The Birds of Shakespeare 
to which the Queen replies :—“So the 
poor chicken should be sure of death.”’ 
In Winter’s Tale, when Antigonus is sent 
on his task to carry the child to some 
distant desolate spot, he takes it up, 
saying : 
Come on, poor babe : 
Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens 
To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say, 
Casting their savageness aside, have done 
Like offices of pity.? 
But it was more especially as feeders on 
carrion or on weakly animals that the kites 
were held in disrepute. Cassius, before 
the battle of Philippi, recognises the fore- 
runners of carnage in the foul birds that 
hovered above him : 
Ravens, crows and kites 
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.* 
3141, 1,248, 2m, iil. 184. 
3 Julius Caesar, v. i. 84. 
44 
