THE HERNSHAW. 
223 
but penalties were incurred for taking the eggs/* and no 
one was permitted to shoot within 600 paces of a heronry, 
under a penalty of £20 (7 Jac. I. c. 27). 
We should scarcely have thought it possible to find a 
man who would not know a hawk from a heron when he 
saw it, and Hamlet evidently considered that such an one 
would not be in his right mind, for he says of himself:— 
“ I am but mad north-north-west : when the wind is 
southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw .”— Hamlet , 
Act ii. Sc. 2. 
He referred here to an old proverbial saying, originally 
“he does not know a hawk from a hernshaw,” that is, a 
heron ; but the word was thus corrupted before Shake¬ 
speare’s day. (See ante, p. 75.) 
John Shaw (M.A., of Cambridge), who published a 
curious book in 1635, entitled “Speculum Mundi,” tells us 
therein that “ the heron or hernsaw is a large fowle that 
liveth about waters,” and that “ hath a marvellous hatred 
to the hawk, which hatred is duly returned. When they 
fight above in the air, they labour both especially for this 
one thing—that one may ascend and be above the other. 
Now, if the hawk getteth the upper place, he overthroweth 
and vanquisheth the heron with a marvellous earnest 
flight.” This old passage contrasts quaintly with the 
animated description of heron-hawking in Freeman and 
* The fine was 8 d. for every egg. See 3 & 4 Ed. VI. c. 7, and 25 Hen. VIII. 
c. 11 . 
