Among its mysterious relationships, the owl was believed to be connected with some of the machinations of witchcraft. It will be remembered that the miscellaneous ingredients which went to the making of the hell-broth of Macbeth’s “midnight hags” included “a lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing.”[111]

Shakespeare’s introduction of the owl into his fairy-land was a dexterous artistic stroke, for it connected a well-known but somewhat mysterious bird with his world of sprites, and gave to that world a further touch of realism. Alike in the Tempest and the Merry Wives this conjunction may be seen. The “dainty Ariel,” Prospero’s “tricksy spirit,” sings:

Titania, the Queen of the fairies, when she disperses her train on their several quests, bids

The popular association of owls with supernatural beings is again noted in the Comedy of Errors, where poor Dromio of Syracuse, utterly bamboozled by the confusion of Dromios and Antonios, exclaims:

In Bottom’s song in Midsummer Night’s Dream the bird is styled “the plain-song cuckoo gray,” as if its music were as dull as the colour of its coat. When Portia comes back from her memorable trip to Venice and re-enters her home, Lorenzo, who is eagerly expecting her return, says to Jessica:

Whereupon Portia, overhearing him, remarks to Nerissa:

As summer advances, the cuckoo’s note, having grown familiar, no longer attracts the notice of the country-folk, as it did when the bird first appeared in April. King Henry IV. avails himself of this common observation when he lectures his son on his misdoings, and compares the Prince’s career to that of “the skipping king” of the previous reign, who lost the respect of the people, and

The habit of this bird to lay its egg in another’s nest is naturally made much of in the Plays. We are told that “the cuckoo builds not for himself,”[118] and the poet puts questions which still await an answer:

The very name of the bird could be used as a term of reproach, as where Falstaff, in retort to the repeated gibes of the Prince of Wales, calls him, “Ye cuckoo.”[120]

Ophelia, when cross-questioned by her father as to the attentions paid to her by Hamlet, answers how the Prince

whereupon Polonius abruptly breaks in with the unfeeling comment:

Again, in the tricking of Malvolio, as the steward picks up the letter, Fabian, from the lurking-place where Sir Toby and he are watching every movement, exclaims

We find the PARTRIDGE referred to twice in the dramas, once as part of the game in a puttock’s nest, in the passage already cited, and the second time in the encounter of wit between Beatrice and Benedick at the masked ball when she, pretending not to recognise him, heaps all manner of ridicule upon him, ending with the taunt that if he should hear what she has been saying about him,

The SNIPE is only once mentioned and the name is used as a contemptuous epithet. Iago, as he soliloquises after an interview with the “gulled gentleman” Rodrigo, affirms

The QUAIL is likewise referred to in two of the Plays dealing with Greek and Roman history. Antony, comparing his chances in life with Octavius Caesar’s, confesses to himself

Thersites speaks thus slightingly of a great warrior:

In both these quotations the reference seems to be to a practice of training quails to fight after the manner of cock-fighting.

The allusions to the LAPWING indicate that the dramatist was acquainted with some of the characteristics of the bird. The tactics of the male bird to entice a passer-by away from his nest are expressed in the line

Far from her nest the lapwing cries away.[129]

When the plot is laid to get Beatrice to accept Benedick as her lover, and the plotters see her “couched in the woodbine coverture,” Hero urges:

Lucio, the Euphuist, in Measure for Measure, confesses

The WILD DUCK or MALLARD is taken by Shakespeare as a symbol of cowardice and uxoriousness. Falstaff, after robbing the travellers on the highway, without the help of the two chief members of the gang, declares,

In the description of the flight of Cleopatra from the battle of Actium, the conduct of her Roman lover is thus given:

The DABCHICK, DIVE-DAPPER or LITTLE GREBE is portrayed in a dainty little vignette in the Venus and Adonis, which brings the bird before our eyes, as it may be seen on many a stream or lake in this country and even on artificial waters, such as those of St. James’s Park. The passage represents Venus vowing to her unresponsive mortal “by her fair immortal hand”:

The birds of the CROW family are well represented in Shakespeare’s works. Chief among them comes the RAVEN, to which frequent and effective allusion is made. The remarkably dark hue of the bird, including even his bill and his feet, has made his name proverbial as a type of the deepest blackness in Nature. In one of the Sonnets it is said that

With pardonable exaggeration, Juliet, as she stood alone in the orchard awaiting her lover, gave vent thus to her longing:

The blackness of this bird in contrast to the pure whiteness of a dove, supplies an image to Lysander, mistakenly bewitched by the mischievous Puck:

The Raven has long had the evil reputation of not only killing the smaller wild animals but, in common with the crows and kites, of watching for and attacking those of larger size that look enfeebled by disease or accident. Thus we read that

With less justice, the bird has also been credited with savageness of disposition—a character which Shakespeare has sometimes attributed to persons who may outwardly seem to be gentle and kindly. These are said to have “a raven’s heart within a dove.”[139] Juliet expands the simile—

Yet there was a belief that the Raven can show a wholly different nature:

The Raven comes into one of the Scriptural allusions in the Plays where the faithful old Adam, pressing upon Orlando the thrifty savings of his lifetime, consoles himself with the prayer

But the most frequent reference made by Shakespeare to this bird has regard to its supposed boding power. It is called the “fatal raven.” A messenger of ill news is said to “sing a raven’s note.” When Othello has the first suspicions craftily suggested to him by Iago, he exclaims

Again, when the king is approaching the Castle at Inverness, we hear from Lady Macbeth the ominous words:

Like the Raven, the Crows are often contrasted with something pure and white. Thus, in a striking simile, we learn that

The simile is sometimes reversed, as where Romeo, on seeing Juliet for the first time, exclaims:

Although it is usually with the dove that the contrast is drawn, another bird is sometimes chosen:

Again, when Benvolio presses Romeo to come with him to Capulet’s feast, where he will see his Rosaline among the admired beauties of Verona, he challenges him, “with unattainted eye,” to

It is interesting to notice that while birds are here taken as a help to the eye in estimating the height of the precipice as seen from the summit, a bird is again used as a guide to gauge the height as seen from below:

The habits of the chough were not unknown to the poet, since he chose the bird as a symbol for a certain courtier of whom it was said that “it was a vice to know him”:

The chough’s continuous and unmusical chatter is more than once contemptuously invoked to describe the talk of some men. When Antonio in The Tempest tempts Sebastian to assassinate the honest old Counsellor Gonzalo, he speaks of

In a passage in All’s Well that Ends Well where the ambush party are concocting some sort of gibberish to deceive the vainglorious Parolles, they agree to talk “Choughs’ language, gabble enough and good enough.”[154] When Puck recounts to Oberon what happened to the rustics when Bottom reappeared among them wearing the ass’s head, he gives an excellent description of the effect of the discharge of a fowling-piece at a bird-haunted cliff:

The Chough together with the other members of the Crow family was thought to have a supernatural prophetic gift, and a faculty of revealing hidden deeds. Macbeth’s evil conscience was troubled with the thought that

The JACKDAW appears occasionally in the dramas as obviously a familiar bird, but no outstanding characters are assigned to it, except that it was common and looked upon as somewhat stupid. Reference has already been made to the comparison of the lower orders of society to “crows and daws.” When, in the Temple Garden, the Earl of Warwick was asked to decide a legal point between the supporters of the White Rose and those of the Red Rose, he replied, that if the question had been one of hawks, sword-blades, horses or merry-eyed girls,

The MAGPIE or Maggot-pie has already been alluded to. Macbeth associates it with choughs and rocks as a prophet or discoverer of evil. It is named by King Henry VI. among the boding portents that attended the birth of his murderer Gloucester:

The JAY is referred to five times by Shakespeare. In the enchanted isle Caliban offers to guide the drunken Trinculo and Sebastian to some of the dainties of the place:

The name of the bird is used as an uncomplimentary epithet for some women, as where Mrs. Ford, in reference to Falstaff’s addresses, declares “we’ll teach him to know turtles from jays,”[161] and where Imogen affirmed, “Some jay of Italy hath betrayed him.”[162] But perhaps the most interesting appearance of the bird in the Plays occurs in the scene of the Taming of the Shrew, where after the tailor has been sent about his business, taking with him the cap and gown which had been ordered for Katharine, and with which she was well pleased, her husband addresses her thus:

The various Birds of the Farm-yard have received due attention from the great dramatist. Chief among them, the cock is frequently cited, especially as a recognised chronometer of the morning hours, for in Elizabethan days this mode of indicating time had not gone out of popular use. We all remember the unhappy experience of the carrier in the inn at Rochester “since the first cock.”[164] We also recall how Capulet, bustling among his household, gave them a three-fold indication of the time:

Shakespeare brings the cock’s shrill clarion even into his fairyland, for Ariel’s song breaks off at this signal:

But the most detailed and impressive reference to this familiar bird occurs in the memorable scene on the platform before the Castle of Elsinore. The ghost had just appeared to Hamlet’s friends and

The GOOSE, so frequently alluded to in the Plays, usually appears there as the recognised symbol of human stupidity and cowardice. How far this character, if really deserved by the bird, is the result of domestication and association with man for many centuries, is a question for ornithological psychologists. There can be no doubt that the wild-goose does not deserve the reputation attributed to his degenerate kinsman in the farm-yard. Shakespeare was aware how active and vigilant that bird was among the fens which it haunted. He refers to the sudden uprise and flight of

The wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,[168]

and to the autumnal movement of these fowl to the larger waters, a fact known even to Lear’s fool, who remarks:

The rapidity with which these birds disappear when they take wing was likewise familiar knowledge. The melancholy Jaques claims that if a man whom he censures does not deserve reproof,

The difficulty of circumventing the bird is conveyed in the proverbial expression “a wild-goose chase,” which was well known in the time of Elizabeth. Mercutio retorts to Romeo: