The Ornithology of Shakespeare Part 19

That is like a boy employed to keep the crows from the corn. So again--

"Scaring the ladies like a _crow-keeper_."

_Romeo and Juliet_, Act i. Sc. 4.

The rustic, although entrusted with a bow and arrows, was not expected to have much skill in archery, and Roger Ascham, in his "Toxophilus,"

when speaking of a clumsy archer, has a similar comparison to that in the pa.s.sage just quoted:--"Another coureth downe and layeth out his b.u.t.tockes, as though hee should shoote at crowes."

"We must not make a _scare-crow_ of the law, Setting it up to fear[66] the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror."

_Measure for Measure_, Act ii. Sc. 1.

Lord Talbot relates that, when a prisoner in France, he was exhibited publicly in the market-place:--

"Here, said they, is the terror of the French, The _scare-crow_ that affrights our children so."

_Henry VI._ Part I. Act i. Sc. 4.

And Falstaff, alluding to his recruits on the march to Shrewsbury, says of them:--

"No eye hath seen such _scare-crows_."

_Henry IV._ Part I. Act iv. Sc. 2.

[Sidenote: THE CHOUGH.]

a.s.sociated with the crow by many of the poets is the Red-legged Crow, or Chough--the Cornish Chough, as it is sometimes called, from its being considered a bird peculiar to the south-west coast of England. Since this last name was applied to it, the study of ornithology has become so universally courted, that it can scarcely be necessary to show that the geographical distribution of the species is much wider than was formerly supposed.

[Sidenote: THE CHOUGH AND CROW.]

The old song of "The Chough and Crow" will probably be remembered as long as the English language lasts.

Shakespeare has introduced both these birds in a fine description of Dover Cliff. It is not improbable that the chough, which affects precipices and sea-cliffs, may once have frequented the cliffs at Dover; but whatever may have been the case formerly, this haunt, if it ever was one, has long since been deserted. Shakespeare, at all events, has placed this bird in a situation most natural to it:--

"Come on, sir; here's the place:--stand still.--How fearful And dizzy 't is, to cast one's eyes so low!

The _crows_ and _choughs_, that wing the midway air, Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire,--dreadful trade!

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head: The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark, Diminish'd to her c.o.c.k; her c.o.c.k, a buoy Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge, That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high.--I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong."

_King Lear_, Act iv. Sc. 6.

The chough is easily tamed, and a prettier sight than three or four of these birds, with their bright red legs and bills, strutting about on a well-mown lawn, can scarcely be conceived.

It is to be regretted that the species is not more plentiful and more generally domesticated.

[Sidenote: CHOUGH'S LANGUAGE.]

Instances, we believe, are on record of choughs being taught to speak, but Shakespeare appears to have entertained no great opinion of their talking powers. He speaks of

"Chough's language, gabble enough, and good enough."

_All's Well that Ends Well_, Act iv. Sc. 1.

And probably there was a good deal more chattering than talking, as we understand the term.

"There be ...

... lords that can prate As amply and unnecessarily As this Gonzalo; I myself could make A chough of as deep chat."

_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 1.

In _Henry IV._, in the scene where Falstaff, with the Prince and Poins, meet to rob the travellers at Gads.h.i.+ll, Falstaff calls the victims "fat chuffs," probably from their strutting about with much noise.

[Sidenote: VARIOUS CHOUGHS.]

In the _Winter's Tale_, the rogue Autolycus appears as a pedlar, and while drawing the attention of those around him to his wares, he takes the opportunity to pick their pockets. His power of persuasion was so great that, as he himself said,--

"They throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed, and brought a benediction to the buyer: by which means I saw whose purse was best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use I remembered."

He proceeds to compare them to choughs whom he had allured by his chaff, and says:--

"In this time of lethargy, I picked and cut most of their festive purses; and had not the old man come in with a whoobub against his daughter and the king's son, and scared my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army."--_Winter's Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 3.

[Sidenote: THE JACKDAW.]

The word "chough," it appears, was not always intended to refer to the bird with red legs and bill, as we may infer from the following pa.s.sage in O'Flaherty's "West or H'Iar Connaught, 1684," p. 13:--"I omit other ordinary fowl and birds, as bernacles, wild geese, swans, c.o.c.ks-of-the-wood, woodc.o.c.ks, _choughs_, rooks, _Cornish choughs, with red legs and bills_," &c. Here the first-mentioned choughs were in all probability jackdaws.

Shakespeare alludes to--

"Russet-pated choughs, many in sort, Rising and cawing at the gun's report."

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act iii. Sc. 2.

Now the jackdaw, though having a grey head, would more appropriately bear the designation of "russet-pated" than any of his congeners. We may presume, therefore, that this is the species to which Shakespeare intended to refer. The head of the chough, like the rest of its body, is perfectly black.

The Jackdaw (_Corvus monedula_) has not been so frequently noticed by Shakespeare as many other birds, and in the half-dozen instances in which it is mentioned, we find it referred to as the "daw." The word occurs in _Coriola.n.u.s_, Act iv. Sc. 5; _Troilus and Cressida_, Act i.

Sc. 2; _Much Ado about Nothing_, Act ii. Sc. 3; _Twelfth Night_, Act iii. Sc. 4; and in a song in _Love's Labour's Lost_. Warwick, expressing his ignorance of legal matters, says:--

"But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw."

_Henry VI._ Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.

And the crafty and dissembling Iago remarks that--

"When my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In compliment extern, 'tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at."

_Oth.e.l.lo_, Act i. Sc. 1.

[Sidenote: THE MAGPIE.]