NOTES BY THE WAV 169 



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

 her crop; she places her beak between the open 

 mandibles of her young, and fairly crams the food, 

 which is delivered by a peculiar pumping move- 

 ment, down its throat. She furnishes a capital il- 

 lustration of the eager, persistent newsmonger. 



"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 <!<> 

 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 "Midsum- 

 mer Night's Dream: " — 



"Mounsieur Cobweb; good mounsieur, get you your weapon-, 

 in your hand, and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the top of a 

 thistle, and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag." 



This command might be executed in this country, 

 for we have the "red-hipp'd humble-bee ; r> and we 

 have the thistle, and there is no more likely place 

 to look for the humblebee in midsummer than on 

 a thistle-blossom. 



But the following picture of a "wet spell* is 

 more English than American : — 



"The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain. 

 The plowman lust his sweat; ami the preen com 

 Hath rotted ere his youth attainM a beard; 

 The fold stands empty in the drowned field, 

 And crows are fatted with the murrain Bock." 



Shakespeare knew the birds and wild fowl, ami 



