OF SHAKESPEARE. 393 



are too numerous to cite — " a sort of Mallards" is proverbial and 

 will be sufficient. 



(5). But I said I would add a fifth position to Mr. Harting's 

 four, and this seems to me the only one which concerns the 

 ornithologist. I must quote the whole passage : — 



" When they him spy, 



As wild geese that the creepiug fowler eye, 

 Or russet-pated Choughs, many in sort, 

 Rising and cawing at the gun's report, 

 Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky, 

 So, at his sight, away his fellows fly." 



Here we have the fowler creeping on the ground and shooting at 

 a numerous flock of ^Corvidce as they rise before him, and fly 

 dispersedly in alarm over his head. Which part of each bird is 

 then most visible to him ? its nape or its legs ? Let any one 

 ask himself whether in these conditions the grey collar of the 

 Daw, seen from beneath and against the sky, would be perceptible, 

 and whether the red feet of the Cornish Chough would not be 

 characteristic if not conspicuous. 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE. 

 By the Editor. 



In my article on this subject in the last number, reference 

 was made (p. 336) to Dr. Johnson's statement that Sir Isaac 

 Newton had employed the term russet in the sense of gray, 

 but at the time of writing I was unable to find the particular 

 passage referred to. Thanks to the courtesy of a correspondent, 

 Mr. G. K. Murdoch, of Kendal, I am now enabled to quote it. 

 It occurs in the ' Opticks ' (4to, London, 1704 ; Book n. p. 89), 

 and is as follows:— " This white spot was immediately encom- 

 passed with a dark grey or russet, and that darkness with the 

 colours of the first iris." 



From Sir Isaac Newton's point of view, therefore, a russet- 

 pated Chough might be a grey-headed Jackdaw. 



ZOOLOGIST. — OCTOBER, 1893. 2 H 



