4O THE VULTURE : 



" Polyolbion," Song xx., where a description of hawking 

 at wild-fowl is given. After the falconers have put 

 up the fowl from the sedge, the hawk, in the words 

 of the author, having previously " towered," " gives it a 

 souse." Beaumont and Fletcher also make use of this 

 word as a hawking term in The Chances, iv. I ; and it 

 occurs in Spenser's "Faerie Queene," Book iv. Canto v. 30. 



A notice of the various hawks made use of by falconers, 

 and mentioned by Shakespeare, might be here properly 

 introduced, but it will be more convenient to reserve this 

 notice for a separate chapter, and confine our attention 

 for the present to the larger diurnal birds of prey which, 

 like the eagles, are seldom, if ever, reclaimed by man. 



Of these, excluding the eagle, Shakespeare makes men- 

 tion of four the Vulture, the Osprey, the Kite, and the 

 Buzzard. 



Those who are acquainted with the repulsive habits of 

 the Vulture, led as he is by instinct to gorge on carrion, 

 will best understand the allusions to this bird which are to 

 be met with in the works of Shakespeare. 



What more forcible expression can be found to indicate 

 a guilty conscience than "the gnawing vulture of the 

 mind "? (Titus Andronicus, Act v. Sc. 2.) 



" There cannot be 

 That vulture in you, to devour so many." 



Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 3. 



When King Lear would denounce the unkindness of a 



