;6 
HAWK AND HERNSHAW. 
tians, the hawk signified the Etesian, or northerly wind 
(which, in the beginning of summer, drives the vapour 
towards the south, and which, covering Ethiopia with 
dense clouds, there resolves them into rains, causing the 
Nile to swell), because that bird follows the direction 
of that wind (Job xxxix. 26). The heron, hern, or hern- 
shaw signified the southerly wind, because it takes its flight 
from Ethiopia into Upper Egypt, following the course of 
the Nile as it retires within its banks, and living on the 
small worms hatched in the mud of the river. Hence the 
heads of these two birds may be seen surmounting the 
canopi used by the ancent ^Egyptians to indicate the rising 
and falling of the Nile respectively. Now Hamlet, though 
feigning madness, yet claims sufficient sanity to distinguish 
a hawk from a hernshaw when the wind is southerly; that 
is, in the time of the migration of the latter to the north, 
and when the former is not to be seen. Shakespeare may 
have become acquainted with the habits of these migrat¬ 
ing birds of Egypt through a translation of Plutarch, who 
gives a particular account of them, published in the middle 
of the sixteenth century by Thomas North.’” 
The present chapter, embodying, as it does, a treatise 
on hawking, illustrated by quotations from Shakespeare, 
would scarcely be complete without some reference to the 
prices paid for hawks, and to the expenses of keeping 
them, at the period at which Shakespeare lived. These 
particulars may be gleaned from scattered entries in 
