The Ornithology of Shakespeare - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
[156] _Geck_--a laughing-stock. According to Capel, from the Italian _ghezzo_. Dr. Jamieson, however, derives it from the Teutonic _geck_, _jocus_.
[157] See also _Oth.e.l.lo_, Act v. Sc. 2, and _Timon of Athens_, Act ii.
Sc. 1.
[158] See D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," iii. p. 84.
[159] Thornbury, "Shakespeare's England," vol. i. pp. 311, 312.
Doubtless compiled from Greene's "Art of Coney Catching," 1591, and Decker's "English Villanies," 1631.
[160] Compare "Redbreast-teacher," _Henry IV._ Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
[161] To this day the bird is still called "Martin-pecheur" by the French.
[162] "Arondell," no doubt the old French, or a corruption of "Hirondelle."
[163] One would suppose that such a foreign substance as a "swallow-stone" in the eye would be much more inconvenient than the eyelash which it was destined to remove.
[164] Curious, if true. Dr. Lebour does not say that he ever found such stones himself, nor does he vouch for their having been found by others in the nests. We have examined a great number of swallows' nests without being able to discover anything of the kind.
[165] Pliny makes mention of a "swallow-stone," but says nothing about its being found in the nest. On the contrary, he says it is found in the stomach of the bird! "In ventre hirundinum pullus _lapilli_ candido aut rubenti colore, qui 'chelidonii' vocantur, magicis narrati artibus reperiuntur."
[166] The substance of the above remarks was contributed by the author in an article published in _The Zoologist_ for 1867, p. 744.
[167] "The Birds of India," iii. p. 610.
[168] Some editions read--
"All plum'd like estridges that wing the wind; Bated like eagles having lately bath'd."
But we have adopted the above reading in preference for three reasons: 1. Considering the rudimentary nature of the ostrich's wing, Shakespeare would not have been so incorrect as to describe them as "winging the wind;" 2. The word "bated," if intended to refer to eagles, and not to ostriches, would have been more correctly "bating;" 3. The expression, "to bate with the wind," is well understood in the language of falconry, with which Shakespeare was familiar.
[169] Cinquieme series, tom. viii. pp. 285-293.
[170] _Ibis_, 1868, pp. 363-370.
[171] "Oiseaux Fossiles de la France," p. 230.
[172] "Synopsis," iii. p. 577 (1785).
[173] "Suppl. Orn. Dict." (1813).
[174] "Hist. Brit. An." p. 118 (1828).
[175] "Works:" Wilkin's ed. vol. iv. p. 318.
