74 THE SPARROWHAWK. 



It is true that the reading of the folios tare is stallion ; 

 but the word wing, and the falconers' term checks, abun- 

 dantly prove that a bird must be meant. Sir Thomas 

 Hanmer, therefore, proposed this correction, which all 

 subsequent editors have received as justifiable. 



The origin of the word " kestrel " is somewhat un- 

 certain. By some it is derived from " coystril," a knave 

 or peasant, from being the hawk formerly used by persons 

 of inferior rank, as we learn from Dame Juliana Berners, 

 in her " Boke of St. Albans." This opinion is strength- 

 ened by the reading "coystril," in Twelfth Night (Act i. 

 Sc. 3), and " coistrel," in Pericles (Act iv. Sc. 6). A 

 different spelling again occurs in " The Gentleman's 

 Recreation," by Ric. Blome (folio, London, 1686), where 

 the word is written " castrell." 



The sparrowhawk is only mentioned once by Shake- 

 speare, and the passage is one which might be very 

 easily overlooked by any one not conversant with the 

 language of falconry. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, 

 Mrs. Ford addresses Falstaff 's page with — 



" How now, my eyas-musket f " 



"Musket "* was the name given by the falconers of old 



« The weapon of this name, the most important of small fire-arms, is said to 

 have borrowed its title from this the most useful of small hawks, in the same way 

 that other arms— as the falcon, falconet, and saker — have derived their names 

 from larger and more formidable birds of prey. Against this view it is asserted 

 that the musket was invented in the fifteenth century by the Muscovites, and owes 

 its name to its inventors. See Bescherelle, "Diet. Nat.," and "The "Target: a 

 Treatise upon the Art Military," 1756. 



