The Birds of Shakespeare 
whom it was said that “it was a vice 
to know him”: 
"Tis a chough, but, as I say, spacious in the 
possession of dirt.? 
_ The chough’s continuous and unmusical 
chatter is more than once contemptuously 
invoked to describe the talk of some men. 
When Antonio in The Tempest tempts 
Sebastian to assassinate the honest old 
Counsellor Gonzalo, he speaks of 
Lords that can prate 
As amply and unnecessarily 
As this Gonzalo ; I myself could make 
A chough of as deep chat.” 
In a passage in A//’s Well that Ends Well 
where the ambush party are concocting 
some sort of gibberish to deceive the 
vainglorious Parolles, they agree to talk 
“ Choughs’ language, gabble enough and 
good enough.” ? When Puck recounts to 
1 Hamlet, v. ii. 85. 
2 Tempest, u. i. 254. Chaucer’s epithet for the Chough 
was “the theef.” 
3 As Well that Ends Well, w.i. 19. © 
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