Bird lore - Project Puffin

The Audubon Societies i^g
better service than by observing accurately and describing what we see
correctly.
During vacation-days, it may add interest to your reading to look up the
following references; but, by all means, do not stop with Shakespeare's allusions
to birds. Scarcely a poet could be found blind and deaf to the beauties of
nature, and, since birds in all ages seem to have made so strong an appeal to
poets, it is richly worth our while to read what they have to tell us about them.
REFERENCES
J. E. Harting: Ornithology of Shakespeare.
Emma Phipson: The Animal-Lore of Shakespeare's Time.
J. Harvey Bloom: Warwickshire (Cambridge County Geographies
Series).
Ostrich: See i. Henry IV; Act iv, Scene i, line 97.
2. Henry VI; " iv, " 10, " 30.
Anthony and Cleopatra; " iii, " 11, " IQ5.
Little Grebe, or Dabchick: "Like a dive-dapper peering through the wave."
Pelican: See Richard II; Act ii, Scene i, line 124.
King Lear; " iii, " 4, " 70.
Hamlet; " iv, " 5, " 152.
Gull: meaning a nestling or unfledged bird.
See Timon of Athens; Act ii, Scene i, line 29.
Eagle: See " '' " ; " i, " i, " 58.
Pigeon: See As You Like It; Act i, Scene 2, line 80.
" " " " ; " iii, " 3, " 62.
Hawk: See Hamlet; Act ii, Scene 2, line 396, refers to the morning being the favorite
time of hawking. When the wind blew from the northwest and the
sun was in the observer's eyes it was difficult to distinguish a hawk
from a heron (hernshaw).
Owl: See A Midsummer Night's Dream; Act ii, Scene 3, line 6.
Throstle, Wren,)
Finch, Sparrow, >•
" " " " ' Act iii. Scene i, Song of Bottom.
Cuckoo
Wild Geese:
)
See " " " " Act iii, Scene 2, line 20.
See As You Like It; Act ii, Scene 7, line 87.
Screech-Owl: See A Midsummer Night's Dream; Act v, Scene 2, line 6.
"Hop as light as bird from brier."
Falcon: See As You Like It; Act iii, Scene 3, line 62.
"The busy day,
Waked by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows."
Starling: See Henry IV; Act. i, Scene 3, line 224.
[Note: Among the preparations for the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Kenilworth
Castle were two aviaries described as follows by Robert Laneham: "Upon the first pair
of posts of the bridge were set two comely wire cages, three feet long and two feet wide,
and high in them live bitterns, curlews, shovelers, hernshaws (herons), godwits, such like
dainty birds of the presents of Sylvanus the god of fowl."
Sir John Hawkins found an Egret in Florida (he called it an 'Kgript') which was
"all white as the Swanne, with legs like to an hearnshaw, and of bignesse accordingly,
but it hath in her taile feathers of so fine a plume that it passeth the estridge his feather."
—A. H. W.l