200 
The Animal-Lore of Shaftspeards Time. 
sekeman, herynge the phesicion say so, answered him and seyd: Sir, if 
that he the cause that those byrdes be lyght of dygestyon, than I know 
a mete moch lyghter of dygestyon than other sparow, swallow, or wag- 
taile, and that is my wyves tong, for it is never in rest, but ever 
meuying and sterryng.” (A. C. Mery Tales, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, p. 21.) 
This jest is repeated, with slight variation, in An 
Interlude of Four Elements , which was written about the 
year 1510. 
The Sparrow, the commonest of our small birds, 
Sparrow es P ec i a lty in the neighbourhood of houses, is 
frequently mentioned by Shakspeare, and is 
utilized as a simile by Ben Jonson :— 
“ The use of things is all, and not the store: 
Surfeit and fulness have killed more than famine: 
The sparrow with her little plumage flies, 
While the proud peacock overcharged with pens, 
Is fain to sweep the ground with his grown train 
And load of feathers.” 
( The Staple of News, vol. ii.) 
According to Chester this little bird was gifted with pro¬ 
phetic power:— 
“ The unsatiate sparrow doth prognosticate, 
And is held good for divination, 
For flying here and there, from gate to gate, 
Foretels true things by animadvertion ; 
A flight of sparrowes flying in the day, 
Did prophesie the fall and sacke of Troy.” 
(. Love's Martyr, p. 122.) 
Bishop Stanley, in his Familiar Histonj of Birds (p. 
89), considers the range of the sparrow to be co-extensive 
with the tillage of the soil. He writes :— 
“ From certain entries in the Hunstanton Household Boole, from 
1519 to 1578, in which sparrows, or, as they are there written, spowes or 
sparrouse, are frequently recorded, it would appear that these birds took 
their place in the larders of the nobility as delicacies with other game, 
from which we may infer that they were at that time as rare in Norfolk 
