76 HAWK AND HERNSHAW. 



tians, the hawk signified the Etesian, or northerly wind 

 (which, in the beginning of summer, drives the vapour 

 towards the south, and which, covering Ethiopia with 

 dense clouds, there resolves them into rains, causing the 

 Nile to swell), because that bird follows the direction 

 of that wind (Job xxxix. 26). The heron, hern, or hern- 

 shaw signified the southerly wind, because it takes its flight 

 from Ethiopia into Upper Egypt, following the course of 

 the Nile as it retires within its banks, and living on the 

 small worms hatched in the mud of the river. Hence the 

 heads of these two birds may be seen surmounting the 

 catiopi used by the ancent ./Egyptians to indicate the rising 

 and falling of the Nile respectively. Now Hamlet, though 

 feigning madness, yet claims sufficient sanity to distinguish 

 a hawk from a hernshaw when the wind is southerly ; that 

 is, in the time of the migration of the latter to the north, 

 and when the former is not to be seen. Shakespeare may 

 have become acquainted with the habits of these migrat- 

 ing birds of Egypt through a translation of Plutarch, who 

 gives a particular account of them, published in the middle 

 of the sixteenth century by Thomas North.' " 



The present chapter, embodying, as it does, a treatise 

 on hawking, illustrated by quotations from Shakespeare, 

 would scarcely be complete without some reference to the 

 prices paid for hawks, and to the expenses of keeping 

 them, at the period at which Shakespeare lived. These 

 particulars may be gleaned from scattered entries in 



