1902 Corresponde7ice 329 



admitted that by this term Shakspere meant not ostriches, but female 

 goshawks ? He certainly did so in another passage ('Ant. and Cleop.,' 

 iii. 13. 197). The same bird is alluded to in a stage direction to 'All's 

 Well,' V. I, 'Enter a gentle astringer,' absurdly altered to 'Enter a 

 gentleman.' The word (see Nares's Glossary) is derived from ai/sfcrctis, 

 late Latin for 'goshawk.' Mr Bevir's reference to the word 'jerkin' 

 in the ' Tempest,' as connoting the female gyrfalcon, is more interesting 

 than convincing. I should doubt also whether Shakspere knew much 

 about eagles at first hand. He appears to me to refer to them in a 

 purely conventional way, as the stock-in-trade of all poets, or else to 

 regard them only as a superlative sort of falcon. With falconry in all 

 its branches Shakspere was undoubtedly familiar, but in every other 

 department of bird knowledge his proficiency was very small. There 

 are very few (if any) signs of personal observation, and his contemporary 

 and fellow-countryman, Michael Drayton, can tell us much more about the 

 Warwickshire and neighbouring fauna than Shakspere. Some common 

 birds, such as the wagtail, are merely items in the poet's vocabulary of 

 abuse ; that common and striking bird, the kingfishei-, only appears in 

 the disguise of a halcyon hung head downwards to tell which way the 

 wind blows ; the blackbird is scarcely alluded to ; and the goldfinch, 

 bullfinch, linnet, woodpecker, and the tits never, unless the term ' tailor,' 

 in ' I Henry IV.,' 3. i, be a shorter form of 'proud tailor,' a local name 

 for the goldfinch. But Shakspere does speak of the dabchick and robin 

 by the local names of divedapper ( = didopper, in Rutland) and ruddock ; 

 he has reminiscences of robbing a jay's nest ; of nine wrens in a nest ; 

 and he knows that a lark and bunting {i.e., the corn-bunting) are even 

 more alike than a hawk and a harnsar ; and that a cuckoo is specially 

 fond of the hedge-sparrow as a foster-parent for her young, which )'oung 

 he calls 'that ungentle giilli the cuckoo's bird,'' where bird means 'cal- 

 low nestling.' His treatment of the nightingale and swan is wholly 

 conventional. With him, as with almost all poets, it is the hen night- 

 ingale that sings, and sings only at night. The swan of course sings 

 her death-song with him as with others. 



" Only in one case, or possibly two cases, does Shakspere endeavour 

 to give even a bar of bird's song in words. He certainly does so in 

 respect of the thrush's or throstle's song in 'As You Like It,' ii. 5, 

 ' Come hither, come hither, come hither,' a repetition of phrases 

 eminently characteristic of the bird, and happily hit off by Tennyson in 

 his poem, 'The Thrush,' with the words, ' I know it, I know it, I know 

 it.' The nightingale's song, taken off in the ' Passionate Pilgrim,' is 

 not from Shakspere's pen, but it runs prettily enough — 



' Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry, 

 Tereu, tereu, by and by.' 



" Shakspere's favourite bird seems to have been the lark, which is 

 associated in his emotions with all that is bright and joyous in nature 

 and in human nature." — Reginald Haines. 



"A fine specimen of the Marsh Harrier (Moor Buzzard) was trapped 



