The Quail and Lapwing 
Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, 
and one that loves quails; but he has not so much 
brain as ear-wax.! 
In both these quotations the reference 
seems to be to a practice of training quails 
to fight after the manner of cock-fighting. 
The allusions to the LAPwING indicate 
that the dramatist was acquainted with 
some of the characteristics of the bird. 
The tactics of the male bird to entice a 
passer-by away from his nest are expressed 
in the line 
Far from her nest the lapwing cries away.” 
When the plot is laid to get Beatrice to 
accept Benedick as her lover, and the 
plotters see her “‘couched in the wood- 
bine coverture,” Hero urges : 
Now begin ; 
For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs 
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.® 
1 Troilus and Cressida, v.\. 48. 
2 Comedy of Errors, 1v. li. 27. It was this instinct of 
deception that Chaucer had in mind when he wrote of “the 
false lapwing ful of trecherye.” Parlement, 347. 
3 Much Ado about Nothing, 1. i. 23. 
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