The Ornithology of Shakespeare Part 35

"The two sets of falconers, with their hawks, place themselves about half a mile apart, to intercept the herons on their pa.s.sage back from their fishing-grounds.

"There is no lack of herons. The little wind there was has fallen to a calm, and they come home higher. All the better, for we have some good casts to fly. One is soon 'hooded off' at, and, after a capital flight, is taken high in the air. The pet hawks are now taken in hand--'De Ruyter' and 'Sultan;' and, as there is no wind, the owner says he will fly at the first '_light one_,' that comes at all fair. All is excitement when one is seen coming _from_ the _heronry_, and therefore unweighted. They are 'hooded off' in his face; he sees them directly, and proceeds to mount. 'Now, good hawks, you will have some work to do before you overtake him!' The knowing riders are down wind as hard as they can go. Ring after ring is made, and yet the hawks seem to gain but little on him. Still they are flying like swallows: 'De Ruyter' makes a tremendous ring, but still fails to get above him. Again and again they ring, and have attained a great height. A scream of delight is heard: they are above him; 'De Ruyter' is at him! A fine stoop, but the heron dodges out of the way. Now for 'Sultan;' but she misses too; the heron is up like a shot, and three or four rings have to be made before there is another stoop. Another and another stoop, with loud cheers from below. 'Sultan' _just_ catches him once, but can't hold; it seems still a doubtful victory, when 'De Ruyter' hits him _hard_; and, after two or three more stoops, 'Sultan' catches him, amidst the excitement of hurrahs and whoops; a really good flight; _can't be better_,--two and a half miles from where they were 'hooded off.'

"Thus ended as good a day's sport as any one could wish to see."

The heron, besides affording great sport with hawks, was considered, when killed, a delicacy for the table. At the ancient City feasts and entertainments to royalty, the heron always appeared amongst the other good things;[129] and from the old "Household Books" it appears that the price usually paid for this bird was xijd. Of late years the heron has dropped out of the bill of fare, and no longer forms a fashionable dish.

One of the last records of its appearance at table which we have met with, is in connection with the feast which was given by the Executors of Thomas Sutton, the founder of the London Charter House, on the 18th May, 1812, in the Hall of the Stationers' Company. "For this repast were provided 32 neats' tongues, 40 stone of beef, 24 marrow-bones, 1 lamb, 46 capons, 32 geese, 4 pheasants, 12 pheasants' pullets, 12 G.o.dwits, 24 rabbits, 6 _hearnshaws_," &c., &c.

[Sidenote: THE WOODc.o.c.k.]

Amongst the other "lang-nebbit things" which interest both sportsman and gourmand, the Woodc.o.c.k and Snipe received almost as much attention in Shakespeare's day as they do at the present time--with this difference, however, that where the gun is now employed, the gin or springe was formerly the instrument of their death.

"Four woodc.o.c.ks in a dish."

_Love's Labour's Lost_, Act iv. Sc. 3.

The woodc.o.c.k, for some unaccountable reason, was supposed to have no brains, and the name of this bird became a synonym for a fool. It is to this that Claudio alludes when he says:--

"Shall I not find a woodc.o.c.k too?"

_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act v. Sc. 1.

Again--

"O this woodc.o.c.k! what an a.s.s it is!"

_Taming of the Shrew_, Act i. Sc. 2.

[Sidenote: A SPRINGE FOR WOODc.o.c.kS.]

Shakespeare has many allusions to the capture of this bird by springe and gin--

"Aye, springes to catch woodc.o.c.ks."

_Hamlet_, Act i. Sc. 3.

[Sidenote: HOW TO MAKE A SPRINGE.]

In his "Natural History and Sport in Moray," Mr. St. John describes a springe with which he used to take both snipe and woodc.o.c.ks very successfully. It was made as follows:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: A. Rod like a mole-trap stick. B. Short piece of stick.

C. Forked stick with one end pa.s.sed through the other. D. Straight stick. E. Bent stick. F. Hair-snare.]

A, by pulling on B, presses it against the forked stick C, which in turn is pressed against the upright stick D, and this keeps it all in place.

But on a bird stepping on the forked stick C, the weight of the bird loosens its hold, and the long stick A flies up, catching the victim in the snare, which is laid flat on the forked stick C.

Then, as Shakespeare hath it,--

"If the springe hold, the _c.o.c.k's_ mine."

_Winter's Tale_, Act iv. Sc. 2.

Mr. A. E. Knox, in his "Game-Birds and Wild-Fowl," has described a very similar trap, and his description is so animated, while at the same time so instructive, that we are tempted to overlook the similarity and quote his words:--

"We soon found many tracks of the woodc.o.c.k on the black mud; and on one spot these, as well as the borings of his beak, were very numerous. Here my companion halted, and pulling out his knife, cut down a tall willow rod, which he stuck firmly into the ground in nearly an upright position, or perhaps rather inclining backwards.

"On the opposite side of the run he fixed a peg, so as to project only a few inches above the surface; to this he fastened a slight stick about a foot long, attached loosely with a tough string, much as the swingel of a flail is to its handstaff: another branch of a willow was bent into an arch, and both ends driven into the soft ground to a considerable depth on the opposite side of the track, and nearer to the tall upright wand. To the top of the latter a string was now fastened, the end of which was formed into a large running noose; while, about half way down, another piece of stick, about six inches long, was tied by its middle. The flexible wand was then bent forcibly downwards, one end of the little stick overhead was pa.s.sed under the arch, while it was retained in this position, and at the same time the bow prevented from springing upwards, by the other extremity being placed against a notch at the end of the stick which had been fastened to the peg on the other side of the run, across which it now lay, two or three inches from the ground, and supported the noose. This, in fact, const.i.tuted the trigger, which was to be released when struck by the breast of the woodc.o.c.k.

The old man constructed his trap in much less time than I have taken to describe it. His last care was to weave the sedges on either side of the run into a kind of screen, so as to _weir_ the woodc.o.c.k into the snare, and this he accomplished with much skill and expedition."

"We have caught the woodc.o.c.k."

_All's Well_, Act iv. Sc. 1.

[Sidenote: THE GIN.]

Another method of taking this bird was with a steel trap called "a gin:"

"Now is the woodc.o.c.k near the gin."

_Twelfth Night_, Act ii. Sc. 5.

This trap, being commonly used now-a-days for rats, is probably too well known to need a description here.

"So strives the woodc.o.c.k with the gin."

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

[Sidenote: THE WOODc.o.c.k'S HEAD.]

Under the head of "Wild-Fowl" we shall have occasion, in a subsequent chapter, to allude to the opinion of Pythagoras on the transmigration of souls, and to the discussion on this subject in _Twelfth Night_, when the clown portentously observes to Malvolio,--

"Fear to kill a woodc.o.c.k, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam. Fare thee well."--_Twelfth Night_, Act iv. Sc. 2.

The "woodc.o.c.k's head" in Shakespeare's day, on account of its shape, was a fashionable term for a tobacco-pipe.[130] "Those who loved smoking sat on the stage-stools, with their three sorts of tobacco, and their lights by them, handing matches on the point of their swords, or sending out their pages for real Trinidado. They actually practised smoking under professors who taught them tricks; and the intelligence offices were not more frequented, no, nor the pretty seamstresses' shops at the Exchange, than the new tobacco office."[131]

It is somewhat remarkable that while Shakespeare's contemporary, Ben Jonson, has founded whole scenes upon the practice of smoking, he himself has made no mention of it. Some commentators have brought this forward as a proof of the comparative earliness of many of his dramas, but smoking was in general use long before Shakespeare left London, and he drew his manners almost entirely from his own age, making mention of masks, false hair, pomanders, and fardingales, all of which were introduced about the same time. But _apropos_ of "the woodc.o.c.k's head,"

we are wandering away from Shakespeare's birds.

[Sidenote: THE SNIPE.]

The Snipe (_Scolopax gallinago_) has been less frequently noticed by him than the woodc.o.c.k. Indeed we have been unable to find more than one pa.s.sage in which it is mentioned.

Iago, alluding to Roderigo, says:--

"For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane, If I would time expend with such a snipe, But for my sport and profit."

_Oth.e.l.lo_, Act i. Sc. 3.