222 SHAKESPEARE'S [OSTRICH. 



force them to look full against the sun-beams ; now if she 

 see any one of them to wink, or their eyes to water at 

 the rays of the sun, she turns it with the head forward 

 out of the nest, as a bastard, and not right, nor none of 

 hers, but bringeth up and cherisheth that whose eye will 

 abide the light of the sun, as she looks directly upon him. 

 Moreover these Ospreys are not thought to be a several 

 kind of Eagles by themselves, but to be mongrels, and 

 engendered of diverse sorts. When [eagles] have cast [their 

 young] off, the Ospreys, which are near of kin unto them, 

 are ready to take them, and bring them up with their own 

 birds. Holland's Pliny, bk. x. ch. iii. 



OSPREYS are called ossifragi [or bone-breakers], because 

 they drop bones from on high, and break them. 



Hortus Sanitatis, bk. iii. 89. 



THE Osprey oft here seen, though seldom here it breeds, 



Which over them the fish no sooner doth espy, 



But, betwixt him and them by an antipathy, 



Turning their bellies up, as though their death they saw, 



They at his pleasure lie, to stuff his gluttonous maw. 



Drayfon, " Polyolbion," song xxv. (quoted by Steevens). 



Ostrich. 



ii. KING HENRY VI., iv. 10, 31. 



THE Ostrich hath a body as a beast, and feathers as a 

 fowl, and also he hath two feet and a bill as a fowl. 

 And for he is somedeal shaped as a bird, he hath many 

 feathers in the nether part of the body, and hath two feet 

 as a fowl, and is cloven-footed as a four-footed beast ; and 

 is so hot, that he swalloweth, and defieth [digesteth] and 

 wasteth iron. And when the time is come that they shall 

 lay eggs, they heave up their eyes, and behold the stars 

 that hight Pleiades, for they lay no eggs, but when that 

 constellation ariseth and is seen. And about the month of 

 June, when they see those stars, they dig in gravel, and 

 lay there their eggs, and cover and hide them with sand; 

 and when they have left them there, they forget anon 

 where they have laid them, and come never again thereto; 

 but the gravel is chauffed [warmed] with the heat of the 



