The Ornithology of Shakespeare Part 7

From the ign.o.ble habits of the bird, the name "kite" became a term of reproach:--

"You kite!"

_Antony and Cleopatra_, Act iii. Sc. 13.

And--

"Detested kite!"

_King Lear_, Act i. Sc. 4.

When pressed by hunger, however, the kite becomes more fearless; and instances have occurred in which a bird of this species has entered the farmyard and boldly carried off a chicken.

"Wer't not all one, an empty eagle were set To guard the chicken from a hungry kite, As place Duke Humphrey for the king's protector?"

_Henry VI._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1.

The synonym "puttock" is sometimes applied to the kite, sometimes to the common buzzard. In the following pa.s.sage, where reference is made to the supposed murder of Gloster by Suffolk, it evidently has reference to the former bird:--

"Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest, But may imagine how the bird was dead, Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?"

_Henry VI._ Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.

[Sidenote: A BIRD OF ILL-OMEN.]

With the ancients the kite appears to have been a bird of ill-omen. In _Cymbeline_ (Act i. Sc. 2), Imogen says:--

"I chose an eagle, and did avoid a puttock."

And the superiority of the eagle is again adverted to by Hastings, in _Richard III._ (Act i. Sc. 1):--

"More pity that the eagle should be mew'd, While kites and buzzards prey at liberty."

The intractable disposition of the kite is thus noticed:--

"Another way I have to man my haggard, To make her come, and know her keeper's call; That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites, That bate, and beat, and will not be obedient."

_Taming of the Shrew_, Act iv. Sc. 1.

A wild hawk was sometimes tamed by watching it night and day, to prevent its sleeping. In "An approved treatyse of Hawks and Hawking," by Edmund Bert, Gent., which was published in London in 1619, the author says:--"I have heard of some who watched and kept their hawks awake seven nights and as many days, and then they would be wild, rammish, and disorderly."

This practice is often alluded to by Shakespeare:--

"You must be _watch'd_ ere you be made tame, must you?"

_Troilus and Cressida_, Act iii. Sc. 2.

"I'll _watch_ him tame."

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

"But I will _watch_ you from such _watching_ now."

_Romeo and Juliet_, Act iv. Sc. 4.

[Sidenote: HABITS OF THE KITE.]

The habit which the kite has, in common with other rapacious birds, of rejecting or disgorging the undigested portions of its food, such as bones and fur, in the shape of pellets, was apparently well known to Shakespeare, for he says:--

"If charnel-houses and our graves must send Those that we bury back, our monuments Shall be the maws of kites."

_Macbeth_, Act iii. Sc. 4.

And again,--

"Thou detestable maw ...

Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth."

_Romeo and Juliet_, Act v. Sc. 3.

[Sidenote: THE KITE'S NEST.]

Another curious fact in the natural history of the kite is adverted to in the _Winter's Tale_ (Act iv. Sc. 2). It is there said,--

"When the kite builds, look to lesser linen."

This line may be perhaps best ill.u.s.trated by giving a description of a kite's nest which we have seen, and which was taken many years ago in Huntingdonshire. The outside of the nest was composed of strong sticks; the lining consisted of small pieces of linen, part of a saddle-girth, a bit of a harvest glove, part of a straw bonnet, pieces of paper, and a worsted garter. In the midst of this singular collection of materials were deposited two eggs. The kite is now almost extinct in England, and a kite's nest, of course, is a great rarity. The Rev. H. B. Tristram, speaking of the habits of the Egyptian kite (_Milvus aegyptius_), says:[40]--"Its nest, the marine store-shop of the desert, is decorated with whatever sc.r.a.ps of bournouses and coloured rags can be collected; and to these are added, on every surrounding branch, the cast-off coats of serpents, large sc.r.a.ps of thin bark, and perhaps a bustard's wing."

[Sidenote: THE BUZZARD.]

We have alluded to the Buzzard (_Buteo vulgaris_) in the pa.s.sage above quoted from _Richard III._, and also to the synonym "puttock," which was sometimes applied to this bird, as well as to the kite.

Mr. St. John, who was well acquainted with the common buzzard, thought that in all its habits it more nearly resembled the eagle than any other kind of hawk.[41]

In the following pa.s.sage, it seems probable, as suggested by Mr.

Staunton, that a play upon the words is intended, and that "buzzard" in the second line means a beetle, so called from its buzzing noise:--

"O slow-wing'd turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?

Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard."

_Taming of the Shrew_, Act ii. Sc. 1.

Neither the kite nor the buzzard were ever trained for hawking, being deficient both in speed and pluck.

The former, however, was occasionally "flown at" by falconers, although oftener for want of a better bird, than because he showed much sport.

Both are now far less common than in Shakespeare's day. The increased number of shooters, and the war of extermination which is carried on by gamekeepers, inevitably seal their doom.

[Ill.u.s.tration]