The Birds of Shakespeare 
He evidently admired their flight. He 
speaks of 
A falcon towering in her pride of place.? 
Again, he makes Bolingbroke boast that 
he would fight Mowbray 
As confident as is the falcon’s flight 
Against a bird.? 
He notes how 
A falcon towering in the skies, 
Coucheth the fowl below with his wings’ shade, 
Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies.® 
The falcon generally employed in hawk- 
ing was the female Peregrine, which was 
held to be more adapted for the purposes 
ot sport than the male. The KEsTREL is 
referred to by Shakespeare, under the local 
name of Stame/ in the scene in Twelfth 
Night, where Malvolio, gulled by Maria, 
picks up and begins to guess at the 
meaning of the clever letter, Sir Toby and 
Fabian watching in concealment : 
1 Macbeth, i. iv. 12. 2 Richard I1.1. iii. 61. 
3 Lucrece, 506. 
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