182 
The Animal-Lore of Shahspeares Time. 
The Archangel is the name given by Chaucer to 
the Titmouse. In Gascoigne’s Complaint of 
1 ’ Fhylomena the nightingale laments over the 
popularity of her diminutive rival:— 
“ Now in good sooth, quoth she, sometimes I wepe 
To see tom tyttimouse so much set by.” 
The patience must have been great and the appetite 
small of any one who could make a meal on these tiny 
songsters, and the caution contained in Andrew Boorde’s 
JDijetary cannot often have been required:— 
“ All maner of smale byrdes be good and lyght of dygestyon, 
excepte sparowes, whiche be harde of digestyon. Tytmoses, colmoses, 
and wrens, the whiche doth eate spyders and poyson, be not com¬ 
mendable. Of all smale byrdes the larke is the beste: then is praysed 
the blacke byrde and the thrusshe.” (Early English Text Society, 
ed. Furnivall, 1870, p. 133.) 
The Golden Oriole, or Golden Ouzel, a brilliantly 
coloured species of thrush, is an occasional 
Oriole. • « ^ 
visitant to Great Britain. Giraldus Cambrensis 
reports that on one occasion Baldwin, Archbishop of 
Canterbury, made a progress through Wales. Travelling 
through a valley near Bangor, Baldwin and his attendants 
sat down under some trees to rest. Cambrensis, who 
accompanied the archbishop in his tour, describes the 
scene, and writes:— 
“ The sweet notes are heard, in an adjoining wood, of a bird, which 
some said was a wood-pecker, and others more correctly, an aureolus. 
The wood-pecker is called in French, spec, and, with its strong bill, 
perforates oak trees; the other bird is called aureolus , from the golden 
tint of its feathers, and at certain seasons utters a sweet whistling note, 
instead of a song.” ( Itinerary through Wales , 1187, p. 442, ed. Wright,. 
1863.) 
The note of the oriole is loud and flute-like, and may 
well be called a whistle. 
