232 THE WOODCOCK'S HEAD. 



This trap, being commonly used now-a-days for rats, is 

 probably too well known to need a description here. 



" So strives the woodcock with the gin." 



Henry VI. Part III. Act i. Sc. 4. 



Under the head of " Wild-Fowl " we shall have occasion, 

 in a subsequent chapter, to allude to the opinion of 

 Pythagoras on the transmigration of souls, and to the 

 discussion on this subject in Twelfth Night, when the 

 clown portentously observes to Malvolio, — 



" Fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul 

 of thy grandam. Fare thee well." — Twelfth Night, Act iv. 

 Sc. 2. 



The •' woodcock's head" in Shakespeare's day, on account 

 of its shape, was a fashionable term for a tobacco-pipe.* 

 " Those who loved smoking sat on the stage-stools, with 

 their three sorts of tobacco, and their lights by them, 

 handing matches on the point of their swords, or sending 

 out their pages for real Trinidado. They actually practised 

 smoking under professors who taught them tricks ; and 

 the intelligence offices were not more frequented, no, nor 

 the pretty seamstresses' shops at the Exchange, than the 

 new tobacco office." f 



It is somewhat remarkable that while Shakespeare's 

 contemporary, Ben Jonson, has founded whole scenes upon 



* Every Man Out of his Humour, Act iii. Sc. 3. 



f Thornbury, "Shakespeare's England," vol. i. pp. 169, 170. 



