “Travels in Sicily”
(2nd ed., 1829, tab. iv.). That traveller states, that the original
bronze figure is preserved in the Museum of the Convent of St. Nicholas
d’Arcun, at Catania. This Convent is now called Convento di S.
Benedetto, according to Mr. G. Dennis, in his “Handbook of Sicily,” (p.
349); and he mentions this ensign as “a Roman legionary eagle in
excellent preservation.”
[Sidenote: THE ENSIGN OF THE EAGLE.]
From the second century before Christ, the eagle is said to have become
the sole military ensign, and it was mostly small in size, because
Florus (lib. 4, cap. 12) relates that an ensign-bearer, in the wars of
Julius Cæsar, in order to prevent the enemy from taking it, pulled off
the eagle from the top of the gilt pole, and hid it by placing it under
cover of his belt.
In later times, the eagle was borne with the legion, which, indeed,
occasionally took its name, “_aquila_.” This eagle, which was also
adopted by the Roman emperors for their imperial symbol, is considered
to be the _Aquila heliaca_ of Savigny (_imperialis_ of Temminck), and
resembles our golden eagle, _Aquila chrysaëtos_, in plumage, though of a
darker brown, and with more or less white on the scapulars. It differs
also in the structure of the foot. It inhabits Southern Europe, North
Africa, Palestine, and India. Living examples of this species may be
seen at the present time in the Gardens of the Zoological Society.
[Sidenote: HABITS AND ATTITUDES.]
Sicilius, in _Cymbeline_ (Act v. Sc. 4), speaking of the apparition and
descent of Jupiter, who was seated upon an eagle, says,--
“The holy eagle
Stoop’d, as to foot us: his ascension is
More sweet than our blest fields: his royal bird
Prunes the immortal wing, and cloys his beak,
As when his god is pleas’d.”
“_Prune_” signifies to clean and adjust the feathers, and is synonymous
with _plume_. A word more generally used, perhaps, than either, is
_preen_.
_Cloys_ is, doubtless, a misprint for _cleys_, that is, _claws_. Those
who have kept hawks must often have observed the habit which they have
of raising one foot, and whetting the beak against it. This is the
action to which Shakespeare refers. The same word occurs in Ben Jonson’s
“Underwoods,” (vii. 29) thus:--
“To save her from the seize
Of vulture death, and those relentless _cleys_.”
The verb “to cloy” has a very different signification, namely, “to
satiate,” “choke,” or “clog up.” Shakespeare makes frequent use of it.
In “Lucrece” it occurs:--
“But poorly rich, so wanteth in his store,
That, _cloy’d_ with much, he pineth still for more.”
And again, in _Richard II._ (Act i. Sc. 3):--
“O, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or _cloy_ the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feast?”
See also _Henry V._ Act ii. Sc. 2.
Sometimes the word was written “accloy;” as, for instance, in Spenser’s
“Faerie Queene” (ii. 7)--
“And with uncomely weeds the gentle wave _accloyes_.”
And in the same author’s “Shepheard’s Calendar” (February, 135)--
“The mouldie mosse which thee _accloyeth_.”
It is clear, therefore, that the word occurring in the fourth scene of
the fifth act of _Cymbeline_, should be written _cleys_, and not
_cloys_.
[Sidenote: EAGLE’S EGGS.]
But to return from this digression; there is a passage in the first act
of _Henry V._ Sc. 2, which seems to deserve some notice while on the
subject of eagles, _i.e._:--
“For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs.”
That the weasel sucks eggs, and is partial to such fare, is very
generally admitted. Shakespeare alludes to the fact again in _As You
Like It_ (Act ii. Sc. 5), where Jaques says:--“I can suck melancholy out
of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs.” But whether the weasel has ever been
found in the same situation or at such an altitude as the eagle, is not
so certain. A near relative of the weasel, however, namely, a
marten-cat, was once found in an eagle’s nest. “The forester, having
reason to think that the bird was sitting hard, peeped over the cliff
into the eyrie. To his amazement, a marten was suckling her kittens in
comfortable enjoyment.”[30]
The allusion above made to the “princely eggs,” reminds us of the
princely bird which laid them, and those who have read the works of
Shakespeare--and who has not?--must doubtless remember the beautiful
simile uttered by Warwick when dying on the field of Barnet:--
“Thus yields the cedar to the axe’s edge,
Whose arms gave shelter to the _princely_ eagle.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act v. Sc. 2.
The conscious superiority of the eagle is depicted by Tamora, who tells
us:--
“The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
And is not careful what they mean thereby,
Knowing that with the shadow of his wing
He can at pleasure stint their melody.”
_Titus Andronicus_, Act iv. Sc. 4.
[Sidenote: LONGEVITY OF THE EAGLE.]
The great age to which this bird sometimes attains has been remarked by
most writers on Ornithology. The Psalmist has beautifully alluded to it
where he says of the righteous man,--“His youth shall be renewed like
the eagle’s.” A golden eagle, which had been nine years in the
possession of Mr. Owen Holland, of Conway, lived thirty-two years with
the gentleman who made him a present of it, but what its age was when
the latter received it from Ireland is unknown.[31] Another, that died
at Vienna, was stated to have lived in confinement one hundred and four
years.[32] A white-tailed eagle captured in Caithness, died at Duff
House in February, 1862, having been kept in confinement, by the late
Earl of Fife, for thirty-two years. But even the eagle may be outlived.
Apemantus asks of Timon:--
“Will these moss’d trees,
That have outliv’d the eagle, page thy heels,
And skip when thou point’st out?”
_Timon of Athens_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
The old text has “moyst trees.” The emendation, however, which was made
by Hanmer, is strengthened by the line in _As You Like It_ (Act iv.
Sc. 3):--
“Under an oak, whose boughs were _moss’d_ with age.”
In an old French “riddle-book,” entitled “Demands Joyous,” which was
printed in English by Wynkyn de Worde in 1511 (a single copy only of
which is said to be extant), is the following curious “demande” and
“response.” It is here transcribed, as bearing upon the subject of the
age of an eagle:--
“_Dem._ What is the age of a field-mouse?
_Res._ A year. And the life of a hedge-hog is three times that of a
mouse; and the life of a dog is three times that of a hedge-hog; and
the life of a horse is three times that of a dog; and the life of a
man is three times that of a horse; and the life of a goose is three
times that of a man; and the life of a swan is three times that of a
goose; and the life of a swallow is three times that of a swan; _and
the life of an eagle is three times that of a swallow_; and the life
of a serpent is three times that of an eagle; and the life of a
raven is three times that of a serpent; and the life of a hart is
three times that of a raven; and an oak groweth 500 years, and
fadeth 500 years.”
[Sidenote: ITS AGE COMPUTED.]
The Rev. W. B. Daniel alludes[33] to “the received maxim that animals
live seven times the number of years that bring them to perfection,”
upon which computation the average life of an eagle would be twenty-one
years. But this maxim is founded on a misconception. Fleurens, in his
treatise “De la Longévité Humaine,” says that the duration of life in
any animal is equal to five times the number of years requisite to
perfect its growth, and that the growth has ceased when the bones have
finally consolidated with their _epiphyses_, which in the young are
merely cartilages.
Like many other rapacious birds, eagles are very fond of bathing, and it
has been found essential to supply them with baths when in confinement,
in order to keep them in good health. The freshness and vigour which
they thus derive is alluded to in _Henry IV._ (Part I. Act iv. Sc. 1):--
“_Hotspur._ Where is his son,
The nimble-footed mad-cap Prince of Wales,
And his comrades?...
_Vernon._ All furnish’d, all in arms; ...
Like eagles having lately bath’d.”
The larger birds of prey are no less fond of washing, though they care
so little for water to drink, that it has been erroneously asserted that
they never drink. “What I observed,” says the Abbé Spallanzani,[34] “is,
that eagles, when left even for several months without water, did not
seem to suffer the smallest inconvenience from the want of it, but when
they were supplied with water, they not only got into the vessel and
sprinkled their feathers like other birds, but repeatedly dipped the
beak, then raised the head, in the manner of common fowls, and swallowed
what they had taken up. Hence it is evident that they drink.”
[Sidenote: EAGLES TRAINED FOR HAWKING.]
In Persia, Tartary, India, and other parts of the East, the eagle was
formerly, and is still to a certain extent, used for hunting down the
larger birds and beasts. In the thirteenth century, the Khan of Tartary
kept upwards of two hundred hawks and eagles, some of which had been
trained to catch wolves; and such was the boldness and power of these
birds, that none, however large, could escape from their talons.[35]
Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,”[36] quoting from Sir Antony
Shirley’s “Travels,” says: “The Muscovian Emperours reclaim eagles, to
let fly at hindes, foxes, &c., and such a one was sent for a present to
Queen Elizabeth.”
A traveller to the Putrid Sea, in 1819, wrote: “Wolves are very common
on these steppes; and they are so bold that they sometimes attack
travellers. We passed by a large one, lying on the ground with an eagle,
which had probably attacked him, by his side. Its talons were nearly
buried in his back; in the struggle both had died.”[37]
[Sidenote: TIRING.]
Owing to the great difficulty in training them, as well as to the
difficulty in obtaining them, eagles have rarely been trained to the
chase in England. Some years since, Captain Green, of Buckden, in
Huntingdonshire, had a fine golden eagle, which he had taught to take
hares and rabbits;[38] and this species has been found to be more
tractable than any other.
Whether Shakespeare was aware of the use of trained eagles or not, we
cannot say, but he has in many cases employed hawking terms in
connection with this bird:--
“That hateful duke,
Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,
Will cost my crown, and, like an empty eagle,
_Tire_ on the flesh of me and of my son!”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act i. Sc. 1.
The meaning of the word _tire_ is thus explained by falconers. When a
hawk was in training, it was often necessary to prolong her meal as much
as possible, to prevent her from gorging; this was effected by giving
her a tough or bony bit to _tire on_; that is, to tear, or pull at.
“Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,
_Tires_ with her beak on feathers, flesh, and bone,
Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste,
Till either gorge be stuff’d, or prey be gone.”
_Venus and Adonis._
So also, in _Timon of Athens_ (Act iii. Sc. 6), one of the lords says:--
“Upon that were my thoughts _tiring_ when we encounter’d.”
[Sidenote: THE EAGLE’S EYRIE.]
In the following passage, two hawking terms are used in connection with
the eagle:--
“Know, the gallant monarch is in arms,
And, like an eagle o’er his aiery, _towers_,
To _souse_ annoyance that comes near his nest.”
_King John_, Act v. Sc. 2.
This passage has been differently rendered, by removing the punctuation
between “aiery” and “towers,” and reading the former “airey” or “airy,”
and making “towers” a substantive. But the meaning of the passage, as it
stands above, seems to us sufficiently clear.
“Aiery” is equivalent to “eyrie,” the nesting-place. The word occurs
again in _Richard III._ (Act i. Sc. 3):--
“Our _aiery_ buildeth in the cedar’s top;”
and,
“Your _aiery_ buildeth in our _aiery’s_ nest.”
The verb “to tower,” in the language of falconry, signifies “to rise
spirally to a height.” Compare the French “_tour_.” As a further
argument, too, for reading “towers” as a verb, and not as a substantive,
compare the following passage from _Macbeth_, which plainly shows that
Shakespeare was not unacquainted with this word as a hawking term:--
“A falcon _towering_ in her pride of place.”
_Macbeth_, Act ii. Sc. 4.
[Sidenote: THE FATAL SWOOP.]
The word “souse,” above quoted, is likewise borrowed from the language
of falconry, and, as a substantive, is equivalent to “swoop.” It would
seem to be derived from the German “sausen,” which signifies to rush
with a whistling sound like the wind; and this is certainly expressive
of the “whish” made by the wings of a falcon when swooping on her prey.
There is a good illustration of this passage in Drayton’s “Polyolbion,”
Song xx., where a description of hawking at wild-fowl is given. After
the falconers have put up the fowl from the sedge, the hawk, in the
words of the author, having previously “towered,” “gives it a souse.”
Beaumont and Fletcher also make use of this word as a hawking term in
_The Chances_, iv. 1; and it occurs in Spenser’s “Faerie Queene,” Book
iv. Canto v. 30.
A notice of the various hawks made use of by falconers, and mentioned by
Shakespeare, might be here properly introduced, but it will be more
convenient to reserve this notice for a separate chapter, and confine
our attention for the present to the larger diurnal birds of prey which,
like the eagles, are seldom, if ever, reclaimed by man.
Of these, excluding the eagle, Shakespeare makes mention of four--the
Vulture, the Osprey, the Kite, and the Buzzard.
[Sidenote: THE VULTURE:]
Those who are acquainted with the repulsive habits of the Vulture, led
as he is by instinct to gorge on carrion, will best understand the
allusions to this bird which are to be met with in the works of
Shakespeare.
What more forcible expression can be found to indicate a guilty
conscience than “the gnawing vulture of the mind”? (_Titus Andronicus_,
Act v. Sc. 2.)
“There cannot be
That vulture in you, to devour so many.”
_Macbeth_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
When King Lear would denounce the unkindness of a daughter, which he
could never forget, laying his hand upon his heart, he exclaims:--
“O Regan, she hath tied
Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here.”
_King Lear_, Act ii. Sc. 4.
[Sidenote: ITS REPULSIVE HABITS.]
One of the worst wishes to which Falstaff could give vent when in a bad
humour, was:--
“Let vultures gripe thy guts!”
_Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act i. Sc. 3.
And the same idea is expressed in _Henry IV._ (Part II. Act v. Sc. 4):--
“Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!”
Occasionally we find the word “vulture” employed as an adjective:--
“Her sad behaviour feeds her vulture folly.”
_Lucrece._
And--
“Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high.”
_Venus and Adonis._
[Sidenote: THE OSPREY:]
The structure of the Osprey is wonderfully adapted to his habits, and an
examination of the feet of this bird will prove how admirably contrived
they are for grasping and holding a slippery fish. Mr. St. John, who had
excellent opportunities of studying the Osprey in his native haunts,
says:[39]--“I generally saw the osprey fishing about the lower pools of
the rivers near their mouths; and a beautiful sight it is. The
long-winged bird hovers (as a kestrel does over a mouse), at a
considerable distance above the water, sometimes on perfectly motionless
wing, and sometimes, wheeling slowly in circles, turning his head and
looking eagerly down at the water. He sees a trout when at a great
height, and suddenly closing his wings, drops like a shot bird into the
water, often plunging completely under, and at other times appearing
scarcely to touch the water, but seldom failing to rise again with a
good-sized fish in his talons. Sometimes, in the midst of his swoop, the
osprey stops himself suddenly in the most abrupt manner, probably
because the fish, having changed its position, is no longer within
range. He then hovers, again stationary, in the air, anxiously looking
below for the re-appearance of the prey. Having well examined one pool,
he suddenly turns off, and with rapid flight takes himself to an
adjoining part of the stream, where he again begins to hover and circle
in the air. On making a pounce into the water, the osprey dashes up the
spray far and wide, so as to be seen for a considerable distance.”
After this description, it is easy to understand the allusion of
Aufidius, who says:--
“I think he’ll be to Rome,
As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
By sovereignty of nature.”
_Coriolanus_, Act iv. Sc. 7.
[Sidenote: ITS POWER OVER FISH.]
Mr. Staunton thinks that the image is founded on the fabulous power
attributed to the osprey of fascinating the fish on which he preys. In
Peele’s play of _The Battle of Alcazar_, 1594 (Act i. Sc. 1), we read:--
“I will provide thee of a princely osprey,
That, as he flieth over fish in pools,
The fish shall turn their glistering bellies up,
And thou shalt take thy liberal choice of all.”
[Sidenote: THE KITE,]
Another of the birds of prey mentioned by Shakespeare is “the lazar
Kite” (_Henry V._ Act ii. Sc. 1). Although a large bird, and called by
some the royal Kite (_Milvus regalis_), it has not the bold dash of many
of our smaller hawks in seizing live and strong prey, but glides about
ignobly, looking for a sickly or wounded victim, or for offal of any
sort.
“And kites
Fly o’er our heads, and downward look on us,
As we were sickly prey.”
_Julius Cæsar_, Act v. Sc. 1.
“Ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal.”
_Hamlet_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
“A prey for carrion kites.”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act v. Sc. 2.
From the ignoble habits of the bird, the name “kite” became a term of
reproach:--
“You kite!”
_Antony and Cleopatra_, Act iii. Sc. 13.
And--
“Detested kite!”
_King Lear_, Act i. Sc. 4.
When pressed by hunger, however, the kite becomes more fearless; and
instances have occurred in which a bird of this species has entered the
farmyard and boldly carried off a chicken.
“Wer’t not all one, an empty eagle were set
To guard the chicken from a hungry kite,
As place Duke Humphrey for the king’s protector?”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The synonym “puttock” is sometimes applied to the kite, sometimes to the
common buzzard. In the following passage, where reference is made to the
supposed murder of Gloster by Suffolk, it evidently has reference to the
former bird:--
“Who finds the partridge in the puttock’s nest,
But may imagine how the bird was dead,
Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: A BIRD OF ILL-OMEN.]
With the ancients the kite appears to have been a bird of ill-omen. In
_Cymbeline_ (Act i. Sc. 2), Imogen says:--
“I chose an eagle, and did avoid a puttock.”
And the superiority of the eagle is again adverted to by Hastings, in
_Richard III._ (Act i. Sc. 1):--
“More pity that the eagle should be mew’d,
While kites and buzzards prey at liberty.”
The intractable disposition of the kite is thus noticed:--
“Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come, and know her keeper’s call;
That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites,
That bate, and beat, and will not be obedient.”
_Taming of the Shrew_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
A wild hawk was sometimes tamed by watching it night and day, to prevent
its sleeping. In “An approved treatyse of Hawks and Hawking,” by Edmund
Bert, Gent., which was published in London in 1619, the author says:--“I
have heard of some who watched and kept their hawks awake seven nights
and as many days, and then they would be wild, rammish, and disorderly.”
This practice is often alluded to by Shakespeare:--
“You must be _watch’d_ ere you be made tame, must you?”
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
“I’ll _watch_ him tame.”
_Othello_, Act iii. Sc. 3.
“But I will _watch_ you from such _watching_ now.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act iv. Sc. 4.
[Sidenote: HABITS OF THE KITE.]
The habit which the kite has, in common with other rapacious birds, of
rejecting or disgorging the undigested portions of its food, such as
bones and fur, in the shape of pellets, was apparently well known to
Shakespeare, for he says:--
“If charnel-houses and our graves must send
Those that we bury back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites.”
_Macbeth_, Act iii. Sc. 4.
And again,--
“Thou detestable maw ...
Gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act v. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: THE KITE’S NEST.]
Another curious fact in the natural history of the kite is adverted to
in the _Winter’s Tale_ (Act iv. Sc. 2). It is there said,--
“When the kite builds, look to lesser linen.”
This line may be perhaps best illustrated by giving a description of a
kite’s nest which we have seen, and which was taken many years ago in
Huntingdonshire. The outside of the nest was composed of strong sticks;
the lining consisted of small pieces of linen, part of a saddle-girth, a
bit of a harvest glove, part of a straw bonnet, pieces of paper, and a
worsted garter. In the midst of this singular collection of materials
were deposited two eggs. The kite is now almost extinct in England, and
a kite’s nest, of course, is a great rarity. The Rev. H. B. Tristram,
speaking of the habits of the Egyptian kite (_Milvus Ægyptius_),
says:[40]--“Its nest, the marine store-shop of the desert, is decorated
with whatever scraps of bournouses and coloured rags can be collected;
and to these are added, on every surrounding branch, the cast-off coats
of serpents, large scraps of thin bark, and perhaps a bustard’s wing.”
[Sidenote: THE BUZZARD.]
We have alluded to the Buzzard (_Buteo vulgaris_) in the passage above
quoted from _Richard III._, and also to the synonym “puttock,” which was
sometimes applied to this bird, as well as to the kite.
Mr. St. John, who was well acquainted with the common buzzard, thought
that in all its habits it more nearly resembled the eagle than any other
kind of hawk.[41]
In the following passage, it seems probable, as suggested by Mr.
Staunton, that a play upon the words is intended, and that “buzzard” in
the second line means a beetle, so called from its buzzing noise:--
“O slow-wing’d turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?
Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.”
_Taming of the Shrew_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
Neither the kite nor the buzzard were ever trained for hawking, being
deficient both in speed and pluck.
The former, however, was occasionally “flown at” by falconers, although
oftener for want of a better bird, than because he showed much sport.
Both are now far less common than in Shakespeare’s day. The increased
number of shooters, and the war of extermination which is carried on by
gamekeepers, inevitably seal their doom.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
HAWKS AND HAWKING.
To those who have ever taken part in a hawking excursion, it must be a
matter of some surprise that so delightful a pastime has ceased to be
popular. Yet, at the present day, perhaps not one person in five hundred
has ever seen a trained hawk flown. In Shakespeare’s time things were
very different. Every one who could afford it kept a hawk, and the rank
of the owner was indicated by the species of bird which he carried. To a
king belonged the gerfalcon; to a prince, the falcon gentle; to an earl,
the peregrine; to a lady, the merlin; to a young squire, the hobby;
while a yeoman carried a goshawk; a priest, a sparrowhawk; and a knave,
or servant, a kestrel. But the sport was attended with great expense,
and much time and attention were required of the falconer before his
birds were perfectly trained, and he himself a proficient.
This, combined with the increased enclosure and cultivation of waste
lands, has probably contributed as much as anything to the decline of
falconry in England.
[Sidenote: THE AGE OF HAWKING.]
During the age in which Shakespeare lived, the sport was at its height,
and it is, therefore, not surprising that he has taken much notice of it
in his works, and has displayed a considerable knowledge on the subject.
In the second part of _King Henry VI._ Act 2, we find a scene laid at
St. Alban’s, and the King, Queen, Gloster, Cardinal, and Suffolk
appearing, with falconers halloaing. We quote that portion of the scene
which refers more particularly to the sport:--
“_Queen._ Believe me, lords, for _flying at the brook_,
I saw not better sport these seven years’ day:
Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high;
And, ten to one, old Joan[42] had not gone out.
_King._ But what a _point_, my lord, your falcon made,
And what a _pitch_ she flew above the rest!--
To see how God in all his creatures works!
Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.
_Suff._ No marvel, an it like your majesty,
My lord protector’s hawks do _tower_ so well;
They know their master loves to be aloft,
And bears his thoughts above his falcon’s _pitch_.
_Glo._ My lord, ’tis but a base ignoble mind
That mounts no higher than a bird can _soar_.
_Card._ I thought as much; he’d be above the clouds.
* * * * *
Believe me, cousin Gloster,
Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,
We had had more sport.”
[Sidenote: HAWKING TERMS.]
“Flying at the brook” is synonymous with “hawking by the river,” and
shows us that the party were in pursuit of water-fowl. Chaucer speaks of
“Ryding on, hawking by the river,
With grey goshawk in hand.”
“_Point._”--The fluttering or hovering over the spot where the “quarry”
has been “put in.”
“_Pitch._”--The height to which a hawk rises before swooping.
“How high a _pitch_ his resolution soars!”
_Richard II._ Act i. Sc. 1.
“_Tower._”--A common expression in falconry, signifying to rise spirally
to a height. Compare the French “_tour_.” The word occurs again in
_Macbeth_, Act ii. Sc. 4, with reference to a fact which we might well
be excused for doubting, did we not know that it was related as an
unusual circumstance:--
“On Tuesday last,
A falcon, _tow’ring_ in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.”
[Sidenote: THE FALCON AND TERCEL.]
Many of the incidents connected with Duncan’s death are not to be found
in the narrative of that event, but are taken from the chronicler’s
account of King Duffe’s murder. Among the prodigies there mentioned is
the one referred to by Shakespeare. “Monstrous sightes also, that were
seene without the Scottishe kingdome that year, were these.... There was
a sparhauke also strangled by an owle.” We have known a Tawny Owl to
kill and devour a Kestrel which had been kept in the same aviary with
it.
By “tow’ring in her pride of place,” is here understood to mean circling
at her highest point of elevation. So in Massinger’s play of _The
Guardian_, Act i. Sc. 2:--
“Then for an evening flight
A tiercel gentle which I call, my masters,
As he were sent a messenger to the moon,
In such a _place_, flies, as he seems to say
See me or see me not.”
By the falcon is always understood the female, as distinguished from the
tercel, or male, of the peregrine or goshawk. The latter was probably
called the tercel, or tiercel, from being about _a third_ smaller than
the falcon. Some authorities, however, state that of the three young
birds usually found in the nest of a falcon, two of them are females and
_the third_ a male; hence the name of tercel.[43]
[Sidenote: THE TERCEL-GENTLE.]
By others, again, the term is supposed to have been derived from the
French _gentil_, meaning neat or handsome, because of the beauty of its
form.
There appears to be a great deal of confusion in the nomenclature of the
hawks used in falconry. The same name has been applied to two distinct
species, and the same species, in different states of plumage, has
received two or more names. With regard to the “tercel,” as
distinguished from the “tercel-gentle,” it would appear that the former
name was given to the male goshawk, and the latter to the male
peregrine; for the peregrine being a long-winged hawk, and the more
_noble_ of the two, the word “gentle,” or “gentil,” was applied to it
with that signification.
In this view we are supported to some extent by quaint old Izaak Walton.
In his “Compleat Angler,” there is an animated conversation between an
angler, a hunter, and a falconer, each of whom in turn commends his own
recreation. The falconer gives a list of his hawks, and divides them
into two classes, viz.: the long-winged and short-winged hawks. In
enumerating each species in pairs, he gives first the name of the
female, and then that of the male: among the first class we find--
The gerfalcon and jerkin,
The falcon and tercel-gentle, &c.
In the second class we have--
The eagle and iron,[44]
The goshawk and tercel, &c.
From this we may conclude that the name tercel-gentle was applied to the
male peregrine, a long-winged hawk, to distinguish it from the tercel,
or male goshawk, a short-winged hawk.
[Sidenote: DOCILITY OF THE FALCON.]
The female falcon, from her greater size and strength, was always
considered superior to the male--stronger in flight:--
“As confident as is the falcon’s flight
Against a bird.”
_Richard II._ Act i. Sc. 3.
And possessing more powerful talons:--
“So doves do peck the falcon’s piercing talons.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act i. Sc. 4.
She was more easily trained, and capable of being flown at larger game.
Hence Shakespeare asserts--
“The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i’ the river.”
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
Sometimes we find the word “tercel” written “tassel,” as in _Romeo and
Juliet_ (Act ii. Sc. 2):--
“O, for a falconer’s voice,
To lure this _tassel-gentle_ back again!”
Spenser almost invariably spells the word in this way.[45] To understand
the allusion to the falconer’s voice, it should be observed that after a
hawk had been flown, and had either struck or missed the object of her
pursuit, the “lure” (which we shall presently describe) was thrown up to
entice her back, and at the same time the falconer shouted to attract
her attention.
[Sidenote: QUALITIES OF A GOOD FALCONER.]
Professor Schneider, in a Latin volume published at Leipsic, in
1788,[46] thus enumerates the qualities of a good falconer: “Sit
mediocris staturæ; sit perfecti ingenii; bonæ memoriæ; levis auditu;
acuti visûs; _homo magnæ vocis_; sit agilis et promptus; sciat natare,”
&c. &c.
Each falconer had his own particular call, but it was generally somewhat
like--
“Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come!”
_Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 5.
[Sidenote: THE LURE AND ITS USE.]
The “lure” was of various shapes, and consisted merely of a piece of
iron or wood, generally in the shape of a heart or horseshoe, to which
were attached the wings of some bird, with a piece of raw meat fixed
between them. A strong leathern strap, about three feet long, fastened
to it with a swivel, enabled the falconer to swing it round his head, or
throw it to a distance. With high-flying hawks, however, it was often
found necessary to use a live pigeon, secured to a string by soft
leather jesses, in order to recall them.[47]
The long-winged hawks were always brought to the lure, the short-winged
ones to the hand:--
“As falcon to the lure, away she flies.”
_Venus and Adonis._
The game flown at was called in hawking parlance the “quarry,” and
differed according to the hawk that was used. The gerfalcon and
peregrine were flown at herons, ducks, pigeons, rooks, and magpies; the
goshawk was used for hares and partridges; while the smaller kinds, such
as the merlin and hobby, were trained to take blackbirds, larks, and
snipe. The French falconers, however, do not appear to have been so
particular:--
“We’ll e’en to ’t like French falconers, fly at anything
we see.”--_Hamlet_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: THE QUARRY.]
The word “quarry” occurs in many of the Plays.
“This ‘quarry’ cries on havoc.”[48]
_Hamlet_, Act v. Sc. 2.
In the language of the forest, “quarry” also meant a heap of slaughtered
game. So, in _Coriolanus_ (Act iii. Sc. 1), Caius Marcius says:--
“And let me use my sword, I’d make a ‘quarry’
With thousands of these quarter’d slaves.”
The beauty of the following passage, from its being clothed in
technicalities, will be likely to escape the notice of those who are not
conversant with hawking phraseology; but an acquaintance with the terms
employed will elicit admiration at the force and beauty of the metaphor.
Othello, mistrusting the constancy of Desdemona towards him, and
comparing her to a hawk, exclaims:--
“If I do prove her _haggard_,
Though that her _jesses_ were my dear heart-strings,
I’d whistle her off, and let her down the wind,
To prey at fortune.”
_Othello_, Act iii. Sc. 3.
By “haggard” is meant a wild-caught and unreclaimed mature hawk, as
distinguished from an “eyess,” or nestling; that
“There is, sir, an aiery of children, little eyases, that cry out.”
_Hamlet_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
By some falconers “haggards” were also called “passage hawks,” from
being always caught when in that state, at the time of their periodical
passage or migration. As will be seen hereafter, the word “haggard”
occurs frequently throughout the Plays.
[Sidenote: HAWK’S TRAPPINGS.]
The “jesses” were two narrow strips of leather, fastened one to each
leg, the other ends being attached to a swivel, from which depended the
“leash.” When the hawk was flown, the swivel and leash were taken off,
the jesses and bells remaining on the bird.
[Illustration]
Some of the old falconers’ directions on these points are very quaint.
Turbervile, in his “Book of Falconrie,” 1575, speaking of the trappings
of a hawk, says:--“Shee must haue jesses of leather, the which must haue
knottes at the ende, and they should be halfe a foote long, or there
about; at the least a shaftmeete betweene the hoose of the jesse, and
the knotte at the ende, whereby you tye the hauke.”
[Sidenote: THE JESSES.]
In the modern “jesse,” however, there are no knots. It is fastened in
this wise. The leg of the hawk is placed against the “jesse,” between
the slits A and B. The end A is then passed through the slit B, and the
end C in turn through the slit A. The swivel, with its dependent leash,
is then attached to slit C; and the same with the other leg.
Othello says:--
“I’d whistle her off, and let her down the wind,
To prey at fortune.”
Falconers always flew their hawk _against_ the wind. If flown _down_ the
wind, she seldom returned. When, therefore, a useless bird was to be
dismissed, her owner flew her “down the wind;” and thenceforth she
shifted for herself, and was said “to prey at fortune.”
The word “haggard,” as before observed, is of frequent occurrence
throughout the Plays of Shakespeare. In the _Taming of the Shrew_ (Act
iv. Sc. 2), Hortensio speaks of Bianca as “this proud disdainful
_haggard_.” In _Much Ado about Nothing_ (Act iii. Sc. 1), Hero, alluding
to Beatrice, says--
“I know, her spirits are as coy and wild
As _haggards_ of the rock.”
In _Twelfth Night_ (Act iii. Sc. 1), Viola says of the Clown:--
“This fellow’s wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time;
And, _like the haggard_, check at every feather
That comes before his eye.”
To “check” is a term used in falconry, signifying to “fly at,” although
it sometimes meant to “change the bird in pursuit.”[49] The word occurs
again in the same play (Act ii. Sc. 4), and in _Hamlet_, Act iv. Sc. 7.
[Illustration]
[Sidenote: THE BELLS.]
Besides the “jesses,” the “bells” formed an indispensable part of a
hawk’s trappings. These were of circular form, from a quarter to a full
inch in diameter, and made of brass or silver, and were attached, one to
each leg of the bird, by means of small slips of leather called
“bewits.” The use of bells was to lead the falconer by their sound to
the hawk when in a wood, or out of sight.
“As the ox hath his bow,[50] sir, the horse his curb, and the _falcon
her bells_, so man hath his desires.”--_As You Like It_, Act iii. Sc. 3.
So in _Henry VI._ Part III. Act i. Sc. 1--
“Nor he that loves him best,
The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,
Dares stir a wing, if Warwick _shake his bells_.”
Again--
“Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells
With trembling fear, _as fowl hears falcon’s bells_.”
_Lucrece._
[Illustration]
[Sidenote: THE HOOD.]
The “hood,” too, was a necessary appendage to the trained falcon. This
was a cap or cover for the head, which was not removed until the
“quarry” was started, in order to prevent the hawk from flying too soon.
[Sidenote: AN “UNMANN’D” HAWK.]
The Constable of France, speaking of the valour of the Dauphin, says:--
“’Tis a _hooded_ valour, and when it appears it will _bate_.”
_Henry V._ Act iii. Sc. 7.
The allusion is to the ordinary action of a hawk, which, when unhooded,
_bates_, or flutters. But a quibble may be here intended between “bate,”
the hawking technical, and “bate,” to dwindle or abate. The word occurs
again in _Romeo and Juliet_ (Act iii. Sc. 2)--
“_Hood_ my unmann’d blood, _bating_ in my cheeks.”
And to those not conversant with the terms employed in falconry, this
line would be unintelligible. An “unmanned” hawk was one not
sufficiently reclaimed to be familiar with her keeper, and such birds
generally “bated,” that is, fluttered or beat their wings violently in
their efforts to escape.
Petruchio, in _The Taming of the Shrew_, gives us a lesson in reclaiming
a hawk when speaking thus of Catherine:--
“My falcon now is sharp, and passing empty,
And, till she _stoop_, she must not be full-gorg’d,
For then she never looks upon her _lure_.
Another way I have to _man_ my _haggard_,
To make her come, and know her keeper’s call,
That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites
That _bate_, and beat, and will not be obedient.
She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;
Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not.”
_Taming of the Shrew_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
The word “stoop,” sometimes written “stoup” (Spenser’s “Faerie Queene,”
Book I. Canto XI. 18), and “swoop” (_Macbeth_, “at one fell swoop”),
signifies a rapid descent on the “quarry.” It occurs again in _Henry V._
Act iv. Sc. 1:--
“And though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they
_stoop_, they _stoop_ with the like wing.”
[Illustration]
[Sidenote: THE CADGE.]
The hawks, when carried to the field, were borne on “the cadge,” as
shown in the engraving; the person carrying it being called “the
cadger.” The modern word “cad,” now generally used in an opprobrious
sense, is in all probability an abbreviation of “cadger,” and therefore
synonymous with “servant” or common fellow.
Florizel, addressing Perdita, in the _Winter’s Tale_ (Act iv. Sc. 3),
says,--
“I bless the time
When my good falcon made her flight across
Thy father’s ground;”
for this was the occasion of his first meeting her.
[Sidenote: THE HAWK’S “MEW.”]
In the following passage from _Measure for Measure_, (Act iii. Sc. 1),
there occurs a word in connection with falconry, which requires some
explanation,--
“This outward-sainted deputy,
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i’ th’ head, and follies doth _enmew_
As falcon doth the fowl.”
The verb “to mew,” or “enmew,” signifies to enclose or shut up, owing
its origin to the word “mews,” the place where the hawks were
confined:--
“To-night she’s _mew’d_ up.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act iii. Sc. 4.
Gremio, speaking of Bianca to Signor Baptista, says,--
“Why, will you _mew_ her?”
_Taming of the Shrew_, Act i. Sc. 1.
A question presently solved by Tranio, who says:--
“And therefore has he closely _mew’d_ her up,
Because she will not be annoy’d with suitors.”
[Sidenote: ORIGIN OF THE WORD “MEW.”]
The word “mew,” derived from the old French “_mue_,” signifies a change,
or moult, when birds and other animals cast their feathers, hair, or
horns. Hence Latham observes that “the mew is that place, whether it be
abroad or in the house, where you set down your hawk during the time she
raiseth or reproduceth her feathers.”
It was necessary to take great care of a hawk in her mewing time. In
“The Gentleman’s Academie,” edited by Gervase Markham, 1595, there are
several sections on the mewing of hawks, from one of which it may be
learnt that the best time to commence is in the beginning of Lent; and
if well kept, the bird will be mewed, that is, moulted, by the beginning
of August.
“Forthcoming from her darksome _mew_.”
_Faerie Queene_, Book I. Canto v. 20.
[Sidenote: THE ROYAL MEWS.]
The Royal hawks were kept at the mews at Charing Cross during many
reigns (according to Stowe, from the time of Richard II., in 1377), but
they were removed by Henry VIII., who converted the place into stables.
The name, however, confirmed by the usage of so long a period, remained
to the building, although, after the hawks were withdrawn, it became
inapplicable. But, what is more curious still, in later times, when the
people of London began to build ranges of stabling at the back of their
streets and houses, they christened those places “mews,” after the old
stabling at Charing Cross.
[Sidenote: THE FOWL ENMEWED.]
The word “enmew,” quoted above in the passage from _Measure for
Measure_, would seem rather to signify here, “to seize upon,” or “to
disable.” It is sometimes written “enewe.” In Nash’s “Quaternio; or, a
Fourefold Way to a Happie Life,” published in 1633, it occurs in a
spirited description of hawking at water-fowl:--“And to hear an
accipitary relate againe how he went forth in a cleare, calme, and
sunshine evening, about an houre before the sunne did usually maske
himselfe, unto the river, where finding of a mallard, he whistled
off[51] his falcon, and how shee flew from him as if shee would never
have turned head againe, yet presently upon a shoote came in; how then
by degrees, by little and little, by flying about and about, shee
mounted so high, until shee had lessened herselfe to the view of the
beholder to the shape of a pigeon or partridge, and had made the height
of the moon the place[52] of her flight; how presently, upon the landing
of the fowle, shee came downe like a stone and _enewed_ it, and suddenly
got up againe, and suddenly upon a second landing came down againe, and
missing of it, in the downe course recovered it beyond expectation, to
the admiration of the beholder at a long flight.”
Another method of spelling the same word may be instanced by the
following quotation from Turbervile’s “Book of Falconrie,” 1575:--
“And if shee misse, to mark her how shee then gets up amaine,
For best advantage, to _eneaw_ the springing fowle againe.”
[Sidenote: IMPING.]
In the days of falconry[53] a peculiar method of repairing a broken
wing-feather was known to falconers by the term “imping.” The verb “to
imp,” appears to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon “impan,” signifying to
graft, or inoculate; and the mode of operation is thus described in a
scarce pamphlet by Sir John Sebright, entitled “Observations on
Hawking”:--
“When any of the flight or tail-feathers of a hawk are accidentally
broken, the speed of the bird is so injured, that the falconer finds
it necessary to repair them by an expedient called ‘imping.’
“This curious process consists in attaching to the part that remains
an exact substitute for the piece lost. For this purpose the
falconer is always provided with pinions (right and left) and with
tail-feathers of hawks, or with the feathers separated from the
pinion carefully preserved and numbered, so as to prevent mistake in
taking a true match for the injured feather. He then with a sharp
knife gently parts the web of the feather to be repaired at its
thickest part, and cuts the shaft obliquely forward, so as not to
damage the web on the opposite edge. He next cuts the substitute
feather as exactly as possible at the corresponding point and with
the same degree of slope.
“For the purpose of uniting them, he is provided with an iron needle
with broad angular points at both ends, and after wetting the needle
with salt-and-water, he thrusts it into the centre of the pith of
each part, as truly straight and as nearly to the same length in
each as may be.
[Illustration]
“When this operation has been skilfully performed, the junction is
so neat, that an inexperienced eye would hardly discern the point of
union, and as the iron rusts from having been wetted with brine,
there is little or no danger of separation.”
After this explanation, the meaning of the following lines is clear:--
“If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
_Imp_ out our drooping country’s _broken wing_.”
_Richard II._ Act ii. Sc. 1.
Passages such as this are likely enough to be overlooked by the majority
of readers, but it is in such chiefly that the ornithologist sees a
proof that Shakespeare, for the age in which he lived, possessed a
surprising knowledge of ornithology.
[Sidenote: SEELING.]
Besides “imping,” there was another practice in use, now happily
obsolete, termed “seeling,” to which we find several allusions in the
Plays. It consisted in sewing a thread through the upper and under
eyelids of a newly-caught hawk, to obscure the sight for a time, and
accustom her to the hood.
[Sidenote: HOW TO SEEL A HAWK.]
Turbervile, in his “Book of Falconrie,” 1575, gives the following quaint
directions “how to seele a hawke”:--“Take a needle threeded with
untwisted thread, and (casting your Hawke) take her by the beake, and
put the needle through her eye-lidde, not right against the sight of the
eye, but somewhat nearer to the beake, because she may see backwards.
And you must take good heede that you hurt not the webbe, which is under
the eye-lidde, or on the inside thereof. Then put your needle also
through that other eye-lidde, drawing the endes of the thread together,
tye them over the beake, not with a straight knotte, but cut off the
threedes endes neare to the knotte, and twist them together in such
sorte, that the eye-liddes may be raysed so upwards, that the Hawke may
not see at all, and when the threed shall ware loose or untyed, then the
Hawke may see somewhat backwardes, which is the cause that the threed is
put nearer to the beake. For a Sparrow-hawke should see somewhat
backwardes, and a Falcon forwardes. The reasõ is that if the
Sparrow-hawke should see forwardes, shee would beate off her feathers,
or break them when she bateth upon the fist, and seeing the companie of
men, or such like, she would bate too much.”
In _Antony and Cleopatra_ (Act iii. Sc. 13) we read--
“The wise gods _seel_ our eyes.”
And in the same play (Act v. Sc. 2) Seleucus says:--
“Madam,
I had rather _seel_ my lips, than, to my peril,
Speak that which is not.”
In his beautiful soliloquy on sleep, Henry IV., addressing the fickle
goddess, exclaims,--
“Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
_Seel_ up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge?”
_Henry IV._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The word occurs again in _Othello_ (Act i. Sc. 3)--
“When light-wing’d toys
Of feather’d Cupid _seel_ with wanton dulness,” &c.
And in the same play (Act iii. Sc. 3)--
“She that, so young, could give out such a seeming,
To _seel_ her father’s eyes up close as oak.”
In the last line it is more probable, considering the use of the
technical term “seel,” above explained, that Shakespeare wrote “close as
hawk’s.”
Sir Emerson Tennant, in his “Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon,”
speaking of the goshawk (p. 246), says:--“In the district of
Anarajapoora, where it is trained for hawking, it is usual, in lieu of a
hood, to darken its eyes by means of a silken thread passed through
holes in the eyelids.” This practice of “seeling” appears to be of some
antiquity, but has happily given way, to a great extent, to the more
merciful use of the hood.
[Sidenote: QUAINT RECIPES.]
The old treatises on falconry contain numerous quaint recipes for the
various ailments to which hawks are subject. From one of these we learn
that petroleum is nothing new, as some people now-a-days would have us
believe. Turbervile, writing in 1575, says, in his “Booke of
Falconrie”:--“An other approued medecine is to annoint the swelling of
your hawkes foot with _Oleum petrœlium_ (which is the oyle of a rocke)
and with oyle of white Lillies, taking of each of these like quantity,
the blood of a pigeon, and the tallow of a candle, heating all these
together a little at the fire. This unguent wil throughly resolue the
mischief.”--P. 258.
[Sidenote: GOING A-BIRDING.]
Hawking was sometimes called “birding.” In the _Merry Wives of Windsor_
(Act iii. Sc. 3), Master Page says,--
“I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast; after,
we’ll _a-birding_ together; I have a fine hawk for the bush.”
This was probably a goshawk, for, being a short-winged hawk and of
slower flight, this species was considered the best for a woody
district, or, as Shakespeare terms it, “the bush.”
In the same play (Act iii. Sc. 5) Dame Quickly, referring to Mistress
Ford, says,--“Her husband goes this morning _a-birding_;” and Mistress
Ford, herself, says (Act iv. Sc. 2),--“He’s _a-birding_, sweet Sir
John.”
But it seems that birding was not always synonymous with hawking, for,
later on in the last-mentioned scene, we read as follows:--
“_Falstaff._ What shall I do? I’ll creep up into the
chimney.
_Mrs. Ford._ There they always use to discharge their
_birding-pieces_.”
The word “hawk,” as in the case of the eagle, is almost invariably
employed by Shakespeare in its generic sense:--
“Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark.”
_Taming of the Shrew_, Induction, Sc. 2.
In _Henry V._ (Act iii. Sc. 7), the Dauphin, when speaking in praise of
his horse, says,--
“When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk.”
And in the first part of _Henry VI._ (Act ii. Sc. 4), the Earl of
Warwick boasts that
“Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;
* * * * *
I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment.”
Again,--
“Twenty crowns!
I’ll venture so much of my hawk or hound,
But twenty times so much upon my wife.”
_Taming of the Shrew_, Act v. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: THE KESTREL.]
In two instances only does Shakespeare allude to a particular species of
hawk. These are the Kestrel and Sparrowhawk.
When Malvolio, in _Twelfth Night_ (Act ii. Sc. 5), finds the letter
which Maria has purposely dropt in his path, Sir Toby Belch, looking on
from ambush, exclaims, in sporting terms:--
“And with what wing the _stanniel_ checks at it!”
Here _stanniel_ is a corruption of _standgale_, a name for the kestrel
hawk, and Malvolio is said to “check at” the letter, just as a kestrel
hovers over a mouse or other object which has suddenly attracted its
attention.
It is true that the reading of the folios here is _stallion_; but the
word _wing_, and the falconers’ term _checks_, abundantly prove that a
bird must be meant. Sir Thomas Hanmer, therefore, proposed this
correction, which all subsequent editors have received as justifiable.
The origin of the word “kestrel” is somewhat uncertain. By some it is
derived from “coystril,” a knave or peasant, from being the hawk
formerly used by persons of inferior rank, as we learn from Dame Juliana
Berners, in her “Boke of St. Albans.” This opinion is strengthened by
the reading “coystril,” in _Twelfth Night_ (Act i. Sc. 3), and
“coistrel,” in _Pericles_ (Act iv. Sc. 6). A different spelling again
occurs in “The Gentleman’s Recreation,” by Ric. Blome (folio, London,
1686), where the word is written “castrell.”
[Sidenote: THE SPARROWHAWK.]
The sparrowhawk is only mentioned once by Shakespeare, and the passage
is one which might be very easily overlooked by any one not conversant
with the language of falconry. In the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Mrs.
Ford addresses Falstaff’s page with--
“How now, my _eyas-musket_?”
“Musket”[54] was the name given by the falconers of old to the male
sparrowhawk; “eyas” or “eyess,” as before explained, signifying a
nestling, or young bird from the eyrie or nest. In the above speech,
Mrs. Ford probably intended to imply no more than we should now-a-days
mean by the expression “a perky little fellow.”
[Sidenote: HAWK AND HERNSHAW.]
The words of Hamlet with reference to a hawk must be familiar to all
readers of Shakespeare, the more so, possibly, because the passage in
question appears to have puzzled many commentators:--
“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is
southerly, I know a _hawk_ from a _handsaw_.”
_Hamlet_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
The explanation is simple enough. The last word should be “hernshaw,”
the old name for the heron. It is not every one who knows a hawk from a
heron when he sees it, although it is scarcely possible to conceive two
birds more unlike in appearance. Hamlet’s statement, then, is simply to
the effect that he only feigned madness when it suited his purpose; at
other times he could even outwit the many, and see a distinction where
they, from ignorance, would fail.
The ingenuity which has been exercised in a laudable endeavour to
interpret this passage is really surprising. “An ingenious friend,” says
the _Athenæum_,[55] “suggests the following explanation:--‘Among the
ancient Ægyptians, the hawk signified the Etesian, or northerly wind
(which, in the beginning of summer, drives the vapour towards the south,
and which, covering Ethiopia with dense clouds, there resolves them into
rains, causing the Nile to swell), because that bird follows the
direction of that wind (Job xxxix. 26). The heron, hern, or hernshaw
signified the southerly wind, because it takes its flight from Ethiopia
into Upper Egypt, following the course of the Nile as it retires within
its banks, and living on the small worms hatched in the mud of the
river. Hence the heads of these two birds may be seen surmounting the
_canopi_ used by the ancient Ægyptians to indicate the rising and
falling of the Nile respectively. Now Hamlet, though feigning madness,
yet claims sufficient sanity to distinguish a hawk from a hernshaw when
the wind is southerly; that is, in the time of the migration of the
latter to the north, and when the former is not to be seen. Shakespeare
may have become acquainted with the habits of these migrating birds of
Egypt through a translation of Plutarch, who gives a particular account
of them, published in the middle of the sixteenth century by Thomas
North.’”
[Sidenote: VALUE OF HAWKS.]
The present chapter, embodying, as it does, a treatise on hawking,
illustrated by quotations from Shakespeare, would scarcely be complete
without some reference to the prices paid for hawks, and to the expenses
of keeping them, at the period at which Shakespeare lived. These
particulars may be gleaned from scattered entries in certain “Household
Books” and “Privy Purse Accounts” of noble owners, which the invaluable
labours of antiquaries have placed within reach of the curious.
We have been at some pains to collect and arrange the following entries,
believing that the information which they supply will be far more
interesting to the reader if allowed to remain in the form in which we
have found it:--
PRICES OF HAWKS.
Itm̃ the viij daye paied to Walshe for
so moche money by him layed out
for one goshawke and ij fawcons iij li.
Itm̃ the xv daye paied for v fawcons
and a tarsell viij li.
Itm̃ the iij daye paied in rewarde to
S^r Richard Sandes s’vñt for the
bringing of a saker to the king at
hampton courte v s̃.
Itm̃ the same daye paied for fyve ffawcons vij li. vj s̃. viij d.
Itm̃ the iij daye paied to a stranger
called Jasper, fawconer, for vj sakers
and v sakeretts at viij corons a pece
which amot^s to xx/iiij viij corons xx li. x s̃. viij d.
Itm̃ the viij daye paied to maister
Walshe for so much money by him
paied for goshawks the which the
king’s grace bought upon the cage iij li.
Itm̃ to iij of maister Skevington’s s’vñts
in rewarde for bringing iij hobbyes
to the king’s grace iij li.
Itm̃ the xj daye paied to a s’vñt of
Maister Saint John in rewarde for
bringing a caste of hawks xx s̃.
Itm̃ the viij daye paied to a s’vñt of
the duc of Ferrers in rewarde for
bringing of a caste of fawcons to
the king’s grace at Westm xxiij li. vj s̃. viij d.
Itm̃ the xix daye paid to a s’vñt of
Maister Walshe’s for bringing of a
caste of Laneretts to the king’s
grace in rewarde x s̃.
Itm̃ the xxvij daye paied to the Abbot
of Tewxbury s’vñt in rewarde for
bringing a caste of Launners to the
king’s grace xx s̃.
Itm̃ the xvj daye paied to Augustyne
the fawconer for viij hawks at vj
Angells a pece, whiche amounteth to xviij li.
[Sidenote: KEEP OF HAWKS.]
HAWKS’ FURNITURE.
Itm̃ the iiij daye paied for ij dousin of
hawks’ hoods at iij s̃. iiij d. le dousin vj s̃. viij d.
Itm̃ the same daye paied for iij hawks’
gloves at vj s̃. viij d. le glove xx s̃.
Itm̃ the same day paied for vj dousin
gilte bells at iij corons le dousin xliij s̃.
HAWKS’ MEAT.
Itm̃ the xx daye paied to Philip Clampe
for the mete of ij hawks after the
rate of ij d. by the daye from the
xx daye of Aprill unto the xviij
day of Novembre xxv s̃.
Itm̃ the xxj daye paied to James the
henne taker for hawks’ mete x s̃.
Itm̃ the xj daye paied to Hans the
fawconer for hawks’ mete xiiij s̃. iiij d.
Itm̃ to the same Hugh paied the same
daye for the mete of v hawks by
the same space that is to saye for
one quarter of a yere; eṽy hawke
at one penny by the daye xxxviij s̃. vj d.
Itm̃ the xvj daye to maister Hennage
for the birds’ mete xij d.
Itm̃ the v day to Nicholas Clampe for
the mete of iiij hawks fro the x
daye of Maye unto the xxiij daye
of June after one peny a daye for
a hawke xv s̃.
Itm̃ to the same John Evans for the
mete of iiij hawks by the space of
lxxxxvij dayes for eṽy hawke one
penny by the daye xxxij s̃. iiij d.
FALCONERS’ WAGES.
Itm̃ the vij daye paied to John Evans
for his bourde wages for one quarter
due at our Lady daye laste paste xxx s̃. v d.
Itm̃ the ix daye paied to the same John
Evans for his bourde wages fro
Mydsom tyll Michelmas after iiij d.
by the daye xxx s̃. v d.
Itm̃ the xxvj daye paied to Nicholas
Clampe one of the fawconers for
his wages due for one quarter ended
at Easter laste paste l s̃.
Itm̃ the same daye paied to the same
Clampe for his bourde wages from
the xxv daye of Decembre unto
the laste daye of this monethe the
which amounts to cxxvij dayes, at
iiij d. by the daye xlij s̃. iiij d.
[Sidenote: SUNDRIES.]
SUNDRIES.
Itm̃ the vth daye paied to old Hugh in
rewarde when his hawks went to
the mewe xl s̃.
Itm̃ the xxv daye paied to Walter in
rewarde for a Jerfawcon that dyed xl s̃.
Itm̃ the same daye paied to one that
toke up a Lanner that had been
lacking a hole yere x s̃.
Itm̃ the laste daye paied unto Nicholas
Clampe for keeping of a lanneret
called ‘Cutte’ for one hole yere at
j d. a daye xxx s̃. v d.
Itm̃ the xxvij daye paied to a s’vñt of
my lorde Brayes in rewarde for
taking up of a fawcon of the kings
in Bedfordshire vj s̃. viij d.
Itm̃ the xvij daye paied to one Richard
Mason for taking up of a fawcon of
the kings besides Hartford vj s̃. viij d.
Itm̃ the xiij daye paied to a s’vñt of
my lorde Darcys in rewarde for
taking up of a hawke of the kings
and bringing hir to Yorke place vij s̃. vi d.
Itm̃ the xiij daye paied to Iohn Weste
of the garde to ryde into the
contry for an hawke by the kings
comande^t xx s̃.
Itm̃ the xxviij daye paid to Willm
Tyldesley, grome of the Chambre,
for lying oute to take hawkes by
the kings comande^t x s̃.
Itm̃ the xiiij paied to a s’vñt of maister
Skevingtons in rewarde for bringing
hawkes out of Irlande xl s̃.
Itm̃ the x daye paied to Garard the
fawconer in rewarde for taking of a
fawcon and a tarsell lvj s̃.
Itm̃ the xj daye of Marche paied to
Garrat and Richard the fawconers
in rewarde for finding the Herons x s̃.
The interest which attaches to these curious extracts must excuse us
with the reader for their length.
We cannot peruse them without being carried back, in spirit, to an age
in which, for all that concerns sport, we would fain have lived to bear
a part. Alas! that so delightful a pastime as hawking should have
declined, and that we should live to see our noble falcons gibbeted,
like thieves, upon “the keeper’s tree.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
THE OWL AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.
As Jove assumed the shape of an Eagle, so Juno selected that of an Owl,
for, as Aldrovandus tells us, it was not decorous that the queen of
heaven should take on herself the likeness of any small or vulgar bird,
but rather that she should be embodied in one whose reign by night was
equal with that of the eagle by day. The owl has usually been regarded
as a bird of ill omen, and superstitiously considered a messenger of
woe. The Athenians alone among the ancients seem to have been free from
this popular prejudice, and to have regarded the owl with veneration
rather than abhorrence, considering it as the favourite of Minerva, and
the image of wisdom. The Romans viewed the owl with detestation and
dread. By them it was held sacred to Proserpine: its appearance
foreboded unfortunate events, and, according to Pliny, the city of Rome
underwent a solemn lustration in consequence of an owl having
accidentally strayed into the Capitol.
[Sidenote: ITS USE IN MEDICINE.]
In the ancient pharmacopœia, which savoured not a little of magic, the
owl appears to have been “great medicine.” Ovid tells us that this bird
was used wholesale in the composition of Medea’s gruel:--
“Et strigis infames ipsis cum carnibus alas.”
While, according to Horace, the old witch Canidia made use of the
feathers in her incantations:--
“Plumamque nocturnæ strigis.”
[Sidenote: A BIRD OF ILL OMEN.]
The “owlet’s wing” was an ingredient of the cauldron wherein the witches
prepared their “charm of powerful trouble” (_Macbeth_, Act iv. Sc. 1);
and, with the character assigned to it by the ancients, Shakespeare, no
doubt, felt that the introduction of an owl in a dreadful scene of a
tragedy would help to make the subject come home more forcibly to the
people, who had, from early times, associated its presence with
melancholy, misfortune, and death. Accordingly, we find the unfortunate
owl stigmatized at various times as the “obscure,” “ominous,” “fearful,”
and “fatal” “bird of night.” Its doleful cry pierces the ear of Lady
Macbeth while the murder is being done:--
“Hark!--Peace! It was the owl that shriek’d,
The fatal bellman which gives the stern’st good night.”
_Macbeth_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
And when the murderer rushes in immediately afterwards, exclaiming,--
“I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?”
She replies,--
“I heard the owl scream.”
And later on--
“The _obscure bird_ clamour’d the live-long night.”
_Macbeth_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
The awe, no doubt, with which this bird is regarded by the
superstitious, may be attributed in some measure to the fact of its
flying by night.
“Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,
* * * * *
The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl.”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act i. Sc. 4.
And yet, strange to say, the appearance of an owl by day is by some
considered equally ominous:--
“The owl by day,
If he arise, is mocked and wondered at.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act v. Sc. 4.
“For night-owls shriek, where mounting larks should sing.”
_Richard II._ Act iii. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: ITS HABITS MISUNDERSTOOD.]
Should an owl appear at a birth it is said to forbode ill-luck to the
infant. King Henry VI., addressing Gloster, says,--
“The owl shriek’d at thy birth, an evil sign.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act v. Sc. 6.
While upon any other occasion its presence was supposed to predict a
death, or at least some dire mishap:--
“The screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch, that lies in woe,
In remembrance of a shroud.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act v. Sc. 2.
When Richard III. is irritated by the ill-news showered thick upon him,
he interrupts the third messenger with--
“Out on ye, owls! nothing but songs of death?”
_Richard III._ Act iv. Sc. 4.
It is curious how wide-spread is the superstition regarding certain
birds, and particularly the owl. Even amongst the Land Dayaks of Borneo,
the owl is considered a bird of ill omen. Mr. Spenser St. John, in his
“Life in the Forests of the Far East,” observes with regard to omens
(vol. i. p. 202):--
“If a man be going on a war expedition, and has a slip during his
first day’s journey, he must return to his village, especially if by
the accident blood be drawn, for then, should he proceed, he has no
prospect but wounds or death. If the accident occur during a long
expedition, he must return to his last night’s resting place. In
some tribes, if a deer cry near a party who are setting out on a
journey, they will return. When going out at night to the jungle, if
the scream of a hawk, or an owl, or of a small kind of frog be
heard, it is a sign that sickness will follow if the design be
pursued; and again, if the screech of the two former be heard in
front of a party on the warpath, it is an evil sign, and they must
return. Omens derived from the cry of birds are always sought
previously to setting out on a journey, and before fixing on a spot
to build new houses, or to prepare their farms.”
[Sidenote: ITS UTILITY TO THE FARMER.]
Far from bringing any ill-luck to our dwellings, owls are really of the
greatest service to us in destroying great numbers of vermin. A Swiss
naturalist, speaking of the quantity of field-voles which are annually
destroyed by owls and buzzards, says:[56]--
“C’est un fait curieux que l’homme s’acharne tout particulièrement à
detruire ses meillures amis, et qu’il poursuive de ses malédictions
les êtres qui le servent le mieux. Je joindrai donc ma faible voix à
celle de bien d’autres naturalistes pour demander que l’on protége
les premières de ces bêtes.
“Les hibous et les chouettes, bien loin de jeter de mauvais sorts
sur nos demeures, prennent au contraire, un grand soin de nos
intérêts. Ces oiseaux exterminent, en effet, bien plus de souris que
n’en pourront prendre jamais les meilleurs taupiers. Les buses n’ont
nullement mérité leur place sur la porte de nos granges, et plutôt
que de les tuer, l’on ferait bien mieux d’établir chez nous, comme
cela s’est fait avec succès dans certaines localités, de hauts
perchoirs dans nos campagnes pour attirer ces oiseaux bienfaisants.”
[Sidenote: A CURIOUS TRADITION.]
Among the many curious legends which exist with reference to this bird,
we may mention one to which Shakespeare has alluded in Hamlet:--
“They say the owl was a baker’s daughter.”
_Hamlet_, Act iv. Sc. 5.
Mr. Staunton, in his edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, says this has
reference to a tradition still current in some parts of England. “Our
Saviour went into a baker’s shop where they were baking, and asked for
some bread to eat. The mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of
dough into the oven to bake for him, but was reprimanded by her
daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced
it considerably in size. The dough, however, immediately afterwards
began to swell, and presently became of an enormous size. Whereupon the
baker’s daughter cried out, ‘Wheugh! wheugh! wheugh!’ which owl-like
noise, it is said, probably induced our Saviour, for her wickedness, to
transform her into that bird.”
Mr. Douce represents this story as still current amongst the common
people in Gloucestershire.[57] According to Nuttall, the north country
nurses would have it that the owl was a daughter of Pharaoh, and when
they heard it hoot on a winter’s night, they sang to the wondering
child--
“Oh! ŏ ŏ ŏ, ō ō;
I once was a king’s daughter, and sat on my father’s knee,
But now I’m a poor hoolet, and hide in a hollow tree.”
There is much difference of opinion amongst naturalists as to whether
the power of hooting and shrieking is possessed by the same species. In
the following passage from _Julius Cæsar_ (Act i. Sc. 3), both sounds
are attributed to the same bird:--
“Yesterday the _bird of night_ did sit,
Even at noonday, upon the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking.”
It is generally supposed that the common barn or white owl does not
hoot, but only shrieks, and is, in fact, the bird always alluded to as
the “screech-owl,” while the brown owls (_Strix otus_, _brachyotus_, and
_aluco_) are the hooters--
“The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
But Mr. Colquhoun, speaking of the white or barn owl, says,[58] “It does
hoot, but very rarely. I heard one six times in succession, and then it
ceased.” Sir William Jardine once shot a white owl in the act of
hooting; and Mr. Boulton, of Beverley, Yorkshire, describes[59] the note
of one of these birds which he had reared from the nest, and kept in
confinement for fifteen months, as follows:--“It does hoot exactly like
the long-eared owl, but not so frequently. I use the term ‘hoot’ in
contradistinction to ‘screech,’ which it often does when irritated.”
[Sidenote: NOTE OF THE OWL.]
In Gardiner’s “Music of Nature” the note of the brown owl is thus
rendered:--
[Music]
Mr. Colquhoun, to whom allusion has just been made, says, that the music
of the white or barn owl is a little different from that of the brown
owls. It is only one prolonged cadence, lower and not so mournful as
that of the tawny fellow.
It would appear that owls do not keep to one note. A friend of Gilbert
White’s remarked that most of his owls hooted in B flat, but that one
went almost half a note below A. The pipe by which he tried their notes
was a common half-crown pitchpipe. A neighbour, also, of the Selborne
naturalist, who was said to have a nice ear, remarked that the owls
about Selborne hooted in three different keys: in G flat (or F sharp),
in B flat, and A flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A
flat, the other in B flat.
It did not appear, however, whether the sounds proceeded from different
species of brown owls, or from different individuals of the same
species.
[Sidenote: AN OWL ROBBING NESTS.]
Another question in the life-history of the owl is raised by the
following passage from _Macbeth_ (Act iv. Sc. 2):--
“For the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.”
This defence of their young by birds has often been noticed by
Shakespeare:--
“Unreasonable creatures feed their young;
And though man’s face be fearful to their eyes,
Yet, in protection of their tender ones,
Who hath not seen them (even with those wings
Which sometimes they have us’d with fearful flight)
Make war with him that climb’d unto their nest,
Off’ring their own lives in their young’s defence?”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act ii. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: EVIDENCE NOT CONCLUSIVE.]
We are not aware, however, that an owl has ever been caught in the act
of robbing a nest, and, indeed, it would not be easy to detect him, from
the fact of his preying by night. Nevertheless, there is presumptive
evidence to support the charge. A writer in _The Field_, of 29th June,
1867, says:--“Standing in my garden in Bedford Park, Croydon, an
evening or two since, I saw a white owl fly to a sparrow’s nest lodged
on a water-spout under the roof of the house, and as though that visit
was not successful, he repeated it, and then went to a nest on the next
house, in the same way. It was too dark for me to see if he succeeded in
his marauding expedition against the poor sparrows. Is it a common
occurrence for an owl to go robbing nests? I never saw it done before,
though I have lived all my life in the country, and of course seen this
favourite bird skimming over the water meadows for its supper.” To this
communication the editor adds the following note:--“This fact is
extremely interesting, and, we think, generally unknown. It would,
however, have added much to the interest, had the robbery actually been
proved; it does not seem quite certain that this was the owl’s object in
visiting the roof.”
[Sidenote: ITS CHARACTER MALIGNED.]
Some years ago, having made the discovery that some stock-doves were
building in the wooden spire of our village church, we commissioned the
parish clerk to secure a pair of young birds as soon as they were ready
to fly. He made several attempts for this purpose, paying occasional
visits to see how the young birds were getting on, when, on going to the
nest, as he supposed for the last time, to carry them off, he found it
empty. This happened three or four times, and he was much puzzled to
account for it. The birds could not have flown--they were not old
enough. No one else could have taken them, for the church could not be
entered without the key, which he always kept. Had rats carried them
off? The clerk said there were none. Had there been any, he must have
heard or seen them on one or other of his many visits to the church, or
at least have found signs of their presence. But this was never the
case. He stated, however, that a pair of barn owls lived in the same
spire, and he thought that they were the culprits, taking the young
ones, as he said, as soon as they were fat enough, to save themselves
the trouble of hunting out of doors. Be this as it may, we feel bound to
say, on behalf of the owls, they were never caught in the fact, and that
the parent stock-doves were not deterred from laying again and again,
and at length rearing a brood. Charles Waterton, whose name will be
familiar to all naturalists, argues strongly against the notion of the
barn owl robbing dove-cotes. He says[60]:--“When farmers complain that
the barn owl destroys the eggs of their pigeons, they lay the saddle on
the wrong horse. They ought to put it on the rat.
“Formerly, I could get very few young pigeons till the rats were
excluded effectually from the dove-cot. Since that took place, it has
produced a great abundance every year, though the barn owls frequent it,
and are encouraged all around it. The barn owl merely resorts to it for
repose and concealment. If it were really an enemy to the dove-cot, we
should see the pigeons in commotion as soon as it begins its evening
flight, but the pigeons heed it not; whereas if the sparrowhawk or hobby
should make its appearance, the whole community would be up at
once--proof sufficient that the barn owl is not looked upon as a bad or
even a suspicious character by the inhabitants of the dove-cot.”
[Sidenote: ITS RETIRING HABITS.]
Its habit of breeding in retired situations is alluded to in _Titus
Andronicus_, Act ii. Sc. 3:--
“Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,
Unless the nightly owl.”
And Shakespeare has truly characterized the appearance of this bird on
the wing, when he speaks of
“The night-owl’s lazy flight.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: ITS FIVE WITS.]
Why the owl has been called the “bird of wisdom” it is not easy to
determine. Possibly because it can see in the dark, and is the only bird
which looks straightforward. Shakespeare frequently alludes to its “five
wits,” and the readers of Tennyson’s poems will no doubt remember the
lines:--
“Alone, and warming his _five wits_,
The white owl in the belfry sits.”
With our early writers the five senses appear to have been generally
called the “five wits.” Chaucer, in the “Parsone’s Tale,”
says:--“Certes delites been after the appetites of the ‘five wittes;’ as
sight, hereing, smelling, savouring, and touching.” But it is not clear
how this proverbial phrase became connected with the owl, nor what is
the origin of “warming” the wits.
“_Petruchio._ Am I not _wise_?
_Katharine._ Yes, keep you _warm_.”
_Taming of the Shrew_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
“If he have _wit_ enough to keep himself _warm_.”
_Much Ado_, Act i. Sc. 1.
“Bless thy _five wits_.”
_King Lear_, Act iii. Sc. 4, and Act iii. Sc. 6.
[Sidenote: ITS FAME IN SONG.]
The allusion above made to Tennyson’s well-known poem, reminds us of the
quaint and characteristic song in the last scene of _Love’s Labour’s
Lost_:--
III.
“When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipp’d, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;
Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
IV.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian’s nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;
Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.”
Nor do we forget Ariel’s song in _The Tempest_ (Act v. Sc. 1)--
“Where the bee sucks, there lurk I;
In a cowslip’s bell I lie,
There I couch when owls do cry.”
Amongst the fairies, at least, the owl seems to have found friends, and
is generally represented as a companion in their moonlight gambols:--
“This is the fairy land!--O, spite of spites!--
We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites.”
_Comedy of Errors_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
The folio of 1623 omits “elvish,” but the folio of 1632 has “elves,”
which Rowe changed to “elvish.”
[Sidenote: ITS COMRADES.]
The following quotation we have some hesitation in introducing, for
there appears to be a difference of reading, which quite alters the
sense:--
“No, rather, I abjure all roofs, and choose
* * * * *
To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,--
Necessity’s sharp pinch.”
_King Lear_, Act ii. Sc. 4.
Mr. Collier, taking into consideration the last line, reads:--
“To be a comrade with the wolf, and howl
Necessity’s sharp pinch.”
And this seems more likely to be the correct reading. Albeit, in support
of the former version, the following passage in _Lucrece_ has been
adduced:--
“No noise but owls’ and wolves’ death-boding cries.”
It is not to be supposed that Shakespeare was always a firm believer in
the popular notions respecting animals and birds to which he has made
allusion. In many cases he had a particular motive in introducing such
notions, although possibly aware of their erroneous nature, and he
evidently adopted them only to impart an air of reality to the scenes
which he depicted, and to bring them home more forcibly to the
impressionable minds of his auditors, to whom such “folks-lore” would be
familiar. This is notably the case as regards the owl, and no one can
read the first scene in the second act of _Macbeth_, or the fourth scene
in the first act of _Henry VI._ (Part II.), without feeling the
impressive effect produced by the introduction of a bird which is held
in such detestation by the ignorant, but which naturalists have shown to
be not only harmless, but useful.
[Sidenote: THE OWL’S GOOD NIGHT.]
But--
“The owl, night’s herald, shrieks,--’tis very late.”
_Venus and Adonis._
And, therefore, with Boyet, in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ (Act iv. Sc. 1),
we will say:--
“Good night, my good owl.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
THE CROWS AND THEIR RELATIONS.
To a superficial observer of nature, there may appear to be a much
greater resemblance between the Raven, the Crow, the Rook, and the
Jackdaw, than we find to be actually the case. At the same time, so
different to them in outward appearance are the Jay and Magpie, that it
may appear extraordinary to class them all together. Nevertheless, while
each, of course, has its distinguishing characters, all are included in
the first section of the family of crows.
[Sidenote: THE RAVEN,]
The Raven (_Corvus corax_), from his size and character, naturally takes
the lead. Go where we will over the face of the wide world, the
well-known hoarse croak of the raven is still to be heard. He was seen
perched on the bare rocks, looking over the dreary snows of the highest
points visited in the Arctic Expeditions. Under the burning sun of the
equator he enjoys his feast of carrion. He was discovered in the islands
of the Pacific Ocean by Captain Cook; and in the lowest Southern or
Antarctic regions, other travellers have found him pursuing his cautious
predatory life, just as in England.[61]
From the earliest times the raven, with his deep and solemn voice, has
always commanded attention, and superstitious people have become
impressed with the idea that there is something unearthly in his nature
and ominous in his voice.[62] By the Romans this bird was consecrated to
Apollo, and regarded as a foreteller of good or evil. Through a long
course of centuries this character has clung to him; and even to this
day, there are many who believe that the raven’s croak predicts a death.
[Sidenote: A BIRD OF ILL OMEN.]
No wonder, then, that Shakespeare has taken advantage of this
wide-spread belief, and has introduced the raven into many of the solemn
passages of his Plays, to carry conviction to the minds of the people,
and render his images the more impressive. He frequently alludes to “the
ill-boding raven:”
“It comes o’er my memory,
As doth the raven o’er the infectious house,
Boding to all.”
_Othello_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
Thersites, in _Troilus and Cressida_ (Act v. Sc. 2), says,--
“Would I could meet that rogue Diomed; I would croak like a raven; I
would bode, I would bode.”
In the play of _Henry VI_, Suffolk vainly endeavours to cheer up the
King, who has swooned on hearing of Gloster’s death, saying:--
“Comfort, my sovereign! gracious Henry, comfort!”
But the King, likening his message to the ill-boding note of a raven,
replies:--
“What, doth my lord of Suffolk comfort me?
Came he right now to sing a raven’s note,
Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers;
And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,
By crying comfort from a hollow breast,
Can chase away the first-conceived sound?”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
After Balthazar has sung his well-known song, “Sigh no more, ladies,”
(_Much Ado_, Act ii. Sc. 3,) Benedick observes to himself, “An he had
been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him: and
I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief have heard the
night-raven, come what plague could have come after it.”
[Sidenote: THE NIGHT-CROW:]
Willughby thought that the so-called “night-raven” was the bittern.
Speaking of the curious noise produced by the latter bird, he
says:--“This, I suppose, is the bird which the vulgar call the
night-raven, and have a great dread of.”[63]
The bittern was one of the very few birds which Goldsmith, in his
“Animated Nature,” described from personal observation, and he, too,
calls it the “night-raven.” Its hollow boom, he says, caused it to be
held in detestation by the vulgar. “I remember, in the place where I was
a boy, with what terror the bird’s note affected the whole village; they
considered it as the presage of some sad event, and generally found, or
made one to succeed it. If any person in the neighbourhood died, they
supposed it could not be otherwise, for the night-raven had foretold it;
but if nobody happened to die, the death of a cow or a sheep gave
completion to the prophecy.”
Sometimes it was called the _night-crow_--
“The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act v. Sc. 6.
[Sidenote: ITS SUPPOSED PROPHETIC POWER.]
Shakespeare has introduced an allusion to the raven with much effect, in
the fifth scene of the first act in _Macbeth_, where an attendant enters
the chamber of Lady Macbeth to announce--
“The king comes here to-night.
_Lady M._ Thou ’rt mad to say it!--
Is not thy master with him? who, were’t so,
Would have informed for preparation.
_Attend._ So please you, it is true:--our thane is coming:
One of my fellows had the speed of him;
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.
_Lady M._ Give him tending;
He brings great news. [_Exit Attendant._
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.”
On this passage Johnson remarks: “The messenger, says the servant, had
hardly breath to make up his message; to which the lady answers
mentally, that he may well want breath; such a message would add
hoarseness to the raven. That even the bird whose harsh voice is
accustomed to predict calamities, could not croak the entrance of Duncan
but in a note of unwonted harshness.”
The preference which the raven evinces for “sickly prey,” or carrion, is
not unnoticed by the poet:--
“Now powers from home, and discontents at home,
Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,
As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast,
The imminent decay of wrested pomp.”
_King John_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
And again--
“Ravens
Fly o’er our heads, and downward look on us,
As we were sickly prey.”
_Julius Cæsar_, Act v. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: ITS PRESENCE ON BATTLE-FIELDS.]
In _Henry V._ (Act iv. Sc. 2) we have a graphic picture of a distressed
army followed by ravens on the look-out for corpses:--
“Yond island _carrions_, desperate of their bones,
Ill-favour’dly become the morning field:
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
And their executors, the knavish crows,
Fly o’er them all, impatient for their hour.”
It is most probable that the supposed prophetic power of the raven,
respecting battles and bloodshed, originated in its frequent presence on
these occasions, drawn to the field of slaughter by an attractive
banquet of unburied bodies of the slain. Hence poets have described this
bird as possessing a mysterious knowledge of these things. The
Icelanders, notwithstanding their endeavours to destroy as many as they
can, yet give them credit for the gift of prophecy, and have a high
opinion of them as soothsayers. And the priests of the North American
Indians wear, as a distinguishing mark of their sacred profession, two
or three raven skins, fixed to the girdle behind their back, in such a
manner that the tails stick out horizontally from the body. They have
also a split raven skin on the head, so fastened as to let the beak
project from the forehead.[64]
[Sidenote: ITS FOOD.]
The solitary habits of this bird during the nesting season are thus
alluded to:--
“A barren detested vale, you see, it is;
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O’ercome with moss and baleful misseltoe:
Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,
Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven.”
_Titus Andronicus_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
And a curious belief is mentioned with regard to the rearing of its
young:--
“Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,
The whilst their own birds famish in their nests.”
_Titus Andronicus_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: ALLEGED DESERTION OF YOUNG.]
It would appear, from some passages in the sacred Scriptures, that the
desertion of their young had not escaped the observation of the inspired
writers. It was certainly a current belief in olden times, that when the
raven saw its young ones newly hatched, and covered with down, it
conceived such an aversion that it forsook them, and did not return to
the nest until a darker plumage had shown itself. And to this belief
commentators suppose the Psalmist alludes when he says:--“_He giveth to
the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry_.” (Psalm cxlvii.
9.) And again, in Job, “_Who provideth for the raven his food? When his
young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat._” (Job xxxviii.
41.)
In Batman “upon Bartholome his book, ‘De proprietatibus Rerum,’ folio,
1582,” we find the following passage bearing upon the question:--“The
raven is called _Corvus_ of Corax. It is said that ravens birdes
(_i.e._, young ravens) be fed with deaw of heaven all the time that they
have no black feathers by benefite of age.” (Lib. xii. c. 10.)
Izaak Walton, in his “Compleat Angler,” speaking of fish without mouths,
which “are nourished and take breath by the porousness of their gills,
man knows not how,” observes that “this may be believed if we consider
that when the raven hath hatched her eggs, she takes no further care,
but leaves her young ones to the care of the God of nature, who is said
in the Psalms (Psal. cxlvii. 9) ‘to feed the young ravens that call upon
him.’ And they be kept alive, and fed by a dew or worms that breed in
their nests; or some other ways that we mortals know not.”
Shakespeare, no doubt, had the words of the Psalmist in his mind when he
wrote--
“And He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age!”
_As You Like It_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: RAVENS’ FEATHERS.]
We read in the First Book of Kings, xvii. 4, that when the prophet
Elijah fled from the tyranny of King Ahab, and concealed himself by the
brook Cherith, God commanded the ravens to feed him there. The
remembrance of this passage may have been in our poet’s mind when he
penned the following lines in the _Winter’s Tale_. Antigonus, ordered by
Leontes to expose the infant Perdita to death, says, with a touch of
pity:--
“Come on, poor babe:
Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
To be thy nurses!”
_Winter’s Tale_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
As in the case of the owl, it appears that ravens’ feathers were
employed by the witches of old in their incantations; for it was
believed that the wings of this bird carried contagion with them
wherever they appeared. Marlowe, in his _Jew of Malta_, speaks of--
... “the sad presaging raven, that tolls
The sick man’s passport in her hollow beak,
And in the shadow of the silent night
Doth shake contagion from her sable wings.”
Hence the curse which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Caliban:--
“As wicked dew as e’er my mother brush’d
With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen,
Drop on you both!”
_Tempest_, Act i. Sc. 2.
Here “wicked” may be taken to mean pernicious or destructive--the
antonym being “virtuous,” as in the expression “the virtuous properties
of plants.” A bad sore is described, in an old tract on hawking (Harl.
MS. 2,340), as “a wykked felone.”
[Sidenote: A BLACK CHARACTER.]
As the type of blackness, both as regards colour and character, we find
the raven frequently contrasted with the white dove, the emblem of all
that is pure and gentle.
“Who will not change a raven for a dove?”
_Midsummer Nights Dream_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
“I’ll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,
To spite a raven’s heart within a dove.”
_Twelfth Night_, Act v. Sc. 1.
“Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Dove-feather’d raven!
* * * * *
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
The quarto (1599) and folio here read, “ravenous, dove-feather’d raven,”
&c.
As colour is intensified by contrast, so we read--
“Whiter than snow upon a raven’s back.”
So the undated quarto. Other editions have the emendation--
“Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: VARIATION IN COLOUR.]
We have seen a variety of the jackdaw of a dirty yellowish-white colour;
it could scarcely be called “amber-colour’d.” No doubt other members of
the genus _Corvus_ have occasionally been observed to vary quite as much
in their plumage. Shakespeare says,--
“An amber-colour’d raven was well noted.”
_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
No doubt it was; quite as much as a white blackbird. This apparent
contradiction of terms is in reality no myth. We have seen three or four
albino varieties of the blackbird, and could give a tolerably long list
of dark-plumaged birds of which pure white, or almost pure white,
varieties have been found. This may be the result of disease, or of old
age, drying up the animal secretions, and causing the absence of colour
which we call white. According to ancient authors, ravens were formerly
white, but were changed to black for babbling. The great age to which
the raven sometimes attains has been alluded to in the first chapter,
where some reference is made to “ancient” eagles, and tame ravens have
been known to outlive several masters who owned them successively. But
birds, like all things else, succumb to time. Shakespeare tells us,--
“Time’s glory is to calm contending Kings, ...
To fill with worm-holes stately monuments, ...
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings.”
_Lucrece._
[Sidenote: THE CARRION CROW:]
Next to the raven, the Carrion-Crow (_Corvus corone_) claims our
attention, from his close relationship to his larger congener. So
closely, indeed, does he resemble the raven upon a slightly modified
scale, that we might also fancy him--
“A crow of the same nest.”
_All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
Like him, he leads a predatory life, carrying off young game-birds,
chickens, and eggs; and where he cannot obtain a fresh meal, he has no
objection to carrion and offal of all kinds. Should a sheep die in the
field, the crows of the neighbourhood are sure to be attracted to it.
“The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
Gamekeepers, knowing this propensity, and having an eye to the better
preservation of pheasants’ eggs for the future, avail themselves of the
opportunity, when a sheep dies, to place a little strychnine in the
mouth and eyes, and on a second visit they are seldom disappointed in
finding two or three dead crows.
[Sidenote: ITS PREDATORY HABITS.]
Throughout the Plays we meet with frequent allusions to the crow, and
its partiality for carrion. In the fifth act of _Cymbeline_ a scene is
laid in a field between the British and Roman camps, where the following
dialogue takes place:--
“_British Captain._ Stand! who’s there?
_Posthumus._ A Roman,
Who had not now been drooping here, if seconds
Had answer’d him.
_British Captain._ Lay hands on him; a dog!
A leg of Rome shall not return to tell
What crows have peck’d them here.”
_Cymbeline_, Act v. Sc. 3.
Again--
“_Boy._ Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master,--and you,
hostess;--he is very sick, and would to bed....
_Host._ By my troth, he’ll yield the crow a pudding one of these
days.”
_Henry V._ Act ii. Sc. 1.
The Duke of York, on the field of St. Albans, boasting of his victory
over Lord Clifford, says, in reply to the Earl of Warwick:--
“The deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed,
But match to match I have encounter’d him,
And made a prey for carrion kites and crows
Even of the bonny beast he lov’d so well.”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act v. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: FOOD FOR CROWS.]
Cassius, on the eve of battle, augured a defeat because, as he said,--
“Crows
Fly o’er our heads, and downward look on us,
As we were sickly prey; their shadows seem
A canopy most fatal, under which
Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.”
_Julius Cæsar_, Act v. Sc. 1.
In the third act of _Cymbeline_ (Sc. 1), when Caius Lucius, the Roman
Ambassador, comes to demand tribute from the British King, he is met
with a flat refusal, and Cloten, one of the lords in waiting, deriding
his threat of war, says:--
“His Majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or two, or
longer: if you seek us afterwards in other terms, you shall find us
in our salt-water girdle: if you beat us out of it, it is yours; if
you fall in the adventure, _our crows shall fare the better for
you_; and there’s an end.”
Alexander Iden, addressing the lifeless body of Jack Cade, whom he had
just slain, exclaims:--
“Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels
Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave,
And there cut off thy most ungracious head;
Which I will bear in triumph to the king,
Leaving thy trunk _for crows to feed upon_.”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act iv. Sc. 10.
[Sidenote: BLACK AS A CROW.]
Many similar instances might be brought forward. As in the case of the
raven, we find the crow, as the emblem of blackness, contrasted with the
white dove:--
“With the dove of Paphos might the crow
Vie feathers white.”
_Pericles_, Act iv. Introd.
Again--
“Lawn as white as driven snow;
Cyprus black as e’er was crow.”
_Winter’s Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
Here we have not only the crow contrasted with snow, but also cyprus, a
thin transparent black stuff, somewhat like crape, placed in
contradistinction with lawn, which is a white material, like muslin.[65]
“So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act i. Sc. 5.
“Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act i. Sc. 2.
Beatrice says (_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act i. Sc. 1),--“I had rather
hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me;” but then this
was meant to be personal, for Benedick, whom she addressed, was not a
favoured suitor. She might have added, with Dromio, in the _Comedy of
Errors_, Act iii. Sc. 1:--
“We’ll pluck a crow together.”
This saying appears to be of some antiquity, but the origin of it is not
very clear.
[Sidenote: CROW-KEEPER AND SCARE-CROW.]
The custom of protecting newly sown wheat from the birds by keeping a
lad to shout, or putting up a “scare-crow,” is no doubt an old one.
Shakespeare makes allusion to both methods:--
“That fellow handles his bow like _a crow-keeper_.”
_King Lear_, Act iv. Sc. 6.
That is like a boy employed to keep the crows from the corn. So again--
“Scaring the ladies like a _crow-keeper_.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act i. Sc. 4.
The rustic, although entrusted with a bow and arrows, was not expected
to have much skill in archery, and Roger Ascham, in his “Toxophilus,”
when speaking of a clumsy archer, has a similar comparison to that in
the passage just quoted:--“Another coureth downe and layeth out his
buttockes, as though hee should shoote at crowes.”
“We must not make a _scare-crow_ of the law,
Setting it up to fear[66] the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.”
_Measure for Measure_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
Lord Talbot relates that, when a prisoner in France, he was exhibited
publicly in the market-place:--
“Here, said they, is the terror of the French,
The _scare-crow_ that affrights our children so.”
_Henry VI._ Part I. Act i. Sc. 4.
And Falstaff, alluding to his recruits on the march to Shrewsbury, says
of them:--
“No eye hath seen such _scare-crows_.”
_Henry IV._ Part I. Act iv. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: THE CHOUGH.]
Associated with the crow by many of the poets is the Red-legged Crow, or
Chough--the Cornish Chough, as it is sometimes called, from its being
considered a bird peculiar to the south-west coast of England. Since
this last name was applied to it, the study of ornithology has become
so universally courted, that it can scarcely be necessary to show that
the geographical distribution of the species is much wider than was
formerly supposed.
[Sidenote: THE CHOUGH AND CROW.]
The old song of “The Chough and Crow” will probably be remembered as
long as the English language lasts.
Shakespeare has introduced both these birds in a fine description of
Dover Cliff. It is not improbable that the chough, which affects
precipices and sea-cliffs, may once have frequented the cliffs at Dover;
but whatever may have been the case formerly, this haunt, if it ever was
one, has long since been deserted. Shakespeare, at all events, has
placed this bird in a situation most natural to it:--
“Come on, sir; here’s the place:--stand still.--How fearful
And dizzy ’t is, to cast one’s eyes so low!
The _crows_ and _choughs_, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire,--dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
Diminish’d to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high.--I’ll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.”
_King Lear_, Act iv. Sc. 6.
The chough is easily tamed, and a prettier sight than three or four of
these birds, with their bright red legs and bills, strutting about on a
well-mown lawn, can scarcely be conceived.
It is to be regretted that the species is not more plentiful and more
generally domesticated.
[Sidenote: CHOUGH’S LANGUAGE.]
Instances, we believe, are on record of choughs being taught to speak,
but Shakespeare appears to have entertained no great opinion of their
talking powers. He speaks of
“Chough’s language, gabble enough, and good enough.”
_All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
And probably there was a good deal more chattering than talking, as we
understand the term.
“There be ...
... lords that can prate
As amply and unnecessarily
As this Gonzalo; I myself could make
A chough of as deep chat.”
_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
In _Henry IV._, in the scene where Falstaff, with the Prince and Poins,
meet to rob the travellers at Gadshill, Falstaff calls the victims “fat
chuffs,” probably from their strutting about with much noise.
[Sidenote: VARIOUS CHOUGHS.]
In the _Winter’s Tale_, the rogue Autolycus appears as a pedlar, and
while drawing the attention of those around him to his wares, he takes
the opportunity to pick their pockets. His power of persuasion was so
great that, as he himself said,--
“They throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been
hallowed, and brought a benediction to the buyer: by which means I
saw whose purse was best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use
I remembered.”
He proceeds to compare them to choughs whom he had allured by his chaff,
and says:--
“In this time of lethargy, I picked and cut most of their festive
purses; and had not the old man come in with a whoobub against his
daughter and the king’s son, and scared my choughs from the chaff, I
had not left a purse alive in the whole army.”--_Winter’s Tale_,
Act iv. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: THE JACKDAW.]
The word “chough,” it appears, was not always intended to refer to the
bird with red legs and bill, as we may infer from the following passage
in O’Flaherty’s “West or H’Iar Connaught, 1684,” p. 13:--“I omit other
ordinary fowl and birds, as bernacles, wild geese, swans,
cocks-of-the-wood, woodcocks, _choughs_, rooks, _Cornish choughs, with
red legs and bills_,” &c. Here the first-mentioned choughs were in all
probability jackdaws.
Shakespeare alludes to--
“Russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun’s report.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
Now the jackdaw, though having a grey head, would more appropriately
bear the designation of “russet-pated” than any of his congeners. We may
presume, therefore, that this is the species to which Shakespeare
intended to refer. The head of the chough, like the rest of its body, is
perfectly black.
The Jackdaw (_Corvus monedula_) has not been so frequently noticed by
Shakespeare as many other birds, and in the half-dozen instances in
which it is mentioned, we find it referred to as the “daw.” The word
occurs in _Coriolanus_, Act iv. Sc. 5; _Troilus and Cressida_, Act i.
Sc. 2; _Much Ado about Nothing_, Act ii. Sc. 3; _Twelfth Night_, Act
iii. Sc. 4; and in a song in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_. Warwick, expressing
his ignorance of legal matters, says:--
“But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.”
_Henry VI._ Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
And the crafty and dissembling Iago remarks that--
“When my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at.”
_Othello_, Act i. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: THE MAGPIE.]
With the ancients, much superstition prevailed in regard to various
species of the crow family; and Shakespeare has specially mentioned
three of these as birds of omen:--
“Augurs that understood relations have,
By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secret’st man of blood.”
_Macbeth_, Act iii. Sc. 4.
Even at the present day, there are many who profess to augur good or
evil from the flight of a magpie, or from the number of magpies seen
together at one time. An old rhyme on the subject runs thus:--
“One for sorrow, two for mirth;
Three for a wedding, four for a birth.”
The origin of the word magpie we have not heard explained, but it is
possible, from the manner in which the name is spelled above, that “mag”
may be an abbreviation of “maggot,” pointing to a certain propensity of
the bird, which, however, is not peculiar. Those who have spent much
time in the country, must have observed not only the magpie, but also
the jackdaw and starling, busily engaged in searching for insects on the
back of a sheep.
As in the case of the jackdaw, the magpie is sometimes called by the
latter half of his name:--
“And chattering pies in dismal discords sung.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act v. Sc. 6.
[Sidenote: THE ROOK.]
Before taking leave of the crow family, we have yet to notice another
bird mentioned by Shakespeare, which is nearly related to the crow. This
is the Rook (_Corvus frugilegus_). But, notwithstanding the usefulness
of the bird, the poet has not said much in its favour. It is noticed in
the song in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, and is included amongst the birds of
omen in the quotation lately given from Macbeth.
In the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act i. Sc. 3, we find the expression
“bully-rook,” and it would seem that this epithet in Shakespeare’s time
bore much the same signification as “jolly-dog” does now-a-days. But it
came subsequently to have a more offensive meaning, and was applied to a
cheat and a sharper.
[Sidenote: THE JAY.]
We had well-nigh forgotten the Jay (_Corvus glandarius_),--_Winter’s
Tale_ (Act iv. Sc. 3),--and only allude to it now to show that
Shakespeare has not omitted it from his long list of birds. In
_Cymbeline_, the name is applied to a gaudily-dressed person:--
“Some jay of Italy hath betray’d him.”
_Cymbeline_, Act iii. Sc. 4.
No doubt on account of the bright plumage of this bird.
“What, is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his feathers are more beautiful?”
_Taming of the Shrew_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
Caliban, addressing Trinculo, in _The Tempest_ (Act ii. Sc. 2),
exclaims:--
“I pr’ythee let me bring thee where crabs grow,
And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts;
Show thee a jay’s nest, and instruct thee how
To snare the nimble marmozet; I’ll bring thee
To clust’ring filberds, and sometimes I’ll get thee
Young sea-mells from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?”
This tempting offer is irresistible, and Stephano interrupts him at once
by saying,--
“I pr’ythee now, lead the way, without any more
talking.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
THE BIRDS OF SONG.
If there is one class of birds more than another to which poets in all
ages have been indebted for inspiration, and to which they have directed
particular attention, it is that which includes the birds of song.
Shakespeare, as a naturalist, could not have overlooked them. Nor has he
done so. These “light-wing’d Dryads of the trees” have received at his
hands all the praise which they deserve, while oftentimes, for melody
and pathos, he may be said to have borrowed from their songs himself.
[Sidenote: THE NIGHTINGALE.]
Of all the singers in the woodland choir the Nightingale (_Luscinia
philomela_), by common consent, stands first. For quality of voice,
variety of notes, and execution, she is probably unrivalled. Hence, with
poets, she has ever been the chief favourite. Izaak Walton has truly
said, “The nightingale breathes such sweet loud music out of her little
instrumental throat, that it might make mankind to think miracles are
not ceased. He that at midnight, when the very labourer sleeps securely,
should hear, as I have very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants,
the natural rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling, of her
voice, might well be lifted above earth and say, Lord, what music hast
thou provided for the saints in heaven, when thou affordest bad men such
music on earth?” To “sing like a nightingale” has passed into a proverb.
“She sings as sweetly as any nightingale.”
_Taming of the Shrew_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
In Gardiner’s “Music of Nature,” the following passage is given from the
song of the Nightingale:--
[Music]
Although the male bird only is the songster, yet we talk of _her_
singing:--
“It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly _she_ sings on yon pomegranate tree;[67]
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act iii. Sc. 5.
The origin of this change of sex is to be found, no doubt, in the old
fable which tells us of the transformation of Philomela, daughter of
Pandion, King of Athens, into a nightingale, when Progne, her sister,
was changed to a swallow.[68]
[Sidenote: LAMENTING PHILOMEL.]
Hence also the name Philomel, which is often applied by the poets to
this bird.
“Philomel, with melody,
Sing your sweet lullaby.”
_Song--Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
“By this, lamenting Philomel had ended
The well-tun’d warble of her nightly sorrow.”
_Lucrece._
“His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day.”
_Titus Andronicus_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
The nightingale is again thus designated by Shakespeare in _Cymbeline_,
Act ii. Sc. 2, and elsewhere; and “the tragic tale of Philomel” is
prettily referred to in _Titus Andronicus_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: SINGING AGAINST A THORN.]
In one, if not more, of his poems he has noticed the odd belief which
formerly existed to the effect that the mournful notes of the
nightingale are caused by the bird’s leaning against a thorn to sing!
“Every thing did banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone.
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
_Lean’d her breast up-till a thorn_,
And there sung the dolefull’st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity.
‘Fie, fie, fie,’ now would she cry,
‘Tereu, tereu’ by and by;
That, to hear her so complain,
Scarce I could from tears refrain;
For her griefs, so lively shown,
Made me think upon mine own.”[69]
_The Passionate Pilgrim_, xix.
Again, Lucrece, in her distress, invoking Philomel, says:--
“And whiles against a thorn thou bear’st thy part,
To keep thy sharp woes waking.”--_Lucrece._
The same idea, too, has been variously expressed by other poets than
Shakespeare. Fletcher speaks of--
“The bird forlorn
That singeth with her breast against a thorn;”
and Pomfret, writing towards the close of the seventeenth century,
says:--
“The first music of the grove we owe
To mourning Philomel’s harmonious woe;
And while her grief in charming notes express’d,
A thorny bramble pricks her tender breast.
In warbling melody she spends the night,
And moves at once compassion and delight.”
Thus it was evidently believed by the poets, whether the idea was
founded on fact or not, that the nightingale leaned her breast against a
thorn when she gave forth her mournful notes. The origin of such a
belief it is not easy to ascertain, but we suspect Sir Thomas Browne was
not far from the truth when he pointed to the fact that the nightingale
frequents thorny copses, and builds her nest amongst brambles on the
ground. He inquires “whether it be any more than that she placeth some
prickles on the outside of her nest, or roosteth in thorny, prickly
places, where serpents may least approach her?”[70] In an article upon
this subject, published in “The Zoologist,” for 1862, p. 8,029, the Rev
A. C. Smith has narrated “the discovery, on two occasions, of a strong
thorn projecting upwards in the centre of the nightingale’s nest.” It
can hardly be doubted, however, that this was the result of accident
rather than design; and Mr. Hewitson, in his “Eggs of British Birds,”
has adduced two similar instances in the case of the hedge-sparrow. We
may accordingly dismiss the idea that there is any real foundation for
such belief, and regard it as a poetic license.
[Sidenote: SINGING BY DAY AND BY NIGHT.]
There is no doubt that one great charm in the song of the nightingale
is, that it is heard oftenest at eve, when nearly every other bird is
hushed and gone to roost. We are thus enabled to pay more attention to
it, and hear the entire song. This evidently was Milton’s idea when he
wrote, in “Il Penseroso:”--
“Sweet bird that shunn’st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among,
I woo, to hear thy evening song.”
Portia says, in _The Merchant of Venice_, Act v. Sc. 1,--
“I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.”
But although she is usually supposed to withhold her notes until sunset,
and then to be the only songstress left, she in reality sings in the day
often as sweetly and as powerfully as at night, but, amidst the general
chorus of other birds, her efforts are less noticed.[71] Valentine
declares that--
“Except I be by Sylvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale.”
_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, Act iii. Sc. 1.
And later on--
“How use doth breed a habit in a man!
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And to the nightingale’s complaining notes
Tune my distresses and record my woes.”
_Id._ Act v. Sc. 4.
The word “record” here, refers to the singing of birds, and, according
to Douce, is derived from the recorder, a sort of flute, by which they
were taught to sing.[72]
[Sidenote: RECORDING.]
The “recording” of young birds is indeed always very different from
their song, as is also the warble of old birds after moulting, as Herr
Bechstein has justly remarked. “It is,” he says, “a very striking
circumstance, that birds which continue in song nearly the whole year,
such as the redbreast, the siskin, and the goldfinch, are obliged, after
their moulting is over, to record, as if they had forgotten their song.
I am convinced, however, that this exercise is less a study than an
endeavour to bring the organs of voice into proper flexibility, what
they utter being properly only a sort of warble, the notes of which have
scarcely any resemblance to the perfect song; and by a little attention
we may perceive how the throat is gradually brought to emit the notes of
the usual song. This view, then, leads us to ascribe the circumstance,
not to defect of memory, but rather to a roughness in the vocal organs,
arising from disuse. It is in this way that the chaffinch makes
endeavours during several successive weeks before attaining to its
former perfection, and the nightingale tries for a long time to model
the strophes of its superb song, before it can produce the full extent
of compass and brilliancy.”[73]
[Sidenote: THE LARK,]
The nightingale has not more happily inspired our poets than the Lark
(_Alauda arvensis_). Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Shelley, and Wordsworth
have all sung the praises of this famed songster; while Shakespeare, in
undying verse, has paid many a tribute to “the blythesome bird.” Let us,
then,
“Leave to the nightingale her shady wood,”
and turn our attention to--
“The lark, that tirra-lirra chants.”
_Winter’s Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 2.
This “tirra-lirra” with the other notes of the bird is well illustrated
in the following lines:--
“La gentille alouette avec son tire-lire,
Tire-lire, à lire, et tirelirau, tire
Vers la voûte du ciel, puis son vol vers ce lieu
Vire, et désire dire adieu Dieu, adieu Dieu.”
[Sidenote: THE HERALD OF THE MORN.]
As the nightingale is called the “bird of eve,” so has the lark been
named the “bird of dawn.” Shakespeare has made frequent allusion to the
early rising of the lark:--
“I do hear the morning lark.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
“It was the lark, the herald of the morn.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act iii. Sc. 5.
“The busy day,
_Wak’d by the lark_, hath rous’d the ribald crows.”
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act iv. Sc. 2.
“Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
_And wakes the morning_, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty.”
_Venus and Adonis._
Milton’s allusion to the early singing of this bird will be familiar to
all:--
“To hear the lark begin his flight,
And, singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise.”
_L’Allegro._
While every musician must remember the song in _Cymbeline_, adapted to
music since Shakespeare’s day by an eminent composer:--
“Hark! hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phœbus ’gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chalic’d flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With everything that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise:
Arise, arise.”
_Cymbeline_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: SINGING AT HEAVEN’S GATE.]
The notion of singing “at heaven’s gate” has been again introduced by
Shakespeare in one of his Sonnets:--
“Like to the lark, at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns _at heaven’s gate_.”
While the same idea, coupled with the mention of Phœbus, has been
expressed by earlier poets. Chaucer, in his “Knightes Tale,” says:--
“The busy larke, messager of daye,
Salueth in hire song the morwe gray:
And fyry Phebus ryseth up so bright,
That al the orient laugheth of the light.”
So also, Spenser, in his “Epithalamion,” 1595:--
“Hark how the cheerefull birds do chaunt theyr laies,
And carroll of loves praise.
The merry larke hir mattins sings aloft,
The thrush replyes, the mavis descant playes,
The ouzell shrills, the ruddock warbles soft,
So goodly all agree with sweet consent,
To this dayes merriment.”
And Milton, in the “Paradise Lost,” Book v., has--
“Ye birds
That, singing, _up to heaven’s gate_ ascend.”
The “rising of the lark” and the “lodging of the lamb” have become
synonymous with “morn” and “eve,” (_Henry V._ Act iii. Sc. 7); and he
that would rise early is counselled to “stir with the lark” (_Richard
III._ Act v. Sc. 3).
[Sidenote: THE PLOUGHMAN’S CLOCK.]
With the labourer whose avocation takes him across the fields at early
dawn, the lark is always an especial favourite; and Shakespeare would
have it furnish some indication of the time of day:--
“When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks.”
_Song--Love’s Labour’s Lost._
Again--
“O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars, and your tongue’s sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act i. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: SONG OF THE LARK.]
When Juliet spoke disparagingly of the lark’s song, it was because she
wished the night prolonged, and knew that his voice betokened the
approach of day:--
“It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps.
* * * * *
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes;
O, now I would they had changed voices too!
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act iii. Sc. 5.
The lark has ugly eyes, and the toad very fine ones; hence arose the
saying that the lark and toad changed eyes. Juliet wished they had
changed voices too; for then, as Heath has suggested, the croak of the
toad would have been no indication of the day’s approach, and
consequently no signal for Romeo’s departure.
[Sidenote: SOARING AND SINGING.]
To the naturalist who walks abroad at early dawn, there are few sights
more pleasing than the soaring of a lark. As the first ray of sunshine
dispels the glistening dew-drop and gently falls to earth, the lark,
warmed by its soft touch, mounts high in air, and joyfully proclaims to
all the advent of a new day. What glee is expressed in the song of that
small brown bird, which, as it soars towards heaven and sings, teaches
us the first duty of the day--gratitude to our Creator!
“Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.”[74]
The bird which could inspire such thoughts as these is indeed
noteworthy, and that poets in all ages have singled it out as an
especial favourite, can be no matter of surprise.
Who does not remember those beautiful lines of Wordsworth?--
“Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine,
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise, who soar but never roam--
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!”
But to return to Shakespeare. Perhaps no bird has received more notice
at his hands than the one now under consideration. To enumerate all the
passages in which it is mentioned, would probably only weary the reader.
In addition to those already named, “the shrill-gorg’d lark” is alluded
to in _King Lear_ (Act iv. Sc. 6); while to sing “as sweetly as the
lark” has passed into a proverb (_Merchant of Venice_, Act v. Sc. 1).
Mention is made of this bird in _Titus Andronicus_ (Act ii. Sc. 3, and
Act iii. Sc. 1); in _Cymbeline_ (Act iii. Sc. 6); and in _Richard II._
(Act iii. Sc. 3).
Formerly, a curious method of taking larks was practised by means of
small pieces of looking-glass and red cloth. These were made to move at
a little distance from the fowler by means of a string, and when the
birds, impelled by curiosity, came within range, they were taken in a
net. This practice is referred to by Shakespeare in _Henry VIII._--
“Let his grace go forward,
And dare us with his cap, like larks.”
_Henry VIII._ Act iii. Sc. 2.
The cap in this case was the scarlet hat of the Cardinal, which it was
intended to use as a piece of red cloth. It seems probable, from the
context, that the word “dare” should be “draw.”
[Sidenote: THE COMMON BUNTING.]
A bird which is often taken with larks, and which, indeed, is not unlike
one in appearance, is the Common Bunting (_Emberiza miliaria_). In some
parts of the country it is known as the Bunting-Lark, and, from its size
and general colouring, a casual observer might easily mistake it for one
of the last-named species. No wonder, then, that the old lord Lafeu
says:--
“I took this lark for a bunting.”
_All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act ii. Sc. 5.
[Sidenote: THE THROSTLE.]
It is somewhat singular that the Thrush (_Turdus musicus_), a bird as
much famed for song as either the nightingale or the lark, has been so
little noticed by Shakespeare. We have failed to discover more than
three passages in the entire works of our great poet in which this
well-known bird is mentioned. It is referred to once in _A Winter’s
Tale_ (Act iv. Sc. 2); once in _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act iii. Sc.
1, where Bottom the weaver, in a doggrel rhyme, sings of--
“The throstle, with his note so true;”
and once again in _The Merchant of Venice_ (Act i. Sc. 2), where Portia,
speaking of the French Lord Le Bon, and alluding to his national
propensity for a dance on every available opportunity, remarks that--
“If a throstle sing, he falls straight a-capering.”
Many naturalists, who have paid particular attention to the song of the
thrush, have insisted upon its taking equal rank as a songster with the
more favoured nightingale. Certain it is, that the notes of this bird,
although not so varied, nor so liquid, so to say, as those of Philomel,
are yet of a clear, rich tone, and have something indescribably sweet
about them. “Listen,” says Macgillivray, “to the clear, loud notes of
that speckled warbler, that in the softened sunshine pours forth his
wild melodies on the gladdened ear. What does it resemble?
“Dear, dear, dear
Is the rocky glen;
Far away, far away, far away
The haunts of men.
Here shall we dwell in love,
With the lark and the dove,
Cuckoo and corn-rail,
Feast on the banded snail,
Worm and gilded fly:
Drink of the crystal rill
Winding adown the hill,
Never to dry.
With glee, with glee, with glee,
Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up, here
Nothing to harm us, then sing merrily,
Sing to the lov’d ones whose nest is near.
Qui, qui, qui, kweeu, quip,
Tiurru, tiurru, chipiwi.
Too-tee, too-tee, chiu choo,
Chirri, chirri, chooee,
Quiu, qui, qui.”
It must be admitted by all who have paid particular attention to the
song of the thrush, that this is a wonderful imitation, so far as words
can express notes. The first four lines, lines 7, 13, and 14, and the
last five lines in particular, approach remarkably close in sound to the
original; and this is rendered the more apparent if we endeavour to
pronounce the words by whistling.
Intimately associated with the thrush is its congener the Blackbird
(_Turdus merula_). Both visitors to our lawns and shrubberies, they
remind us of their presence, when we do not see them, by their sweet,
clear notes, and when the cold of winter has made them silent, we are
still charmed with their sprightly actions, and the beauty of their
plumage.
[Sidenote: THE OUZEL.]
The attractive appearance of the blackbird was not overlooked by
Shakespeare, who has mentioned him in one of his songs:--
“The ouzel-cock, so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act iii. Sc. 1.
When Justice Shallow inquires of Justice Silence, “And how doth my
cousin?” he is answered--
“Alas, a black ouzel, Cousin Shallow.”
_King Henry IV._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2;
an expression which was probably equivalent to the modern phrase, a
“black sheep.”
[Sidenote: THE REDBREAST.]
Amongst the songsters of less note mentioned by Shakespeare, are the
Robin-redbreast (_Erythaca rubecula_) and the Wren (_Troglodytes
vulgaris_). These two birds have for centuries, from some unexplained
cause, been always associated together. The country people, in many
parts of England, still regard them as the male and female of one
species, and support their assertion with an old couplet--
“The robin-redbreast and the wren
Are God Almighty’s cock and hen.”
In these days, when so much more attention is paid to ornithology than
formerly, it will be hardly necessary to observe that the two birds thus
associated together are not only of very distinct species, but belong to
widely different genera.
An old name for the redbreast is “ruddock”[75] the meaning of which is
illustrated in the word “ruddy;” and the bird is still known by this
name in some parts of England.
Shakespeare has thus named it in one of his most beautiful passages:--
“With fairest flowers
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I’ll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azur’d hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten’d not thy breath: the _ruddock_ would,
With charitable bill,--O, bill, sore-shaming
Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie
Without a monument!--bring thee all this;
Yea, and furr’d moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.”[76]
_Cymbeline_, Act iv. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: COVERING THE DEAD WITH LEAVES.]
Bishop Percy asks, “Is this an allusion to the ‘Babes in the Wood,’ or
was the notion of the redbreast covering dead bodies general before the
writing of that ballad?” Mr. Knight says, “There is no doubt that it was
an old popular belief, and the notion has been found in an earlier book
of natural history.” John Webster, writing in 1638, says:
“Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o’er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.”
Izaak Walton, in his “Compleat Angler,” 1653, speaks of “the honest
robin that loves mankind, _both alive and dead_.” Possibly Shakespeare
intended only to refer to the ancient and beautiful custom of strewing
the grave with flowers.
With all birds it is the habit of the male to sing while courting the
female. So, when Valentine asks Speed, “How know you that I am in love?”
he gives, amongst other reasons, that he had learnt “to relish a
love-song like a robin-redbreast.”--_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, Act ii.
Sc. 1.
The meaning of the following dialogue does not seem quite clear:--
“_Hotspur._ Come, sing.
_Lady Percy._ I will not sing.
_Hotspur._ ’Tis the next way to turn tailor
_or be redbreast teacher_.”
_Henry IV._ Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Possibly the allusion may be to the “recorder,” by which instrument
birds were taught to sing.[77] Hotspur pays a high compliment to the
vocal powers of Lady Percy by insinuating that her voice would excel the
recorder; and as the bird most frequently taught to pipe is the
bullfinch, it is not improbable that this was the bird intended under
the title of “redbreast,” and not the robin.
[Sidenote: THE WREN WITH LITTLE QUILL.]
Intimately associated with the robin, as we have before remarked, is--
“The wren, with little quill.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream--Song._
It must often have struck others, as it has us, that for so small a
throat, the wren has a wonderfully loud song. There is not much variety
or tone in it, but the notes at once attract attention, and would lead
any one unacquainted with them to inquire the author’s name.
[Sidenote: PUGNACITY OF THE WREN.]
Portia evidently had no high opinion of the wren’s song, when she
said,--
“The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.”
_Merchant of Venice_, Act v. Sc. 1.
Lady Macduff was reminded of the wren when bewailing the flight of her
husband.
“_Lady M._ His flight was madness....
_Ross._ You know not
Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.
_Lady M._ Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,
His mansion, and his titles, in a place
From whence himself does fly? He loves us not;
He wants the natural touch: for the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.”
_Macbeth_, Act iv. Sc. 2.
There are three statements here which are likely to be criticised by
the ornithologist. First, that the wren is the smallest of birds, which
is evidently an oversight. Secondly, that the wren has sufficient
courage to fight against a bird of prey in defence of its young, which
is doubtful. Thirdly, that the owl will take young birds from the nest.
As to this last point, see _ante_, pp. 91-94.
Imogen has made mention of the wren, as follows:--
“I tremble still with fear: but if there be
Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity
As a wren’s eye, fear’d gods, a part of it.”
_Cymbeline_, Act iv. Sc. 2.
And allusions to this little bird will be found in _Twelfth Night_, Act
iii. Sc. 2; _Richard III._ Act i. Sc. 3; _King Lear_, Act iv. Sc. 6;
_Pericles_, Act iv. Sc. 3; and _Henry VI._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
“The Finch” is only once mentioned, _i.e._ in a song in _Midsummer
Night’s Dream_, Act iii. Sc. 1. In _Troilus and Cressida_, however, when
Thersites and Patroclus are abusing each other (Act v. Sc. 1), the
former calls the latter “finch-egg.” But what species of Finch the poet
had in view, it is not easy to determine. It may have been the
Bullfinch, but it is more likely to have been the Chaffinch, which has
always been a favourite cage-bird with the lower classes.
[Sidenote: THE SPARROW.]
The Hedge-sparrow (_Accentor modularis_), a frequenter of the same
haunts, has been more frequently noticed by Shakespeare than the wren.
In many passages throughout the Plays mention is made of “the sparrow”
without the prefix “hedge” or “house.” Occasionally we are enabled, from
the context, to determine the species; but as this is not always the
case, we propose to consider under one head all that Shakespeare has
said of either species.
[Sidenote: PHILIP SPARROW.]
The sparrow appears to have been early known by the name of “Philip,”
perhaps from its note, to which Catullus alludes:--
“Sed circumsiliens, modo huc, modo illuc,
Ad solam dominum usque _pipilabat_.”
In Lyly’s “Mother Bombie,”
“Cry
_Phip, phip_, the sparrows as they fly.”
And Skelton, the Poet Laureate of Henry VIII.’s reign, wrote a long poem
entitled “Phylyppe Sparrow,” on the death of a pet bird of this species.
Shakespeare thus names it in _King John_ (Act i. Sc. 1):--
“_Gurney._ Good leave, good Philip.
_Bastard._ Philip! sparrow!”
We are told of Cressida, when getting ready to meet her lover, that--
“She fetches her breath so short as a new-ta’en sparrow.”
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
Lucio, referring to Angelo, the severe Deputy Duke of Vienna, says:--
“This ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with continency;
sparrows must not build in his house, because they are
lecherous.”--_Measure for Measure_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
Iris tells us that Cupid--
“Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows,
And be a boy right out.”
_Tempest_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: THE FALL OF A SPARROW.]
In _Troilus and Cressida_, as well as in _Hamlet_, are passages in which
it is evident the poet had in his mind the words of Matthew x. 29:--
“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not
fall on the ground without your Father.”
“I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not
worth the ninth part of a penny.”--_Troilus and Cressida_, Act ii.
Sc. 1.
“There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”
_Hamlet_, Act v. Sc. 2.
Again, in the following lines, there is an evident allusion to Psalm
cxlvii. 9 (“He feedeth the young ravens that call upon him”):--
“And He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age!”
_As You Like It_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: THE HEDGE-SPARROW.]
In _Macbeth_ (Act i. Sc. 2), and _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (Act iii. Sc.
1), the sparrow is mentioned; and the following passage in _Henry IV._
will doubtless be remembered by all readers of Shakespeare’s Plays:--
“_Falstaff._ ... “That sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs
o’ horseback up a hill perpendicular.
_P. Henry._ He that rides at high speed, and with his pistol kills a
sparrow flying.
_Falstaff._ You have hit it.
_P. Henry._ So did he never the sparrow.”--_Henry IV._ Part I. Act
ii. Sc. 4.
The Fool in _King Lear_ reminds us that it is in the hedge-sparrow’s
nest that the Cuckoo (_Cuculus canorus_) frequently deposits her egg:--
“For you know, nuncle, the hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,
that it had its head bit off by its young.”--_King Lear_, Act i.
Sc. 4.
Mr. Guest, in adopting the reading of the first folio, observes (_Phil.
Pro._, i. 280) that “in the dialects of the North-western counties,
formerly _it_ was sometimes used for _its_. So in the passage just
quoted we have ‘For you know,’ &c., ‘that _its_ had _it_ head bit off by
_it_ young;’ that is, that it _has had_ its head, not that it _had_ its
head, as the modern editors give the passage, after the second folio.”
“So likewise, long before _its_ was generally received, we have _it
self_ commonly printed in two words, evidently under the impression
that _it_ was a possessive of the same syntactical force with the
pronouns in my self, your self, her self.”[78]
So in _Timon of Athens_ (Act v. Sc. 1), we have--
“The public body ...
... feeling in itself
A lack of Timon’s aid, hath sense withal
Of _it_ own fall.”
Again, in _Winter’s Tale_ (Act ii. Sc. 3):--
... “to _it_ own protection.”
And--
“The innocent milk in _it_ most innocent mouth.”
_Winters Tale_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: THE HEDGE-SPARROW AND CUCKOO.]
The popular notion referred to by the poet in _King Lear_, is again
mentioned by Worcester in _Henry IV._--
“And, being fed by us, you us’d us so
As that ungentle gull, the _cuckoo’s bird_,[79]
Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest,
Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk,
That even our love durst not come near your sight,
For fear of swallowing.”
_Henry IV._ Part I. Act v. Sc. 1.
The ingratitude of the young cuckoo, which is said to turn out the young
of its foster parent as soon as it is sufficiently strong, has given
rise in France to the proverb “Ingrat comme un coucou.”
The word “gull” above mentioned is usually applied to the person
“gulled,” _i.e._ beguiled. Here it must either mean the “guller,” or it
must have a special application to the voracity of the cuckoo, as the
sea-gull is supposed to be so called from _gulo--ōnis_.
We gather from Decker’s “English Villanies” that formerly the sharpers
termed their gang a _warren_, and their simple victims _rabbit-suckers_,
or _conies_. At other times their confederates were called
_bird-catchers_, and their prey _gulls_; and hence it was common to say
of any person who had been swindled or hoaxed, that he was
_coney-catched_ or _gulled_.
“Why, ’tis a _gull_, a fool!”--_Henry V._ Act iii. Sc. 6.
In a subsequent chapter we shall have occasion to refer to various other
passages in which the word _gull_ is thus employed. But to return to the
cuckoo, and its foster parent the hedge-sparrow:--
“Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud,
Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows’ nests?”--_Lucrece._
The solution of this question is the more puzzling from the fact that
this parasitical habit is not common to all species of the genus
cuckoo. An American species builds a nest for itself, and hatches its
own eggs.
[Sidenote: THE CUCKOO.]
The habits of our English bird must always be as much a marvel to us as
its remarkable voice.
“He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo,
By the bad voice.”
_Merchant of Venice_, Act v. Sc. 1.
“The plain song cuckoo gray,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer, nay--
for, indeed, who would set his wish to so foolish a bird? who would give
a bird the lie, though he cry ‘cuckoo’ never so?”--_Midsummer Night’s
Dream_, Act iii. Sc. 1.
This passage always brings to our recollection those beautiful lines
which Wordsworth addressed “To the Cuckoo,” and which must be so well
known to all.
The cuckoo, as long ago remarked by John Heywood,[80] begins to sing
early in the season with the interval of a minor third; the bird then
proceeds to a major third, next to a fourth, then a fifth, after which
its voice breaks, without attaining a minor sixth. It may, therefore, be
said to have done much for musical science, because from this bird has
been derived the minor scale, the origin of which has puzzled so many;
the cuckoo’s couplet being the minor third sung downwards. Kircher,
however,[81] gives it thus:--
[Music]
In Gardiner’s “Music of Nature” it is rendered as follows:--
[Music: Cuc-koo, Cuc-koo.]
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;
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo, O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.
II.
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks;
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws;
And maidens bleach their summer smocks;
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo, O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.”
In the old copies the four first lines of the first stanza are arranged
in couplets thus:--
“When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
And lady-smocks all silver white,
Do paint the meadows with delight.”
But, as in all the other stanzas the rhymes are alternate, this was most
probably an error of the compositor. The transposition now generally
adopted was first made by Theobald.
The notion which couples the name of the cuckoo with the character of
the man whose wife is unfaithful to him, appears to have been derived
from the Romans, and is first found in the middle ages in France, and in
the countries of which the modern language is derived from the Latin. We
are not aware that it existed originally amongst the Teutonic race, and
we have doubtless received it from the Normans. The opinion that the
cuckoo made no nest of its own, but laid its eggs in that of another
bird, which brought up the young cuckoo to the detriment of its own
offspring, was well-known to the ancients, and is mentioned by Aristotle
and Pliny.
So in _Antony and Cleopatra_ (Act ii. Sc. 6):--
“Thou dost o’ercount me of my father’s house;
But since the cuckoo builds not for himself,
Remain in ’t as thou may’st.”
But the ancients more correctly gave the name of the bird, not to the
husband of the faithless wife, but to her paramour, who might justly be
supposed to be acting the part of the cuckoo. They gave the name of the
bird in whose nest the cuckoo’s eggs were usually
deposited--“_curruca_”--to the husband. It is not quite clear how, in
the passage from classic to mediæval, the application of the term was
transferred to the husband.[85] In allusion to this are the following
lines of Shakespeare:--
“For I the ballad will repeat,
Which men full true will find;
Your marriage comes by destiny,
Your cuckoo sings by kind.”
_All’s Well that Ends Well_, Act i. Sc. 3.
This would appear to be only a new version of an old proverb, for in
“Grange’s Garden,” 4to, 1577, we have--
“Content yourself as well as I,
Let reason rule your minde,
As cuckoldes come by destinie,
So cuckowes sing by kinde.”
[Sidenote: CUCKOO SONGS.]
If Shakespeare is to be believed, marriage is not the only thing that
goes by destiny:--
“The ancient saying is no heresy,
Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.”
_Merchant of Venice_, Act ii. Sc. 9.
King Henry IV., alluding to his predecessor, says:--
“So when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded.”
_Henry IV._ Part I. Act iii. Sc. 2.
For in June the cuckoo has been in song for a month, and is therefore
less noticed than on its first arrival in April, when listened to as the
harbinger of Spring.
_Apropos_ of the cuckoo’s song, the following ballad is considered to be
the earliest in the English language now extant. Its date is about the
latter part of the reign of Henry III., and it affords a curious example
of the alterations which our language has undergone since that time;
while the descriptions, which breathe of rural sights and sounds, show
that nature has suffered no change:--
“Sumer is icumen in,
Lhudè sing cuccu;
Groweth sed and bloweth med,
And springeth the wdè nu;
Sing cuccu.
Awe bleteth after lamb,
Lhouth after calvè cu;
Bulluc sterteth, buckè verteth,
Murie sing cuccu;
Cuccu, cuccu;
Wel singes thu cuccu,
Ne swik thu naver nu.”
Summer is come in,
Loud sing cuckoo;
The seed groweth and the mead bloweth,
And the wood shoots now;
Sing cuckoo.
The ewe bleats after the lamb,
The cow lows after the calf;
The bullock starts, the buck verts,
Merrily sing cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo;
Well singest thou cuckoo,
Mayest thou never cease.
This song is preserved amongst the Harleian MSS., No. 978, and is
remarkable for being accompanied with musical notes, and as being the
oldest sample of English secular music.
The Wagtail (_Motacilla Yarrellii_) has no claim to be included amongst
the birds of song, but as the latter are chiefly small birds, and as
Shakespeare has only alluded to it once, we may be excused for
introducing it in the present chapter.
In an opprobrious sense, the word “wagtail” would doubtless denote a
pert, flippant fellow. Kent, in _King Lear_ (Act ii. Sc. 2), says,--
“Spare my grey beard, you _wagtail_!”
In many parts of the country this bird is called “dishwasher,” and the
name appears to be of some antiquity. Turbervile, in his “Booke of
Falconrie,” 1575, speaking of the various kinds of animals and birds
whose flesh is proper for hawks to feed on, says (p. 137),--“The flesh
of these flesh-crowes (_i.e._ carrion crows), and of the wagtayles (or
_dishwasher_, as we tearme them, in Latin called _Motacilla_), and the
cormorant, is of euil nourishment and digestion.”
[Sidenote: BIRD-CATCHING.]
While on the subject of small birds in general, and song birds in
particular, it will be interesting to glance at the methods which were
formerly practised for catching them. These methods were many and
various in kind. Springes, gins, bat-fowling, bird-lime, bird-bolts, and
birding-pieces are all mentioned by Shakespeare.
The “springe” and the “gin” we shall have occasion to notice later in
our remarks upon the Woodcock, for which bird these snares were usually
employed. The ancient practice of “bat-fowling,” or “bat-folding,” is
noticed in “_The Tempest_,” Act ii. Sc. 1:--
“He would so, and then go _a bat-fowling_.”
[Sidenote: BAT-FOWLING.]
In Markham’s “Hunger’s Prevention,” 1600, are some curious directions on
this subject, which afford a very good idea of the way in which this
sport was practised formerly:--
“For the manner of bat-fowling, it may be used either with nettes or
without nettes.
“If you vse it without nettes (which indeed is the most common of the
two), you shall then proceed in this manner. First, there shall be one
to carry the cresset of fire[86] (as was showed for the _low-bell_),
then a certaine number, as two, three, or foure (according to the
greatness of your company), and these shall have poales bound with dry
round wispes of hay, straw, or such like stuffe, or else bound with
pieces of linkes or hurdes dipt in pitch, rosen, grease, or any such
like matter that will blaze. Then another company shall be armed with
long poales, very rough and bushy at the vpper endes, of which the
willow, byrche, or long hazell are best, but indeede according as the
country will afford, so you must be content to take.
“Thus being prepared, and comming into the bushy or rough grounde, where
the haunts of byrdes are, you shall then first kindle some of your
fiers, as halfe or a third part, according as your prouision is, and
then with your other bushy and rough poales you shall beat the bushes,
trees, and haunts of the birds, to enforce them to rise, which done you
shall see the birds which are raysed, to flye and playe about the lights
and flames of the fier, for it is their nature through their amazednesse
and affright at the strangenes of the light and the extreame darknesse
round about it, not to depart from it, but, as it were, almost to scorch
their wings in the same: so that those whice haue the rough bushye
poales may (at their pleasures) beat them down with the same and so
take them. Thus you may spend as much of the night as is darke, for
longer is not conuenient, and doubtlesse you shall find much pastime,
and take great store of birds, and in this you shall obserue all the
obseruations formerly treated of in the _Low-bell_; especially that of
silence, until your lights be kindled, but then you may use your
pleasure, for the noyse and the light when they are heard and scene
afarre of, they make the byrdes sit the faster and surer.
“The byrdes which are commonly taken by this labour or exercise are, for
the most part, the rookes, ring-doues, blackbirdes, throstles,
feldyfares, linnets, bulfinches, and all other byrdes whatsouer that
pearch or sit vpon small boughes or bushes.”
The term “bat-fowling,” however, had another signification in
Shakespeare’s day, and it may have been in this secondary sense that it
is used in the last quotation. It was a slang word for a particular mode
of cheating, just as other modes, in the same age, were known as
“gull-groping,” “sheep-shearing,” “lime-twigging,” “spoon-dropping,”
“stone-carrying,” &c.
“Bat-fowling” was practised about dusk, when the rogue pretended to have
dropped a ring or a jewel at the door of some well-furnished shop, and,
going in, asked the apprentice of the house to light his candle to look
for it. After some peering about, the bat-fowler would drop the candle,
as if by accident.
“Now, I pray you, good young man,” he would say, “do so much as light
the candle again.” While the boy was away the rogue plundered the shop,
and having stole everything he could find, stole away himself.[87]
[Sidenote: BIRD-LIME.]
“Birdlime,” which, as most people know, is made from the bark of the
holly, has long been in use for taking small birds. Shakespeare makes
frequent mention of it:--
“The bird that hath been _limed_ in a bush,
With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;
And I, the hapless mate to one sweet bird,
Have now the fatal object in my eye
Where my poor young was _lim’d_, was caught and kill’d.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act v. Sc. 6.
A similar idea will be found in _Lucrece_:--
“Birds never _lim’d_, no secret bushes fear.”
Again--
“They are _limed_ with the twigs that threaten them.”
_All’s Well that ends Well_, Act iii. Sc. 5.
And--
“She’s _limed_, I warrant you.”
_Much Ado_, Act iii. Sc. 1.
Suffolk, speaking to Queen Margaret of Duke Humphrey’s wife, says:--
“Madam, myself have _lim’d_ a bush for her,
And plac’d a quire of such enticing birds,
That she will light to listen to their lays,
And never mount to trouble you again.”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act i. Sc. 3.
And the Duchess of Gloucester, addressing her husband, warns him that--
... “York and impious Beaufort, that false priest,
Have all _lim’d_ bushes to betray thy wings,
And, fly thou how thou cans’t, they’ll tangle thee.”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Further allusions to the use of birdlime will be found in _Othello_ (Act
ii. Sc. 1), and _Twelfth Night_ (Act iii. Sc. 4).
Now-a-days the practice is to set up a stuffed bird of the species
required against a tree by means of a wire, and surround it with three
or four other wires well smeared with birdlime, placing a live call-bird
in a small dark cage at the foot of the tree to attract the attention of
the wild birds. These latter, on hearing the notes of the captive, fly
towards the spot, and deceived by the appearance of the stuffed
specimen, perch close to it upon a limed wire and are caught, the owner
of the snare generally coming out of ambush to take them before they
have time to free themselves.
[Sidenote: BIRD-TRAPS.]
A simple and effective bird-trap was made as follows:--
Procure a square frame covered on one side with wire netting, as shown
in the woodcut.
Tie each end of a pliant stick to two corners of the frame, to form a
hoop. Cut a straight stick, forked at one end, and a shorter pliant
stick.
[Illustration]
Lift the front of the trap; place the forked stick in an upright
position against the _outside_ of the front, and also _outside_ the
hoop. Insert one end of pliant twig between fork and front, and after
raising hoop about two inches, insert the other end of the twig, so as
to rest against the hoop, and press _outwards_. This will hold the hoop
up. A bird, on approaching the trap, hops on the hoop to get at the
grain within it, when the hoop will go down with the weight and let go
the twig, which being pliant flies out, and the fork (being only
_outside_ the front) of course falls, and so does the trap.
[Sidenote: BIRD-BOLTS.]
The “bird bolts” mentioned by Shakespeare in _Twelfth Night_ (Act i. Sc.
5), _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ (Act iv. Sc. 3), and _Much Ado about Nothing_
(Act i. Sc. 1), were the “bolts,” or “quarrels” as they were sometimes
called, which were shot from the cross-bow, or “stone-bow,” _Twelfth
Night_ (Act ii. Sc. 5). The latter was simply a cross-bow made for
propelling stones or bullets, in contradistinction to a bow that shot
arrows. Sir John Bramston, in his Autobiography (p. 108) says:--“Litle
more than a yeare after I maried, I and my wife being at Skreenes with
my father (the plague being soe in London, and my building not
finished), I had exercised myself with a _stone-bow_, and a spar-hawke
at the bush.”
There were two denominations of cross-bows--latches and prodds. The
former were the military weapons, and were bent with one or both feet,
by putting them into a kind of stirrup at the extremity, and then
drawing the cord upward with the hands; the latter were chiefly used for
sporting purposes. They were bent with the hand, by means of a small
steel lever, called the goat’s-foot, on account of its being forked or
cloven on the side that rested on the cross-bow and the cord. The bow
itself was usually made of steel, though sometimes of wood or horn.[88]
The missiles discharged from them were not only arrows, which were
shorter and stouter than those of the long-bow, but also bolts
(_bolzen_, German; _quarreaux_, or _carrieaux_, French; _quadrelli_,
Latin, corrupted into “quarrels,” from their pyramidal form), and also
stones or leaden balls.
_Apropos_ of “bolts,” who does not remember Oberon’s poetical story of
the wild pansy (_Viola tricolor_) marked by Cupid’s “bolt?”
“Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,--
Before, milk white, now purple with love’s wound,--
And maidens call it ‘Love-in-idleness.’”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: BIRDING-PIECES.]
The “birding-pieces” which Mrs. Ford tells Falstaff are always
“discharged” up the chimney, were no doubt the old-fashioned
fowling-pieces which were in use in those days.
According to Sir S. D. Scott,[89] the “birding-piece” was identical with
the “snap-hance,” the early form of that process of ignition--the flint
and steel lock--which has survived nearly 300 years, and specimens of
which, although now becoming rare, may occasionally be met with in use,
even at the present day. It was a Dutch invention; and is said to have
been brought into use by marauders, whom the Dutch called _snap-haans_,
or poultry stealers. The light from the burning match, which necessarily
accompanied the match-lock, exposed them to detection; and the
wheel-lock was an article too expensive for them to purchase, as well as
being liable to get out of order; so this lock was devised, and was
suggested, no doubt, by the wheel-lock. It consisted in the substitution
of flint for pyrites, and a furrowed plate of steel in lieu of the
wheel. When the trigger was pulled, it brought this jagged piece of
steel in collision with the flint, which threw down its shower of sparks
into the open pan, and lighted the priming. This improvement apparently
took place about the close of the sixteenth century.
[Illustration]
There is a very early “snap-hance” in the Tower Collection, numbered
12/79. It is a “birding-piece” of Prince Charles, afterwards King
Charles I., date 1614, and furnishes a good illustration of the form of
gun in use in Shakespeare’s day. It is engraved both on lock and barrel.
The butt is remarkably thin; the length of the whole arm is four feet
two inches, and was consequently adapted for a youth like the Prince,
who, at the date above mentioned, was fourteen years of age.
[Sidenote: DANGER.]
On looking at the curious specimens which are still treasured up as
heirlooms, or in museums, one cannot help thinking that the person who
pulled the trigger must have been in far greater danger than the bird at
which he aimed.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
THE BIRDS UNDER DOMESTICATION.
It would hardly be supposed that the birds under domestication could
inspire much poetical feeling, or indeed that they could furnish the
dramatist with much imagery. Those, however, who may entertain this
view, on reading the works of Shakespeare, must admit that in his case
at least they are mistaken. The Cock, the Peacock, the Turkey, the
Pigeon, the Goose, the Duck and the Swan, are all noticed in their turn,
and indeed, in the ordinary list of poultry, hardly a species has
escaped mention. In the succeeding chapter, when treating of the
game-birds, we shall notice the Pheasant, Partridge, and Quail, which
are occasionally domesticated. For the present, it will be as well to
confine our attention to the birds above mentioned.
[Sidenote: THE COCK.]
“The early village cock” (_Richard III._ Act v. Sc. 3), “the trumpet to
the morn” (_Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 1), is often noticed by Shakespeare. In
the prologue to the fourth act of _King Henry V._--
“The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.”
[Sidenote: COCK-CROW.]
Steevens has shown that the popular notion of a phantom disappearing at
cock-crow is of very ancient date. The conversation of Bernardo,
Horatio, and Marcellus, on the subject of Hamlet’s ghost, affords a good
illustration of this:--
“_Bern._ It was about to speak, when the cock crew!
_Hor._ And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant[90] and erring spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein,
This present object made probation.
_Mar._ It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.”
_Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 1.
“Hark! hark! I hear the strain of strutting chanticleer
cry cockadidle-dowe.”--_Tempest_, Act i. Sc. 2.
Just as “cock-crow” denotes the early morning, so is “cock-shut-time” or
“cock-close,” expressive of the evening; although some consider that the
latter phrase owes its origin to the practice of netting woodcocks at
twilight, that is, shutting or enclosing them in a net.
[Sidenote: COCK-A-HOOP.]
The origin of the phrase “cock-a-hoop,” which occurs in _Romeo and
Juliet_, Act i. Sc. 5, is very doubtful: the passage is--
“You’ll make a mutiny among my guests!
You will set _cock-a-hoop_! you’ll be the man!”
Some commentators consider that this refers in some way to the boastful
crowing of the cock, but we do not think that Shakespeare intended any
allusion here to the game-fowl. We take it that the reference is to a
cask of ale or wine, and that the phrase “to set cock-a-hoop” means to
take the cock, or tap, out of the cask and set it on the hoop, thus
letting all the contents escape. The man who would do such a reckless
act, would be just the sort of man to whom Shakespeare refers.
The ale-house sign of “The Cock and Hoop” represents a game-fowl
standing upon a hoop, but we have little doubt that the original sign
was a cask flowing, with the tap laid on the top. The modern version is
no doubt a corruption, just as we have “The Swan with Two _Necks_” for
“The Swan with Two _Nicks_,” _i.e._ marks on the bill to distinguish it;
“The Devil and the Bag o’ Nails” for “Pan and the Bacchanals;” “The Goat
and Compasses” for the ancient motto “God encompasseth us;” &c., &c.[91]
[Sidenote: COCK AND PYE.]
The popular adjuration, “by cock and pye,” which Shakespeare has put in
the mouth of Justice Shallow, was once supposed to refer to the sacred
name, and to the table of services, called “the pie;” but it is now
thought to be what Hotspur termed a mere “protest of pepper
gingerbread,” as innocent as Slender’s, “By these gloves,” or, “By this
hat.” In “Soliman and Perseda” (1599), it occurs coupled with
“mousefoot;”--“By cock and pye and mousefoot.” Again, in “The Plaine
Man’s Pathway to Heaven,” by Arthur Dent (1607), we have the following
dialogue:--
_Asunetus._--“I know a man that will never swear but by _cock_ or
_py_, or _mousefoot_. I hope you will not say these be oaths. For
he is as honest a man as ever brake bread. You shall not hear an
oath come out of his mouth.”
_Theologus._--“I do not think he is so honest a man as you make him.
For it is no small sin to swear by creatures.”
The Cock and Pye (_i.e._ Magpie) was an ordinary ale-house sign, and may
thus have become a subject for the vulgar to swear by. Douce, however,
ascribes to it a less ignoble origin, and his interpretation is too
ingenious to be passed over in silence:--“It will no doubt be
recollected that in the days of ancient chivalry it was the practice to
make solemn vows or engagements for the performance of some considerable
enterprise. This ceremony was usually performed during some grand feast
or entertainment, at which a roasted peacock or pheasant being served up
by ladies in a dish of gold or silver, was thus presented to each
knight, who then made the particular vow which he had chosen with great
solemnity. When this custom had fallen into disuse, the peacock
nevertheless continued to be a favourite dish, and was introduced on the
table in a pie, the head, with gilded beak, being proudly elevated above
the crust, and the splendid tail expanded. Other birds of less value
were introduced in the same manner, and the recollection of the old
peacock vows might occasion the less serious, or even burlesque,
imitation of swearing not only by the bird itself, but also by the
_pye_; and hence, probably, the oath ‘by cock and pye,’ for the use of
which no very old authority can be found.”
_Shallow._ “By cock and pye, sir, you shall not away
to-night.”--_Henry IV._ Part II. Act v. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: COCK-FIGHTING.]
The pastime of cock-fighting, to which Shakespeare has alluded in
_Antony and Cleopatra_, is no doubt of some antiquity. Strutt, in his
“Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,” does not give any
history of its introduction, but quotes from Burton (1660), and Powell
(1696), to show that the sport was well known at those dates. It was
much in vogue in Shakespeare’s day, and the great dramatist is probably
not wrong in leading us to suppose that it was first introduced by the
Romans:--
“His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
When it is all to nought.”
_Antony and Cleopatra_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
“Cock-fighting took place generally between August and May. Six weeks
before a battle, the champions were confined in separate pens, and fed
with bread. Their spurs were then wrapped in leather, and they were
allowed to spar, and sweated in straw baskets, and fed with sugar-candy,
chopped rosemary, and butter, to strengthen them and give them wind.
Roots dipped in wine, and oatmeal kneaded with ale and eggs, were also
allowed them, as purges and diaphoretics. Every day the feeder had to
lick his bird’s eye, and lead and encourage him to pursue a dunghill
fowl which he held in his arms, and ran with before him. The last
fortnight the sparring was discontinued, and four days next allowed
before the bird was brought into the pit, and always fasting.
“In matching birds, it was necessary to consider their strength and
length--the weak, long bird rising with more ease, and the short, strong
bird giving the surer and deadlier blow.
“The game cocks were prepared for battle by cutting off the mane all but
a small ruff, and clipping off the feathers from the tail. The wings
were cut short, and sharp points left, to endanger the eye of the
antagonist. The spurs were scraped and sharpened, but steel spurs were
not used at this early period, though the sport was as old as the
Athenians. The preparation was completed by removing all the feathers
from the crown of the head. The feeder, then licking his pupil all over,
turned him into the pit, to win his gold and move his fortune.
“The birds were generally brought into the arena in linen bags, in which
they came from Norwich or Wisbeach.
“They began the combat by whetting their beaks upon the ground, and
continued the fight till they were both blind, or faint from loss of
blood. The feeder had to suck the wounds of the living bird, and powder
them with dust of the herb Robert. If the eye were hurt, the cocker
chewed ground ivy, and applied the juice to the wound.”[92]
[Sidenote: ANCESTRY OF DOMESTIC COCK.]
Whether the various breeds of domestic fowls have diverged by
independent and different roads from a single type, which is most
probable, or whether they have descended from several distinct wild
species, as some naturalists maintain, is a question which can scarcely
be answered in the present treatise. A separate volume might be written
on the subject. Nevertheless, the general opinion is that all the
various breeds have descended from a common wild ancestor--the _Gallus
bankiva_ of India. This species has a wide geographical range. It
inhabits Northern India as far west as Scinde, and ascends the Himalaya
to a height of 4,000 feet. It is found in Burmah, the Malay Peninsula,
the Indo-Chinese countries, the Philippine Islands, and the Malayan
Archipelago, as far eastward as Timor. Mr. Darwin has shown[93] that it
varies considerably in the wild state, and observes[94] that “from the
extremely close resemblance in colour, general structure, and especially
in voice, between _Gallus bankiva_ and the game-fowl; from their
fertility, as far as this has been ascertained, when crossed; from the
possibility of the wild species being tamed, and from its varying in the
wild state, we may confidently look at it as the parent of the most
typical of all the domestic breeds, namely, the game-fowl. It is a
significant fact that almost all the naturalists in India, namely, Sir
W. Elliot, Mr. S. N. Ward, Mr. Layard, Mr. T. C. Jerdon, and Mr. Blyth,
who are familiar with _Gallus bankiva_, believe that it is the parent of
most or all of our domestic breeds.”
[Sidenote: THE PEACOCK.]
Another species of Eastern origin noticed by Shakespeare is the Peacock
(_Pavo cristatus_):--
“Let frantic Talbot triumph for awhile,
And, like a peacock, sweep along his tail;
We’ll pull his plumes and take away his train.”
_Henry VI._ Part I. Act iii. Sc. 3.
And elsewhere--
“Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,--a stride and a
stand.”--_Troilus and Cressida_, Act iii. Sc. 3.[95]
Ælian says peacocks were brought into Greece from some barbarous
country, and were held in such estimation that a pair was valued at
Athens at 1,000 drachmæ, or £32 5_s._ 10_d._ Peacocks’ crests in ancient
times were among the ornaments of the Kings of England.
Ernald de Aclent paid a fine to King John in 150 palfreys, with
sackbuts, lorains, gilt spurs, and peacocks’ crests, such as would be
for his credit.
Whether our birds are descended from those introduced into Europe in the
time of Alexander, or have been subsequently imported, is doubtful. They
vary but little under domestication, except in sometimes being white or
piebald.[96]
[Sidenote: ITS INTRODUCTION.]
A curious fact with respect to the peacock may here be noticed, namely,
the occasional appearance in England of the “japanned” or
“black-shouldered” kind. This form has been regarded by Mr. Sclater as a
distinct species, under the name of _Pavo nigripennis_, and he believes
it will hereafter be found wild in some country, but not in India, where
it is certainly unknown.[97] These japanned birds differ conspicuously
from the common peacock, and can be propagated perfectly true.
Nevertheless, Mr. Darwin gives it as his opinion that “the evidence
seems to preponderate strongly in favour of the black-shouldered breed
being a variation, induced either by the climate of England, or by some
unknown cause, such as reversion to a primordial and extinct condition
of the species.”[98]
Formerly the peacock was in much request for the table, but now-a-days
the species appears to be preserved for ornament rather than use.
According to the “Northumberland Household Book,” the price of a
peacock for the table in 1512 was twelvepence; but we must recollect
that this was a much larger sum in those days than it is now considered
to be.
[Sidenote: THE TURKEY.]
Shakespeare has committed a curious anachronism in introducing the
domestic Turkey in the play of _Henry IV._, the species being unknown in
England until the later reign of Henry VIII. The passage referred to
runs thus:--
_First Carrier._ “’Odsbody! the turkeys in my pannier are quite
starved. What, ostler!”--_Henry IV._ Part I. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: ITS INTRODUCTION INTO ENGLAND.]
The turkey was imported into Spain by the Spanish discoverers in the New
World, early in the sixteenth century, its wild prototype being the
_Gallipavo Mexicana_ of Gould, and from Spain it was introduced into
England in 1524. In 1525 a rhyme was composed, celebrating the
introduction of this bird, as well as other good things, into this
country:--
“Turkies, carps, hoppes, piccarell, and beere,
Came into England all in one yeare.”[99]
A writer in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” says:--
“This fowl was first seen in France in the reign of Francis I., and in
England in that of Henry VIII. By the date of the reigns of these
monarchs, the first turkies must have been brought from Mexico, the
conquest of which was completed A.D. 1521.”[100]
“These facts,” observes Mr. Blyth,[101] “are generally known, but not
the fact for which there is abundant evidence, that the _domestic_
turkey was introduced _from Europe_ into the North American colonies,
where a kindred wild species abounded in the forest.”
[Sidenote: TURKEY-FOWL AND GUINEA-FOWL.]
The origin of the English name turkey, as applied to a bird indigenous
to America, has provoked much discussion. The best explanation is that
given by Mr. Blyth, in the work last quoted[102]:--
“It is certain,” he says, “that the _Guinea-fowl_ was commonly termed
the _Turkey-hen_ in former days, and hence a difficulty sometimes in
knowing which bird is meant by sundry old authors. As the Portuguese
discoveries along the west coast of Africa preceded those of the
Spaniards in America, there is reason to infer that our British
ancestors became acquainted with the guinea-fowl prior to their
knowledge of the turkey; and the English trade being then chiefly with
the Levantine countries, our ancestors may well have fancied that it
came from thence. Referring to a curious old dictionary in my possession
(published in 1678) for the word _Melcagris_, I find it translated ’a
Guinny or Turkey Hen:’ _Gallinæ Africanæ sen Numidicæ_, Var. ‘sine quæ
vulgo Indicæ’ (_Coq d’Inde_ of the French, corrupted into _Dinde_ and
_Dindon_!). Again, _Numidica guttata_ of Martial is rendered ‘a Ginny or
Turkey Hen.’ Looking also into an English and Spanish Dictionary of so
late a date as 1740, I find _Gallipavo_ rendered ‘a Turkey or Guinea
Cock or Hen.’ Well, it is known that our British forefathers originally
derived the domestic turkey from Spain, and meanwhile they are likely to
have obtained a knowledge of the true _habitat_ of the guinea-fowl, and
therefore may very probably have supposed the former to be the real
_turkey_-fowl, as distinguished from the _guinea_-fowl; and if the word
‘fowl’ be dropped in the one instance and not in the other, be it
remembered that there was another special meaning for the word _Guinea_,
having reference to the Gold Coast, otherwise the bird might have come
to be known as the ‘guinea,’ as the bantam-fowl is now currently
designated the ‘bantam,’ and the canary-bird as the ‘canary,’ or the
turkey-fowl the ‘turkey.’ The Latin-sounding name _Gallipavo_ seems to
be of Spanish origin, and obtains among the Spaniards to this day; but
their earliest name for it was ‘_Pavon de las Indias_,’ ‘c’est-à-dire,’
as Buffon remarks, ‘_Paon des Indes Occidentales_;’ which explains the
reference to India perpetuated in ‘_Dindon_.’”
The turkey is again mentioned by Shakespeare in _Twelfth Night_, where
Fabian, speaking of Malvolio to Andrew Aguecheek, says:--
“Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him: how he jets under
his advanc’d plumes!”--_Twelfth Night_, Act ii. Sc. 5.
[Sidenote: THE PIGEON:]
The Pigeon and the Dove are repeatedly mentioned in the works of
Shakespeare, although on different grounds. The former bird is noticed
as a letter-carrier (_Titus Andronicus_, Act iv. Sc. 3), as an article
of food (_Henry IV._ Part II. Act v. Sc. 1), and as an example of
conjugal fidelity and attachment to offspring (_As You Like It_, Act i.
Sc. 2, and Act iii. Sc. 3). The latter is alluded to as the emblem of
peace (_Henry IV._ Part I. Act iv. Sc. 1.; _Henry VIII._ Act iv. Sc. 1),
modesty (_Taming of the Shrew_, Act iii. Sc. 2), patience (_Hamlet_, Act
v. Sc. 1), innocence (_Henry VI._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1), fidelity
(_Troilus and Cressida_, Act iii. Sc. 2; _Winter’s Tale_, Act iv. Sc.
3), and love (_Venus and Adonis_; _Henry VI._ Part I. Act ii. Sc. 2;
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act ii. Sc. 5).
In one passage only is the word “dove” used synonymously for “pigeon.”
In _Romeo and Juliet_ we are told of the nurse “sitting in the sun under
the _dove_-house wall” (Act i. Sc. 3).
[Sidenote: ITS EARLY DOMESTICATION.]
The practice, here alluded to, of keeping pigeons in a domesticated
state is of very ancient date. Mr. Darwin has been at considerable pains
to collect information upon this point, and in his admirable work “On
the Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,” he gives the
following results:--
[Sidenote: PIGEON-FANCIERS.]
“The earliest record, as has been pointed out to me by Professor
Lepsius, of pigeons in a domesticated condition, occurs in the fifth
Egyptian dynasty, about 3000 B.C.; but Mr. Birch, of the British
Museum, informs me that the pigeon appears in a bill of fare in the
previous dynasty.[103] Domestic pigeons are mentioned in Genesis,
Leviticus, and Isaiah. In the time of the Romans, as we hear from
Pliny, immense prices were given for pigeons; ‘nay, they are come to
this pass, that they can reckon up their pedigree and race.’ In
India, about the year 1600, pigeons were much valued by Akber Khan:
20,000 birds were carried about with the court, and the merchants
brought valuable collections. ‘The monarchs of Iran and Turan sent
him some very rare breeds. His Majesty,’ says the courtly historian,
‘by crossing the breeds, which method was never practised before,
has improved them astonishingly. Akber Khan possessed seventeen
distinct kinds, eight of which were valuable for beauty alone. At
about this same period of 1600, the Dutch, according to Aldrovandus,
were as eager about pigeons as the Romans had formerly been. The
breeds which were kept during the fifteenth century in Europe and in
India, apparently differed from each other. Tavernier, in his
‘Travels,’ in 1677, speaks as does Chardin, in 1735, of the vast
numbers of pigeon-houses in Persia; and the former remarks, that as
Christians were not permitted to keep pigeons, some of the vulgar
actually turned Mahometans for this sole purpose. The Emperor of
Morocco had his favourite keeper of pigeons, as is mentioned in
Moore’s treatise, published 1737. In England, from the time of 1678
to the present day, as well as in Germany and in France, numerous
treatises have been published on the pigeon. In India, about a
hundred years ago, a Persian treatise was written; and the writer
thought it no light affair, for he begins with a solemn invocation,
‘In the name of God, the gracious and merciful.’ Many large towns in
Europe and the United States now have their societies of devoted
pigeon-fanciers: at present there are three such societies in
London. In India, as I hear from Mr. Blyth, the inhabitants of Delhi
and of some other great cities are eager fanciers. Mr. Layard
informs me that most of the known breeds are kept in Ceylon. In
China, according to Mr. Swinhoe of Amoy, and Dr. Lockhart of
Shanghai, carriers, fantails, tumblers, and other varieties are
reared with care, especially by the bonzes, or priests.
“The Chinese fasten a kind of whistle to the tail-feathers of their
pigeons, and as the flock wheels through the air, they produce a
sweet sound.[104] In Egypt, the late Abbas Pacha was a great fancier
of fantails. Many pigeons are kept at Cairo and Constantinople, and
these have lately been imported by native merchants, as I hear from
Sir W. Elliot, into Southern India, and sold at high prices.
“The foregoing statements show in how many countries, and during how
long a period, many men have been passionately devoted to the
breeding of pigeons.”[105]
[Sidenote: CARRIER-PIGEONS.]
In _Titus Andronicus_ (Act iv. Sc. 3), upon the entry of a clown with
two pigeons Titus exclaims:--
“News, news from heaven! Marcus, _the post is come_.
Sirrah, what tidings? have you any letters?”
The practice of using pigeons as letter-carriers, here alluded to by
Shakespeare, is doubtless of very ancient origin. The old historian
Diodorus Siculus, informs us that above two thousand years ago they were
employed for this purpose; and five hundred years since relays of
carrier-pigeons formed part of a telegraphic system adopted by the
Turks. “Regular chains of posts were established, consisting of high
towers between thirty and forty miles asunder, provided with pigeons,
and sentinels stood there constantly on the watch, to secure the
intelligence communicated by the birds as they arrived, and to pass it
on by means of others. The note was written on a thin slip of paper,
enclosed in a very small gold box, almost as thin as the paper itself,
suspended to the neck of the bird; the hour of arrival and departure
were marked at each successive tower, and for greater security a
duplicate was always despatched two hours after the first. The
despatches were, however, not always enclosed in gold, but merely in
paper, in which case, to prevent the letters being defaced by damp, the
legs of the pigeon were first bathed in vinegar, with a view to keep
them cool, so that they might not settle to drink, or wash themselves on
the way, which in that hot climate they were often doing.”
[Sidenote: PIGEON-POST.]
The modern mode of transmitting messages by pigeon-post is much more
ingenious, and less irksome to the bird. The slip of paper is rolled up
very tightly, and inserted in a small quill, which is stitched to one of
the tail-feathers.
Formerly it was not an uncommon thing to send a pair of doves or pigeons
as a present--
“I have brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here.”--_Titus
Andronicus_, Act iv. Sc. 4.
The constancy evinced by pigeons towards each other, when paired, has
been already referred to. (_As You Like It_, Act iii. Sc. 3; _Winter’s
Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 3, &c.)
[Sidenote: “PIGEON-LIVER’D.”]
It has been stated that the absence of a gall-bladder in pigeons is
compensated for by the extraordinary development of the crop, by the aid
of which the food becomes so thoroughly digested, that the gall is
rendered unnecessary. This, however, is not strictly correct, as the
food is only macerated in the crop; and the gall, as it is secreted,
passes, by two ducts, from the liver into the duodenum, instead of into
a gall-bladder. Shakespeare has alluded to this peculiarity in the
digestive organs of pigeons in _Hamlet_, where the Prince says:--
“I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter.”
_Hamlet_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
The manner in which they feed their young, to which allusion is made in
_As You Like It_ (Act i. Sc. 2), is very remarkable.
Most birds _collect_ for their young, but in the case of pigeons and
some others, there exists a provision very similar to that of milk in
quadrupeds. “I have discovered,” says John Hunter,[106] “in my enquiries
concerning the various modes in which young animals are nourished, that
all the dove kind are endowed with a similar power.
[Sidenote: “AS PIGEONS FEED THEIR YOUNG.”]
“The young pigeon, like the young quadruped, till it is capable of
digesting the common food of its kind, is fed with a substance secreted
for that purpose by the parent animal; not, as in the mammalia, by the
female alone, but also by the male, which perhaps furnishes this
nutriment in a degree still more abundant.
“It is a common property of birds, that both male and female are equally
employed in hatching and in feeding their young in the second stage, but
this particular mode of nourishment, by means of a substance secreted in
their own bodies, is peculiar to certain kinds, and is carried on in the
crop.
“Besides the dove kind, I have some reason to suppose parrots to be
endowed with the same faculty, as they have the power of throwing up the
contents of the crop, and feeding one another.
“I have seen the cock parrakeet regularly feed the hen, by first filling
his own crop, and then supplying her from his beak. Parrots, macaws,
cockatoos, &c., when they are very fond of the person who feeds them,
may likewise be observed to have the action of throwing up the food, and
often do it. The cock pigeon, when he caresses the hen, performs the
same kind of action as when he feeds his young, but I do not know if at
this time he throws up anything from the crop.
“During incubation, the coats of the crop in the pigeon are gradually
enlarged and thickened, like what happens to the udder of females of the
class mammalia, in the term of uterine gestation. On comparing the state
of the crop when the bird is not sitting, with its appearance during
incubation, the difference is very remarkable. In the first case it is
thin and membranous, but by the time the young are about to be hatched,
the whole, except what lies on the trachea or windpipe, becomes
thickened, and takes on a glandular appearance, having its internal
surface very irregular. It is likewise evidently more vascular than in
its former state, that it may convey a quantity of blood, sufficient for
the secretion of this substance, which is to nourish the young brood for
some days after they are hatched. Whatever may be the consistence of
this substance when just secreted, it most probably soon coagulates into
a granulated white curd, for in such a form I have always found it in
the crop; and if an old pigeon is killed just as the young ones are
hatching, the crop will be found as above described, and in its cavity
pieces of white curd, mixed with some of the common food of the pigeon,
such as barley, beans, &c.
“If we allow either of the parents to feed the young, its crop, when
examined, will be discovered to contain the same curdled substance,
which passes thence into the stomach, where it is to be digested. The
young pigeon is fed for some time with this substance only, and about
the third day some of the common food is found mingled with it; and as
the pigeon grows older, the proportion of common food is increased, so
that by the time it is seven, eight, or nine days old, the secretion of
the curd ceases in the old ones, and of course will no more be found in
the crop of the young.
“It is a curious fact that the parent pigeon has at first the power to
throw up this curd without any mixture of common food, although
afterwards both are thrown up according to the proportion required for
the young ones. I have called this substance curd, not as being
literally so, but as resembling that more than anything I know; it may,
however, have a greater resemblance to curd than we are perhaps aware
of; for neither this secretion, nor curd from which the whey has been
pressed, seem to contain any sugar, and do not run into the acetous
fermentation. The property of coagulating is confined to the substance
itself, as it produces no such effect when mixed with milk. This
secretion in the pigeon, like all other animal substances, becomes
putrid by standing, though not so readily as either blood or meat, it
resisting putrefaction for a considerable time; neither will curd much
pressed become so putrid as soon as either blood or meat.”
Selby says,[107] “The young remain in the nest till they are able to
fly, and are fed by the parent birds, who disgorge into their mouths the
food that has undergone a maceration, or semi-digestive process, in that
part of the œsophagus usually called the crop or craw.”
Colonel Montagu appears to be one of the few original observers who has
confirmed the account given by Hunter. “The rook,” he says, “has a small
pouch under the tongue, in which it carries food to its young. It is
probable the use of the craw may be extended further than is generally
imagined, for, besides the common preparation of the food to assist its
digestion in the stomach, there are some species that actually secrete a
lacteal substance in the breeding season, which, mixing with the
half-digested food, is ejected to feed and nourish the young. The mammæ
from which this milky liquor is produced, are situated on each side of
the upper part of the breast, immediately under the craw. In the female
turtle-dove we have met with these glands tumid with milky secretion,
and we believe it common to both sexes of the dove genus.”[108]
[Sidenote: THE BARBARY PIGEON.]
It is not surprising that so great an authority on the subject as Mr.
Tegetmeier should have adverted to Shakespeare’s knowledge of these
birds. At p. 133 of his work upon Pigeons,[109] he says:--“The Barb, or
Barbary Pigeon, is one of those varieties whose history can be traced
back for a considerable period: it was certainly well known in England
during the sixteenth century, for Shakespeare, in _As You Like It_,
which was entered at Stationers’ Hall in 1600, makes Rosalind, when
disguised as a youth, say, ‘I will be more jealous of thee than a
Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen.’--Act iv. Sc. 1. Our intercourse with
the north of Africa was at that period not unfrequent, and many of the
domestic animals of the district had been imported into this country.
Shakespeare frequently alludes to Barbary horses; and in the Second Part
of _King Henry IV._ Act ii. Sc. 4, makes Falstaff say, ‘He’s no
swaggerer, hostess ... he’ll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her
feathers turn back with any show of resistance.’ This allusion was most
probably to a frizzled fowl. In this singular variety the feathers upon
the head and neck are reversed or curled, which gives the hen at all
times the appearance of a cock in fighting attitude. Hence Shakespeare’s
apt allusion.”
[Sidenote: THE ROCK-DOVE.]
There seems to be no doubt that all the various races of the domestic
pigeon are descended from a single stock, namely, the wild rock-pigeon
(_Columba livia_). A mass of interesting evidence on this subject will
be found in Darwin’s “Variation of Animals and Plants under
Domestication,” vol. i. chap. 5.
Frequent allusion has been made by Shakespeare to the “Doves of Venus”
(_Lucrece_, _Venus and Adonis_, and _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act i.
Sc. 1), and “Venus’ Pigeons” (_Merchant of Venice_, Act ii. Sc. 6).
[Sidenote: THE DOVES OF VENUS.]
Some explanation of this is to be found in the following passage from
_Venus and Adonis_:--
“Thus weary of the world, away she (Venus) hies,
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid
Their mistress, mounted, through the empty skies
In her light chariot quickly is convey’d;
Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
Means to immure herself and not be seen.”
This will also explain the reference to
“The dove of Paphos.”
_Pericles_, Act iv. Introd.
The towns of Old and New Paphos are situate on the S.W. extremity of the
coast of Cyprus. Old Paphos is the one generally referred to by the
poets, being the peculiar seat of the worship of Venus, who was fabled
to have been wafted thither after her birth amid the waves. The “dove of
Paphos” therefore, may be considered as synonymous with the “dove of
Venus.” Sometimes by Paphos is understood the city of Cyprus, which is
said to have been founded by Paphos, son of Pygmalion, and was known by
his name:--
“Illa Paphon genuit: de quo tenet insula nomen.”
_Ovid Metam._ Bk. 10, Fab. 8.
The Turtle-dove (_Columba turtur_) has been noticed by poets in all ages
as an emblem of love and constancy.
Shakespeare has--
“When arm in arm they both came swiftly running,
Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves.”
_Henry VI._ Part I. Act ii. Sc. 2.
And elsewhere--
“So turtles pair that never mean to part.”
_Winter’s Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
Again--
“As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate.”
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: PLANTAGE.]
An inquiry into the meaning of the word _plantage_ leads to some curious
information. Archdeacon Nares observes[110] that “plantage” is probably
for anything that is planted. Plants were supposed to improve as the
moon increased, and from an old book entitled “The Profitable Art of
Gardening,” by Thos. Hill, the third edition of which was printed in
1579, we learn that neither sowing, planting, nor grafting was ever
undertaken without a scrupulous attention to the increase or waning of
the moon. Dryden does not appear to have understood the above passage,
and has accordingly altered it to “As true as _flowing tides_ are to the
moon.” But the meaning of the original words seem sufficiently clear,
and may be fully illustrated by the following quotation from Scott’s
“Discoverie of Witchcraft”:--“The poore husband man perceiveth that the
increase of the moone maketh plants frutiful, so as in the full moone
they are in the best strength; decaieing in the wane, and in the
conjunction do utterlie wither and vade.”
The following lines from _Pericles_ are somewhat to the point:--
“How dare the plants look up to heaven, from whence
They have their nourishment?”
_Pericles_, Act i. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: MAHOMED’S DOVE.]
It is possible that particular reference may be had to the plant
“Honesty,” or “Lunary” (_Lunaria_), which was so named from the circular
shape of its pod, which was thought to resemble the moon (_Luna_), not
only in its form, but in its silvery brightness. The title of “Honesty”
appears to have been given it from the transparent nature of the pod,
which discovers those seed-vessels that contain seed from such as are
barren or have shed their seed. We learn from Chaucer that “Honesty”
(_Lunaria_), was one of the plants used in incantations. Drayton calls
it “Lunary”:--
“Then sprinkles she the juice of rue,
With nine drops of the midnight dew
From _Lunary_ distilling.”
_Nymphid._
[Sidenote: EMBLEMS.]
But to return to our doves. It is related that Mahomed had a dove which
he used to feed with wheat out of his ear, which dove, when it was
hungry, lighted on Mahomed’s shoulder and thrust its bill in to find its
breakfast, Mahomed persuading the rude and simple Arabians that it was
the Holy Ghost that gave him advice.[111] Hence Shakespeare’s query--
“Was Mahomed inspired with a dove?”
_Henry VI._ Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
As the crow has been held the type of blackness, so has the dove been
considered the emblem of the opposite colour:--
“So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act i. Sc. 5.
“As soft as dove’s down, and as white as it.”
_Winter’s Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 4.
In the very humorous Interlude which is introduced by the clowns in
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, we have the gentle voice of the dove
contrasted with the mighty roar of the lion:--
“_Bottom._ Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any
man’s heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the Duke
say, ‘Let him roar again, let him roar again.’
_Quince._ An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the
Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough
to hang us all.
_All._ That would hang us, every mother’s son.
_Bottom._ I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies
out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang
us; but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently
as any sucking dove; I will roar you an’t were any
nightingale.”--_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act i. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: TIMIDITY OF THE DOVE.]
We have before drawn attention to the fact that birds which are by
nature weak and timid, flying at the approach of man, will nevertheless
show fight in defence of their young. Shakespeare has noticed this in
the case of the wren,[112] and the dove:--
“And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act ii. Sc. 2.
And in the same play--
“So doves do peck the falcon’s piercing talons.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act i. Sc. 4.
Again--
“To be furious,
Is to be frighted out of fear; and in that mood
The dove will peck the ostrich.”
_Antony and Cleopatra_, Act iii. Sc. 13.
And yet there can scarcely be a more timid bird than the dove, as
Falstaff well knew, when he said ironically:--
“Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous
mouse.”--_Henry IV._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: A DISH OF DOVES.]
The custom of bestowing a pair of doves as a present or peace-offering
has been before alluded to (_Titus Andronicus_, Act iv. Sc. 4).
Izaak Walton tells us that “for the sacrifice of the Law a pair of
turtle-doves or young pigeons were as well accepted as costly bulls and
rams.” When Gobbo wished to curry favour with Bassanio he began by
saying:--
“I have here a dish of doves, that I would bestow on your
worship.”--_Merchant of Venice_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
These were no doubt intended to be eaten. Paris, speaking to Helen of
Pandarus, says,--
“He eats nothing but doves, love.”--_Troilus and Cressida_, Act iii.
Sc. 1.
A weakness which he deprecates as being heating to the blood. Justice
Shallow, when ordering dinner, showed his appreciation of pigeons as
well as of other good cheer. He says:--
“Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens; a joint of
mutton, and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William
cook.”--_Henry IV._ Part II. Act v. Sc. 1.
The price of a pigeon at this time, as we learn from “The
Northumberland Household Book,” was “iij for a penny,” while hens could
be bought “at ijd. a pece.”
“Item, it is thoughte goode to by PIDGIONS for my Lords Meas,
Maister Chambreleyne, ande the Stewardes Meas, so they be boughte
after iij for a penny.
“Item, it is thoughte goode HENNES be boughte from Cristynmas to
Shroftide, so they be good and at ijd. a pece. Ande my Lorde Maister
Chambreleyne and the Stewardes Meas to be syrved with theym and noon
outher.”
[Sidenote: THE GOOSE.]
A much more notable bird for the table is the Goose.
“Item, it is thoughte goode to by GEYSSE so that they be good and
for iijd. or iiijd. at the moste seynge that iij or iiij Meas may be
served thereof.”
This bird is mentioned in _As You Like It_, Act iii. Sc. 4; _Love’s
Labour’s Lost_, Act iii. Sc. 1, and Act iv. Sc. 3; _Midsummer Night’s
Dream_, Act v. Sc. 1; _Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2; _Merry Wives of
Windsor_, Act v. Sc. 1; _Romeo and Juliet_, Act ii. Sc. 4; _Coriolanus_,
Act i. Sc. 4; and _Merchant of Venice_, Act v. Sc. 1.
Shakespeare draws a distinction between a grass-fed and a stubble-fed
goose:--
“The spring is near, when _green geese_ are a-breeding.”
_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act i. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: GREEN GEESE AND STUBBLE GEESE.]
May is the time for a green or grass-fed goose, while the stubble-goose
comes in at Michaelmas. King, in his “Art of Cookery,” has--
“So stubble-geese at Michaelmas are seen
Upon the spit; next May produces green.”
In the old “Household Books,” it is not unusual to find such entries as
the following:--
“Itm̃, the xxvij daye to a s’vñt of
maister Becks in rewarde for bringing a
present of Grene Gees iiijs. viijd.
A “green goose” is mentioned again in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act iv.
Sc. 3.
Launce, enumerating the various occasions on which he had befriended his
dog, says,--
“I have stood on the pillory for geese he hath killed, otherwise he
had suffered for’t.”--_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, Act iv. Sc. 4.
“Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
I’d drive you cackling home to Camelot.”
_King Lear_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
There appears to be some difference of opinion as to what place is meant
by the ancient name _Camelot_. Selden, in his notes to Drayton’s
“Polyolbion,” says:--“By _South Cadbury_ is that Camelot; a hill of a
mile compass at the top; four trenches encircling it, and betwixt every
of them an earthen wall; the contents of it within about twenty acres
full of ruins and relics of old buildings.”
In the “History of King Arthur” (Chap. 26), Camelot is located in the
west of England, _Somersetshire_; while in Chapter 44, it is related
that Sir Balen’s sword “swam down the stream to the citie of Camelot,
that is, in English, _Winchester_.” When Caxton finished the printing of
the “Mort d’Arthur,”[113] he says of the hero:--“He is more spoken of
beyond the sea, ... and yet of record remain witness of him in _Wales_,
in the town of Camelot, the great stones and marvelous works,” &c.
Tennyson, in his “Mort d’Arthur,” twice mentions Camelot, and in his
“Lady of Shalott” frequently alludes to “many-tower’d Camelot,” but in
neither poem is any clue to its precise situation given.
[Sidenote: THE WILD-GOOSE CHASE.]
“_Mercutio._ Nay, if our wits run the _wild-goose chase_, I am done;
for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits, than, I am
sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?
_Romeo._ Thou wast never with me for anything, when thou wast not
there for the goose.
_Mer._ I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
_Rom._ Nay, good goose, bite not.
_Mer._ Thy wit is very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.
_Rom._ And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?
_Mer._ O, here’s a wit of cheverel, that stretches from an inch
narrow to an ell broad!
_Rom._ I stretch it out for that word--broad: which, added to the
goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act ii. Sc. 4.
The “wild-goose chase” above alluded to was a reckless sort of
horserace, in which two horses were started together, and the rider who
first got the lead, compelled the other to follow him over whatever
ground he chose.[114]
Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” 1660, gives us a general view of
the sports most prevalent in the seventeenth century, and after naming
the “common recreations of country folks,” he alludes to “riding of
great horses, running at rings, tilts and tournaments, and _wild-goose
chases_, which are disports of greater men and good in themselves,
though many gentlemen by such means gallop quite out of their fortunes.”
Shakespeare has many observations relating to Ducks, but as his remarks
illustrate more appropriately what we shall have to say under the head
of “wild-fowl,” we reserve them accordingly for a future chapter.
[Sidenote: THE SWAN.]
The Swan (_Cygnus olor_), being identified with Orpheus, and called also
the bird of Apollo, the god of music, powers of song have been often
attributed to it, and as often denied:--
“I will play the swan, and die in music.”
_Othello_, Act v. Sc. 2.
“A swan-like end, fading in music.”
_Merchant of Venice_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
Prince Henry, at his father’s death-bed, exclaims,--
“’Tis strange that death should sing!
I am the cygnet to this pale, faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death;
And, from the organ-pipe of frailty, sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.”
_King John_, Act v. Sc. 7.
Again, in _Lucrece_, we read--
“And now this pale swan in her watery nest,
Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending.”
But although the swan has no “song,” properly so called, it has a soft
and rather plaintive note, monotonous, but not disagreeable. I have
often heard it in the spring, when swimming about with its young.
[Sidenote: SONG OF THE SWAN.]
Colonel Hawker, in his “Instructions to Young Sportsmen” (11th ed. p.
269), says:--“The only note which I ever heard the wild swan, in winter,
utter, is his well-known ‘whoop.’ But one summer evening I was amused
with watching and listening to a domesticated one, as he swam up and
down the water in the Regent’s Park. He turned up a sort of melody, made
with two notes, C and the minor third, E flat, and kept working his head
as if delighted with his own performance.
“The melody, taken down on the spot by a first-rate musician, Auguste
Bertini, was as follows:--
[Music]
The Abbé Arnaud has written some interesting remarks upon the voice of
the swan.[115] He says:--
“The swan, with his wings expanded, his neck outstretched, and his head
erect, places himself opposite his mate, uttering a cry to which the
female replies by another half a note lower. The voice of the male rises
from A (_la_), to B flat (_si bemol_); that of the female from G sharp
(_sol dièse_), to A.[116] The first note is short and transient, and has
the effect which our musicians term _sensible_; so that it is not
separated from the second, but seems to glide into it. Observe that,
fortunately for the ear, they do not both sing at once; in fact, if,
while the male sounded B flat, the female gave A, or if the male
uttered A while the female gave G sharp, there would result the harshest
and most insupportable of discords. We may add that this dialogue is
subjected to a constant and regular rhythm, with the measure of two
times (?). The keeper assured me that during their amours, these birds
have a cry still sharper, but much more agreeable.”
The late Charles Waterton once had an opportunity, which rarely occurs,
of seeing a swan die from natural causes. “Although I gave no credence,”
he says,[117] “to the extravagant notion which antiquity had entertained
of melody from the mouth of the dying swan, still I felt anxious to hear
some plaintive sound or other, some soft inflection of the voice, which
might tend to justify that notion in a small degree. But I was
disappointed. He nodded, and then tried to recover himself, and then
nodded again, and again held up his head; till, at last, quite enfeebled
and worn out, his head fell gently on the grass, his wings became
expanded a trifle or so, and he died whilst I was looking on. He never
even uttered his wonted cry, nor so much as a sound to indicate what he
felt within.
“The silence which this bird maintained to the last tends to show that
the dying song of the swan is nothing but a fable, the origin of which
is lost in the shades of antiquity. Its repetition can be of no manner
of use, save as a warning to ornithologists not to indulge in the
extravagancies of romance--a propensity not altogether unknown in these
our latter times.”
[Sidenote: HABITS OF THE SWAN.]
Yarrell has remarked, in his “History of British Birds,” that “the
young, when hatched, which is generally about the end of May, are
conducted to the water by the parent bird, and are even said to be
carried there: it is certain that the cygnets are frequently carried on
the back of the female when she is sailing about in the water. This I
have witnessed on the Thames, and have seen the female, by raising her
leg, assist the cygnets in getting upon her back.” Mr. Jesse, also, in
his “Gleanings in Natural History,” correctly observes: “Where the
stream is strong the old swan will sink herself sufficiently low to
bring her back on a level with the water, when the cygnets will get upon
it, and in this manner are conveyed to the other side of the river, or
into stiller water.”
From a passage in _King Henry VI._ we may presume that this habit had
been noticed by Shakespeare:--
“So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,
Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.”
_Henry VI._ Part I. Act v. Sc. 3.
By the expression “underneath her wings” we may understand under shelter
of her wings, which she arches over her back whereon the young are
seated.
[Sidenote: THE SWAN’S NEST.]
This habit of carrying the young has been observed in the case of many
other water birds. Mr. W. Proctor, of Durham, speaking of the habits of
the horned grebe (_Podiceps cornutus_), as observed by him in Iceland,
says:--“One day, having seen one of these birds dive from its nest, I
placed myself with my gun at my shoulder, waiting its reappearance. As
soon as it emerged I fired and killed it, and was surprised to see two
young ones, which it seems had been concealed beneath the wings of the
parent bird, drop upon the water. I afterwards shot several other birds
of this species, all of which dived with their young under their wings.
The young were placed with their heads towards the tail, and their bills
resting on the back of the parent bird.”
But to return to the swan:--
“For all the water in the ocean
Can never turn a swan’s black legs to white,
Although she lave them hourly in the flood.”
_Titus Andronicus_, Act iv. Sc. 2.
“I have seen a swan
With bootless labour swim against the tide,
And spend her strength with overmatching waves.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act i. Sc. 4.
[Sidenote: SWAN’S DOWN.]
Those who are familiar with the late Mr. Wolley’s sketch of the wild
swan’s nest, published by Professor Newton in the “Ootheca Wolleyana”
(Part I. Plate 9), will recognize in it an excellent illustration to
the following passage:--
“I’ the world’s volume
Our Britain seems as of it, but not in ’t;
In a great pool, a swan’s nest.”
_Cymbeline_, Act iii. Sc. 4.
For the purpose of comparison, Shakespeare has found the swan very
useful in metaphor.
Benvolio, referring to Rosaline, says,--
“Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.”
_Romeo and Juliet_, Act i. Sc. 2.
Troilus, descanting on the charms of Cressida, speaks of--
“Her hand
* * * * *
... to whose soft seizure
The cygnet’s down is harsh.”...
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act i. Sc. 1.
Amongst the numerous classical allusions to be found throughout the
Plays, we are reminded in the present chapter of Juno’s chariot drawn by
swans:--
“And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable.”
_As You Like It_, Act i. Sc. 3.
Falstaff, too, with some humour, thus alludes to the loves of Leda:--
“O powerful love! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man; in
some other, a man a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan, for the
love of Leda; O, omnipotent love! how near the god drew to the
completion of a goose!”--_Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act v. Sc. 5.
The swan, in Shakespeare’s day, was in much request for the table, and,
for those who could afford it, was served up at all the principal
feasts. In “The Northumberland Household Book,” such items as the
following constantly occur:--
“ITEM. It is thoughte goode that my Lordis SWANNES be taken and
fedde to serve my Lordis house and to be paide fore as they may be
boughte in the countrey, seeing that my Lorde hath Swannes enoughe
of his owne.
“ITEM a Warraunte to be servide oute yerely at Michaelmas for xx
SWANNES for th’ expencez of my Lordis house as too say for
Cristynmas Day v--Saynt Stephyns Day ij--Saynt John Day
ij--Childremas Day ij--Saint Thomas Day ij--New Yere Day iij--ande
for the xij^th Day of Cristynmas iiij Swannys.”
[Sidenote: CYGNETS.]
These were not to be old birds, however. The “Warraunt” referred to
expressly provides that they should be “signetts.”
In the case of the swan, as with many other species, were we to call
attention to every passage throughout the works of Shakespeare wherein
it is mentioned or referred to, we fear the reader’s patience might
become exhausted. Where such allusions, therefore, are trifling, we have
thought it well to pass them by.
In the present chapter, enough has probably been said to show that while
more attractive species have claimed a larger share of the poet’s
attention, the birds under domestication have been by no means
neglected.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII.
THE GAME-BIRDS AND “QUARRY” FLOWN AT BY FALCONERS.
Game-preserving, as we now understand the term, was probably unknown in
Shakespeare’s days, for sportsmen at that time had not the means of
making such large bags, and consequently the necessity for breeding and
rearing game artificially did not exist. Nature’s liberal supply
sufficed to satisfy the moderate demand, and the sportsman always
returned home well pleased. We take it, however, that this satisfaction
resulted more from an appreciation of sport than from the possession of
a heavy bag. What more enjoyable than the pursuit of partridges, “with
grey gos-hawk in hand,” as Chaucer hath it, or a flight at heron with a
falcon?
The skill, too, which was required to kill a bird or rabbit with a
single bolt from a cross-bow was far greater than that which is needed
to achieve the same result with an ounce of shot from a breech-loader.
Not that guns were unknown in Shakespeare’s day, for the old-fashioned
“birding-piece” was then in use, as we have already noticed.[118] But,
partly in consequence of its inferiority and cost, and partly because
its use was so little understood, the majority of folks preferred to
carry a weapon with which they were more skilled, and on which they
could consequently place more reliance. Gradually, as the fowling-piece
became more and more perfect, the long-bow and cross-bow were laid
aside, and hawking became almost forgotten.
[Sidenote: THE PHEASANT:]
Notwithstanding that the Pheasant (_Phasianus colchicus_) must have been
well-known in Shakespeare’s day, the poet has only once made mention of
this bird. The passage occurs in _The Winter’s Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 3, and
runs thus:--
“_Shepherd._ My business, sir, is to the king.
_Autolycus._ What advocate hast thou to him?
_Shepherd._ I know not, an ’t like you.
_Clown (jokingly aside to Shepherd)._ Advocate’s the court-word for
a _pheasant_: say you have none.
_Shepherd._ None, sir; I have no _pheasant_, cock nor hen.
_Autolycus._ How blessed are we that are not simple men!”
[Sidenote: ITS INTRODUCTION INTO BRITAIN.]
The precise date of the introduction of the pheasant into Great Britain
is uncertain, but there is evidence to show that it was prior to the
invasion of the Normans, and that we are probably indebted for this
game-bird to the enterprise of the Romans. The earliest record, we
believe, of the occurrence of the pheasant in this country will be found
in the tract “De inventione Sanctæ Crucis nostræ in Monte Acuto et de
ductione ejusdem apud Waltham,” edited by Prof. Stubbs from manuscripts
in the British Museum, and published in 1861.[119] In one of these
manuscripts, dated about 1177, is the following bill of fare prescribed
by Harold for the Canons’ Households, in 1059:--
“Erant autem tales pitantiæ unicuique canonico: a festo Sancti
Michaelis usque ad caput jejunii, aut xii. merulæ, aut ii. agauseæ,
aut ii. perdices, _aut unus phasianus_, reliquis temporibus aut
ancæ, aut gallinæ.”
Yarrell, in his “History of British Birds,” gives an extract from
Dugdale’s “Monasticon Anglicanum” to the effect that the Abbot of
Amesbury obtained a licence from the king to kill pheasants, in the
first year of Henry I. (1100).
Leland, in his account of the feast given at the inthronisation of
George Nevell, Archbishop of York, in the reign of Edward IV., tells us
that, amongst other good things, two hundred “fesauntes” were provided
for the guests.
[Sidenote: ANCIENT VALUE OF GAME.]
In the “Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York,” under date “the
xiiij^th day of Novembre,” the following entry occurs:--
“Itm̃. The same day to Richard Mylner
of Byndfeld for bringing a
present of fesauntes cokkes to the
Queene to Westminster vs̃.”
In the “Household Book” of Henry Percy, fifth Earl of Northumberland,
which was commenced in 1512, the pheasant is thus referred to:--
“Item, FESAUNTES to be hade for my Lordes own Mees at Principall
Feestes and to be at xijd. a pece.”
“Item, FESSAUNTIS for my Lordes owne Meas to be hadde at Principalle
Feistis ande to be at xijd. a pece.”[120]
[Sidenote: GAME-PRESERVING.]
In the year 1536, Henry VIII. issued a proclamation in order to preserve
the partridges, pheasants, and herons “from his palace at Westminster to
St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and from thence to Islington, Hampstead,
Highgate, and Hornsey Park.” Any person, of whatever rank, who should
presume to kill, or in any wise molest these birds, was to be thrown
into prison, and visited by such other punishments as to the King should
seem meet.
Some interesting particulars in regard to pheasants are furnished by the
“Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII.” For example, under date
xvj^th Nov. 1532, we have:--
“Itm̃ the same daye paied to the
fesaunt breder in rewarde ixs̃. iiijd.
“Itm̃ the xxv daye paied to the preste
the fesaunt breder at Elthm in
rewarde ij corons ixs̃. iiijd.
And in December of the same year:--
“Itm̃ the xxijd. daye paied to the french
Preste the fesaunt breder for to bye
him a gowne and other necesarys xls̃.”
From these entries it would appear that even at this date some trouble
and expense was incurred in rearing pheasants. No allusion, however, is
made to their being shot. They must have been taken in a net or snare,
or killed with a hawk. The last-named mode is indicated from another
source[121]:--
“Item, a Fesant kylled with the Goshawke.
“A notice, two Fesants and two Partridges killed with the hawks.”
As a rule, they are only referred to as being “brought in,” the bearer
receiving a gratuity for his trouble.
“Jan^y. 1536-7. Itm̃. geuen to Hunte
yeoman of the pultry, bringing to
hir gc̃e two qwicke (_i.e._ live) phesants vijs̃. vjd.
“Ap^l. 1537. Itm̃. geuen to Grene the
ptrich taker bringing a cowple of
Phesaunts to my lady’s grace iijs̃. ixd.
“Jan. 1537-8. Itm̃. geuen to my lady
Carow’s s’uñt bringing a qwicke
Phesaunt ijs̃.
“Jan. 1543-4. Itm̃. geuen to Hawkyn,
s’uñte of Hertford bringing a phesant
and ptriches[122] iijs̃. iiijd.”
In a survey of the possessions of the Abbey of Glastonbury made in 1539,
mention is made of _a “game” of sixteen pheasants_ in the woods at
Meare, a manor near Glastonbury belonging to the Abbey.
[Sidenote: GAME-LAWS.]
According to Fynes Morrison (“Itinerary,” 1617), there was in Ireland
“such plenty of _pheasants_ as I have known readie served at one feast.”
The value set upon pheasants and partridges at various periods, as shown
by the laws fixing penalties for their destruction, seems to have
fluctuated considerably.
By a statute passed in the eleventh year of the reign of Henry VII. it
was forbidden “to take pheasants or partridges with engines in another’s
ground without license in pain of ten pound, to be divided between the
owner of the ground and the prosecutor.” By 23 Eliz. c. 10, “None should
kill or take pheasants or partridges by night in pain of 20_s._ a
pheasant, and 10_s._ a partridge, or one month’s imprisonment, and bound
with sureties not to offend again in the like kind.” By 1 Jac. I. c. 27,
“No person should kill or take any pheasant, partridge, (&c.), or take
or destroy the eggs of pheasants, partridges, (&c.), in pain of 20_s._,
or imprisonment for every fowl or egg, and to find sureties in £20 not
to offend in the like kind.” Under the same statute, no person was
permitted “to buy or sell any pheasant or partridge, upon pain to
forfeit 20_s._ for every pheasant, and 10_s._ for every partridge.” By 7
Jac. I. c. 11, “every person having hawked at or destroyed any pheasant
or partridge between the 1st of July and last of August, forfeited
40_s._ for every time so hawking, and 20_s._ for every pheasant or
partridge so destroyed or taken.” Lords of manors and their servants
might take pheasants or partridges in their own grounds or precincts in
the day-time between Michaelmas and Christmas. But every person of a
mean condition having killed or taken any pheasant or partridge,
forfeited 20_s._ for each one so killed, and had to find surety in £20
not to offend so again.
In some of these old statutes, however, it was expressly stated that
although pheasants and partridges could not be killed by any one with
impunity, no penalty should attach for killing such birds as crows,
kites, and buzzards, as these were well known to be destructive to the
game which the statutes were framed to protect.
[Sidenote: THE PARTRIDGE.]
In the second part of _Henry VI._ Act iii. Sc. 2, we find the Partridge
(_Perdix cinerea_) appropriately placed by Shakespeare in the nest of
the kite:--
“Who finds the partridge in the puttock’s nest,
But may imagine how the bird was dead,
Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak.”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Such was the beautiful metaphor uttered by the Earl of Warwick upon the
occasion of the Duke of Gloucester’s death. The unfortunate Duke was
discovered dead in his bed, with marks of violence upon his features,
and grave suspicion fell upon the Duke of Suffolk, who “had him in
protection.” This circumstance, coupled with the fact that Suffolk was a
sworn enemy of Duke Humphrey, placed a heavy weight in the balance
against him.
[Sidenote: PARTRIDGE-HAWKING.]
The provincial name of “puttock,” which occurs in the above quotation,
is sometimes applied to the kite, sometimes to the common buzzard. In
this case, as shown by the context, the kite is the bird referred to. A
greater enemy to the partridge than either of these birds is the
peregrine, whose skill in taking this game was early turned to advantage
by falconers. Partridge-hawking was formerly a favourite pastime, and is
still, to a certain extent, with those few who still maintain the
practice of falconry. For this sport either the peregrine or the goshawk
may be used. Aubrey has recorded a curious event which happened when he
was a freshman at Oxford in 1642. He frequently supped with Charles I.,
who then resided at the University; and on one of these occasions he
heard the King say that--“As he was hawking in Scotland, he rode into
the quarry, and found the covey of partridges falling upon the hawk.” He
adds that the King said--“I will swear upon the book that it is true.”
Mr. F. H. Salvin has been very successful in taking pheasants with the
male goshawk, which he found required no “entering,” but flew and killed
even old cocks, threading his way through the trees in a wonderfully
rapid manner.[123]
Those who made their living by fowling, and could not afford to hawk,
took their birds by springe and net; and partridge-netting was,
perhaps, as much in vogue in Shakespeare’s day as now.
[Sidenote: PARTRIDGE-NETTING.]
In _Much Ado about Nothing_, allusion is again made to the partridge by
Beatrice, who, referring to the ill-humour of Benedick, says,--
“He’ll but break a comparison or two on me; which, peradventure, not
marked or not laughed at, strikes him into melancholy; and then
there’s a partridge wing saved, for the fool will eat no supper that
night.”--_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
As we speak of a “covey” of partridges, so we say a “bevy” of quails:--
“And many more of the same bevy.”
_Hamlet_, Act v. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: THE QUAIL.]
It was formerly the practice to keep Quails, and make them fight like
game-cocks. Solon directed that quails should be made to fight in the
presence of the Athenian youths, in order to inflame their courage, and
the Romans held quail-fighting in still higher estimation. Augustus
punished a prefect of Egypt with death for buying and bringing to table
a quail which had acquired celebrity by its victories.[124]
Shakespeare was doubtless alluding to this sport when he wrote:--
“Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves
quails.”--_Troilus and Cressida_, Act v. Sc. 1.
Even at the present day this sort of amusement is common in some parts
of Italy, and still more so in China. In Italy, the practice is to feed
up two quails very highly, and then place them opposite to each other at
the end of a long table, throwing between them a few grains of
millet-seed to make them quarrel. At first they merely threaten,
lowering the head and ruffling all the neck feathers, but at length they
rush on furiously, striking with their bills, erecting their heads, and
rising upon their spurs, until one is forced to yield.
In _Antony and Cleopatra_ (Act ii. Sc. 3), Antonius says of Cæsar:--
“His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
When it is all to nought; and his quails ever
Beat mine inhoop’d at odds.”
[Sidenote: QUAIL-FIGHTING.]
That there was some foundation for this assertion, we may gather from
the following extract from North’s “Plutarch”:--
“With Antonius there was a soothsayer or astronomer in Egypt that
coulde cast a figure and judge of men’s nativities, to tell them
what should happen to them. He told Antonius plainly that his
fortune (which of itself was excellent good and very great) was
altogether blemished and obscured by Cæsar’s fortune; and therefore
he counselled him utterly to leave his company, and get him as farre
from him as he coulde. Howsoever it was, the event ensuing proved
the Egyptian’s words true; for it is said that as often as they drew
lots for pastime, who should have anything, or whether they played
at dice, Antonius always lost. _Oftentimes when they were disposed
to see cock-fights, or quails that were taught to fight one with
another, Cæsar’s cocks or quails did ever overcome._ The which
spited Antonius in his mind, although he made no outward show of it,
and therefore he believed the Egyptian the better.”
In Kircher’s “Musurgia” the note of this bird is thus faithfully
rendered[125]:--
[Music: Bi-ke-bik, Bi-ke-bik, Bi-ke-bik.]
Quails have always been considered a delicacy for the table, and those
who may have the curiosity to visit the London markets in the spring of
the year, will see large boxes full of live quails, which have been
taken in nets and imported to this country for food.
[Sidenote: THE LAPWING.]
In the same way immense numbers of Lapwings (_Vanellus cristatus_), or
Green Plovers, as they are called, find their way into the London
markets. This bird has been noticed by Shakespeare chiefly on account of
a peculiar trait in its character, with which most naturalists are very
familiar. Like the partridge and some other birds, it has a curious
habit of trying to draw intruders away from its nest or young by
fluttering along the ground in an opposite direction, or by feigning
lameness, or uttering melancholy cries at a distance:--
“Far from her nest the lapwing cries away.”
_Comedy of Errors_, Act iv. Sc. 2.
Allusions to this habit are not unfrequent in our older poets. Lily, in
his “Campaspe,” 1584, says:--
“You resemble the lapwing, who crieth most where her nest is not.”
So also Greene, in the second part of his “Coney Catching,” 1592:--
“But again to our priggers, who, as before
I said, cry with the lapwing farthest from her nest.”
And in Ben Jonson’s _Underwoods_ we are told,--
“Where he that knows will like a lapwing flie,
Farre from the nest, and so himselfe belie.”
Hence the phrase “to seem the lapwing,” which occurs in _Measure for
Measure_, Act i. Sc. 4. So also in _Much Ado about Nothing_,--
“For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs,
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.”
Act iii. Sc. 1.
It is rather curious that Shakespeare has not alluded to this bird under
its popular name of “Peewit,”--a name which, derived from its cry, we
believe to be of some antiquity. Nor has he referred to it by another
name, which must have been commonly applied to it in his day, _i.e._,
“Wype.” In the old “Household Books” and “Privy Purse Expenses,” we
frequently meet with such entries as the following:--
“Item, it is thought goode that wypes[126] be hade for my Lordes own
mees onely and to be at jd. a pece.”
The young of this, and many other, species run almost as soon as
hatched, and Shakespeare has not overlooked this peculiarity:--
“This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.”
_Hamlet_, Act v. Sc. 2.
We have before had occasion to make a passing allusion to the Heron, and
in the present chapter this bird deserves more particular attention,
from the fact of its being so frequently flown at by falconers.
Hawking at herons was thought to be “a marvellous and delectable
pastime,” and in all the published treatises upon falconry, many pages
are dedicated to this particular branch of the sport.
Not only were herons protected by Act of Parliament, but penalties were
incurred for taking the eggs,[127] and no one was permitted to shoot
within 600 paces of a heronry, under a penalty of £20 (7 Jac. I. c. 27).
[Sidenote: THE HERNSHAW.]
We should scarcely have thought it possible to find a man who would not
know a hawk from a heron when he saw it, and Hamlet evidently considered
that such an one would not be in his right mind, for he says of
himself:--
“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly, I know a
hawk from a _handsaw_.”--_Hamlet_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
He referred here to an old proverbial saying, originally “he does not
know a hawk from a hernshaw,” that is, a heron; but the word was thus
corrupted before Shakespeare’s day. (See _ante_, p. 75.)
[Sidenote: HERON-HAWKING.]
John Shaw (M.A., of Cambridge), who published a curious book in 1635,
entitled “Speculum Mundi,” tells us therein that “the heron or _hernsaw_
is a large fowle that liveth about waters,” and that “hath a marvellous
hatred to the hawk, which hatred is duly returned. When they fight above
in the air, they labour both especially for this one thing--that one may
ascend and be above the other. Now, if the hawk getteth the upper place,
he overthroweth and vanquisheth the heron with a marvellous earnest
flight.” This old passage contrasts quaintly with the animated
description of heron-hawking in Freeman and Salvin’s modern
treatise.[128] Those who have taken part in the sport cannot fail to be
interested in a truthful narrative of what they must so often have
witnessed; while those who have never seen a trained falcon on the wing
will learn a good deal from the following excellent description:--
“‘Well, then, here goes,’ says the falconer; and having let the heron
get a little past, off go the hoods. For a moment one hawk looks up, and
is cast off; the other a moment or two afterwards. They both see him;
now for a flight. The heron was about 250 yards high, and perhaps a
quarter of a mile wide. The hawks had gone up about a quarter of the way
before the heron saw them in hot pursuit. ‘Now he sees them!’ is
exclaimed; and the riders rattle their horses as hard as they can, over
deep sand-hills, down wind. The heron, in the meanwhile, vomits up his
fish to lighten himself, and begins ringing-up down wind. It is a
curious thing to see the different manœuvres of the birds. With his
large wings, the heron can mount very fair, and has a far better chance
of beating off the hawks than if he flew straight forward. This he knows
full well by instinct, and puts on accordingly all sail for the upper
regions, generally in short rings. Hawks make larger rings as a general
rule, if, like these, they are good ones. Those have but a bad chance
with a good heron if they adopt the same tactics that he does in
mounting. This the two old hawks know full well. So far they have been
pretty near together, but, seeing the prey beginning to mount, they
separate, each their own way, now taking a long turn down wind, and then
breasting the wind again. ‘De Ruyter’ makes the best rings, and after
having gone a mile, there is a shout--‘Now “De Ruyter” is above him!’
and the hawk is seen poising herself for a stoop; down she comes, with
closed wings, like a bullet, and hits the heron; it is too high to see
_where_, but the scream the quarry gives is tremendous. Hurrah! there’s
a stoop for you! Both hawk and heron have descended some yards; the
former, from the impetus of her stoop, much beneath the heron, but she
shoots up again to a level. In fact, it was a perfect stoop. Though so
near the heron, she does not attempt a _little_ stoop, but again heads
the wind so that the heron appears to be flying the hawk. ‘Sultan’ is
now above both, and makes her stoop, but not so good as her partner’s.
However, she makes two quickly, and is within an ace of catching; but
the good heron will not give an inch, and ‘Sultan’ will have to give
another ring for another stoop. But where is ‘De Ruyter’ all this time?
She has made a long ring, and is now a long way above them. She makes
another full stoop, and this time there is no mistake about it, for she
hits the heron so hard that he is nearly stupefied. ‘Sultan’ joins in
the fray and catches. Whoo-whoo-o-p! down they come. Down they all
three go together, till, just before reaching the ground, the two old
hawks let go of their prey, which falls bump. Before he has had time to
recover himself, in a moment the hawks are on him, ‘De Ruyter’ on the
neck, and ‘Sultan’ on his body. Hurrah for the gallant hawks! and loud
whoops proclaim his capture. ‘Wouldn’t take £100 for them,’ says their
owner, who has ridden well, judiciously as well as hard, and has got up
in time to save the heron’s life. He gives the hawks a pigeon, and puts
the heron between his knees in a position so that he can neither spike
him nor the hawks with his bill. He has two beautiful long black
feathers, which are duly presented to Prince Alexander--alas! now no
more--who is well up at the take. These feathers are the badge of honour
in heron-hawking in Holland, as the fox’s brush is in hunting in
England. The hawks are fed up as speedily as possible, the heron has a
ring put round his leg, and is let loose, evidently not knowing what to
make of it.
“We hasten back as fast as we can, but the weather being now hot, the
herons move more by night than by day. Many anxious eyes search the
horizon for another.
“The two sets of falconers, with their hawks, place themselves about
half a mile apart, to intercept the herons on their passage back from
their fishing-grounds.
“There is no lack of herons. The little wind there was has fallen to a
calm, and they come home higher. All the better, for we have some good
casts to fly. One is soon ‘hooded off’ at, and, after a capital flight,
is taken high in the air. The pet hawks are now taken in hand--‘De
Ruyter’ and ‘Sultan;’ and, as there is no wind, the owner says he will
fly at the first ‘_light one_,’ that comes at all fair. All is
excitement when one is seen coming _from_ the _heronry_, and therefore
unweighted. They are ‘hooded off’ in his face; he sees them directly,
and proceeds to mount. ‘Now, good hawks, you will have some work to do
before you overtake him!’ The knowing riders are down wind as hard as
they can go. Ring after ring is made, and yet the hawks seem to gain but
little on him. Still they are flying like swallows: ‘De Ruyter’ makes a
tremendous ring, but still fails to get above him. Again and again they
ring, and have attained a great height. A scream of delight is heard:
they are above him; ‘De Ruyter’ is at him! A fine stoop, but the heron
dodges out of the way. Now for ‘Sultan;’ but she misses too; the heron
is up like a shot, and three or four rings have to be made before there
is another stoop. Another and another stoop, with loud cheers from
below. ‘Sultan’ _just_ catches him once, but can’t hold; it seems still
a doubtful victory, when ‘De Ruyter’ hits him _hard_; and, after two or
three more stoops, ‘Sultan’ catches him, amidst the excitement of
hurrahs and whoops; a really good flight; _can’t be better_,--two and a
half miles from where they were ‘hooded off.’
“Thus ended as good a day’s sport as any one could wish to see.”
The heron, besides affording great sport with hawks, was considered,
when killed, a delicacy for the table. At the ancient City feasts and
entertainments to royalty, the heron always appeared amongst the other
good things;[129] and from the old “Household Books” it appears that the
price usually paid for this bird was xijd. Of late years the heron has
dropped out of the bill of fare, and no longer forms a fashionable dish.
One of the last records of its appearance at table which we have met
with, is in connection with the feast which was given by the Executors
of Thomas Sutton, the founder of the London Charter House, on the 18th
May, 1812, in the Hall of the Stationers’ Company. “For this repast were
provided 32 neats’ tongues, 40 stone of beef, 24 marrow-bones, 1 lamb,
46 capons, 32 geese, 4 pheasants, 12 pheasants’ pullets, 12 godwits, 24
rabbits, 6 _hearnshaws_,” &c., &c.
[Sidenote: THE WOODCOCK.]
Amongst the other “lang-nebbit things” which interest both sportsman and
gourmand, the Woodcock and Snipe received almost as much attention in
Shakespeare’s day as they do at the present time--with this difference,
however, that where the gun is now employed, the gin or springe was
formerly the instrument of their death.
“Four woodcocks in a dish.”
_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
The woodcock, for some unaccountable reason, was supposed to have no
brains, and the name of this bird became a synonym for a fool. It is to
this that Claudio alludes when he says:--
“Shall I not find a woodcock too?”
_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act v. Sc. 1.
Again--
“O this woodcock! what an ass it is!”
_Taming of the Shrew_, Act i. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: A SPRINGE FOR WOODCOCKS.]
Shakespeare has many allusions to the capture of this bird by springe
and gin--
“Aye, springes to catch woodcocks.”
_Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: HOW TO MAKE A SPRINGE.]
In his “Natural History and Sport in Moray,” Mr. St. John describes a
springe with which he used to take both snipe and woodcocks very
successfully. It was made as follows:--
[Illustration: A. Rod like a mole-trap stick. B. Short piece of stick.
C. Forked stick with one end passed through the other. D. Straight
stick. E. Bent stick. F. Hair-snare.]
A, by pulling on B, presses it against the forked stick C, which in turn
is pressed against the upright stick D, and this keeps it all in place.
But on a bird stepping on the forked stick C, the weight of the bird
loosens its hold, and the long stick A flies up, catching the victim in
the snare, which is laid flat on the forked stick C.
Then, as Shakespeare hath it,--
“If the springe hold, the _cock’s_ mine.”
_Winter’s Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 2.
Mr. A. E. Knox, in his “Game-Birds and Wild-Fowl,” has described a very
similar trap, and his description is so animated, while at the same time
so instructive, that we are tempted to overlook the similarity and quote
his words:--
“We soon found many tracks of the woodcock on the black mud; and on
one spot these, as well as the borings of his beak, were very
numerous. Here my companion halted, and pulling out his knife, cut
down a tall willow rod, which he stuck firmly into the ground in
nearly an upright position, or perhaps rather inclining backwards.
“On the opposite side of the run he fixed a peg, so as to project
only a few inches above the surface; to this he fastened a slight
stick about a foot long, attached loosely with a tough string, much
as the swingel of a flail is to its handstaff: another branch of a
willow was bent into an arch, and both ends driven into the soft
ground to a considerable depth on the opposite side of the track,
and nearer to the tall upright wand. To the top of the latter a
string was now fastened, the end of which was formed into a large
running noose; while, about half way down, another piece of stick,
about six inches long, was tied by its middle. The flexible wand was
then bent forcibly downwards, one end of the little stick overhead
was passed under the arch, while it was retained in this position,
and at the same time the bow prevented from springing upwards, by
the other extremity being placed against a notch at the end of the
stick which had been fastened to the peg on the other side of the
run, across which it now lay, two or three inches from the ground,
and supported the noose. This, in fact, constituted the trigger,
which was to be released when struck by the breast of the woodcock.
The old man constructed his trap in much less time than I have taken
to describe it. His last care was to weave the sedges on either side
of the run into a kind of screen, so as to _weir_ the woodcock into
the snare, and this he accomplished with much skill and expedition.”
“We have caught the woodcock.”
_All’s Well_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: THE GIN.]
Another method of taking this bird was with a steel trap called “a gin:”
“Now is the woodcock near the gin.”
_Twelfth Night_, Act ii. Sc. 5.
This trap, being commonly used now-a-days for rats, is probably too well
known to need a description here.
“So strives the woodcock with the gin.”
_Henry VI._ Part III. Act i. Sc. 4.
[Sidenote: THE WOODCOCK’S HEAD.]
Under the head of “Wild-Fowl” we shall have occasion, in a subsequent
chapter, to allude to the opinion of Pythagoras on the transmigration of
souls, and to the discussion on this subject in _Twelfth Night_, when
the clown portentously observes to Malvolio,--
“Fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy
grandam. Fare thee well.”--_Twelfth Night_, Act iv. Sc. 2.
The “woodcock’s head” in Shakespeare’s day, on account of its shape, was
a fashionable term for a tobacco-pipe.[130] “Those who loved smoking sat
on the stage-stools, with their three sorts of tobacco, and their lights
by them, handing matches on the point of their swords, or sending out
their pages for real Trinidado. They actually practised smoking under
professors who taught them tricks; and the intelligence offices were not
more frequented, no, nor the pretty seamstresses’ shops at the Exchange,
than the new tobacco office.”[131]
It is somewhat remarkable that while Shakespeare’s contemporary, Ben
Jonson, has founded whole scenes upon the practice of smoking, he
himself has made no mention of it. Some commentators have brought this
forward as a proof of the comparative earliness of many of his dramas,
but smoking was in general use long before Shakespeare left London, and
he drew his manners almost entirely from his own age, making mention of
masks, false hair, pomanders, and fardingales, all of which were
introduced about the same time. But _apropos_ of “the woodcock’s head,”
we are wandering away from Shakespeare’s birds.
[Sidenote: THE SNIPE.]
The Snipe (_Scolopax gallinago_) has been less frequently noticed by him
than the woodcock. Indeed we have been unable to find more than one
passage in which it is mentioned.
Iago, alluding to Roderigo, says:--
“For I mine own gain’d knowledge should profane,
If I would time expend with such a snipe,
But for my sport and profit.”
_Othello_, Act i. Sc. 3.
The speaker being evidently of opinion that a snipe was too
insignificant a bird to the sportsman to warrant his taking much trouble
to kill it, except for mere sport.
That there was a good deal more “sport” than “profit” is extremely
likely; for it is difficult to believe that the sportsmen of
Shakespeare’s day, with guns such as we have described, fired with
either fuze or flint, could have successfully stopped the erratic flight
of a snipe. That large numbers of snipe were brought to market, and
appeared at table, in Shakespeare’s time, is clear from the numerous
entries in the old “Household Book,” where their value is stated to have
been “after iii a j d.” There can be little doubt, however, that these
were not “shot birds,” but were taken in snares and nets, as our modern
fowlers take plovers and other fen birds.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII.
WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL.
To the general reader these terms may appear synonymous, but to the
sportsman and naturalist they have a very different signification. Under
the head of “wild-fowl” may be placed the various species of wild geese,
swans, and ducks, which, though often found at sea, evince a partiality
for fresh water, rear their young in the neighbourhood of fresh water,
and, as an article of food, are especially sought after by the amateur
for sport, and by the professional gunner for profit; while the group of
“sea-fowl” may be said to include the gulls, terns, guillemots, auks,
cormorants, and various other birds, which, making the sea their home,
rear their young upon its shelving beach or frowning cliffs, and, except
on an emergency, are seldom cooked and eaten.
[Sidenote: A FLIGHT OF FOWL.]
Shakespeare has given us a peep at both. At one time we see--
“Strange fowl light upon neighbouring ponds.”
_Cymbeline_, Act i. Sc. 4;
at another--
“A flight of fowl
Scatter’d by winds and high tempestuous gusts.”
_Titus Andronicus_, Act v. Sc. 3.
Anon the scene changes, and leaving the green fields of which Falstaff
“babbled,” and the “great pool” with its “swan’s nest” (_Cymbeline_, Act
iii. Sc. 4), we are led to--
“That pale, that whitefaced shore,
Whose foot spurns back the ocean’s roaring tides.”
_King John_, Act ii. Sc. 1;
there to contemplate “the sea-mells” on the rock (_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc.
2), or watch the movements of the “insatiate cormorant” (_Richard II._
Act ii. Sc. 1).
Nor are we left entirely to our own reflections in these situations.
Some trait or other is noticed in the habits of the bird alluded to,
some curious instinct pointed out. We pause insensibly to admire the
appropriate haunts in which the poet has discovered the fowl, and carry
out with him, in thought, the crafty device of the fowler to which a
passing allusion is made.
Naturalists have frequently observed that when any of the diving-ducks
are winged or injured, they generally make for the open water, and
endeavour to escape by diving or swimming away, while those which do not
excel in diving, usually make for the shore when wounded, and, as
Shakespeare tells us, “creep into sedges.”
[Sidenote: DUCK-HUNTING.]
“Alas! poor hurt fowl, now will he creep into sedges.”
_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
“Duck-hunting,” _i.e._, hunting a tame duck in the water with spaniels,
was a favourite amusement in Shakespeare’s day. “Besides the clear
streams that ran into the Thames, old London boasted of innumerable
wells, now lost, sullied, or bricked up. There was Holy-well,
Clement’s-well, Clerken-well, Skinners-well, Fay-well, Fede-well,
Leden-well, and Shad-well. West Smithfield had its horse-pond, its pool
of Dame Annis le Cleare, and the Perilous Pond. The duck-hunting in
these pools, and at Islington, was a favourite amusement with the
citizens.”[132]
“And ‘hold-fast’ is the only dog, my duck.”
_Henry V._ Act ii. Sc. 3.
The sense of smell and hearing is possessed by most wild-fowl in an
extraordinary degree, and, except under favourable circumstances--
favourable that is to the shooter--they display what Falstaff would
call “a want of valour,” and, as soon as they become aware of the
approach of the enemy, ignominiously take to flight:--
“_Falstaff._ There is no more valour in that Poins than in a wild
duck.”--_Henry IV._ Part I. Act ii. Sc. 2.
But, if the better part of valour be discretion, Poins, like the wild
duck, displays the better part:--
“Claps on his sea wing, and like a doting mallard,
Leaving the fight in height, flies after it.”
_Antony and Cleopatra_, Act iii. Sc. 10.
To swim like a duck is proverbial--
“_Stephano._ Here; swear then how thou escapest.
_Trinculo._ Swam ashore, man, like a duck; I can swim like a duck,
I’ll be sworn.”--_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: THE STALKING-HORSE.]
An ancient device for getting within shot of wild-fowl was “the
stalking-horse.” Hence the allusion--
“Stalk on, stalk on, the fowl sits.”
_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
And again--
“He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation
of that he shoots his wit.”--_As You Like It_, Act v. Sc. 4.
Gervase Markham tells us[133] that “sometime it so happeneth that the
fowl are so shie there is no getting a shoot at them without ‘a
stalking-horse,’ which must be some old jade trained up for that
purpose, who will gently, and as you will have him, walk up and down in
the water which way you please, plodding and eating on the grass that
grows therein. You must shelter yourself and gun behind his
fore-shoulder, bending your body down low by his side, and keeping his
body still full between you and the fowl. Being within shot, take your
level from before the fore part of the horse, shooting as it were
between the horse’s neck and the water.... Now to supply the want of a
stalking-horse, which will take up a great deal of time to instruct and
make fit for this exercise, you may make one of any piece of old
canvass, which you must shape into the form of an horse, with the head
bending downwards, as if he grazed. You may stuff it with any light
matter; and do not forget to paint it of the color of an horse, of which
the brown is the best.... It must be made so portable that you may bear
it with ease in one hand, moving it so as it may seem to graze as you
go.”
Sometimes the stalking-horse was made in shape of an ox; sometimes in
the form of a stag; and sometimes to represent a tree, shrub, or bush.
In every case it had a spike at the bottom, to stick into the ground
while the fowler took his aim.
In the “Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII.” are various entries
referring to stalking-horses, all of which appear to refer to the live
animal; and there is one entry relating to a stalking-ox.
[Sidenote: THE CALIVER.]
The gun used on these occasions was either the “birding-piece” already
described,[134] or the “caliver.” Shakespeare has appropriately
mentioned the latter in connection with wild ducks, in the first part of
his _Henry IV._, where Falstaff speaks of cowards “such as fear the
report of a ‘caliver’ worse than a struck fowl or a hurt
wild-duck.”--_Henry IV._ Part I. Act iv. Sc. 2.
The derivation of the word “caliver” is not quite clear, unless it be
the same weapon as the “culverin,” in which case it may be derived from
the French _couleuvrin_, adder-like. In Cotgrave’s French and English
Dictionary, 1660, the word is spelled “calœver,” and translated
“harquebuse.” In Bailey’s “Dictionarium Britannicum,” 1736, the caliver
is described as “a small gun used at sea.” In Worcester’s “Dictionary of
the English Language,” 1859, “caliver” is said to be corrupted from
_caliber_, and described as--1. a hand-gun or large pistol, an
arquebuse; 2. a kind of light matchlock. In Scheler’s “Dictionnaire
d’Etymologie Française,” 1862, we find--“couleuvre du L. _colubra_; It.
_colubro_; Prov. _colobre_; du L. masc. _coluber_, _bri_; D.
_couleuvreau_, _couleuvrine_, ou _coulevrine_, pièce d’artillerie; cp.
les termes _serpentin_, et All. _feldschlange_.”
From these various explanations, as well as from that given by
Archdeacon Nares in his “Glossary,” it would seem to have been a
military rather than a sporting weapon. The best description which we
have met with is that given by Sir S. D. Scott.[135] He says:--
“The Caliver was a kind of short musket or harquebus, fired by a
matchlock, and from its lightness did not require a rest.”
“‘Put me a caliver in Wart’s hands,’ says Falstaff, reviewing his
recruits, meaning thereby that Wart, who was a weak, undersized fellow,
was not capable of managing a heavier weapon. It was sometimes called
_arquebuse de calibre_, and was in fact an arquebus of specified bore,
having derived its name from the corruption of calibre into caliver. ‘I
remember,’ writes Edmund York, an officer who had served in the
Netherlands, and was appointed by the Privy Council to report on the
best mode of organizing the militia of London, in expectation of the
Spanish invasion, ‘when I was first brought up in Piemount, in the
Countie of Brisack’s Regiment of the old Bandes, we had our particular
calibre of Harquebuze to our Regiment, both that for one bullett should
serve all the harquebuses of our Regiment, as for that our Collonell
would not be deceaved of his armes; of which worde Calibre, came first
that unapt term we used to call a harquebuze a calliver, which is the
height of the bullett, and not of the piece. Before the battell of
Mountgunter (_Moncontour_, A.D. 1569) the Prynces of the Religion caused
seven thousand harquebuzes to be made, all of one calibre, which were
called _Harquebuze du calibre de Monsieur le Prince_. So as, I think,
some man not understanding French brought hither the name of the height
of the bullet of the piece; which worde calibre is yet contynued with
our good cannoniers.’”[136]
A contemporary military writer, Sir John Smythe, gives his opinion that
the term was derived from “the height of the bullet”--_i.e._ the bore.
He says, “The caliver is only a harquebuse; savinge, that it is of
greater circuite, or bullet, than the other is of; wherefore the
Frenchman doth call it a _piece de calibre_, which is as much as to
saie, a piece of bigger circuite.[137] I would that all harquebuses
throughout the field should be of one caliver and height, to the intent
that every soldier on the lack of bullets might use his fellows’
bullets.”
There are two specimens in the Tower Collection, of a caliver and a
musket of the sixteenth century, from Penshurst Place, Kent. The length
of the former (here figured) is 4 ft. 10 in., the latter 5 ft. 5¼
in.[138]
[Illustration]
Notwithstanding the “bigger circuite,” the musket was considered twice
as efficient in its effects, and Sir Roger Williams corroborates the
fact, admitting the advantage possessed by the caliver of being more
rapidly discharged. “The calivers may say they will discharge two shot
for one, but cannot denie that one musket-shot doth more hurt than two
calivers’ shot.”[139]
In the _Lancashire Lieutenancy_ is preserved the price of the caliver
and its appendages, and the equipment of the bearer, in 1574:--“Everie
caliū his peece, flaxe & touche-box xiiij^s; his morion vij^s viij^d,
sworde & dagger vij^s, his hose viij^s, his showes ij^s, his shirtt
iiij^s, his dublett iiij^s, his coate xij^s iiij^d, money in his purse
xxvj^s viij^d.”
For some unexplained reason, the price of a caliver, which, with flask
and touch-box, was charged only 14_s._ in 1574, in 1576 cost 24_s._:--
“Itm̃ a calliū xxiiij^s.”
In 1581, we find the charges for “A Shoot:--Caliu, flaxe, tuche box &
scorier xvj;” and in a “Schedule of such rates of money as armor may be
provided for at the Cyttie of Chester, for such souldiors as shall
repaire thither out of the county of Lancaster,” the caliver furnished
with flask, and touch-box, laces and moulds, xiij^s vj^d.[140]
In 1620, a caliver, with bandoleers,[141] is valued at 14_s._
10_d._[142] According to a passage in Brantôme,[143] it would appear
that the Spaniards originated this improvement in fire-arms, “la façon
et l’usage des belles harquebuzes de calibre;” and that it was
introduced by Phillippe Strozzi into the French infantry, under Charles
IX., but it was evidently not adopted by the English troops till
several years afterwards.
It will readily be understood by all sportsmen, that with such a weapon
as the “caliver,” much practice and patience must have been requisite to
bring it within range of the fowl, and use it with effect. The
successful use of a modern punt-gun necessitates an amount of skill and
judgment which those only who have tried it can really appreciate. How
much greater must have been the difficulties of the wild-fowler of the
sixteenth century, whose rude gun and inferior powder necessitated a
much nearer approach to the birds! We can sympathize with Cardinal
Beaufort, when he exclaimed--
“Believe me, cousin Gloster,
Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,
We had had more sport.”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: THE STALE.]
The wild-fowler who could not succeed in “stalking” and shooting the
birds in the way we have described, often employed another method of
securing them, namely, by means of “a stale,” as it was termed. This was
a stuffed bird of the species the fowler wished to decoy, and which was
set up in as natural a position as possible, either before a net or in
the midst of several “springes.” By imitating the call of the passing
birds, the fowler would draw their attention to the “stale,” and as soon
as they alighted near it either the net was pulled over them, or they
were caught in the snares.
Beaumont and Fletcher speak of “stales to catch kites” (_Hum. Lieut._
iii. 2). Sometimes a live bird was pegged down instead of a stuffed one,
and was doubtless much more effective, since “one bird caught, served
_as a stale_ to bring in more.”[144]
Shakespeare has employed the word “stale” in this its primary sense, in
his _Comedy of Errors_ (Act ii. Sc. 1), in _The Tempest_ (Act iv. Sc.
1), and in the _Taming of the Shrew_ (Act iii. Sc. 1). But commentators
do not seem to be agreed on its meaning. In Act i. Sc. 1, of the
last-mentioned play, where it occurs again, it certainly admits of a
different interpretation.
Instructions for making a “stale” will be found in “The Experienced
Fowler” (London, 1704). At page 18 of this curious little volume, the
author says:--“You may shoot a lark or some other bird, take out the
entrails, stuff him with tow, and dry him in an oven, his wings set in a
flying posture; and so you may be furnished at all times.” This device
was chiefly resorted to for taking the ruff and reeve, and other fen
birds, which fetched good prices for the table. Now-a-days, the
bird-catchers who take linnets, goldfinches, and other small songsters,
almost invariably peg down live decoy birds with a foot or so of string
to the legs, in the centre of a pair of clap-nets.
[Sidenote: WILD-GEESE.]
But to return to wild-fowl. Puck compares the frightened varlets who
fled at the sight of Bottom with the ass’s head to “wild-geese that the
creeping fowler eye.”--_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
“They flock together in consent, like so many wild-geese.”--_Henry
IV._ Part II. Act v. Sc. 1.
And Marcius, addressing the retreating Romans before Corioli, reproaches
them as having no more courage than geese:--
“You souls of geese,
That bear the shapes of men, how have you run
From slaves that apes would beat!”
_Coriolanus_, Act i. Sc. 4.
The Fool in _King Lear_ reminds us of the old proverb--
“Winter’s not gone yet, if the wild-geese fly that way.”
_King Lear_, Act ii. Sc. 4.
It is not surprising that, to so common a bird, numerous allusions
should be made in the Plays of Shakespeare, and, in addition to the
passages quoted in Chapter VII.,[145] many others might here be
mentioned, were it not that the repetition might prove tedious.
[Sidenote: BARNACLES.]
It was anciently believed that the Bernacle Goose (_Anser bernicla_) was
generated from the Bernacle or Barnacle (_Lepas anatifera_). Shakespeare
has alluded to the metamorphosis in the following line:--
“And all be turned to barnacles.”
_Tempest_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
It is strange that in matters concerning the marvellous, even men of
education will take pains to deceive themselves, and, instead of
investigating nature with a “learned spirit,” give a license to
ill-directed imagination, and credit absurdities. When such men are so
credulous, how can we wonder at the superstitions of the illiterate?
The first phase of the story in question is, that certain trees,
resembling willows, more particularly in one of the Orkneys, Pomona,
produced at the ends of their branches small swelled balls, containing
the embryo of a goose suspended by the bill, which, when ripe, fell off
into the sea and took wing.
[Illustration: THE BARNACLE GOOSE.]
So long ago as the twelfth century, the story was promulgated by
Giraldus Cambrensis, in his “Topographia Hiberniæ,” and Munster, Saxo
Grammaticus, Scaliger, Fulgosus, Bishop Leslie, and Olaus Magnus, all
attested to the truth of this monstrous absurdity. Gesner, too, and
Aldrovandus[146] may be also cited.
[Illustration: THE BARNACLE GOOSE TREE. _From Aldrovandus._]
A second phase or modification of the story is that given by Boëce, the
oldest Scottish historian: he denies that the geese (Scotticè, Claiks)
grow on trees by their bills, as some believe, but that, as his own
researches and personal experience prove, they are first produced in the
form of worms, in the substance of old trees or timber floating in the
sea; for such a tree, cast on shore in 1480, was brought to the laird,
who ordered it to be sawn asunder, when there appeared a multitude of
worms, “throwing themselves out of sundry holes and bores of the tree;
some of them were rude, as they were new-shapen; some had both head,
feet, and wings, but they had no feathers; some of them were
perfect-shapen fowls. At last the people, having this tree each day in
more admiration, brought it to the kirk of St. Andrew’s, beside the town
of Tyre, where it yet remains to our days.” Other instances he adduces
by way of proof, and at length he comes to the conclusion, that the
production of these geese from fruits is the erroneous opinion of the
ignorant; it being ascertained that “they are produced only by the
nature of the ocean sea, which is the cause and production of many
wonderful things.”
In this view he was supported by Turner and others: “When,” says Turner,
“at a certain time an old ship, or a plank, or a pine-mast rots in the
sea, something like a little fungus at first makes its appearance, which
at length puts on the manifest form of birds; afterwards these are
clothed with feathers, and at last become living and flying fowl.”
(“Avium Præcip. Hist.,” _Art._ “ANSER.”) Turner, however, does not give
up the goose-tree, but informs Gesner that it is a different bird from
the brent or bernicle goose, which takes its origin from it. (Gesner,
“De Avibus,” iii. p. 107.) Passing a host of other authorities, with
their accumulated proofs, and the depositions of unimpeachable
witnesses, we may come to Gerard, who, in 1597, published the following
account in his “Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes”:--
[Illustration: THE BARNACLE GOOSE TREE. _From Gerard._]
“There is a small island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Foulders,
wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some
whereof have been cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks or
bodies, with the branches, of old and rotten trees, cast up there
likewise; whereon is found a certaine spume, or froth, that in time
breedeth unto certaine shels, in shape like those of the muskle, but
sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour, wherein is contained a thing
in forme like a lace of silke, finely woven as it were together, of a
whitish colour; one ende whereof is fastened unto the inside of the
shell, even as the fish of oisters and muskles are; the other ende is
made fast unto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time cometh
to the shape and forme of a bird: when it is perfectly formed the shell
gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or
string; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth
greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come
forth, and hangeth only by the bill: in short space after, it cometh to
full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers,
and groweth to a fowle bigger than a mallard and lesser than a goose,
having blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white,
spotted in such manner as is our magge-pie, called in some places a
pie-annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a
tree-goose; which place aforesaide, and all those parts adjoining, do so
much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for three-pence.
For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repaire unto
me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses.”
Meyer, who wrote a treatise on this “bird without father or mother,”
states that he opened a hundred of the goose-bearing shells, and in all
of them found the rudiments of the bird completely formed.
Sir Robert Murray, in an account of the barnacle published in the
“Philosophical Transactions,” says that “these shells are hung at the
tree by a neck, longer than the shell, of a filmy substance, round and
hollow, and creased not unlike the windpipe of a chicken, spreading out
broadest where it is fastened to the tree, from which it seems to draw
and convey the matter which serves for the growth and vegetation of the
shell, and the little bird within it.
“In every shell that I opened,” he continues, “I found a perfect
sea-fowl; the little bill like that of a goose; the eyes marked; the
head, neck, breast, wing, tail, and feet formed; the feathers everywhere
perfectly shaped, and blackish coloured; and the feet like those of
other water-fowl, to my best remembrance.”
It is not to be supposed, however, that there were none who doubted this
marvellous story, or who took steps to refute it. Belon, so long ago as
1551, and others after him, treated it with ridicule, and a refutation
may be found in Willughby’s “Ornithology,” which was edited by Ray in
1678. An excellent account of the Barnacle was published by Mr. Thompson
in the “Philosophical Transactions” for 1835, while the latest and most
complete treatise on the subject is Mr. Darwin’s “Monograph of the
Cirrhipedia,” published by the Ray Society.
What, then, is the marine production from which the Barnacle Goose was
thought to be engendered? Merely certain shell-covered cirrhipedous
creatures, called Barnacles (_Lepas anatifera_--Linn.), which are to be
found adhering in clusters to floating logs of wood, the timbers of
wrecked vessels, the sides of rocks, and other objects which afford a
secure attachment.
[Illustration: BARNACLES. _From nature._]
Each individual consists of a body enclosed in a shell, not unlike that
of a mussel in figure, and of a fleshy worm-like stem or peduncle, the
extremity of which is fixed to the object upon which the animal is
stationed. This stem is tubular, tolerably firm, and has a fleshy feel;
it is composed exteriorly of a fine coriaceous outer membrane, bedewed
with a watery fluid, and beneath this, of an inner membrane of
considerable density, apparently consisting of muscular fibres, running
for the most part in parallel longitudinal lines. That these fibres are
muscular we may conclude from the animal having the power of contracting
the stem, or of twisting it in various directions. Within the tube there
is a fluid secretion.
The shell is composed of five pieces, four of which are lateral, two on
each side; while between the valves down the back is interposed a single
narrow slip uniting them together. Their colour is white, more or less
tinged with purplish blue. Along the anterior margin the valves are but
partially connected by a membrane, leaving a large fissure, through
which emerge the plumose and jointed arms or cirrhi.
The food of the Barnacles consists of small crustacea and mollusca.
These are entangled by the many-jointed plumose cirrhi, which are
perpetually thrown out and folded again, so as to serve the purpose of a
casting-net, and drag the prey to the mouth, where it is seized and
crushed.
With regard to the reproduction of these creatures, the eggs are seen
enclosed at certain times within the hollow of the peduncle, where they
appear of a blue colour, and render the pedicle opaque; from this they
pass through a minute conduit into the cavity of the mantle, where they
are arranged like two leaflets, attached to the septum between the body
and the peduncle. They are enclosed in a film, out of which they fall
when ready to hatch.
It is a remarkable fact, as we learn from Mr. Thompson[147], that the
young barnacles and other cirrhipeda on emerging from the egg are quite
free, and very different from their parents. “They possess locomotive
organs, consisting of a large anterior pair of limbs, provided with a
sucker, and hooks for the purpose of mooring themselves at pleasure to
various objects--and also of six pairs of swimming-limbs, acting in
concert like oars. Besides these, they have a tail bent under the body,
consisting of two joints and terminating in four bristles: this is an
additional locomotive organ. Thus endowed, they swim along in a series
of bounds, the oars and tail giving in measured time successive
impulses. They have, moreover, large lateral eyes set on peduncles, and
the body is covered with a sort of shell, as in certain crustacea
(_e.g._ _Cyclops_), which they closely resemble,” and for which Mr.
Thompson at first mistook them.
In due time a metamorphosis takes place; the shell is thrown off, the
eyes disappear, the limbs become transformed to cirrhi, the regular
valves develop themselves, the peduncle shoots forth, and the animal
becomes permanently fixed.
Believing these little creatures to be the larvæ of some crustaceous
animal, some of them, says Mr. Thompson, were collected in the spring,
and in order to see what changes they might undergo, were kept in a
glass vessel, covered by such a depth of sea-water, that they could be
examined at any time by means of a common magnifying-glass. They were
taken May 1st, and on the night of the 8th the author had the
satisfaction to find that two of them had thrown off their exuviæ, and,
wonderful to say, were firmly adhering to the bottom of the vessel, and
changed to young barnacles. In this stage the sutures between the valves
of the shell and of the operculum were visible, and the movements of the
arms of the animal within, although these last were not completely
developed: the eyes also were still perceptible, although the principal
part of the colouring-matter appeared to have been thrown off with the
exuviæ. On the 10th another individual was seen in the act of throwing
off its shell, and attaching itself as the others to the bottom of the
glass. It only remains to add, that as the secretion of the calcareous
matter goes on in the compartments destined for the valves of the shelly
covering, the eyes gradually disappear, from the increasing opacity
thence produced, and the visual ray is extinguished for the remainder of
the animal’s life; the arms at the same time acquire their usual
ciliated appearance. Thus, then, an animal originally natatory and
locomotive, and provided with a distinct organ of sight, becomes
permanently and immovably fixed, and its optic apparatus obliterated;
and furnishes not only a new and important physiological fact, but is
the only instance in nature of so extraordinary a metamorphosis.
We have been thus led to dilate upon barnacles in connection with
Shakespeare’s allusion to them, at somewhat greater length than we
should otherwise have done, on account of the interest which attaches to
the old story, handed down through so many centuries, and because we
have looked into many books in vain for a plain account of its origin,
and a modern description of the cirrhiped devoid of scientific
technicalities.
With this apology, then, to the reader, we return to the birds.
[Sidenote: WILD-FOWL.]
The following dialogue between Malvolio and the Clown, in _Twelfth
Night_, concerning wild-fowl, has reference to the theory of Pythagoras
on the subject of the transmigration of souls, and is quite as
applicable to birds in general as to wild-fowl in particular:--
“_Clo._ What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl?
_Mal._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
_Clo._ What thinkest thou of his opinion?
_Mal._ I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion.
_Clo._ Fare thee well: remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt
hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits; and
fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy
grandam. Fare thee well.”--_Twelfth Night_, Act iv. Sc. 2.[148]
Amongst the wild-fowl may be classed the various species of divers and
grebes which frequent our shores and harbours, especially in winter, and
which afford good sport to the gunner, by their wonderful power of
diving long distances in their efforts to escape.
[Sidenote: THE LOON.]
The provincial name of “loon” (_Macbeth_, Act v. Sc. 3) is applied both
to a diver and to a grebe. On many parts of the coast the red-throated
diver (_Colymbus septentrionalis_) is known as the “loon,” “speckled
loon,” and “sprat loon.” In Norfolk, the name is applied to the
great-crested grebe (_Podiceps cristatus_).
Shakespeare employs the term “loon” as synonymous with “coward;” and if
we call to mind the habits of the two birds to which the same name has
been applied, it is certainly not ill bestowed upon one who lacks
courage to face an enemy.
Another species of grebe is referred to by Shakespeare in his _Venus and
Adonis_:--
“Like a _dive-dapper_ peering through a wave,
Who, being look’d on, ducks as quickly in.”
This is the little grebe, or dabchick (_Podiceps minor_). In some parts
of the country we have heard it called “di’ dapper,” but it was not
until we had met with the passage above quoted that the meaning of the
word became apparent.
On the subject of “loons,” the Rev. H. Jones has some appropriate
remarks in a volume of essays entitled “Holiday Papers” (p. 65). “The
great-crested grebe, or loon,” he says, “is a giant compared to our
little friend the dabchick, and altogether makes a more respectable
appearance, both in picture and pond. The habits and figure of the two
birds, though, are much the same. There are numbers of loons on the
‘broads’ of Norfolk. Indeed it is in East Anglia that I have most
especially watched the dabchick. These loons, like the lesser grebes,
incubate and leave their eggs in the wet, and meet with the same
ridiculous failure when they attempt to walk. Like them, they are
capital divers, and begin from the egg.”
[Sidenote: THE CORMORANT.]
Close to the divers in the natural system of birds come the cormorants,
whose powers of swimming are in no way inferior to those of the species
we have just named. They swim so low in the water that nothing but the
head, neck, and top of the back appear above the surface. The tail,
composed of stiff elastic feathers, is submerged and used as a rudder,
and the wings as oars. The address with which they dive, and the
rapidity of their movements, are wonderful; no less so than the
pertinacity with which they pursue their prey. Voracious in the
extreme,--
“Insatiate cormorant.”
_Richard II._ Act ii. Sc. 1;
they are unwearied and active fishers, following their prey under water
like the otter, only coming to the surface occasionally for breath.
[Sidenote: FISHING WITH CORMORANTS.]
Indeed the voracity of this bird, which, doubtless, suggested the name
_cormoranus_, has become so proverbial, that a man of large appetite is
often likened to a cormorant.
In this sense Shakespeare has frequently employed the word as an
adjective, and we find such expressions as--
“The cormorant belly.”
_Coriolanus_, Act i. Sc. 1.
“This cormorant war.”
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
And--
“Cormorant devouring time.”
_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act i. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: THE KING’S CORMORANTS.]
Ravenous as the cormorant is, it is easily tamed, and becomes very
attached and familiar. The use of trained cormorants for fishing is very
ancient, and is believed to have originated with the Chinese.[149] The
practice has been known in England, however, for many centuries. Ogleby,
who went on an embassy to China in the time of James I., and who
published an account of his travels on his return, describes the way in
which the Chinese take fish with cormorants. James himself, who was a
great sportsman, kept trained cormorants for many years, and was
accustomed to travel about the country with them, fishing as he went.
We have seen a curious MS. diary[150] in the British Museum, written in
old French, by Hans Jacob Wurmser v. Vendenheym, who accompanied Lewis
Frederick, Duke of Wurtemberg, in his diplomatic mission to England in
1610, from which it appears that the Duke, proceeding by Ware, Royston,
Cambridge, and Newmarket, arrived at Thetford on the 7th of May,[151]
where King James the First was then amusing himself with hunting,
hawking, and fishing with cormorants.
The entry with reference to the cormorants is as follows:--
Lundy 7.
THETFORD.
“_S. E. soupa derechef avecq sa Ma^te. Lesquel en sortans de table,
entrerent en carrosse pour aller à la rivière, ou ils virent des
Cormorants, oyseau qui par signe que maistre qui les addresses leur
donne, se plongent sous l’eaux et prennent des Anguilles et autre
poisson; lequel aussy par signe l’on le faict rendir et vomir tous
vifs, chose bien meruielleuse a voir. Sur toute chose estoit les
sages discours de sa Ma^te tres admirable.”_
The King had a regular establishment for his cormorants on the river at
Westminster, and created a new office, “Master of the Royal Cormorants,”
which office was first held by John Wood, as appears from various
documents in the Record Office. Amongst other entries, for a knowledge
of which I am indebted to Mr. F. H. Salvin, the distinguished falconer,
are the following:--
“No. 1, James I., 1611, April 11.--To John Wood, the sum of £30, in
respect he hath been at extraordinary charge in bringing up and training
of certain fowls called cormorants, and making of them fit for the use
of fishing, to be taken to him of His Majesty’s free gift and reward. By
writ, dated the 5th day of April, 1611.
“No. 2, May 27th, 1612.--Payment to the said John Wood for getting
cormorants from the north.
“No. 3, August 31st, 1618.--James I. to Robert Wood. Advance of £66
13_s._ 4_d._, in part payment of the sum of £286 due in respect of the
cormorant houses, and making nine ponds, &c., at Westminster, the ground
called the Vine-garden having been taken upon lease of the Lord Danvers.
[“In this document,” says Mr. Salvin, “this Wood is described as keeper
of His Majesty’s cormorants, ospreys, and otters. It is therefore clear
that the fishing-hawk was tried, and as we hear so little about it
afterwards, there can be no doubt but that it proved a failure, which,
indeed, might have been expected, as the bird is what falconers would
call an habitual ‘carrier.’ Neither do the otters seem to have answered.
Vines were grown in Surrey for wine in ancient times, and I wonder if
this vine-garden was for that purpose.”]
“No. 4, February 28th, 1619.--To John Wood, whom His Majesty heretofore
appointed to attend the French ambassadors, with the cormorants sent by
His Majesty’s good brother, the French King, the sum of £215, for so
much by him disbursed and laid out for his charges incident to the
performance of the said service, over and above the sum of £50,
impressed unto him, for and towards the said charges, appearing by his
bill, of the particulars thereof, delivered in upon oath, and allowed by
us and the rest of the Commissioners of the Treasury. By writ dated the
18th July, 1609, and by confirmation dated the last of July, 1618.
“14th October, 1619.--To Robert Wood, whom His Majesty intendeth to
send, with divers cormorants, to his good cousin, the Duke of Lorraine,
the sum of £60, by way of an imprest towards defraying the expenses in
that journey. By writ, dated 7th October, 1619.
“28th August, 1624.--To Robert Wood, the sum of £98 8_s._ 6_d._, in full
satisfaction of the charge and loss sustained by Luke Wood, in his late
travels, with three cormorants, to Venice, having been stayed in his
passage thither, and his cormorants taken away from him by the Duke of
Savoy.”
[“From these two documents,” says Mr. Salvin, “it would appear that
cormorant fishing was likely to have become fashionable upon the
continent, if poor Wood and his birds had not come to grief.
“The civil wars in the next reign extinguished the office of The Master
of the Royal Cormorants, and his assistants, and in the Record Office we
find this petition from poor old Mr. Wood, who appears to have been
rather hard-up and neglected in his old age.
“‘A prayer of Richard Wood, of Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, to Charles II.,
for restoration to his place as cormorant keeper, which he held, he
says, from King James’s first coming to England, to the late wars, in
which he served as a soldier, but being now ninety-five years old, has
been forced to retire to a dwelling at Walton.’”[152]]
“A document in the State Paper Office, sealed with the royal signet, and
addressed to the ‘Treasurer of the Chamber’ for the time being,
authorizes him to pay unto John Harris, gentleman, His Majesty’s
cormorant keeper, for his repairing yearly unto the north parts of
England to take haggard cormorants for His Majesty’s disport in
fishing, the yearly allowance of eighty-four pounds, to be paid on the
four usual feasts of the year, during His Majesty’s pleasure, in such
manner as John Wood and Robert Wood, or George Hutchinson, gentlemen,
formerly received.”[153]
Although Shakespeare has mentioned the cormorant in many of his Plays,
he has nowhere alluded to the sport with trained birds; and this is
somewhat singular, inasmuch as he has made frequent mention of the then
popular pastime of hawking, and he did not die until some years after
James I. had made fishing with cormorants a fashionable amusement.[154]
The sport has long since ceased to amuse royalty, and by English
sportsmen is now almost abandoned.[155]
[Sidenote: THE HOME OF THE CORMORANT.]
To return to the sea, the true home of the cormorant; that sea
“Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune.”
_Richard II._ Act ii. Sc. 1.
“Those who have never observed our boldest coasts,” says Oliver
Goldsmith, “have no idea of their tremendous sublimity. The boasted
works of art, the highest towers, and the noblest domes, are but ant
hills when put in comparison....
“To walk along the shore when the tide is departed, or to sit in the
hollow of a rock when it is come in, attentive to the various sounds
that gather on every side, above and below, may raise the mind to its
highest and noblest exertions.
“The solemn roar of the waves, swelling into and subsiding from the vast
caverns beneath, the piercing note of the gull, the frequent chatter of
the guillemot, the loud note of the auk, the screams of the heron, and
the hoarse, deep periodical croaking of the cormorant, all unite to
furnish out the grandeur of the scene, and turn the mind to Him who is
the essence of all sublimity.”
[Sidenote: GULLS.]
It is amid such scenes as these that we naturally look for and find the
next of Shakespeare’s birds, the Gull, or, as he sometimes calls it, the
“Sea-mell” (_The Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2).
In no passage, however, do we find a reference to any particular species
of gull; the word is used in its generic sense only, and is most
frequently applied metaphorically to a dupe or a fool:--
“Why, ’tis a gull, a fool!”
_Henry V._ Act iii. Sc. 6.
The gull is said to have derived its name from its voracious habits,
_i.e._, from “_gulo--ōnis_,” a gormandizer. Tooke holds that gull,
guile, wile, and guilt, are all from the Anglo-Saxon “_wiglian_,
_gewiglian_,” that by which any one is deceived. Archdeacon Nares
suggests that gull is from the old French _guiller_.
Malvolio asks:--
“Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck[156] and gull,
That e’er invention play’d on? tell me why.”
_Twelfth Night_, Act v. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: GULL-CATCHERS.]
In the same play we find the word “gull” occurring several times in a
similar sense, as in Act ii. Sc. 3, and Act iii. Sc. 2;[157] and Fabian,
on the entry of Maria (Act ii. Sc. 5), exclaims,--
“Here comes my noble _gull-catcher_!”
[Sidenote: GULL-GROPERS.]
When sharpers were considered as bird-catchers, a gull was their proper
prey.[158] “Gull-catchers,” or “gull-gropers,” therefore, were the names
by which, in Shakespeare’s day, these sharpers were known.
“The _gull-groper_ was generally an old gambling miser, who frequented
the ordinary to save the charge of housekeeping, under the pretext of
meeting with travellers and seeking company, and carried in his pouch
some hundred or two hundred pounds in twenty-shilling pieces. By long
experience he knew to an ace how much the losing player was worth, and
as he scratched his head and paced uneasily up and down the room, as if
he wanted the ostler, he takes him to a side window and tells him that
he was, forsooth, sorry to see so honest a gentleman in bad luck, but
that ‘dice were made of women’s bones and would cozen the wisest,’ and
that for his father’s sake, Sir Luke Littlebrain (he had learned the
name from the drawer), if it pleased him he need not leave off play for
a hundred pound or two. The youth, eager to redeem his losses, accepted
the money ordinarily with grateful thanks. The gold was poured upon the
table, and a hard bond was hastily drawn up for the repayment at the
next quarter-day, deducting so much for the scrivener’s expense at
changing the pieces. If he lost, the usurer hugged his bond, and laughed
in his sleeve. If Sir Andrew won, the gull-groper would then steal
silently out of the noisy room to avoid repayment. The day that the bond
became due, Hunks was sure not to be within, and if seen, in some way
contrived to make the debtor break the bond, and then transformed
himself into two sergeants, who clapped the youth in prison. From thence
he usually escaped shorn of a goodly manor or fair lordship, worth
three times the money, and which was to be entered upon by Hunks three
months after his young friend came of age--an unpleasant thought, when
the ox was roasting whole, the bells ringing, and the tenants
shouting.”[159]
[Sidenote: SEA-MELLS.]
Not only was the person duped called “a gull,” but the trick itself was
also known as “a gull,” just as we now-a-days term it “a sell.”
“_Benedick._ I should think this ‘a gull,’ but that the
white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide himself
in such reverence.”--_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
But it is not always synonymously with “fool” that Shakespeare employs
the word “gull.” Caliban, addressing Trinculo, says,--
“Sometimes I’ll get thee
Young _sea-mells_ from the rock.”
_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
Here it is evident that the sea-mall, sea-mew, or sea-gull, is intended,
the young birds being taken before they could fly. Young sea-gulls were
formerly considered great delicacies, and in the old “Household Books”
we often find such entries as the following:--
“Item, it is thought goode that See-gulles be hade for my Lordes
own mees and non other, so they be goode and in season, and at jd.
apece or jd. ob. at the moste.”
The description of their haunts which the poet gives us in the fourth
act of _King Lear_ cannot be easily forgotten. We seem to stand when
reading it upon the very edge of the cliff!--
“How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
... the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high.--I’ll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.”
_King Lear_, Act iv. Sc. 6.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
VARIOUS BIRDS NOT INCLUDED IN THE FOREGOING CHAPTERS.
Notwithstanding the comprehensive titles of the preceding chapters,
there are several birds mentioned by Shakespeare which cannot, with
propriety, be included in any of them. We have, therefore, deemed it
advisable to notice them separately under the above heading.
Naturalists have frequently remarked upon the propensity which some
birds have to become restless and noisy before rain. Familiar examples
are, the Peacock; the Green Woodpecker, which, on this account, in some
parts of the country, is called “rain-bird;” the Golden Plover, whose
Latin and French name, _Pluvialis_ and _Pluvier_, have reference to the
same peculiarity; and the Woodcock, which, as Gilbert White says, has
been observed “to be remarkably listless against snowy, foul weather.”
Shakespeare has noticed this peculiarity in the Parrot:--
“More clamorous than a parrot against rain.”--_As You Like It_,
Act iv. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: THE PARROT.]
It is not quite clear when parrots were first introduced as cage birds,
but their attractive colours, and aptitude for learning tricks and
words, no doubt brought them into notice at an early period. Shakespeare
knew that to ensure success in teaching a parrot, the bird must be
rewarded:--
“The parrot will not do more for an almond.”--_Troilus and
Cressida_, Act v. Sc. 2.
To talk “like a parrot,” that is, without reason, is proverbial.
Lieutenant Cassio thus upbraids himself after a drunken squabble:--
“I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a
commander with so slight, so drunken, and so discreet an officer.
Drunk? and _speak parrot_? and squabble? swagger? swear and
discourse fustian with one’s own shadow? Oh, thou invisible spirit
of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee
devil!”--_Othello_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: A PARROT-TEACHER.]
In a witty scene between Beatrice and Benedick, in _Much Ado about
Nothing_, the former is likened by the latter to “_a parrot-teacher_,”
from her great talkative powers:--
“_Bened._ But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you
excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a
hard heart, for truly I love now.
_Beat._ A dear happiness to women; they would else have been
troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God, and my cold blood, I
am of your humour for that; I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow
than a man swear he loves me.
_Bened._ God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some
gentleman or other shall ’scape a predestinate scratched face.
_Beat._ Scratching could not make it worse, an ’twere such a face as
yours were.
_Bened._ Well, you are a rare _parrot-teacher_.[160]
_Beat._ A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
_Bened._ I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good
a continuer: but keep your way, o’ God’s name! I have done.
_Beat._ You always end with a jade’s trick: I know you of old.”
[Whereupon Don Pedro steps in and puts an end to this bantering.]
_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act i. Sc. 1.
The “Popinjay” (_Henry IV._ Part I. Act i. Sc. 3) apparently is only
another name for parrot.
In the Glossary to Chaucer’s Works we find the word thus
explained:--“_Popingay_, a parrot; _Papegaut_, Fr.; _Papegaey_, Belg.;
_Papagallo_, Ital.”
In the Privy Purse expenses of King Henry VIII. the following entry
occurs under date November, 1532:--
“Itm̃.--The laste daye paied in rewarde to a
woman that wolde have gyven a popingay
to the King’s grace x s̃.”
[Sidenote: THE STARLING.]
The practice of turning to advantage the capability which certain birds
possess for learning to utter words must be of some antiquity, for Pliny
alludes to the starlings which were trained for the amusement of the
young Cæsars, as being capable of uttering both Latin and Greek.
Shakespeare thus refers to the starling’s talking powers:--
“_Hotspur._ He said, he would not ransom Mortimer;
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I’ll holloa, ‘_Mortimer!_’
Nay, I’ll have a _starling_ shall be taught to speak
Nothing but ‘Mortimer,’ and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion.”
_Henry IV._ Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.
It is stated that when M. Girardin visited his friend M. Thirel in
Paris, he was agreeably astonished at hearing a starling articulate a
dozen consecutive sentences with the same precision as if they had been
spoken by some person in the next room; and when the bell rang for mass,
the same bird called to its mistress, by name, “Mademoiselle,
entendez-vous la messe que l’on sonne? Prenez votre livre et revenez
vite, donner à manger a votre polisson.” If this statement can be
depended upon, M. Girardin might well have been astonished.
[Sidenote: THE KINGFISHER.]
It was formerly believed that during the time the Halcyon or Kingfisher
was engaged in hatching her eggs, the water, in kindness to her,
remained so smooth and calm, that the mariner might venture on the sea
with the happy certainty of not being exposed to storms or tempests;
this period was therefore called, by Pliny and Aristotle, “the halcyon
days.”
“Expect Saint Martin’s[161] summer, _halcyon_ days.”
_Henry VI._ Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
It was also supposed that the dead bird, carefully balanced and
suspended by a single thread, would always turn its beak towards that
point of the compass from which the wind blew.
Kent, in _King Lear_ (Act II. Sc. 2), speaks of rogues who--
“Turn their _halcyon_ beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters.”
And, after Shakespeare, Marlowe, in his _Jew of Malta_, says,--
“But how now stands the wind?
Into what corner peers my _halcyon’s_ bill?”
For brightness and beauty of plumage, the kingfisher has no equal
amongst our British birds, and so straight and rapid withal is its line
of flight, that when the sunlight falls upon its bright blue back, it
seems as if an azure bolt from a crossbow had been suddenly shot across
our path.
It is difficult to calculate or limit the speed which can be produced by
the effort of a wing’s vibration. We may, nevertheless, ascertain with
tolerable accuracy the rate of a bird’s flight, as follows:--If we note
the number of seconds which are occupied by a bird in passing between
two fixed points in its line of flight, and measure the distance between
these points, we resolve the question to a simple “rule-of-three” sum;
inasmuch as, knowing the number of yards flown in a certain number of
seconds, we can ascertain the distance traversed in 3,600 seconds, or an
hour, and thus obtain the rate of speed per hour; supposing, of course,
the speed to be uniform. In this way the flight of the common Swallow
(_Hirundo rustica_) has been computed at ninety miles,--
“As swift as swallow flies.”
_Titus Andronicus_, Act iv. Sc. 2;
while that of the swift has been conjectured to be nearly one hundred
and eighty miles per hour.
“True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings.”
_Richard III._ Act v. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: THE SWALLOW.]
Those who have watched the swallows upon a dull day, skimming low along
the ground, and seeming almost to touch it, although flying with speed
as undiminished as if high in air, will readily see the aptness of the
simile:--
“And I have horse will follow where the game
Makes way, and run like swallows on the plain.”
_Titus Andronicus_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
“The swallow follows not summer more willingly than we your
lordship, nor more willingly leaves winter; such summer-birds are
men.”--_Timon of Athens_, Act iii. Sc. 6.
The swallow, although one of the earliest, is not always the first of
our spring ornaments to appear. There are--
“Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.”
_Winters Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
[Sidenote: THE MARLET.]
A near relative of this bird is the Martin, or, as it is called in the
language of heraldry, the “Martlet” (_Hirundo urbica_).
“This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, doth approve,
By his lov’d mansionry, that the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle.
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observ’d,
The air is delicate.”
_Macbeth_, Act i. Sc. 6.
Sir Joshua Reynolds was struck with the beauty of this brief colloquy
before the castle of Macbeth, and he observes on it:--“This short
dialogue between Duncan and Banquo, while they are approaching the gates
of Macbeth’s castle, has always appeared to me a striking instance of
what, in painting, is termed ‘repose.’ Their conversation very naturally
turns upon the beauties of its situation, and the pleasantness of the
air; and Banquo, observing the martlets’ nests in every recess of the
cornice, remarks that where these birds most breed and haunt, the air is
delicate. The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that
repose so necessary to the mind after the tumultuous bustle of the
preceding scenes, and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that
immediately succeeds.”
The bird is mentioned again in the _Merchant of Venice_, where we are
reminded that--
“The martlet
Builds in the weather on the outward wall,
Even in the force and road of casualty.”
_Merchant of Venice_, Act ii. Sc. 9.
[Sidenote: THE SWALLOW’S HERB.]
Old authors tell us that when the young swallows are hatched, they are
blind for some time, and that the parent birds bring to the nest a plant
called _Chelidonium_, or Swallow’s herb, which has the property of
restoring sight. This popular fallacy appears to be widely disseminated.
The plant is the well-known Celandine (_Chelidonium majus_). It belongs
to the _Papaveraceæ_, or poppies, and may be found growing in waste
places to the height of two feet or more. It is brittle, slightly hairy,
and full of a yellow, fœtid juice, and bears small yellow flowers in
long-stalked umbels.
The name _Chelidonium_ is derived no doubt from the Greek χελιδων, a
swallow: but the reason for its being thus named is not so obvious. Some
authors assert that it was so called on account of its flowering about
the time of the arrival of the swallow, while others maintain that it
derived its appellation from being the plant medicinally made use of by
that bird.
The belief that animals and birds possess a knowledge of certain plants
which will cure a disease, or benefit them in some way, is very ancient,
and this particular plant is alluded to by old authors as being
especially selected for the purpose. Pliny observes (Hist. Nat. fol.
1530, p. 461, xv.): “Animalia quoque invenire herbas, _inprimisque
chelidoniam_. Hac enim hirundines oculis pullorum in nido restituunt
visum, ut quidam volunt, etiam erutis oculis.” (!) And the same author
further remarks: “Chelidoniam visui saluberrimam hirundines monstravere
vexatis pullorum oculis ilia medentes.”
Gerard, referring to this plant, in his “Herball, or Generall Historie
of Plantes” (1597), observes:--“It is called celandine, not because it
then first springeth at the comming in of the swallowes, or dieth when
they goe away; for as we haue saide, it may be founde all the yeere; but
because some hold opinion that with this herbe the dams restore sight to
their yoong ones when their eies be out, the which things are vaine and
false: for Cornelius Celsus in his sixt booke doth witnesse that when
the sight of the eies of diuers yoong birdes be put foorth by some
outward meanes, it will after a time be restored of itselfe, and soonest
of all the sight of the swallow, whereupon, (as the same saith) that the
tale or fable grew, how, thorow an herbe the dams restore that thing,
which healeth of itselfe: the very same doth Aristotle alleadge in the
sixt booke of the historie of liuing creatures: the eies of young
swallowes, saith he, that are not fledge, if a man do pricke them out,
do grow againe, and afterwards do perfectly recouer their sight.”
Subsequently, when speaking of the “virtues” of the plant, the sage
Gerard continues:--“The iuice of the herbe is good to sharpen the sight,
for it clenseth and consumeth awaie slimie things that cleaue about the
ball of the eie, and hinder the sight.” The root was considered good for
yellow-jaundice, and also (being chewed) for toothache. Gerard adds,
“The roote cut in small peeces is good to be giuen vnto hawkes against
sundrie diseases;” and Turbervile, in his “Booke of Falconrie” (1611),
treats of a cure for “a blow giuen to the eye, or of some other
mischance,” as follows:--“Sometimes the eyes of hawkes are hurt by some
mishappe, some stripe, or otherwise, as I said afore. Against such
unlooked-for mischances, Master Malopin, in his boke of the Prince,
willeth to take the juice of _Celondine_, otherwise _Arondell_, or
_Swallowes hearbe_, and to convey it into the eye. And if it bee not to
be had greene, to take it drie, and to beat it into powder, and to blow
it into her eye with a quill, and this shall recure the hawke.”
A marginal note to this paragraph informs us that “Arondell” in French
is “Hirundo,” a swallow, otherwise called “Chelidon.”
Parkinson, in his “Theatrum Botanicum” (1640), alludes to two species of
Celandine, _C. major_ and _minor_, and says:--“Some call them
_Chelidonia major_ and _minor_, and tooke the name, as Dioscorides
saith, because it springeth when swallowes come in; and withered at
their going away (which is true in neither, the greater, whereof
Dioscorides chiefely speaketh, being greene both winter and sommer; and
the lesser springeth before swallowes come in, and is gone and withered
long before their departure). Dioscorides likewise, and Pliny also, say
it tooke that name from swallowes that cured their young ones’ eyes,
that were hurt, with bringing this herbe and putting it to them: but
Aristotle, and Celsus from him, doe shew that the young ones of
partridges, doves, swallowes, &c., will recover their sight (being hurt)
of themselves in time, without anything applyed unto them, and therefore
Celsus accounteth this saying but a fable.”
It is curious to observe how universally this plant appears to be
associated with the swallow. _Chelidonium majus_ is _Calidonia maggiore_
of the Italians; _Yerva de las gelondrinhas_ of the Spaniards;
_Chelidoine Felongue_ and _Esclaire_ of the French; and _Schwalbenkraut_
of the Germans; while we, in English, call it _Celandine_,
_Swallow’s-herb_, and _Swallow-wort_.
Besides the Swallow-herb there is the Swallow-stone, to which wonderful
properties have been likewise attributed in connection with diseases of
the eye.
[Sidenote: THE SWALLOW’S STONE.]
Dr. Lebour, in a communication to _The Zoologist_, for 1866, says (p.
523):--“I met last summer, in Brittany, with a curious fact relating to
the habits of the common house-swallow. In Brittany there exists a
wide-spread belief among the peasantry that certain stones found in
swallows’ nests are sovereign cures for certain diseases of the eye. I
think the same notion holds in many other parts of France, and also in
some of our English counties. These stones are held in high estimation,
and the happy possessor usually lets them on hire at a sous or so a day.
Now, I had the good fortune to see some of these ‘swallow-stones,’ and
to examine them. I found them to be the hard polished calcareous
opercula of some species of _Turbo_, and although their worn state
precludes the idea of identifying the species, yet I am confident that
they belong to no European _Turbo_. The largest I have seen was
three-eighths of an inch long, and one-fourth of an inch broad; one side
is flat, or nearly so, and the other is convex, more or less so in
different specimens. Their peculiar shape enables one to push them under
the eyelid across the eyeball, and thus they remove any eyelash or other
foreign substance which may have got in one’s eye;[163] further than
this, they have no curing power: the peasants, however, believe they are
omnipotent. The presence of these opercula in swallows’ nests is very
curious,[164] and leads one to suppose that they must have been brought
there from some distant shore in the swallow’s stomach. If so, they must
have inhabited the poor bird for a considerable time, and proved a great
nuisance to it.”
The tradition on this subject, current amongst the peasants in Brittany,
is no doubt of some antiquity,[165] since the allusion which Longfellow
has made to it in his poem of “Evangeline” would seem to confirm this
impression, inasmuch as we may assume that the tradition found its way
into Acadia through the French colonists who were the first to settle
there.
Longfellow, in his “Evangeline,” says,--
“Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests in the rafters,
Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone which the swallow
Brings from the shore of the sea
to restore the sight of its fledglings;
Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the swallow!”
The connection between the stone and the herb is, that both were said to
be brought to the nest by the swallow, and both were deemed remedies for
defective sight. There is this difference, however, between the current
opinion in Brittany and the popular notion in Acadia, that in the former
case it is the finder of the stone who is thereby benefited, in the
latter it is the sight of the fledglings which is thereby restored.
A friend has suggested that the tradition may have originated with the
Chinese, to whom the edible swallows’ nests have been so long known,
and to whom credit is now given for having been acquainted centuries ago
with inventions which until recently were believed to be modern. Not
being conversant, however, with Chinese, we are unable to say whether
there is in that language any equivalent for “swallow-stone,” or
“swallow’s-herb,” or whether ancient Chinese authors in any way throw
light upon the subject.[166]
[Sidenote: THE OSTRICH.]
Pliny’s mention of the stone found in the stomach of the swallow brings
to mind the stones found in the stomach of the ostrich, and so leads to
the consideration of another bird noticed by Shakespeare. The food of
the ostrich is said to consist of the tops of shrubby plants, seeds, and
grain; strange to say, however, it will swallow, with indiscriminating
voracity, stones, sticks, pieces of metal, cord, leather, and other
substances, which often occasion its destruction. The extraordinary
digestion of the bird is thus alluded to in the threat of the rebel
Cade, when confronted by Alexander Iden:--
“Ah! villain, thou wilt betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the
king by carrying my head to him! _but I’ll make thee eat iron like
an ostrich_, and swallow my sword like a great pin, ere thou and I
part.”--_Henry VI._ Part II. Act iv. Sc. 10.
This curious habit is not peculiar to the ostriches. The same thing has
been observed in the bustards. Dr. Jerdon, speaking of the Indian
Bustard (_Eupodotis Edwardsii_), says, “they will often swallow pebbles
or any glittering object that attracts them. I took several portions of
a brass ornament, the size of a No. 16 bullet, out of the stomach of one
bustard.”[167]
In reply to Hotspur’s inquiries for “The madcap Prince of Wales,” and
his comrades, at the rebel camp near Shrewsbury, he is told that they
are
“All furnish’d, all in arms;
All plum’d like _estridges_ that with the wind
Bated; like eagles having lately bath’d.”[168]
_Henry IV._ Part I. Act iv. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: THE PELICAN.]
Looking to the antiquity of the fable of the Pelican’s feeding her young
with her own blood, it is not surprising that Shakespeare has alluded to
it when mentioning this bird. Laertes says:--
“To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And, like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.”
_Hamlet_, Act iv. Sc. 5.
King Lear, too, likens himself to a pelican when speaking of his
ungrateful children:--
“Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! ’Twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.”
_King Lear_, Act iii. Sc. 4.
Again--
“_K. Richard._ ...
Dar’st with thy frozen admonition
Make pale our cheek; chasing the royal blood
With fury from his native residence.
_Gaunt._ ...
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou tapp’d out, and drunkenly carous’d.”
_Richard II._ Act ii. Sc. 1.
It is generally supposed that the fable alluded to is a classical one.
But this is not the case. Many and various explanations have been
offered as regards its origin, but none is more ingenious, and at the
same time more plausible, than the explanation suggested by Mr.
Bartlett, the energetic Superintendent of the Zoological Society’s
Gardens. In a letter addressed to the editor of _Land and Water_, dated
the 3rd April, 1869, Mr. Bartlett says:--
“Having devoted much attention to investigations upon the subject
of the supply of food provided by several species of birds for their
young, I have collected many interesting facts showing that in some
instances the parents prepare by partial digestion, and in others by
the addition of a secreted nutritive substance, the food intended
for the support of their offspring. The one which I am about to
relate I was certainly not prepared to expect; nevertheless, such
facts as I now lay before you have caused me no little astonishment,
as they appear to me to afford a solution to the well-known and
ancient story of the Pelican in the Wilderness. I have heard that
the so-called fable originated, or is to be found, on some of the
early Egyptian monuments (I do not know where), but that the
representations are more like flamingoes than pelicans. I have
published elsewhere, in the ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society,’
for March 1869, what I consider to be the facts of the case, and
take this opportunity of referring to the matter. The flamingoes
here in the gardens have frequently shown signs of breeding, and
have been supplied with heaps of sand to form their nests, but
without result; nevertheless they appear to take considerable notice
of a pair of Cariamas in the same aviary. These birds have a habit
of bending back their heads, and with open gaping mouths utter loud
and somewhat distressing sounds. This habit at once attracts the
flamingoes, and very frequently one or more of them advance towards
the cariamas, and standing erect over the bird, by a slight
up-and-down movement of the head, raise up into its mouth a
considerable quantity of red coloured fluid. As soon as the upper
part of the throat and mouth becomes filled, it will drop or run
down from the corners of the flamingo’s mouth; the flamingo then
bends its long neck over the gaping cariama and pours this fluid
into the mouth, and as frequently on the back of the cariama. Having
seen this repeatedly, I took an opportunity of obtaining a portion
of this fluid and submitted it to the examination of Dr. Murie. We
placed it under the microscope, and find it composed of little else
than blood; in fact, the red blood-corpuscles are wonderfully
abundant in the otherwise clear and almost transparent glutinous
fluid. That this does not proceed from any disease or injury done to
the flamingo, nor arise or is produced by any portion or part of the
food taken by them, I am perfectly certain, for the birds are in the
most vigorous health and condition; but I believe that it is an
attempt to supply food to the cariamas, just as the hedge-sparrow
and other birds supply food to the young cuckoo, and I have no
doubt, if a careful observer had the opportunity of watching the
flamingoes on their breeding-ground, he would find that this is the
mode of feeding their young: no doubt other food is also provided,
but most likely mixed with this secretion. I think it highly
probable that this habit was noticed in ancient Egypt, and, by the
confusion of names in translation, the pelican was supposed to be
the bird intended; in fact, I have heard that the representation
(which I am very anxious to see) is much more like a flamingo than a
pelican. Again, a flamingo is much more a bird of the wilderness
than the pelican, seeing that the pelican requires a good supply of
fish, while the flamingo can live and does well upon very small
insects, seeds, and little fry, and is found in places in which the
pelican would starve.”
This communication naturally drew forth some comments. Mr. Houghton, in
a long letter to the editor of the same journal, dated 24th April, 1869,
says:--“That this is the origin of the old story of the pelican feeding
its young with its blood seems very plausible. I purpose to examine this
ingenious idea, and to offer a few remarks on the old fable. It is
commonly supposed--and you will often find it so expressed in works on
natural history--that this fable is a classical one. This is an error: I
have searched in vain amongst classical authors for any allusion to the
pelican feeding its young with its blood. To the Greeks this bird was
known by the name of πελεκάν, or πελέκας, or πελεκινος, though it would
appear that some species of woodpecker was also intended by the word
πελέκας (see Aristoph. _Aves_, 1155). Aristotle mentions pelicans two or
three times in his ‘History of Animals;’ he speaks of their migratory
habits and flying in crowds. He says they take large shell-fish into
their pouches (ἐν τῷ πρὸ τῆς κοιλίας τόπῳ), wherein the molluscs are
softened. They then throw them up and pick out the flesh from the opened
valves. Ælian merely repeats this story, only he says the shell-fish are
received into the stomach. In another place he says there is mutual
hostility between the pelican and the quail. The pelican was known to
the Romans under the name of _onocrotalus_. Pliny says this bird is like
the swan, except that under the throat there is a sort of second crop of
astonishing capacity. There is, of course, no doubt that the pelican is
here intended. Cicero says there is a bird called _platalea_ which
pursues other birds and causes them to drop the fish they have caught,
which it devours itself. He then gives the same story as Ælian, viz.,
that this bird softens shell-fish in its stomach, &c. The first part of
this account is true of the parasitic gulls (_Lestris_). It is uncertain
what bird Cicero alludes to by the name _platalea_. Pliny gives the same
story as Cicero, and calls the bird _platea_. The fable, then, is no
classical one. Whence did it originate? Does any pictorial
representation occur on the Egyptian monuments, as Mr. Bartlett has been
informed? I am inclined to think--but I speak under correction--that
such a representation does not occur. Horapollo (i. 54) tells us that
when the ancient Egyptians want to represent a fool they depict the
pelican, because this bird, instead of laying its eggs on lofty and
secure places, merely scratches up the ground and there lays. The
people surround the place with dried cow’s dung, and set fire to it. The
pelican sees the smoke, and endeavours to extinguish the fire with her
wings, the motion of which only fans the flame. Thus she burns her
wings, and falls an easy prey to the fowlers. Some Egyptian priests,
considering this behaviour evinces great love of its young, do not eat
the bird; others, again, thinking it is a mark of folly, eat it. The
Egyptians, however, did believe in a bird feeding its young with its
blood, and this bird is none other than a vulture. Horapollo says (i.
11) that a vulture symbolises a compassionate person (ἐλεήμονα), because
during the 120 days of its nurture of its offspring, if food cannot be
had, ‘it opens its own thigh and permits the young to partake of the
blood, so that they may not perish from want.’ This is alluded to in the
following lines by Georgius Pisidas:--
Τὸν μηρὸν ἐκτέμοντες, ἡματωμένοις
Γάλακτος ὀλκοῖς ζωπυροῦσι τὰ βρέφη.
Amongst classical authors, the love of the vulture for its young was
proverbial. But when do we first hear of the fable of the pelican
feeding its young with its blood? In Patristic annotations on the
Scriptures. I believe this is the answer. The ecclesiastical fathers
transferred the Egyptian story from the vulture to the pelican, but
magnified the already sufficiently marvellous fable a hundredfold, for
the blood of the parent was not only supposed to serve as food for the
young, but was also able to reanimate the dead offspring! Augustine,
commenting on Psalm cii. 5--‘I am like a pelican in the
wilderness’--says: ‘These birds [male pelicans] are said to kill their
young offspring by blows of their beaks, and then to bewail their death
for the space of three days. At length, however, it is said the mother
bird inflicts a severe wound on herself, pouring the flowing blood over
the dead young ones, which instantly brings them to life.’ To the same
effect write Eustathius, Isidorus, Epiphanius, and a host of other
writers, except that sometimes it was the female who killed the young
ones, while the male reanimated them with its blood. This fable was
supposed to be a symbol of Christ’s love to men. I think, then, that the
very interesting fact of the flamingo feeding the cariama with the red
fluid and other contents of its stomach can hardly be, as Mr. Bartlett
conjectures, the origin of the old fable of the pelican feeding its
young with its blood, because the Egyptian story of the vulture wounding
its thigh has nothing analogous to the natural-history fact of the
flamingo, while the fable of the pelican pouring from its self-inflicted
wound the life-restoring blood which reanimates its offspring is still
further from the mark.”
In a short criticism upon the subject in the same number of _Land and
Water_, Mr. H. J. Hancock is inclined to believe that some confusion has
arisen in the translation from the original Hebrew. “The word קָאַת
(_Kàh-ath'_), which is rendered πελεκάν in the Septuagint, and Pelican,
or Onocrotalus, in the Vulgate, is derived from the verb קָא ‘to vomit,’
and signifies ‘a vomiter.’ This name, evidently a general one, may have
been intended by the Hebrew writers to apply either to such birds as,
like the pelican and many others, possess the power of disgorging their
food on being disturbed or alarmed, or to such birds as are accustomed
to nourish their young from their own crops; and, in the latter case,
the curious bloody secretion of the flamingo may well have given rise to
the superstition concerning the pelican. I may observe, as an evidence
that the translators did not consider the Hebrew word to be other than a
general name, that _Kà-ath'_ is sometimes rendered ‘cormorant’ (Isa.
xxxiv. 11; Zeph. ii. 14). For further information concerning this point,
I would refer your readers to the ‘Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance,’ p.
1083; Bate’s ‘Hebrew Dictionary,’ p. 538; and Parkhurst’s ‘Hebrew
Dictionary,’ pp. 631, 632.”
Shakespeare, doubtless, had not investigated the subject so narrowly,
but was content to accept the common story as he found it, and to apply
it metaphorically as occasion required.
[Sidenote: IN THE ENGLISH FENS.]
The majority of the birds mentioned in this chapter are not natives of
the British Islands, but, strange as it may appear, there is evidence to
show that the pelican, or, to speak more correctly, a species of
pelican, once inhabited the English fens.
The peat-bogs of Cambridgeshire have yielded of late years a large
number of bones of birds, and amongst these has been discovered the
wing-bone of a pelican. This interesting discovery was made known by M.
Alphonse Milne-Edwards, in an able article in the “Annales des Sciences
Naturelles,”[169] a translation of which subsequently appeared in _The
Ibis_.[170] The author thus anticipates the objections of the
sceptical:--
“We may be inclined, perhaps, to wonder that a single bone,
belonging (as it does) to a young animal, and consequently not
presenting all its anatomical characters, should permit the exact
recognition of the genus and species of bird to which it belongs. So
precise a determination would not be always possible, but in the
present case there need be no doubt; for I have shown, in another
work,[171] that the wing-bone in the genus _Pelicanus_ offers
extremely clear distinctive peculiarities, which do not allow of its
being confounded with that of any other bird.”
[Sidenote: THE PELICAN IN ENGLAND.]
The only species of pelican which has been recorded to have occurred in
England in recent times, is the great white pelican, _P. onocrotalus_.
Latham has stated,[172] on the authority of Sir Thomas Brown, that a
pelican of this species was killed in Horsey Fen in 1663. This statement
was copied by Montagu,[173] and subsequently by Dr. Fleming,[174] but
there is no evidence to show that the bird was a wild one. On the
contrary, it is probable, as suggested by Sir Thomas Brown, that it may
have been one of the King’s pelicans which was lost about that time from
St. James’s Park.
He says[175]:--“An _onocrotalus_, or pelican, shot upon Horsey Fen, May
22, 1663, which, stuffed and cleaned, I yet retain. It was three yards
and a half between the extremities of the wings; the chowle and beak
answering the usual description; the extremities of the wings for a span
deep brown; the rest of the body white; a fowl which none could remember
upon this coast.
“About the same time, I heard one of the king’s pelicans was lost at St.
James’s; perhaps this might be the same.”
Latham was further assured by Dr. Leith, that in the month of May he saw
a brown pelican fly over his head on Blackheath, in Kent. Montagu,
however, suggests that the bird was an immature swan.
In _The Zoologist_ for 1856 (p. 5321), the Rev. H. B. Tristram has
recorded, that on the 25th of August, 1856, the remains of a pelican
were picked up on the shore at Castle Eden, Durham. Such are the scanty
records of the appearance of a pelican in England in modern times.
The bone found in Cambridgeshire may have belonged to _P. onocrotalus_,
a native of South and South-Eastern Europe, and which is stated to be
“common on the lakes and watercourses of Hungary and Russia, and also
seen further south in Asia and in Northern Africa.” M. Milne-Edwards,
however, has not quite determined the species, for, on comparison with
the bones of other recognized and existing species, it appears to differ
rather remarkably in its greater length.
Enough has probably been said, however, to show the interest which
attaches to the discovery, and to suggest further research.
With the pelican ends the long list of birds mentioned in the works of
Shakespeare.
[Sidenote: CONCLUSION.]
The reader who has had the patience or the curiosity to follow us thus
far will, doubtless, ere this have formed a just estimate of
Shakespeare’s qualifications as a naturalist, and will have drawn the
only conclusion which the evidence justifies.
It is impossible to read all that Shakespeare has written in connection
with ornithology, without being struck with the extraordinary knowledge
which he has displayed for the age in which he lived; and our admiration
for him as a poet must be increased tenfold on perceiving that the
beauteous thoughts, which he has clothed in such beauteous language,
were dictated by a pure love of nature, and by a study of those great
truths which appeal at once to the heart and to reason, and which infuse
into the soul of the naturalist the true spirit of poetry.
[Illustration]
APPENDIX.
A TABLE
OF
ORNITHOLOGICAL ALLUSIONS
IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY OCCUR:
THE PLAYS AND POEMS BEING ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED.
_All’s Well that Ends Well:_ PAGE
Act I. Sc. 1--[Hawking-eye] 55
„ „ 3--Cuckoo 154
„ II. „ 5--Lark 136
„ „ Bunting 136
„ III. „ 5--Limed 160
„ IV. „ 1--Chough 117
„ „ Woodcock 231
„ „ 3--Crow 110
_Antony and Cleopatra:_
Act II. Sc. 2--Eagle 26
„ „ 3--Cocks 172, 219
„ „ Quails 219
„ „ 6--Cuckoo 154
„ III. „ 2--[Swan] 201
„ „ [Kite] 44
„ „ 10--Mallard 238
„ „ 13--Kite 44
„ „ Seel 70
„ „ Dove 195
„ „ Ostrich 195
„ IV. „ 8--[Nightingale] 123
„ „ 12--[Swallow] 276
„ V. „ 2--Seel 70
_As You Like It:_
Act I. Sc. 2--Pigeons 180, 185
„ „ 3--Juno’s Swans 206
„ II. „ 3--Ravens 106
„ „ Sparrow 106, 146
„ „ 5--Eggs 32
„ „ 7--[Goose] 197
„ „ [Cock] 168
„ III. „ 3--Falcon 61
„ „ Bells 61
„ „ Pigeon 180, 185
„ „ 4--Goose 197
„ IV. „ 1--[Pigeon] 180
„ „ Parrot 272
„ „ 3--Moss’d 34
„ V. „ 4--Stalking-horse 238
_Comedy of Errors:_
Act II. Sc. 1--[Stale] 245
„ „ 2--Owls 96
„ III. „ 1--Crow 114
„ IV. „ 2--Lapwing 221
_Coriolanus:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Cormorant 260
„ „ Goose 197
„ „ 4--Geese 197
„ III. „ 1--[Crow] 110
„ „ [Eagle] 23
„ „ Cry havoc (note) 57
„ „ Quarry 57
„ „ 5--[Kite] 43
„ „ [Crow] 110
„ IV. „ 5--Daw 119
„ „ 7--Osprey 42
„ V. „ 3--[Dove] 180, 191
„ „ [Gosling] 197
„ „ 6--[Eagle] 23
„ „ [Dovecote] 180
_Cymbeline:_
Act I. Sc. 2--Eagle 28, 45
„ „ Puttock 28, 45
„ „ 3--[Crow] 110
„ „ 4--Fowl 235
„ II. „ 2--Philomel 125
„ „ [Raven] 99
„ „ 3--Lark 132
„ „ 4--[Watching] 45
„ III. „ 1--Crows 112
„ „ 3--Crows 112
„ „ Eagle 27
„ „ 4--Jay 121
„ „ Swan’s nest 206
„ „ 6--Owl 83
„ „ Lark 136
„ IV. „ 2--Ruddock 141
„ „ Wren 144
„ „ The Roman Eagle 28
„ V. „ 3--Crows 111
„ „ 4--Eagle 30
„ „ Prune 31
„ „ Cloys 31
„ „ 5--The Roman Eagle 29
_Hamlet:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Cock 167
„ „ 3--Woodcocks 229
„ „ 5--The falconer’s call 55
„ II. „ 2--Aiery 39, 58
„ „ Kites 43
„ „ Hawk 75, 223
„ „ Hernshaw 75, 223
„ „ Pigeon-liver’d 185
„ „ Kites 43
„ „ French falconers 56
„ „ Eyases 58
„ III. „ 2--[Raven] 99
„ „ Recorder (note) 129
„ IV. „ 5--Owl 88
„ „ Pelican 286
„ „ [Dove] 180
„ „ 7--Check 60
„ V. „ 1--Dove 180
„ „ 2--[Chough] 115
„ „ Lapwing 222
„ „ Bevy 218
„ „ Sparrow 146
„ „ [Woodcock] 229
„ „ Quarry 56
_Henry IV.--Part I.:_
Act I. Sc. 3--Popinjay 273
„ „ Starling 274
„ II. „ 1--Turkies 177
„ „ 2--Chuffs 118
„ „ Wild-Duck 237
„ „ 4--[Wild-Geese] 246
„ „ Sparrow 147
„ „ [Cuckoo] 147
„ III. „ 1--[Raven] 99
„ „ [Goose] 197
„ „ Redbreast-teacher 142
„ „ 2--Cuckoo 155
„ IV. „ 1--Estridge 286
„ „ Bated 286
„ „ Eagles 36, 286
„ „ Dove 180
„ „ 2--Caliver 240
„ „ Wild-Duck 240
„ „ Scare-crows 115
„ V. „ 1--Gull 148
„ „ Cuckoo’s bird 148
„ „ Sparrow 148
„ „ [Vultures] 41
_Henry IV.--Part II.:_
Act III. Sc. 1--Seel 70
„ „ 2--Ouzel 139
„ „ Dove 196
„ V. „ 1--Cock and pye 172
„ „ Pigeons 180, 196
„ „ Hens 196
„ „ Wild-Geese 246
„ „ 4--Vultures 41
_Henry V.:_
Act I. Sc. 2--Eagle 32
„ „ Eggs 32
„ II. „ 1--Kite 43
„ „ Crow 111
„ „ 2--Cloy 31
„ III. „ 6--Gull 149, 266
„ „ 7--Hawk 73
„ „ Lark 133
„ „ Hooded 62
„ „ Bate 62
„ IV. Prologue--Cocks 168
„ Sc. 1--Mounted 63
„ „ Stoop 63
„ „ 2--Carrions 104
„ „ Crows 104
_Henry VI.--Part I.:_
Act I. Sc. 2--Halcyon days 275
„ „ Mahomed’s Dove 194
„ „ [Eagle] 23
„ „ 4--Scare-crow 115
„ „ 5--Doves 180
„ II. „ 2--Turtle-doves 180, 191
„ „ 4--Hawks 73
„ „ Pitch 73
„ „ Daw 119
„ III. „ 3--Peacock 175
„ IV. „ 2--[Owl] 83
„ „ 3--[Vulture] 40
„ V. „ 3--Swan 204
„ „ Cygnets 204
_Henry VI.--Part II.:_
Act I. Sc. 2--[Hawk] 72
„ „ 3--Limed 161
„ „ 4--Screech-Owls 85, 97
„ II. „ 1--Flying at the brook 50, 51
„ „ Old Joan 50
„ „ Point 50, 51
„ „ Falcon 50
„ „ Pitch 50, 51
„ „ Hawks 50
„ „ Tower 50, 51
„ „ Fowl 51
„ „ 4--Limed 161
„ III. „ 1--Dove 180
„ „ [Raven] 101
„ „ [Eagle] 23
„ „ Kite 44
„ „ 2--Raven 101
„ „ Wren 101, 144
„ „ Partridge 44, 216
„ „ Puttock 44, 216
„ „ [Kites] 43
„ „ [Screech-Owl] 85
„ „ 3--[Lime-twigs] 160
„ IV. „ 1--[Eagle] 23
„ „ 10--Ostrich 285
„ „ Crows 113
„ V. „ 2--Kites 43, 112
„ „ Crows 112
_Henry VI.--Part III.:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Eagle 38
„ „ Tire 38
„ „ Hawk’s bells 61
„ „ 4--Swan 205
„ „ Dove 54, 195
„ „ Falcon 54
„ „ Woodcock 232
„ II. „ 1--Eagle’s bird 25
„ „ Night-Owl 88, 94
„ „ 2--Doves 91, 195
„ „ 6--[Screech-Owl] 85
„ V. „ 2--The princely Eagle 33
„ „ 4--Owl 85
„ „ 6--Limed 160
„ „ Owl 86
„ „ [Raven] 102
„ „ Night-Crow 102
„ „ Pies 121
_Henry VIII.:_
Act II. Sc. 3--[Lark] 136
„ III. „ 2--Larks 136
„ IV. „ 1--The bird of peace 180
_Julius Cæsar:_
Act I. Sc. 3--Bird of night 89
„ V. „ 1--Eagles 27
„ „ Raven 99-110
„ „ Crows 112
„ „ Kites 43
„ „ 3--[Eagles] 27
„ „ [Kites] 43
„ „ Ravens 104
_King John:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Sparrow 145
„ II. „ 2--Cry havoc (note) 57
„ IV. „ 3--Raven 103
„ V. „ 1--[Crow] 110
„ „ 2--Eagle 38
„ „ Aiery 38
„ „ Towers 38
„ „ Souse 38
„ „ 7--Cygnet 201
„ „ Swan 201
_King Lear:_
Act I. Sc. 4--Hedge-Sparrow 147
„ „ Cuckoo 147
„ „ Kite 44
„ II. „ 2--Wagtail 156
„ „ Goose 198
„ „ Halcyon 275
„ „ 4--Wild-Geese 246
„ „ Vulture 41
„ „ Owl 97
„ III. „ 4--The five wits 95
„ „ Pelican 287
„ „ 6--[Nightingale] 123
„ IV. „ 6--Crows 116
„ „ Choughs 116
„ „ Crow-keeper 114
„ „ Wren 144
„ „ Lark 135
_Loves Labour’s Lost:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Cormorant 260
„ „ Green-Geese 197
„ III. „ 1--Goose 197
„ IV. „ 1--Owl 95
„ „ 3--Green-Goose 198
„ „ Woodcocks 229
„ „ Raven 109
„ „ [Turtle] 191
„ „ Eagle-sighted 25
„ „ Bird-bolts 162
„ V. „ 1--Pigeon 180
„ „ 2--Pigeons 180
„ „ Owl 95
„ „ [Cuckoo] 147
„ „ [Lark] 130
„ „ [Turtle-dove] 191
„ „ Rook 121
„ „ Daw 119
_Macbeth:_
Act I. Sc. 2--Sparrow 147
„ „ [Eagle] 23
„ „ 5--Raven 102
„ „ 6--Martlet 277
„ II. „ 1--Owl 84
„ „ 2--“Obscure bird” 85
„ „ 4--Falcon 39, 51
„ „ Towering 39, 51
„ „ Owl 51
„ III. „ 2--[Crow] 110-115
„ „ 4--Maws 46
„ „ Kites 46
„ „ Magot-pie 120
„ „ Choughs 120
„ „ Rooks 120
„ IV. „ 1--Owlet 84
„ „ 2--Wren 91, 143
„ „ Owl 91, 143
„ „ 3--Vulture 40
„ „ [Quarry] 57
„ „ [Kite] 43
„ V. „ 3--Loon 258
„ „ [Geese] 197
_Measure for Measure:_
Act I. Sc. 4--Lapwing 221
„ II. „ 1--Scare-crow 115
„ III. „ 1--Enmew 64-66
„ „ Falcon 64
„ „ Fowl 64
„ „ 2--Sparrows 146
_Merchant of Venice:_
Act I. Sc. 2--Throstle 137
„ II. „ 2--Doves 196
„ „ 6--Venus’ Pigeons 190
„ „ 9--Martlet 278
„ III. „ 2--Swan 201
„ V. „ 1--Crow 143
„ „ Lark 135, 143
„ „ Nightingale 128, 143
„ „ Goose 128, 143, 197
„ „ Wren 128, 143
„ „ Cuckoo 150
_Merry Wives of Windsor:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Cock and pye 171
„ „ 3--Bully-rook 121
„ „ [Raven] 99
„ „ Vultures 41
„ „ [Dove] 190
„ II. „ 1--Cuckoo-birds (note) 148
„ III. „ 3--Eyas-musket 74
„ „ Birding 72
„ „ [Hawk] 73
„ „ 4--[Geese] 197
„ „ 5--Birding 72
„ IV. „ 2--Birding 72
„ „ Birding-pieces 72, 164
„ V. „ 1--Goose 197
„ „ 5--Swan 207
„ „ Goose 207
_Midsummer Night’s Dream:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Doves of Venus 190
„ „ Lark 133
„ „ 2--Dove 195
„ „ Nightingale 195
„ II. „ 1--Crows 110
„ „ [Dove] 180
„ „ [Bolt] 162
„ „ 2--Owl 89
„ „ Philomel 125
„ „ Raven 108
„ „ Dove 108
„ III. „ 1--[Wild-fowl] 235
„ „ Ousel-cock 139
„ „ Throstle 137
„ „ Wren 142
„ „ Finch 144
„ „ Sparrow 147
„ „ [Lark] 130
„ „ Cuckoo 150
„ „ 2--Wild-Geese 246
„ „ Fowler 246
„ „ Choughs 119
„ „ [Crow] 110
„ IV. „ 1--Lark 131
„ V. „ 1--Recorder 129
„ „ Goose 197
„ „ 2--Screech-Owl 86
_Much Ado about Nothing:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Parrot-teacher 272, 273
„ „ Bird-bolt 162
„ „ Crow 114
„ „ Wise and warm 95
„ II. „ 1--Partridge 218
„ „ Fowl 237
„ „ 3--Raven 101
„ „ Fowl 238
„ „ Daw 119
„ „ Gull 269
„ III. „ 1--Lapwing 221
„ „ Haggards 59
„ „ Limed 160
„ „ 4--[Hawk] 73
„ V. „ 1--Woodcock 229
_Othello:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Daws 120
„ „ 3--Seel 70
„ „ Snipe 233
„ II. „ 1--Birdlime 161
„ „ 3--Speak Parrot 272
„ III. „ Watch 45
„ „ Haggard 57
„ „ Jesses 57
„ „ Seel 71
„ IV. „ 1--Raven 100
„ V. „ 1--“Cry on” (note) 56
„ „ 2--[Gull] 239, 267
„ „ Swan 201
_Pericles:_
Act III. Introd.--[Duck] 222-224, 237
„ IV. „ [Night-bird] 99
„ „ Dove 113, 191
„ „ Crow 113
„ Sc. 3--Wren 144
„ „ [Eagle] 23
„ „ 6--Coistrel 74
_Richard II.:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Pitch 51
„ „ 3--Falcon 54
„ „ Cloy 31
„ II. „ 1--Cormorant 259
„ „ Pelican 287
„ „ Imp 69
„ III. „ 3--Eagle 24
„ „ Night-Owls 85
„ „ Lark 136
_Richard III.:_
Act I. Sc. 1--[Eagle] 23, 45
„ „ Kites 45
„ „ Buzzards 45, 47
„ „ 3--Wren 144
„ „ [Eagle] 23
„ „ [Mew’d up] 64
„ „ Aiery 39
„ IV. „ 4--Owls 86
„ V. „ 2--Swallow 277
„ „ 3--Lark 133
„ „ Cock 167
„ „ “Cry on” (note) 56
_Romeo and Juliet:_
Act I. Sc. 2--Swan 114, 206
„ „ Crow 114, 206
„ „ 3--Dove-house 180
„ „ 4--Crow-keeper 114
„ „ Soar 50, 51
„ „ Pitch 50, 51
„ „ 5--Cock-a-hoop 169
„ „ Dove 113, 194
„ „ Crows 113, 194
„ II. „ 2--Falconer 54
„ „ Lure 54
„ „ Tassel-gentle 54
„ „ 4--Goose 197
„ „ 5--Dove 180
„ III. „ 2--Hood 62
„ „ Unmann’d 62
„ „ Bating 62
„ „ Raven 108, 109
„ „ 4--Mew’d up 64
„ „ 5--Nightingale 124
„ „ Lark 124, 131, 134
„ „ Eagle 25
„ IV. „ 4--Watch 46
„ „ Watching 46
„ V. „ 1--[Dove] 194
„ „ 3--Maw 46
_Taming of the Shrew:_
Induct. Sc. 1--[Nightingale] 123
„ „ 2--Hawking 72
„ „ Hawk 72
„ „ Lark 72
„ „ 1--Mew 64, 65
Act I. „ 2--Woodcock 229
„ II. „ 1--Nightingale 124
„ „ Buzzard 47
„ „ Turtle 47
„ „ Wise and warm 95
„ III. „ 1--Stale 245
„ „ 2--Dove 180
„ IV. „ 1--Falcon 62
„ „ Stoop 62
„ „ Lure 55, 62
„ „ Man 45, 62
„ „ Haggard 45, 62
„ „ Watch 45, 62
„ „ Kites 45, 62
„ „ Bate 45, 63
„ „ Peacock (note) 175
„ „ 2--Haggard 59
„ „ 3--Jay 122
„ „ Lark 122
„ V. „ 2--Hawk 73
_The Tempest:_
Act I. Sc. 2--Raven’s feather 107
„ II. „ 1--Bat-fowling 157
„ „ Chough 117
„ „ 2--Duck 238
„ „ Goose 197
„ „ Jay’s nest 122
„ „ Sea-mells 122, 269
„ IV. „ 1--Sparrows 146
„ „ Barnacles 246
„ „ Peacock (note) 175
„ V. „ 1--Owls 96
_Timon of Athens:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Eagle 26
„ II. „ 1--[Gull] 267
„ III. „ 6--Swallow 277
„ „ Tiring 38
„ IV. „ 3--Eagle 34
_Titus Andronicus:_
Act II. Sc. 2--Swallows 277
„ „ 3--Philomel 125
„ „ Owl 94, 105
„ „ Raven 105
„ „ Lark 136
„ III. „ 1--[Raven] 99
„ „ Lark 136
„ IV. „ 1--Philomel 125
„ „ Swan 205
„ „ 2--Swallow 276
„ „ 3--Pigeon 180, 183
„ „ 4--Pigeons 184
„ „ Eagle 33
„ V. „ 2--Vulture 40
„ „ [Philomel] 125
„ „ 3--Fowl 236
_Troilus and Cressida:_
Act I. Sc. 1--Cygnet’s down 206
„ „ 2--[Eagles] 23
„ „ [Crows] 110
„ „ Daws 119
„ II. „ 1--Sparrows 146
„ „ [Owl] 83
„ „ 2--Cormorant 260
„ „ 3--[Raven] 99
„ III. „ 1--Doves 196
„ „ 2--Sparrow 145
„ „ Watch’d 45
„ „ Falcon 54
„ „ Tercel 54
„ „ Ducks 54
„ „ Plantage 192
„ „ Turtle 180, 192
„ „ 3--Peacock 175
„ IV. „ 2--Lark 131
„ „ Crows 131
„ V. „ 1--Finch-egg 144
„ „ Quails 219
„ „ Owl 83
„ „ Puttock 44
„ „ 2--Raven 100
„ „ Parrot 272
„ „ 11--[Screech-Owl] 85
„ „ [Goose] 197
_Twelfth Night:_
Act I. Sc. 3--Coystril 74
„ II. „ 3--Gull 149, 267
„ „ Woodcock 229
„ „ 5--Stanniel 73
„ „ Check 60, 73
„ „ Gull-catcher 267
„ „ Turkey-cock 180
„ „ Woodcock 231
„ „ Bird-bolts 163
„ „ Stone-bow 163
„ III. „ 1--Haggard 60
„ „ Check 60
„ „ 2--Wren 144
„ „ [Gull] 267
„ „ 4--[Nightingale] 123
„ „ Daws 119
„ „ Limed 161
„ IV. „ 2--Wild-fowl 232, 257
„ „ Woodcock 232, 257
„ V. „ 1--Raven 108
„ „ Dove 108
„ „ Gull 267
_Two Gentlemen of Verona:_
Act II. Sc. 1--Robin-Redbreast 142
„ III. „ 1--Nightingale 128
„ IV. „ 4--Geese 198
„ V. „ 4--[Nightingale] 123
_The Winter’s Tale:_
Act II. Sc. 3--Kites 107
„ „ Ravens 107
„ III. „ 2--[Crow] 110
„ IV. „ 2--Lark 130
„ „ Thrush 137
„ „ Kite 46
„ „ Woodcock 230
„ „ 3--Jay 121
„ „ Falcon 64
„ „ Swallow 277
„ „ Crow 113
„ „ Dove 185
„ „ Turtles 180, 192
„ „ Choughs 118
„ „ Pheasant 210
„ „ 4--Dove’s down 194
„ V. „ 3--[Turtle] 180
_Lucrece:_
Venus’ doves 190
Limed 160
Cloy’d 31
Owls 97
Dove 190
[Night-Owl] 83
Falcon 61
Fowl 61
Vulture 41
[Hawk] 72
Cuckoos 149
Sparrows 149
Ravens 110
[Crow] 110
Swan 201
[Eagles] 23
Philomel 125
[Fowls] 235
_The Passionate Pilgrim:_
Dove 180
Philomela 125
Lark 130
Nightingale 125
_The Phœnix and Turtle:_
Eagle 23
Swan 201
Crow 110
Turtle 191
_Sonnets:_
XXIX. Lark 132
LXX. Crow 110
LXXXVI. Gulls 269
XCI. Hawks 72
CII. Philomel 125
CXIV. Crow 110
Dove 180
_Venus and Adonis:_
Doves 180, 190
Eagle 38
Tire 38
Dive-dapper 258
Crows 113
Owl 98
Vulture 41
Falcon 56
Lure 56
Lark 131
Doves of Paphos 190
FOOTNOTES.
[1] Such words are there enclosed in brackets [ ].
[2] Amongst the entries in the Council Book of the Corporation of
Stratford, during the period that John Shakespeare, the Poet’s father,
was a member of the Municipal body (he filled the office of Chamberlain
in 1573), the name occurs one hundred and sixty-six times under fourteen
different modes of spelling.
[3] “An Inquiry into the Authenticity of various Pictures and Prints,
which, from the decease of the Poet to our own times, have been offered
to the public as Portraits of Shakespeare.” By James Boaden. London,
1824.
[4] “An Inquiry into the History, Authenticity, and Characteristics of
the Shakespeare Portraits.” By Abraham Wivell. London, 1827.
[5] The Stratford Portrait was doubtless painted from the bust, and
probably about the time of the Garrick Jubilee, 1769.
[6] Boaden adds: “Let it be remembered in aid of this inference that
tradition has invariably assigned to him, as an actor, characters in the
decline of life, and that one of his relatives is reported to have seen
him in the part of old Adam, the faithful follower of Orlando, in that
enchanting pastoral comedy _As You Like It_.” Op. cit., p. 22.
[7] “Life Portraits of William Shakespeare,” by J. Hain Friswell.
London, 1864.
[8] We have, unfortunately, no proof that Joseph Taylor, the player,
ever painted portraits. There was a contemporary, however, named John
Taylor, who was an artist, and it is possible that these two have been
confounded.
Boaden refers the picture to Burbage, “who is known to have handled the
pencil.” Op. cit., p. 49.
[9] Taylor was thirty-three when Shakespeare died in 1616, and survived
him thirty-seven years.
[10] This will, it appears, is not to be found (Wivell, Op. cit., p.
49), but it matters little, if we are assured that Davenant possessed
the picture.
[11] These passages will be found duly criticised in Chapter II.
[12] In the following passage from _The Tempest_, Shakespeare, _à
propos_ of fish, gives one of many proofs of his knowledge of human
nature. Trinculo comes upon the strange form of Caliban lying flat on
the sands:--“What have we here? A man, or a fish? dead or alive? A fish:
he smells like a fish: a very ancient and fish-like smell; a kind of,
not of the newest, poor-John. A strange fish! Were I in England now (as
once I was), and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but
would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man: any
strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to
relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead
Indian!”--_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
[13] The author of “The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle, 1496,”
makes the following quaint remarks on the superiority of “Fysshynge”
over “Huntynge”:--“For huntynge, as to myn entent, is too laboryous, for
the hunter must alwaye renne and followe his houndes: traueyllynge and
swetynge full sore. He blowyth tyll his lyppes blyster. And when he
weenyth it be an hare, full oft it is an hegge hogge. Thus he chasyth
and wote not what.”
[14] The subject of Bird-catching will be fully discussed in a
subsequent chapter.
[15] Letter from Rowland White to Sir Robert Sidney, dated 12th Sept.
1600.
[16] Nichols’ “Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of
Queen Elizabeth,” vol. iii. p. 90. (1788-1805.)
[17] “A forester is an officer of the forest sworn to preserve the vert
and venison therein, and to attend the wild beasts within his bailiwick,
and to watch and endeavour to keep them safe, by day and night. He is
likewise to apprehend all offenders in vert and venison, and to present
them to the Courts of the Forest, to the end they may be punished
according to their offences.”--_The Gentleman’s Recreation._ 1686.
[18] “We say the deer is ‘_broken up_,’ the fox and hare are
‘_cased_.’”--_The Gentleman’s Recreation._ 1686.
From this ancient practice, too, is derived the phrase, “to eat humble
pie,” more correctly written “_umble pie_.” This was a venison pasty,
made of the umbles (heart, liver, and lungs), and always given to
inferiors, and placed low down on the table when the squire feasted
publicly in the hall.
[19] “The coney is called the first year ‘a rabbet,’ and afterwards ‘an
old coney.’ He is a beast of the warren, and not a beast of
venery.”--_The Gentleman’s Recreation._ 1686.
[20] _Brock_ is the old name for badger, and we still find the word
occurring in many names of places, possibly thereby indicating
localities where the badger was formerly common. Of these may be
mentioned, Brockhurst in Shropshire, Brockenhurst in Kent,
Brockenborough in Wiltshire, Brockford in Suffolk, Brockhall in
Northampton, Brockhampton in Oxford, Dorset, Gloucester, and
Herefordshire, Brockham Green in Surrey, Brockholes in Lancashire and
Yorkshire, Brock-le-bank in Cumberland, Brocklesby in Lincolnshire,
Brockley in Somersetshire, Brockley in Suffolk, Brockley Hill in Kent,
Brockley Hill in Hertfordshire, Brockmoor in Staffordshire, Brockworth
in Gloucestershire.
[21] See also _Winter’s Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 3.
[22] In the Midland Counties, the bat is often called leathern-wings.
Compare the high German “_leder-maus_.”
[23]
... “hedgehogs which
Lie tumbling in my bare-foot way, and mount
Their pricks at my footfall.”
_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
[24] “_Rere-mouse_” from the old English “_hrere-mus_,” literally a raw
mouse. The adjective “rere” is still used in Wiltshire for “raw.” The
bat is also known as the “rennie-mouse” or “reiny-mouse,” although Miss
Gurney, in her “Glossary of Norfolk Words,” gives “ranny” for the
shrew-mouse. The old name of “flittermouse,” “fluttermouse,” or
“fliddermouse,” from the high German, “_fledermaus_,” does not appear in
Shakespeare’s works.
[25] “The Natural History of the Insects mentioned in Shakspeare’s
Plays,” by Robert Patterson, 12mo. Lond. 1841.
[26] Mudie, “Feathered Tribes of the British Islands,” i. p. 82.
[27] “De Bello Judico,” iii. 5.
[28] Xenophon, “Cyropædia,” vii.
[29] “Annals and Magazine of Natural History,” June, 1864.
[30] Colquhoun, “The Moor and the Loch,” p. 330. And this is not an
isolated instance. _See_ Newton, “Ootheca Wolleyana,” Part I. p. 11.
[31] Pennant, “British Zoology.”
[32] Yarrell, “History of British Birds.”
[33] “Rural Sports,” vol. i. p. 246.
[34] “Dissertations,” vol. i. p. 173.
[35] See Pennant’s “Arctic Zoology,” ii. p. 195; Sir J. Malcolm’s
“Sketches of Persia;” Johnston’s “Sketches of Indian Field Sports;”
Atkinson’s “Travels in Oriental and Western Siberia,” and Burton’s
“Falconry in the Valley of the Indus.”
[36] Folio, 1676. Part ii. p. 169.
[37] “Memoirs of Stephen Grellet,” i. p. 459.
[38] See “The Naturalist” for May, 1837.
[39] “Tour in Sutherland,” vol. i. p. 113.
[40] “The Great Sahara,” p. 392.
[41] “Tour in Sutherland,” vol. i. p. 121.
[42] The name, no doubt, of a favourite falcon.
[43] Tardif, “Treatise on Falconry.”
[44] No doubt a corruption of “erne,” a name which is still given to the
sea eagle (_Aquila albicilla_).
[45] See his “Faerie Queene,” Book III. Canto 4.
[46] This scarce volume, of which we are fortunate enough to possess a
copy, contains the work of the Emperor Frederic II., “De arte venandi
cum avibus;” Albertus Magnus, “De Falconibus;” as also a digest of
Hubner’s work. “Sur le vol des oiseaux de proie,” and other ancient and
rare works on Falconry.
[47] Salvin and Brodrick, “Falconry in the British Islands,” pp. 38, 39.
[48] To “cry on” anything was a familiar expression formerly. In
_Othello_ (Act v. Sc. 1), we read--
“Whose noise is this that ‘cries on’ murder?”
And in _Richard III._ (Act v. Sc. 3), Richmond says:--
“Methought, their souls, whose bodies Richard murder’d,
Came to my tent, and ‘cried on’ victory.”
To “cry havoc” appears to have been a signal for indiscriminate
slaughter. The expression, “Cry havoc, kings!” occurs in _King John_,
Act ii. Sc. 2; and again in _Julius Cæsar_, Act iii. Sc. 1:--
“Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.”
In _Coriolanus_ (Act iii. Sc. 1), Menenius says--
“Do not cry _Havoc_, where you should but hunt
With modest warrant.”
[49] Salvin and Brodrick, “Falconry in the British Islands.”
[50] His “bow,” that is, his “yoke.” Some editions read “low;” an
evident mistake.
[51] Compare, _ante_, pp. 57-59, “I’d whistle her off,” &c.
[52] Compare, _ante_, p. 52, “A falcon tow’ring in her pride of place,”
&c.
[53] It will be observed that, in these pages, falconry is treated as a
thing of the past, as indeed it is a sport now almost obsolete, and but
few comparatively are acquainted with its technicalities.
[54] The weapon of this name, the most important of small fire-arms, is
said to have borrowed its title from this the most useful of small
hawks, in the same way that other arms--as the falcon, falconet, and
saker--have derived their names from larger and more formidable birds of
prey. Against this view it is asserted that the musket was invented in
the fifteenth century by the Muscovites, and owes its name to its
inventors. See Bescherelle, “Dict. Nat.,” and “The Target: a Treatise
upon the Art Military,” 1756.
[55] December 30th, 1865.
[56] Victor Fatio, “Les Campagnols du Bassin du Léman.” Bale, Génève, et
Paris. 1867. P. 16.
[57] “Illustrations of Shakespeare, and of Ancient Manners.” 1807.
[58] “The Moor and the Loch.”
[59] “The Zoologist” for 1863, p. 8,765.
[60] “Essays on Natural History,” 1st Series, p. 14.
[61] Stanley’s “Familiar History of Birds,” p. 179.
[62] An excellent dissertation on the organ of voice in the raven will
be found in the second volume of Yarrell’s “British Birds,” 3rd ed.
p. 72.
[63] Willughby’s “Ornithology,” folio, 1678. Book I. p. 25.
[64] Stanley’s “Familiar History of Birds,” p. 188.
[65] Compare, “A _cyprus_, not a bosom, hides my heart.”
_Twelfth Night_, Act iii. Sc. 1.
[66] “To fear,” that is, “to frighten.”
[67] According to Steevens, this is not merely a poetical supposition.
“It is observed,” he says, “of the nightingale that, if undisturbed, she
sits and sings upon the same tree for many weeks together;” and Russell,
in his “Account of Aleppo,” tells us “the nightingale sings from the
pomegranate groves in the day-time.”
[68] “Ovid. Metamorph.” Book vi. Fab. 6.
[69] These lines, although included in most editions of Shakespeare’s
Poems, are said to have been written by Richard Barnefield, and
published in 1598 in a volume entitled “Poems in Divers Humors.” (_See_
Ellis’s “Specimens of the Early English Poets,” vol. ii. p. 356, and F.
T. Palgrave’s “Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in
the English Language,” p. 21.) The “Passionate Pilgrim” was not
published until 1599.
[70] “Sir Thomas Browne’s Works” (Wilkin’s ed.), Vol. II. p. 537.
[71] Not only does the nightingale sing by day, but she is by no means
the only bird which sings at night. We have frequently listened with
delight to the wood lark, skylark, thrush, sedge-warbler and
grasshopper-warbler long after sunset, and we have heard the cuckoo and
corncrake at midnight.
[72] The “recorder” is mentioned in _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act v.
Sc. 1, and in _Hamlet_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
[73] Bechstein “Ornithologisches Taschenbuch.”
[74] Shelley.
[75] “The ruddock warbles soft.”--SPENSER’S _Epithalamium_, I. 82.
[76] Instead of “winter-ground” in the last line, Mr. Collier’s
annotator reads “winter-guard;” but “to winter-ground” appears to have
been a technical term for protecting a plant from the frost by laying
straw or hay over it.
[77] See _ante_, p. 129.
[78] “The English of Shakespeare,” by G. L. Craik.
[79] That is, the young cuckoo. The expression occurs again in _The
Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act ii. Sc. 1:--
“Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo-birds do sing.”
[80] “Epigrams (Black Letter), 1587.”
[81] “Musurgia Universalis.” 1650. p. 30.
[82] _Pied_, that is parti-coloured, of different hues. So in _The
Merchant of Venice_, Act i. Sc. 3:--
“That all the yeanlings (_i.e._ young lambs)
which were streaked and _pied_.”
And in _The Tempest_, Caliban, alluding to the parti-coloured dress
which Trinculo, as a jester, wore, says:--
“What a _pied_ ninny’s this.”
Milton, in “L’allegro,” speaks of “meadows trim with daisies _pied_.”
[83] “Lady-smocks” (_Cardamine pratensis_), a common meadow plant
appearing early in the spring, and bearing white flowers. Sir J. E.
Smith says they cover the meadows as with linen bleaching, whence the
name of “ladysmocks” is supposed to come. Some authors say it first
flowers about Ladytide, or the Feast of the Annunciation, hence its
name.
[84] Botanists are not agreed as to the particular plant intended by
“cuckoo-buds.” Miller, in his “Gardener’s Dictionary,” says the flower
here alluded to is the _Ranunculus bulbosus_. One commentator on this
passage has mistaken the _Lychnis flos cuculi_, or “cuckoo-flower” for
“cuckoo-buds.” Another writer says, “cuckoo-flower” must be wrong, and
believes “cowslip-buds” the true reading, but this is clearly a mistake.
Walley, the editor of Ben Jonson’s Works, proposes to read
“crocus-buds,” which is likewise incorrect. Sidney Beisley, the author
of “Shakespeare’s Garden,” thinks that Shakespeare referred to the
lesser celandine, or pilewort (_Ranunculus ficaria_), as this flower
appears early in Spring, and is in bloom at the same time as the other
flowers named in the song.
[85] See Chambers’s “Book of Days,” i. 531.
[86] The “cresset-light” was a large lanthorn placed upon a long pole,
and carried upon men’s shoulders. (_See_ Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,”
Introduction.)
[87] Thornbury, “Shakespeare’s England,” vol. i. p. 339.
[88] Sir S. D. Scott, “The British Army: its Origin, Progress, and
Equipment,” vol. ii. pp. 80, 81.
[89] “The British Army: its Origin, Progress, and Equipment.” London,
1868, vol. ii. pp. 284-286.
[90] Note here the use of the word “extravagant” in its primary
signification, implying, of the ghost, its wandering beyond its proper
sphere.
[91] _Apropos_ of ale-house signs, Shakespeare gives us the origin of
“The Bear and Ragged Staff.” It is the crest of the Earls of Warwick.
_Warwick._ “Now, by my father’s badge, old Neville’s crest,
The rampant bear chain’d to the ragged staff.”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act v. Sc. 1.
[92] “The Compleat Gamester,” 1709.
[93] “The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,” i. 235.
[94] Id. i. 236, 237.
[95] See also _Taming of the Shrew_, Act iv. Sc. 1, and _Tempest_, Act
iv. Sc. 1.
[96] Darwin, “Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,” i.
290.
[97] Pro. Zool. Soc. April 24th, 1860.
[98] Darwin, op. cit.
[99] Baker’s “Chronicle.”
[100] It is observable, however, that in “The Privy Purse Expenses of
King Henry VIII.” turkies are not once mentioned amongst the fowls to be
provided for the table.
[101] “Journal Asiatic Society, Bengal,” vol. xxix. p. 38.
[102] Pp. 390, 391.
[103] In the ruined temple of Medineet Haboo is a representation of the
coronation of the famous warrior, King Rameses III. (B.C. 1297). “The
conquering hero, among the clamours of the populace, and shouts of his
victorious army, is depicted proceeding to the temple to offer his
grateful thanks to the gods; and whilst certain priests in their
gorgeous robes are casting incense about, and offering up sacrifices at
many a smoking altar, others are employed in letting off carrier-pigeons
to announce the glad tidings to every quarter of the globe.”--LEITH
ADAMS, _Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta_, p. 27.
[104] A good description of these whistles, by Mr. Tegetmeier, with
illustrations, will be found in the _Field_ of the 12th March, 1870.
[105] Darwin, “Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,” i.
pp. 204, 205.
[106] Hunter “On the Animal Economy,” p. 194.
[107] “Illustrations of British Ornithology.”
[108] “Ornithological Dictionary,” Preface, 1st edition.
[109] “Pigeons: their Structure, Varieties, Habits, and Management.” By
W. B. Tegetmeier, F.Z.S. London, 1868.
[110] “Glossary,” 4to. Lond. 1822.
[111] Sir W. Raleigh, “History of the World,” Book I. Part i. c. 6.
[112] See _ante_, p. 143.
[113] Translated from the French by Sir Thos. Mallory, Knt., and first
printed by Caxton, A.D. 1481.
[114] See “Chambers’s Dictionary,” last ed., article “Chase;” also Holt
White’s note to this passage in the “Variorum Shakespeare.”
[115] Wood’s “Buffon,” xix. p. 511, note.
[116] This, it will be observed, differs materially from Col. Hawker’s
observation.
[117] “Essays on Natural History,” second series, p. 128.
[118] See end of Chapter V.
[119] _See_ “The Ibis,” 1869. p. 358.
[120] As a copy of the “Northumberland Household Book” is not readily
accessible, we give the following interesting extract, showing the
price, at that date, of various birds for the table:--
Capons at iid. a pece leyn (lean).
Chickeyns at ½d. a pece.
Hennys at iid. a pece.
Swannys (no price stated).
Geysse iiid. or iiiid. at the moste.
Pluvers id. or i½d. at moste.
Cranys xvid. a pece.
Hearonsewys (_i.e._ Heronshaws or Herons) xiid. a pece.
Mallardes iid. a pece.
Teylles id. a pece.
Woodcokes id. or i½d. at the moste.
Wypes (_i.e._ Lapwings) id. a pece.
Seegulles id. or i½d. at the moste.
Styntes after vi. a id.
Quaylles iid. a pece at moste.
Snypes after iii. a id.
Perttryges at iid. a pece.
Redeshankes i½d.
Bytters (_i.e._ Bitterns) xiid.
Fesauntes xiid
Reys (_i.e._ Ruffs and Reeves) iid. a pece.
Sholardes vid. a pece.
Kyrlewes xiid. a pece.
Pacokes xiid. a pece.
See-Pyes (no price).
Wegions at i½d. the pece.
Knottes id. a pece.
Dottrells id. a pece.
Bustardes (no price).
Ternes after iiii. a id.
Great byrdes after iiii. a id.
Small byrdes after xii. for iid.
Larkys after xii. for iid.
[121] “Extracts from the Household and Privy Purse Accounts of the
L’estranges of Hunstanton, 1519-1578.” (Trans. Roy. Soc. Antiq. 1833.)
[122] “The Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, 1536-1544.”
(Edited by Sir F. Madden, 1831.)
[123] Some interesting remarks on pheasant and partridge-hawking will be
found in Freeman and Salvin’s “Falconry; its Claims, History, and
Practice,” pp. 233, 235.
[124] _Vide_ Julius Pollux, “De ludis,” lib. ix.
[125] “Musurgia Universalis,” 1650, p. 30.
[126] In Sweden the bird is known as _wipa_ to this day.
[127] The fine was 8_d._ for every egg. _See_ 3 & 4 Ed. VI. c. 7, and 25
Hen. VIII. c. 11.
[128] “Falconry; its History, Claims, and Practice,” by G. E. Freeman
and F. H. Salvin. London, 1859.
[129] Leland states, that at the feast given on the inthronisation of
George Neville, Archbishop of York, in the reign of Edward IV., no less
than “400 Heronshawes” were served up!
[130] _Every Man Out of his Humour_, Act iii. Sc. 3.
[131] Thornbury, “Shakespeare’s England,” vol. i. pp. 169, 170.
[132] Thornbury, “Shakespeare’s England,” i. p. 21; see also p. 33.
[133] “The Gentleman’s Recreation.” 1595.
[134] See pp. 164, 165.
[135] “The British Army: its Origin, Progress, and Equipment,” vol. ii.
p. 286.
[136] _See_ the Report in Maitland’s “Hist. of London,” p. 594.
[137] “An Answer to the Opinion of Captain Barwicke.” (Harl. MSS., No.
4,685.)
[138] Their numbers, in Mr. Hewitt’s official _Tower Catalogue_, are
12/10 and 12/11.
[139] “Brief Discourse of War, 1590.”
[140] Peck’s “Desid. Cur.”
[141] Bandoleers consisted of a belt of leather worn over the left
shoulder, on which were suspended little metal, wooden, leather, or horn
cylinders, each containing one charge. Examples are preserved in the
Tower of London.
[142] Harl. MSS., No. 5,109.
[143] Brantôme, “Œuvres,” tom. vii. pp. 425-429.
[144] Sidney, “Arcadia,” ii. p. 169.
[145] See _ante_, p. 197.
[146] Aldrovandi Opera Omina: Ornithologia. 3 vols. Bononiæ. 1599.
[147] “Philosophical Transactions,” l.c.
[148] The doctrine of Pythagoras is again alluded to by Gratiano, who
says:--
“Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith,
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men.”
_Merchant of Venice_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
[149] In China, at the present day, an allied species, _Ph. sinensis_,
is reared and trained to fish.
[150] This diary is amongst the additional MSS. in the British Museum.
It is bound in soft parchment, and entered in the catalogue as “Wurmser,
H. J.: Travels with Louis, Count (?) of Wurtemberg, 20,001.”
[151] The presence of the King at Thetford at this date, as on other
occasions, is recorded in the “Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent
Festivities of King James the First,” as published in four volumes by
John Nichols, F.S.A., in 1828.
[152] The above extracts were communicated by Mr. Salvin to Mr. Frank
Buckland’s journal, _Land and Water_, in 1867, in a series of articles
on “Cormorant Fishing.”
Some interesting chapters on the subject will be found at the end of
Freeman and Salvin’s “Falconry; its Claims, History, and Practice.” 8vo,
1859.
[153] Sidney Bere, in _Land and Water_, April 20, 1867.
[154] In “Chambers’s Journal” for 1859, will be found an interesting
article upon the subject, entitled “The King and his Cormorants.”
[155] Mr. Salvin, to whom we have before referred, and Mr. E. C.
Newcome, of Feltwell Hall, Norfolk, still keep and use trained
cormorants; as, through the kindness of the former, we have had pleasant
opportunities of attesting.
[156] _Geck_--a laughing-stock. According to Capel, from the Italian
_ghezzo_. Dr. Jamieson, however, derives it from the Teutonic _geck_,
_jocus_.
[157] See also _Othello_, Act v. Sc. 2, and _Timon of Athens_, Act ii.
Sc. 1.
[158] See D’Israeli’s “Curiosities of Literature,” iii. p. 84.
[159] Thornbury, “Shakespeare’s England,” vol. i. pp. 311, 312.
Doubtless compiled from Greene’s “Art of Coney Catching,” 1591, and
Decker’s “English Villanies,” 1631.
[160] Compare “Redbreast-teacher,” _Henry IV._ Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
[161] To this day the bird is still called “Martin-pécheur” by the
French.
[162] “Arondell,” no doubt the old French, or a corruption of
“Hirondelle.”
[163] One would suppose that such a foreign substance as a
“swallow-stone” in the eye would be much more inconvenient than the
eyelash which it was destined to remove.
[164] Curious, if true. Dr. Lebour does not say that he ever found such
stones himself, nor does he vouch for their having been found by others
in the nests. We have examined a great number of swallows’ nests without
being able to discover anything of the kind.
[165] Pliny makes mention of a “swallow-stone,” but says nothing about
its being found in the nest. On the contrary, he says it is found in the
stomach of the bird! “In ventre hirundinum pullus _lapilli_ candido aut
rubenti colore, qui ‘chelidonii’ vocantur, magicis narrati artibus
reperiuntur.”
[166] The substance of the above remarks was contributed by the author
in an article published in _The Zoologist_ for 1867, p. 744.
[167] “The Birds of India,” iii. p. 610.
[168] Some editions read--
“All plum’d like estridges that wing the wind;
Bated like eagles having lately bath’d.”
But we have adopted the above reading in preference for three reasons:
1. Considering the rudimentary nature of the ostrich’s wing, Shakespeare
would not have been so incorrect as to describe them as “winging the
wind;” 2. The word “bated,” if intended to refer to eagles, and not to
ostriches, would have been more correctly “bating;” 3. The expression,
“to bate with the wind,” is well understood in the language of falconry,
with which Shakespeare was familiar.
[169] Cinquième séries, tom. viii. pp. 285-293.
[170] _Ibis_, 1868, pp. 363-370.
[171] “Oiseaux Fossiles de la France,” p. 230.
[172] “Synopsis,” iii. p. 577 (1785).
[173] “Suppl. Orn. Dict.” (1813).
[174] “Hist. Brit. An.” p. 118 (1828).
[175] “Works:” Wilkin’s ed. vol. iv. p. 318.
INDEX.
A.
Adder, 13, 15, 16, _Intro._
Aiery, 39.
B.
Badger, 12, _Intro._
Bandoleers, 243.
Bat, 13, 14, _Intro._
Bat-fowling, 157-160.
Barnacle Goose, 247.
Barnacles, 247-256.
Bating, 62.
Bee, 17, 18, 19, _Intro._
Beetle, 17, 20, _Intro._
Bells, 60.
Bird-bolts, 163.
Bird-catching, 4, 157.
Birding, 72.
Birding-pieces, 72, 164, 239.
Bird of Jove, 28, 29.
Bird-lime, 160.
Bird-traps, 162.
Birds of song, 123.
Birds under domestication, 167.
Blackbird, 139.
Black Ouzel, 139.
Brock, 12, _Intro._
Bunting, 136.
Butterfly, 17, _Intro._
Buzzard, 47.
C.
Cadge, 63.
Cadger, 64.
Caliver, 239.
derivation of, 240.
description of, 240.
figure of, 242.
price of, 243.
Camelot, 198, 199.
Caterpillar, 17, _Intro._
Chase, Wild-goose, 199.
Chough, 115.
and Crow, 116.
language of, 117.
red-legged, 119.
russet-pated, 119.
Cloys, 31, 32.
Cock, 167.
ancestry of domestic, 174.
Cock-a-hoop, 169, 170.
Cock and pye, 171.
Cock-crow, 168.
Cock-fighting, 172-174.
Coistrel, 74.
Cormorants, 259.
fishing with, 260.
the King’s, 261-264.
home of the, 265.
Coursing, 12, _Intro._
Coystril, 74.
Cricket, 17, _Intro._
Crow, 99.
black as a, 113.
food for, 112.
Crow, habits of, 111.
-keeper, 114.
Night-, 102.
Scare-, 114.
to pluck, 114.
Crows and their relations, 99.
Cry havoc, 57.
Cuckoo, 147-156.
habits of, 150.
note of, 151.
songs, 152-156.
Cygnet, 201-206.
D.
Daw, 119.
Deer-hunting, 8, _Intro._
-shooting, 4, _Intro._
-stealing, 6, _Intro._
wounded, 10, _Intro._
Dive-dapper, 258.
Divers, 258.
Dove, 191.
of Paphos, 191.
of Venus, 191.
Rock-, 190.
Turtle-, 191.
Dove-house, 180.
Dove, Mahomed’s, 193.
timidity of, 195.
Doves, dish of, 196.
Dormouse, 13, _Intro._
Drone, 17, 19, _Intro._
Duck, 237.
-hunting, 237.
E.
Eagle, 23-40.
age of, 35.
eggs of, 32.
eye, 25.
eyrie of, 38.
longevity of, 33-35.
omen of victory, 27.
power of flight, 25, 26.
power of vision, 24.
Eagle trained for hawking, 36, 37.
the Roman, 28-30.
Enmew, 64, 66.
Eyas-musket, 74.
Eyesses, 57, 58.
Eyrie, 39, 57.
F.
Falcon, 52.
docility of the, 54.
-gentle, 53.
Haggard-, 57-59.
and Tercel, 52.
Falconer, 54.
qualities of a good, 55.
call of the, 55.
wages of, 80.
Finch, 144.
Fishing, 3, _Intro._
Fly, Blow-, 17, _Intro._
Gad-, 17, _Intro._
House-, 17, 20, _Intro._
small Gilded-, 17, _Intro._
Flying at the brook, 51.
Forester, 6, 10, _Intro._
Fowl, 235.
flight of, 236.
Sea-, 235.
Wild-, 235-237.
Fowling, 4, _Intro._
Fox, 11, _Intro._
G.
Game-birds, 209.
former value of, 212.
laws, 215.
preserving, 209-214.
Gin, the, 231.
Glowworm, 17, _Intro._
Gnat, 17, _Intro._
Goose, 197.
a green-, 197.
a stubble-, 198.
former value of a, 197.
Wild-, 246.
Grasshopper, 17, _Intro._
Grebe, 258.
Great-crested, 258.
Little, 258.
Guinea-fowl, 179.
Gull, 266.
-catchers, 267.
-gropers, 268.
H.
Haggard, 57-59.
Halcyon, 275.
days, 275.
Hare, 11, _Intro._
Hawks, 49.
how to seel, 70.
keep of, 79.
trappings of, 58-64.
value of, 77, 78.
unmann’d, 62.
Hawking, age of, 50.
sundries, 80-82.
terms, 51.
Hedgehog, 13, _Intro._
Hernshaw, 75, 223.
Heron, 223.
-hawking, 224-228.
in bills of fare, 228.
Hood, 61.
Hounds, 8, 9, _Intro._
Hunting, 4, _Intro._
I.
Jackdaw, 119.
Jay, 121.
Jesses, 58, 59.
Imping, 67, 68.
Jove’s bird, 28, 29.
K.
Kestrel, 73.
Kingfisher, 275.
Kite, 43-47.
habits of, 46.
nest of, 47.
ill-omened, 45.
L.
Lang-nebbit things, 228.
Lapwing, 221.
decoying from nest, 221.
Lark, 130.
at heaven’s gate, 132.
herald of morn, 131.
soaring and singing, 135.
song of the, 130-134.
method of taking, 130.
the ploughman’s clock, 133.
Lime, 160.
Loon, 258, 259.
Lure, description of the, 55.
use of the, 56.
M.
Magpie, 120.
Mallard, 238.
Marten, 33.
Martin, 277.
Martlet, 277, 278.
Mole, 13, _Intro._
Moth, 17, _Intro._
Mew, 64.
origin of the word, 65.
Mews, the Royal, 65, 66.
Musket, 74.
N.
Night-crow, 102.
Nightingale, 124.
lamenting, 125.
recording, 129.
singing against a thorn, 126, 127.
singing by day, 128.
song of, 124.
O.
Owl, 83-98.
its associations, 83.
its character maligned, 93.
Owl, its comrades, 97.
its fame in song, 96.
its five wits, 95.
its habits misunderstood, 86.
its utility to the farmer, 87.
its use in medicine, 84.
its note, 90.
its retiring habits, 94.
robbing nests, 91.
of ill-omen, 85.
Osprey, 41.
its power over fish, 43.
Ostrich, 286.
Ouzel, 139.
P.
Parrot, 272.
-teacher, 273.
Partridge, 216.
in kite’s nest, 216.
-hawking, 217.
netting-, 218.
Peacock, 175.
introduction of, 176.
value of, 175.
variety of, 176.
Peewit, 222.
Pelican, 286.
fable of the, 287.
explanation of fable, 288-294.
Pelicans in England, 295.
Pheasant, 210.
introduction of, 211.
-hawking, 217.
Pigeon, 180.
Barbary-, 189.
Carrier-, 183.
domesticated, 181.
-fanciers, 182.
feeding young, 186.
-liver’d, 185.
-post, 184.
price of, 196.
Pitch, 51.
Plantage, 192.
Point, 51.
Prune, 31.
Q.
Quail, 218.
-fighting, 219.
note of the, 220.
Quaint recipes, 71.
Quarry, 57.
R.
Rabbit, 12, _Intro._
-netting, 12, _Intro._
Raven, 100.
of ill-omen, 101.
deserting its young, 106.
feathers of, 107.
food of, 105.
presence on battle-fields, 104.
supposed prophetic power, 103.
variety of, 109.
Recipes, quaint, 71.
Redbreast, 139.
-teacher, 142.
Robin, 139.
Rock-dove, 190.
Rook, 121.
Ruddock, 140.
covering with leaves, 141.
S.
Sea-fowl, 235.
Sea-gulls, 266.
Sea-mells, 270.
Seel, 69.
Seeling, 69.
Slow-worm, 16, _Intro._
Snake, 13, 15, _Intro._
Snipe, 233.
-netting, 234.
Souse, 38, 39.
Sparrow, 144.
fall of a, 146.
hedge-, 147.
Sparrow, Philip, 145.
value of a, 146.
Sparrowhawk, 73.
Springes, 229.
how to make, 230.
Stag, wounded, 10, _Intro._
Stale, 244.
how to make a, 245.
Stalking, 238.
Stalking-horse, 238.
Starlings, 274.
talking, 274.
Stoop, 63.
Swallow, 277.
Swallow’s herb, 279.
stone, 283.
Swan, 201.
habits of the, 204.
nest of the, 204.
song of the, 202.
Swan’s down, 206.
Swans of Juno, 206.
warrant for, 207.
Squirrel, 13, _Intro._
T.
Tassel-gentle, 54.
Tercel, 53.
and Falcon, 52.
Throstle, 137.
song of the, 138.
Tire, 38.
Tower, 39, 51.
Towering, 39, 51.
Toad, 13, 15, _Intro._
Tradition, a curious, 88.
Trout, 3, _Intro._
Turkey, 177.
introduction of, 177.
Turkey-fowl, 179.
Turtle-dove, 191.
V.
Vulture, 40.
repulsive habits of, 41.
W.
Wagtail, 156.
Wasp, 17, _Intro._
Watching, 45.
Weasel, 13, 32.
Wild-cat, 13, _Intro._
Wild-duck, 237.
Wild-fowl, 235, 257.
Wild-goose, 246.
Wild-goose chase, 199.
Winter-ground, 141.
Wren, 142.
courage of, 143.
pugnacity of, 143.
song of, 143.
Woodcock, 228, 271.
springe for a, 229.
Woodcock’s head, the, 232.
Woodfall and Kinder, Printers, Milford Lane, Stand, London. W.C.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Punctuation has been standardised, and simple typographical errors have
been repaired. Variations in hyphenation and obsolete or variant
spelling have been preserved.
The marker for Footnote 162 is missing in the original text, and has
been left unmarked.
Superscripted characters are preceded by the caret symbol.
The following changes have also been made:
Page 76: ancent => ancient: (the ancient Ægyptians).
Page 182: Shangai => Shanghai: (Dr. Lockhart of Shanghai).
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