The Zoologist — January, 1867. 531 



' The public body * * * 

 * * * feeling in itself 

 A lack of Timon's aid bath sense withal 

 Of it own fall.' 



Act v. Scene 1. 

 and in 'Winter's Tale': 



" * * to it own protection." 



Act ii. Scene 3. 

 And, 



" The innocent milke in it most innocent mouth." 



Id., Act iii. Scene 2. 



And now " will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men 

 have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo ? This side is 

 Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring; the one maintained by the owl, 

 the other by the cuckoo. Ver begin: 



i 

 " Spring. When daisies pied * and violets blue, 

 And lady smocks all silver white, 

 And cuckoo buds of yellow hue, 



Do paint the meadows with delight ; 

 The cuckoo then on every tree 

 Mocks married men, for thus sings he, 



Cuckoo, 

 Cuckoo, cuckoo, oh word of fear 

 Unpleasing to a married ear. 



ii. 

 When shepherds pipe on oaten straws 



And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks ; 

 When turtles tread and rooks and daws 



And maidens bleach their summer smocks ; 

 The cuckoo then on every tree 

 Mocks married men, for thus sings he, 



Cuckoo, 

 Cuckoo, cuckoo, oh word of fear 

 Unpleasing to a married ear." 



In the old copies the four first lines of the first stanza are arranged 

 in couplets, and run thus : 



* Pied means parti-coloured, of different hues. Thus in the ' Merchant of 



Venice:' 



" That all the eanlings which were streaked and pied." 



And in the 'Tempest,' Caliban says, "What a pied ninny's this," alluding to the 

 parti-coloured dress which Triuculo, as a jester, wore. 



