The Zoologist — November, 1866. 465 



The Birds of Shakespeare. By J. E. Harting, F.Z.S. 

 (Continued from S. S. 424.) 



Raven {Cormis.corax). 



Love's Labour Lost, Act iv. Scene 2. 



The raven from the earliest times has been considered a bird of ill 

 omen, and a raven's croak was always supposed to predict a death. 

 Hence throughout the Plays, in the solemn passages, we find con- 

 stant allusions to this bird, 



* * "It couies o'er my memory, 



As doth llie raven o'er the infected house, 



Boding to all." 



Othello, Act iv. Scene 1. 



" I liad as lief have heard the night raven. 

 Come what plague could have come after it." 



3Iuch Ado About Nothing, Act ii. Scene 3. 



" The raven rook'd her on the chimney-lop." 



Henry VI., Part III., ^t v. Scene 6. 



To " ruck" or " rook" means to squat down or roost. 



* * " The croaking raven dulh bellow for revenge." 



Hamlet, Act iii. Scene 2. 



" The raven chides blackness." 



Troilus and Cressida, Act ii. Scene 3. 



" Would I could meet that rogue Dioraed ; 



I would croak like a raven ; I would bode, 



I would bode." 



Id., Act V. Scene 2. 



"The raven himself is hoarse 

 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 

 Under my battlements." 



Macbeth, Act i. Scene 5. 



" The messenger says the servant had hardly breath to make up his 

 message ; to which the lady answers, mentally, that he may well want 

 breath, such a message would add hoarseness to the raven. That 

 even the bird whose harsh voice is accustomed to predict calamities 

 could not croak the entrance of Duncan but in a note of unwonted 

 harshness." (Johnson) . 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. 3 O 



