The Zoologist — Afril, 18G7. 655 



It is well ascertained that the young of the lapwing, partridge, and 

 some few other birds, run almost as soon as hatched, and Shakespeare 

 was evidently aware of this peculiarity when he wrote : 



"This lapicing runs away with the shell on his head." 



Hamlet, Act v. Scene 2. 



Heron (Arclea cinerea). 



Considering the frequent allusions to falconry which we find 

 throughout the Plays of Shakespeare, and the fact that the heron was 

 one of the birds most frequently flown at, for hawking at herons was 

 thought to be " a marvellous and delectable pastime," it is somewhat 

 surprising that this bird is not more often mentioned. 



Hamlet says : 



" I am but mad north north-west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk 

 from a handsaw." 



Hamlet, Act ii. Scene 2. 



An old proverbial saying, originally " he does not know a hawk 

 from a hernshaw" i. e. a heron, but the word was thus corrupted before 

 Shakespeare's clay. 



"An ingenious friend," says the ' Athenaeum' (December 80, 1865), 

 " suggests the following explanation of this passage which has greatly 

 puzzled commentators. Among the ancient Egyptians the hawk 

 siguified 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 hernshaw, signified the southerly 

 wind, because it takes its flight from Ethiopia into Higher 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 canopi used 

 by the ancient 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 



