188 NOTES BY THE WAY. 



farmer on that account. Shakespeare knew also the 

 peculiar manner in which they fed their young a 

 manner that has perhaps given rise to the expression 

 " sucking dove." In " As You Like It " is this pas- 



" Celia. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau. 



" Rosalind. With his mouth full of news. 



" Celia. Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young. 



" Rosalind. Then shall we be news-crammed." 



When the mother pigeon feeds her young she brings 

 the food, not in her beak like other birds, but in her 

 crop ; she places her beak between the open mandi- 

 bles of her young, and fairly crams the food, which 

 is delivered by a peculiar pumping movement, down 

 its throat. She furnishes a capital illustration of the 

 eager, persistent news-monger. 



" Out of their burrows like rabbits after rain " is 

 a comparison that occurs in " Coriolanus." In our 

 Northern or New England States we should have to 

 substitute woodchucks for rabbits, as our rabbits do 

 not burrow but sit all day in their forms under a 

 bush or amid the weeds, and as they are not seen 

 moving about after a rain, or at all by day ; but in 

 England Shakespeare's line is exactly descriptive. 



Says Bottom to the fairy Cobweb, in " Midsummei 

 Night's Dream " : 



"Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get your weapons in your 

 Hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle 

 Hid, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag." 



This command might be executed in this country, for 



