The Birds of Shakespeare 
the Parrot and the Ostrich. As one result 
of the many voyages of discovery in his 
day, both in the Old and the New World, 
the PARROT had become a familiar bird in 
England. Its loud and harsh clamour, 
its docility, its clever imitation of human 
speech, but at the best, the paucity of 
its vocabulary, are duly noted by our 
dramatist. In one scene we are told how 
Falstaff was pleased to have “his poll 
clawed like a parrot,’”* in another, a lady 
declares that in her jealousy she will be 
““more clamorous than a parrot against 
rain.” ” Again we hear of 
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes 
And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper ;* 
also of an indiscreet oficer who in his tipsy 
fits would “speak parrot, and squabble, 
swagger, swear and discourse fustian with 
his own shadow.”* Nor must we forget 
the drawer at the Boar’s Head Tavern in 
12 Henry IV... iv. 249. 2 As You Like It, tv. i. 134. 
3 Merchant of Venice,1.1 52. * Othello, 11. ili. 270. 
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