72 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
Geofirey Chaucer the poet flourished, who, like the observant 
Shakespeare, evidently had a fondness for animals. In 
“The Assemble of Fowls” (or ‘‘ Parlement of Briddis”’), 
where an Eagle, being beloved of three Tercels, makes 
her choice upon trial, we meet with no less than thirty- 
six kinds of birds, amongst which are the Merlion, Kite, 
Sparow, Ruddocke [Robin], Swallowe, Feldefare, Starling, 
Chough, Popingeie [Green Woodpecker], Lapwing, Storke and 
Cormeraunt, The epithets employed by Chaucer are shrewdly 
characteristic of the habits of the birds. Thus the Fieldfare, 
in allusion to its being a winter visitant, is described as frosty, 
the Cormorant full of gluttony, the Goose wakeful, the Heron 
the eel’s foe, the Turtle Dove is wedded, and the Chough a 
thief, while the false Lapwing is full of treachery. Chaucer’s 
Tercels are meant to be male Eagles, but this is a very unusual 
use of the term, which, spelled in many ways, has been always 
applied to a male Hawk of some kind. In modern falconry 
Tiercel (the derivation of which is uncertain) is restricted to 
the male of the Peregrine Falcon, which in Shakespeare’s day 
was termed a Tercel-gentle to distinguish it from a Goshawk.* 
The Peregrine Falcon figures in “‘ The Squire’s Tale ” 
(Part II., line 448), but is not named by Chaucer in “ The 
Assemble of Fowls.” 
* « The Ornithology of Shakespeare,’ p. 53. 
