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IMAL-LORE
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THE ANIMAL-LORE
OF
SHAKSPEARE'S TIME



THE MANTICHORA
THE ANIMAL-LORE
OF
SHAKSPEARE'S TIME
INCLUDING
QUADRUPEDS, BIRDS, REPTILES, FISH
AND INSECTS
BY
EMMA PHIPSON

ARBOR SCIENTIÆ✰
SARBOR VITÆ Á
سها السلطة
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1883
Soit,
8551
Folk-lore
5-26-1923
(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.)
PREFACE.
THE object of the following compilation is to bring
together in an accessible form waifs and strays of in-
formation, collected from various sources, relating to
medieval natural history, so far as animal life is con-
cerned. Descriptions, more or less accurate, of the birds
and quadrupeds known in the Middle Ages are to be.
found in the writings of Gesner, Belon, Aldrovandus, and
other naturalists. A knowledge of the state of natural
science during the period in which our great dramatist
lived may be gained, not only from the writings of
naturalists and antiquaries, but from similes, allusions,
and anecdotes introduced into the plays, poems, and
general literature of England during the latter half of the
sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries.
The chief works already published on this branch of
Shakspearian literature are The Insects mentioned in Shak-
speare's Plays, by Robert Patterson, 1848, a series of
letters on entomology with a sprinkling of quotations
from Shakspeare to add to the interest; a Natural
History of Shakespeare, by Bessie Mayou, 1877, in which
passages relating to flowers, fruits and animals are
quoted without comment; and The Ornithology of Shake-
speare, by Edmund Harting, 1871, a very valuable work.
I have endeavoured to keep the book as much on a
chronological level as possible, chiefly referring to ancient
425967
vi
Preface.
authors in order to trace the origin of some fable or myth,
and to modern writers when they explain or correct an
erroneous impression.
As Mrs. Cowden Clarke's Concordance renders refer-
ence to Shakspeare's pages so easy, I have thought it
unnecessary to increase the size of the volume by numerous
passages from his works. The text of the "Globe"
edition is that from which I have quoted.
Relinquishing all claim to originality, I have given,
in most cases, the actual words of the authors quoted, in
preference to incorporating their facts and ideas into the
body of the book. I trust that the advantage of being
able to refer to the original sources will compensate the
reader for the tiresome interruptions that constant quota-
tion entails. The quaint phrases employed by many
of the early writers seem also to harmonize with the
antiquarian nature of the subject.
In consequence of the charming indifference displayed
by older writers on natural history to the necessity for
any system of animate nature, I have followed the modern
classification of the animal kingdom, although I have
purposely avoided introducing scientific nomenclature.
The plan of arrangement is that adopted by Dr. Percival
Wright, in his recent work, Animal Life.
I must express my thanks to Mr. F. J. Furnivall, Dr.
Brinsley Nicholson, Dr. J. E. Shaw and other friends,
who have kindly assisted me in various ways; and, in
conclusion, I may add that I shall be much indebted to
any reader who will point out mistakes or give me
suggestions for a future edition.
5, Park Place,
Upper Baker Street, N.W.
1
INTRODUCTION
CONTENTS.
:
CHAPTER I.
Monkey-Bat-Hedgehog-Mole-Shrew
0:-
...
:
...
PAGE
1
00
Ounce-Cat-
17
CHAPTER II.
Lion-Tiger-Jaguar-Leopard-Panther-Puma
Lynx-Hyæna-Civet-Ichneumon-Wolf-Jackal
CHAPTER III.
Dog
CHAPTER IV.
-
Fox-Ermine Miniver Marten - Sable Ferret - Polecat-
Weasel-Wolverine-Skunk-Coati-Otter-Badger-Bear
CHAPTER V.
Walrus-Seal -Whale Dolphin — Narwhal - Porpoise — Ork—
Grampus-Manatee
CHAPTER VI.
40
Horse-Ass-Zebra-Rhinoceros - Hippopotamus-Pig-Camel-
Llama-Deer - Giraffe - Bison-Buffalo
Buffalo — Ox — Antelope—
Sheep-Elephant
CHAPTER VII.
...
...
62
87
Rat-Mouse-Beaver-Squirrel-Marmot-Chinchilla - Porcupine
-Hare-Rabbit - Sloth - Armadillo- Iguana-Ant-eater—
Opossum
104
149
viii
Contents.
CHAPTER VIII.
Thrush - Missel Thrush - Redwing - Fieldfare — Nightingale—
Robin-Wheatear-Wren - Titmouse-Oriole-Magpie-Crow
—Raven-Jackdaw-Chough — Bird of Paradise-Swallow—
Finch-Siskin Canary - Linnet - Bulfinch - Crossbill
Ortolan
hammer
Starling - Lark — Wagtail Sparrow - Yellow-
...
PAGE
169
...
CHAPTER IX.
Woodpecker-Toucan-Cuckoo-Kingfisher-Hoopoe-Goat-sucker
—Humming-bird-Parrot — Pigeon - Dodo - Capercaillie—
Quail-Partridge-Pheasant-Cock-Turkey-Guinea-fowl
203
...
CHAPTER X.
Vulture—Condor-Eagle-Kite-Hawks-Osprey—Owl
230
Water-rail
CHAPTER XI.
Land-rail-Coot - Snipe Woodcock Redshank-
Curlew-Ruff-Knot-Godwit - Dunlin - Plover
catcher-Bustard-Crane-Heron-Bittern-Spoonbill-Stork
-Flamingo
...
Oyster-
255
CHAPTER XII.
Goose Swan Duck Teal Sheldrake-Gull Petrel - Cor-
morant-Pelican - Tropic Bird - Penguin — Auk — Grebe—
Puffin-Ostrich-Emeu
•
CHAPTER XIII.
Tortoise-Crocodile-Lizard - Chameleon-Blindworm—Adder—
Asp-Snake-Newt-Salamander-Frog-Toad
CHAPTER XIV.
Stickleback-Perch-Ruffe-Mullet - Gurnet - Miller's Thumb-
Mackerel-Tunny-Bonito-Sword-fish - Sea-angler - Cod-
Haddock-Whiting-Hake-Ling-Plaice-Flounder-Turbot
-Sole-Brill-Dory
...
•
273
297
325
...
$
•
Contents.
ix
CHAPTER XV.
Salmon-Trout Charr - Gwiniad — Grayling - Smelt- Pike-
Bream-Tench-Barbel-Roach-Dace-
Flying-fish-Carp
Chub-Bleak-Loach-Gudgeon-Minnow
PAGE
349
...
CHAPTER XVI.
Shark Pilot-fish Remora
Dog-fish
Pilchard Herring-Sprat-Sardine-Anchovy-Eel - Sturgeon—
Torpedo―Thornback-Skate-Lamprey
Monk-fish
...
369
...
CHAPTER XVII.
Cochineal-Cicada - Cricket - Grasshopper - Locust - Mantis
Cockroach-Beetle-Glow-worm-Fire-fly-Ladybird-Ant
Bee-Wasp Hornet-Fly-Gnat - Butterfly - Moth Silk-
worm-Spider-Scorpion ...
...
389
CHAPTER XVIII.
Lobster-Crayfish-Shrimp-Crab-Polypus-Nautilus-Cuttlefish
-Scallop-Oyster-Mussel-Snail-Leech-Coral
434
...
CHAPTER XIX.
Unicorn-Dragon-Basilisk-Cockatrice-Wyvern
Fire-Drake-
Griffin-Sphinx-Harpy--Minotaur - Centaur — Satyr― Chi-
mæra Mantichor - Phoenix-Caladrius - Hircinie - Mem-
nonides-Liver-Sea-Serpent
...
452

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THE ANIMAL-LORE
OF
SHAKSPEARE'S TIME.
INTRODUCTION.
Few subjects have more frequently occupied the attention
of man than that of his own relation to the animal life
around him. The classic writers delighted to note the
various points of contact and the joint ownership of
qualities which man and animals possessed. In the time
of Shakspeare this question of kinship seems to have
been studied with renewed interest. Montaigne labours
long and earnestly to prove the "equality and corre-
spondence betwixt us and the beasts." In Essay liv. he
refuses to allow to man the sole possession of any faculty,
or to debase the intelligence of animals with the name of
instinct. He draws illustrations of the employment of
such mental attributes as prudence, ingenuity, foresight,
memory, from many beasts and birds.
Why,” he writes, "does the spider make her web streighter in
one place and slacker in another? why now make one sort of knot,
and then another, if she has not deliberation, thought, and conclusion?
We sufficiently discover in most of their works how much animals
excel us, and how unable our art is to imitate them. We see, never-
B
22
2
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
theless, in our more gross performances, that we employ all our faculties,
and apply the utmost power of our souls; why do we not conclude the
same of them? Why should we attribute to I know not what natural
and servile inclination the works that excel all we can do by nature
and art? Wherein, before we are aware, we give them a mighty
advantage over us, in making nature, with a maternal sweetness, to
accompany and lead them, as it were, by the hand to all the actions
and commodities of their life, whilst she leaves us to chance and
fortune, and to seek out, by art, the things that are necessary to our
conservation, at the same time denying us the means of being able, by
any instruction or contention of understanding, to arrive at the natural
sufficiency of beasts; so that their brutish stupidity surpasses, in all
conveniences, all that our divine intelligence can do. Really, at this
rate, we might with great reason call her an unjust step-mother; but
it is nothing so, our polity is not so irregular and deform'd. Nature
has been generally kind to all her creatures, and there is not one she
has not amply furnished with all means necessary for the conservation
of his being."
A little further on, he writes-
We are
"All this I have said to prove the resemblance there is in human
things, and to bring us back and joyn us to the crowd.
neither above nor below the rest. All that is under heaven (says the
wise man) runs one law, and one fortune."
The Rev. J. Kirkman has recently shown, in an essay
written for the New Shakspere Society, how, in almost
every one of Shakspeare's plays, the tone of the drama is
reflected by the animal life introduced. In Midsummer
Night's Dream-
"the season and atmosphere of exuberant life, joy, and fun, show almost
all creatures but serpents under their genial light. There is a very
delight even in naming things, because of their song, their beauty,
their innocent, or quaint, or industrious ways. It is exactly the
opposite condition of things that rules in King Lear. Here the darker
purpose of the play, which throws its shadow over human nature,
shrouds in its gloom animal nature as well. A greater number of
animals are mentioned in King Lear than in any other play, and with
scarcely an exception the references are unfavourable. Their cruelty,
treachery, and deceit are dwelt upon, and withal the terrible fact of the
similar villainy of man. We have to ask," Mr. Kirkman continues,
"what beautiful or sad law was it that was like the igneous rock ever
Introduction.
3
beneath us, cropping up through all sedimentary strata here and there,
often commanding attention by the height and sharpness of its peaks?
Mr. Darwin would answer infallibly, without a moment's hesitation, I
would venture to predict, 'Because of the common nature of man and
his lower progenitors in the scale of creation.' I mean, without any
allusion to Shakspere being of 'Darwin's views,' Darwin would state on
biological grounds precisely the same fact in nature as Shakspere has
worked out on moral or psychological principles." (New Shakspere
Society's Transactions, 1879.)
The question has been asked,-How is it that the
number of animal metaphors and similes in Shakspeare's
works so greatly exceeds that of any other of his brother
dramatists? The answer is to be found mainly in his
larger sympathy with nature; but it may be that his
deeper study of the problems concerning man's origin
and destiny, led him thus closely to connect man with his
fellow-denizens of the earth.
However great the interest in external nature felt by
our forefathers may have been, the scientific knowledge
they possessed was still but slight. Natural history,
according to Pliny, was the authorized version of the
gospel of nature. The most absurd theories and state-
ments concerning animal life put forth by this classical
authority remained uncontradicted down to the time of
Shakspeare. The method of interpreting natural phe-
nomena which was founded by Lord Bacon, of substituting
patient observation of facts for reliance on speculation
and tradition, gave a fresh impulse to the study of natural
history.
Another source from which writers of this time derived
their notions of animal life was the Bible, which, recently
translated, was eagerly read from one end of the country
to the other. Unfortunately, this rather retarded than
advanced their knowledge of the subject. The crude
notions of the ancient Hebrews about beasts and birds,
the very names of which were sometimes changed by the
translators, were accepted as undoubted truths, and many
4
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
errors were thus perpetuated. Guillim, the quaint old
herald, quotes texts to prove the correctness of his
descriptions of various animals, in the same way that
modern writers quote the investigations and experiments
of Darwin or Huxley.
The myth-making tendency of the human mind has
also had an effect on man's study of nature. What Mr.
Tylor calls "myths of observation," arose from a laudable
anxiety to account for certain known phenomena. When
fossil ammonites were found in the solid rock, miles away
from the sea-shore, how was it possible to explain their
presence better than by the statement that they were
snakes turned into stones by the prayers of some local
saint? Huge bones of fossil mammals, far exceeding in
size those of living men, were obviously the limbs of
some giant warrior slain in combat. These theories once
started, poetry and imagination were ready to clothe the
bare statement with ornament, and legends of early
heroes, Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Southampton, and
their compeers in might, grew with rapidity, and were
universally believed.
It does not follow that all the absurd notions con-
nected with animals that are found in the works of this
period were generally credited at the time an author
wrote. These fanciful theories were often merely adopted
as metaphors and similes; but at the same time writers.
would not care to be behind the age, and would not
willingly use expressions which could only provoke
ridicule on the part of their readers. For example, the
nightingale is invariably spoken of in the time of
Elizabeth as of the feminine gender, while in our own
day the knowledge that it is the male bird which sings
is reflected in the poetry of our time.
Opportunities for the study of the habits of animals
were by no means frequent. Although menageries have
existed from the earliest times, they were chiefly used
f
Introduction.
LO
5
as places of temporary confinement for such wild beasts
as were likely soon to be required for sport or war.
Instances where animals have been kept for the purpose
of observation are rare. Aristotle gained the materials
for his work on animals in great measure from the large
collection formed by Alexander the Great during his
expedition made in search of conquest into distant coun-
tries. Pliny had an opportunity of drawing from life
in his descriptions of beasts and birds, as there were
several private collections made by wealthy Romans of
his time; that he did not fully avail himself of this
chance is evident from the strange mistakes and absur-
dities that crowd his pages.
The first English menagerie, according to Mr.
Bennett (Tower Menagerie, 1829, p. xii.), was at Wood-
stock, in the time of Henry I. This collection, which
consisted of lions, leopards, and other wild animals, was
transferred to the Tower of London in the reign of
Henry III. There it remained till it was superseded
by the establishment of the Zoological Gardens in
the Regent's Park. Paul Hentzner, in an account of a
journey into England in 1598, gives a list of the various
animals which formed the Tower menagerie at that
date :-
"On coming out of the Tower we were led to a small house close
by, where are kept a variety of creatures, viz. three lionesses, one lion of
great size, called Edward VI., from his having been born in that reign;
a tiger, a lynx; a wolf excessively old—this is a very scarce animal in
England, so that their sheep and cattle stray about in great numbers,
free from any danger, though without anybody to keep them; there
is, besides, a porcupine, and an eagle. All these creatures are kept in
a remote place, fitted up for the purpose with wooden lattices, at the
queen's expense." (Dodsley's Fugitive Pieces, vol. ii. p. 244)
Fynes Moryson, in the account of his tour through
Europe, 1591, describes a menagerie on a small scale at
Prague in Bohemia.
6
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
"The Emperour hath two inclosures walled about, which they
call gardaines, one of which is called Stella, because the trees are
planted in the figure of starres, and a little faire house therein is like-
wise built, with six corners in forme of a starre. And in this place be
kept 12 cammels, and an Indian oxe, yellow, all over rugged, and
hairy upon the throate, like a lyon; and an Indian calfe; and two
leopards, which were said to be tame, if such wild beasts may be
tamed. They were of a yellow colour, spotted with blacke, the head
partly like a lyon, partly like a cat, the tayle like a cat, the body like
a greyhound, and when the huntsman went abroad, at call they leaped
up behind him, sitting upon the horse like a dog on the hinder parts,
being so swift in running, as they would easily kill a hart" (Itinerary,
p. 15).
In Italy, again, Moryson meets with a similar
collection :-
"The Duke of Florence kept fierce wilde beasts in a little round
house, namely, five lyons, five wolves, three eagles, three tygers (of
blacke and gray colour, not unlike cats, but much greater), one wilde
cat (like a tyger), beares, leopards spotted with white, black and red,
and used sometimes for hunting, an Indian mouse (with a head like
our mise, but a long hairie taile, so fierce and big, that it would easily
kill one of our cats), and wilde boares." (Page 151.)
This last-named animal may have been an ichneumon,
sometimes called Pharaoh's rat.
Herrera, in his History of America (vol. ii. p. 348),
gives an account of a menagerie in Mexico, far exceeding
in magnitude any European collection. When the
Spaniards visited Mexico, about the year 1500, they
found a zoological garden sustained by Montezuma with
right royal magnificence. This menagerie contained
many varieties of beasts, birds, and serpents. These last
were fed sometimes on human diet; persons sacrificed
were afterwards given to the snakes and alligators.
According to Herrera, five hundred cocks were daily
given to the eagles, and three hundred men were
appointed to attend in the house of birds. There were
also large ponds for salt and fresh water birds, the water
of which was frequently renewed. These birds were
Introduction.
7
kept chiefly for the sake of their feathers, which formed
an article of commerce of considerable importance.
The universal fondness for hunting, hawking, and
other field sports, gave rise to a great number of technical
expressions connected with the chase, which perpetually
occur in the writings of the Elizabethan dramatists. Guil-
lim, in his Display of Heraldry, 1610 (p. 15), gives a list of
phrases, many of which are in use at the present day :-
“The tayl of a hart is termed the tayl; of a buck, roe, or any
other deer, the single; of a boar, the wreath; of a fox, the brush, or
holy water sprinkler; of a wolf, the stern; and of a hare or coney,
the scut. You shall say that a hart harboureth; a buck lodgeth; a
roe beddeth; a hare seateth or formeth; a coney sitteth; a fox is
uncased. You shall say dislodge a buck; start a hare; unkennel
a fox; rowse a hart; bowlt a coney. A hart belloweth ; a buck
groaneth; a roe belleth; a hare beateth; a coney tappeth; a fox
barketh; a wolf howleth. You shall say a herd of harts, and all
manner of deer; a bevy of roes; a sounder of swine; a rowt of wolves;
a riches of marternes; a brace or lease of bucks, of foxes, or hares; a
couple of rabbets or conies."
Mr. Daniel, in his Rural Sports, 1812 (vol. ii. p. 480),
quotes from The Book of Saint Albans a long list of nouns
of multitude:-
A sege
of herons and of bitterns; an herd of swans, of cranes,
and of curlews; a dopping of sheldrakes; a spring of teales; a covert
of coots; a gaggle of geese: a padelynge of ducks; a bord or sute
of mallards; a muster of peacocks; a nye of pheasants; a bevy of
quailes; a covey of partridges; a congregation of plovers; a flight of
doves; a dule of turkies; a walk of snipes; a fall of woodcocks; a
brood of hens; a building of rooks; a murmuration of starlings; an
exaltation of larks; a flight of swallows; a host of sparrows; a watch
of nightingales; and a charm of goldfinches. A pride of lions; a lepe
of leopards; an herd of harts, of buck, and of all sorts of deer; a bevy
of roes; a sloth of bears; a singular of boars; a sounder of wild swine;
a dryft of tame swine; a route of wolves; a harrass of horses; a rag
of colts; a stud of mares; a pace of asses; a baren of mules; a team
of oxen; a drove of kine; a flock of sheep; a tribe of goats; a sculk
of foxes; a cete of badgers; a riches of martins; a fesynes of ferrets;
a huske or a down of hares; a nest of rabbits; a clowder of cats, and a
kendel of young cats; a shrewdness of apes; and a labour of moles."
8
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Quadrupeds.
CHAPTER I.
THE Monkey order is generally spoken of in mediæval
times under the three broad names of ape,
baboon, and monkey or marmoset, though
various kinds are described by the early
explorers of Africa and South America under the native
Monkey.
names.
The chief sources from which we derive our informa-
tion respecting the different species of animals found in
various parts of the globe are the collections of travels
made by Hakluyt and Purchas. The Rev. Samuel
Purchas published the first volume of his work in 1613,
and the last four volumes in 1625. He gave to his com-
pilation the long title of Purchas his Pilgrimage; or
Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all
Ages and Places. He appears to have been more credulous.
than Hakluyt, or perhaps he took a stronger interest in
natural history, for to him we are chiefly indebted for
strange adventures and marvellous descriptions of animal
life.
One of the most intelligent of the pilgrims whose
peregrinations are recorded in this collection was Andrew
Battell, an English sailor, who was taken prisoner by the
Portuguese and sent to Angola, on the West Coast of
Africa, where he lived nearly eighteen years. This
writer gives a tolerably correct account of the largest
The Gorilla.
9
species of ape, known in modern times as the Gorilla.
He says:-
"The largest of these ape monsters is called Pongo, in their language,
and the lesser is called Engeco. This pongo is in all proportion like a
man, but that he is more like a giant in stature than a man; for he
is very tall and hath a man's face, hollow-eyed, with long haire upon
his browes. His face and eares are without haire, and his hands also.
His bodie is full of haire, but not very thicke, and of a dunnish colour.
He differeth not from a man but in his legs, for they have no calfe.
Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs, and carrieth his hands clasped on the
nape of his necke, when he goeth upon the ground. They sleepe in
the trees, and build shelters for the raine. They feed upon the fruit
that they find in the woods, and upon nuts, for they eate no kind of
flesh. They cannot speake, and have no more understanding than a
beast. The people of the countrie, when they travaile in the woods,
make fires where they sleepe in the night; and in the morning, when
they are gone, the pongoes will come and sit about the fire till it goeth
out, for they have no understanding to lay the wood together. They
goe many together, and kill many negroes that travaile in the woods.
... When they die among themselves, they cover the dead with great
heapes of boughs and wood, which is commonly found in the forrests.”
(Purchas, vol. ii. p. 982.)
The engeco here mentioned is possibly the Chimpanzee.
The gorilla was known to the Carthaginians. It is men-
tioned under this name in a Greek translation from the
Periplus, or circumnavigation of Hanno the Cartha-
ginian.
A Portuguese resident in Brazil, whose observations
on that country are also recorded in Purchas's collection
(vol. iv. p. 1302), gives a curious account of an ape king.
“The Aquiqui are very great apes, as bigge as a good sized dog,
blacke, and very ougly, as well the male as the female. They have a
great beard onely in the lower chap. Of these come sometimes a male
one so yellow that it draweth toward red, which they say is their king.
This hath a white face, and the beard from eare to eare as cut with the
scissers; and it hath one thing much to be noted, namely, that he
goeth into a tree, and maketh so great a noise that it is heard very
farre off, in the which he continueth a great while without ceasing,
and for this, this kind hath a particular instrument; and the instru-
10
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
$
!
ment is a certaine hollow thing, as it were made of parchment, very
strong, and so smooth that it serveth to burnish withall, as big as a
duckes egge, and beginneth from the beginning of the gullet, till very
neere the palate of the mouth betweene both the cheekes, and it is so
light that as soone as it is toucht it moveth as the key of a virginals."
This species has been identified by modern travellers as
the Mycetes, or Howling Monkey. According to some
writers, the peculiar cry from which it derives its name
may be heard at a distance of two miles.
Antonio de Herrera, in his description of the West
Indies (Purchas, vol. i. p. 966), tells us that—
"throughout all the mountaines, either of these ilands of the firme
land, or of the Andes, there are infinite numbers of micos, or monkeys,
which are a kinde of apes, but very different, in that they have a taile,
yea a very long one. And amongst them there are some kindes
which are thrice, yea foure times bigger than the ordinarie; some are
all blacke, some bay, some grey, and some spotted. Their agilitie and
manner of doing is admirable, for that they seeme to have reason
and discourse to goe upon trees, wherein they seeme to imitate birds.”
John Leo, in his account of travels in Africa, says
that the native name for the small kinds of apes which
have tails is Monne, which may be the origin of the
English name monkey; those without tails are called
Babuini (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 847).
Another traveller, Wilson, who returned from Guiana
in the year 1606, reports (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1261), that
"there are many monkies, great and small, blacke and
greene, which sorts are called Marmosites."
Small monkeys seem to have been rather fashionable
as pets, as well as forming a necessary part of the outfit
of the itinerant showman. Ben Jonson has several
allusions to them :-
""Tis like your clog to your marmoset."
"He past, appears some mincing marmoset,
Made all of clothes and face."
(The Poetaster, iv. 1.)
(Cynthia's Revels, iii. 2.)
Drayton writes-
The Bat.
11
"What sports have we whereon our minds to set,
Our dog, our parrot, or our marmoset?"
(England's Heroical Epistles.)
Tubal sticks a dagger into his friend Shylock by telling
him of a ring that a sailor had obtained from Jessica in
exchange for a monkey:-
Shylock. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my
turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor: I would not have
given it for a wilderness of monkeys." (Merchant of Venice, iii. 1, 125.)
A monkey was also a common appendage of the domestic
fool, or jester, and an appropriate companion in his
gambols.
Bat.
The wing-handed animal, the Bat, known also as the
rere-mouse, or still more appropriately as the
flitter-mouse, was a great puzzle to our fore-
fathers. It was classed by them as avis, non avis, "bird
and not bird." Nor was it until the close of the seven-
teenth century that it was placed with viviparous animals.
It shared with the owl and the raven the reputation of
foreboding misery and death to the inmates of the house
where it entered, and was classed with these birds by
Spenser :-
"The ill-faste owle, death's dreadfull messengere;
The hoars night-raven, trump of dolefull drere;
The lether-winged bat, dayes enimy;
The ruefull strich, still waiting on the bere."
(Faerie Queene, ii., xii., 36.)
Ben Jonson speaks of-
"The giddy flitter-mice with leather wings!'
(The Sad Shepherd, ii. 2.)
And again—
"Once a bat, and ever a bat! a rere-mouse,
And bird of twilight.”
(The New Inn, iii. 1.)
.
12 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
In 1626 Sir Thomas Herbert accompanied Sir Dodmore
Cotton in an embassage to the Shah of Persia, and was
so delighted with the strange scenes he witnessed in that
country that he extended his visit, and spent four years
in exploring the southern portion of Asia and part of
Africa. On his return he published his travels. He is
an amusing writer, and gives some lively descriptions of
the curious sights he witnessed, and the difficulties he met
with. In his account of certain strange creatures found
in the island of Mauritius, he writes:-
“Bats are here in great numbers; but if my stomach deceive me
not, worse meat cannot be tasted: a fierce ill-favour'd carrion, ever
squeeking, and in offensive noise calling to one another, make bad
melody. This is the onely four-footed beast that's volant, and there-
fore whether more properly to be rankt amongst birds or beasts, as
yet undecided. .. Bats, flying-fish and seals be participles of nature
and species of a doubtful kind, participating both of bird and beast :
these vespertilios, a large foot in length, hang in swarms upon the
boughs of trees, by claws two inches long, fixed at the extream part of
their wings, which are above twenty inches in length, their monkey
faces in that posture ever turning downwards." (Travels, p. 385.)
•
The worthy knight was somewhat of an epicure, as
appears from his constantly expressed opinion as to the
flavour of the new dishes he was compelled by necessity
to investigate, but he may be excused in this instance
for not relishing his repast.
Sir Francis Drake, in his voyage into the South Seas,
1577 (Hakluyt, vol. iv. p. 244), finds, in an island south-
ward of Celebes, a wonderful store of bats as big as large
hens.
Bats were given to hawks as a remedy for certain
maladies.
Of insect-eating animals, which are placed by modern
naturalists next in order to the bats, only three
representatives appear to have been known
to our mediæval ancestors, the hedgehog, mole, and shrew.
Hedgehog.
་
The Hedgehog.
13
The Hedgehog, echinus, or urchin, is often mentioned
by Shakspeare and other poets. Lyly declares of this
little animal that he "evermore lodgeth in the thornes
bicause he himself is so full of prickells" (Euphues,
p. 373); and Chester, whose singular poem, Love's Martyr,
has recently been edited by Dr. Grosart for the New
Shakspere Society, says of him :—
"The hedgehogge hath a sharpe quicke thorned garment,
That on his backe doth serve him for defence:
He can presage the winds incontinent,
And hath good knowledge in the difference
Betweene the southerne and the northern wind,
These vertues are allotted him by kind.
Whereon in Constantinople, that great city,
A marchant in his garden gave one nourishment:
By which he knew that winds true certainty,
Because the hedgehogge gave him just presagement :
Apples, or pears, or grapes, such is his meate,
Which on his backe he carries for to eate.”
(Love's Martyr, p. 111.)
Thomas Fuller, in his work, The Worthies of England,
alludes to a superstition which has not yet died out in
rural districts. Describing the county of Hertfordshire,
he writes:
'Plenty of hedgehogs are found in this high-woodland county,
where too often they suck the kine, though the dayry-maids conne
them small thanks for sparing their pains in milking them. A
creature alwayes in his posture of defence, carrying a stand of pikes
on his back, so that if as well victualled as armed, he may hold out a
siege against any equal opposition." (Vol. ii. p. 426.)
Amongst other miseries inflicted upon him by his
harsh taskmaster, Caliban complains of spirits—
"Like hedgehogs which
Lie tumbling in my barefoot way and mount
Their pricks at my footfall.”
(Tempest, ii. 2, 10.)
+
14
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The Mole, moldwarp, or mouldiwarpe, as it is fre-
quently called, must have been as common
Mole. in earlier times as at present. The Rev.
Edward Topsell was chaplain in the Church of Saint
Botolph, Aldersgate, and the author of one of the most
remarkable books of his age. He called his work A
Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes, and added, that it was
"necessary for all divines and students, because the story
of every beast is amplified with narrations out of scrip-
tures, fathers, phylosophers, physitians, and poets, col-
lected out of all the volumes of Conradus Gesner and
all other writers to this present day." This book was
published in 1607. Though it abounds with marvellous
stories, farfetched derivations of names, and absurd
recipes, yet it is no mere compilation from the writings
of others. Notwithstanding his amazing credulity on
many points, the author is independent enough to
decline to accept statements which are contradicted by
his own observations. As regards the place of the mole
in nature, he writes:-
"I do utterly dissent from all them that holde opinion that the
mole or want is of the kinde of myse, for that all of them in generall,
both one and other have two longe crooked fore-teeth which is not in
moles, and therefore wanting those as the inseparable propriety of
kind; we wil take it for graunted that it pertaineth not to that ranke
or order of four-footed beasts." (Page 499.)
With respect to the name, he informs us that—
"the Italians retaine the latine word talpa, the Spaniards topo, by
which word the Italians call a mouse. The French call it taulpe, the
Germaines muīwerf, and in Saxon molwurffe, from whence is derived
the English mole and molewarpe."
Topsell gives it as his opinion that though moles want
their sight, yet they possess eyes, or rather, they have
where the eyes should be, "a plaine and bald place of the
skin." As a further proof of the perversity of this little
;
The Mole.
15
animal, he adds that, though they have no ears, yet they
hear perfectly in the earth.
The idea of the mole's blindness, still lingering in
country districts, is often referred to by the Elizabethan
poets. Caliban warns his companions to be silent :—
"Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not
Hear a foot fall: we now are near his cell."
(Tempest, iv. 1, 195.)
"Ye work and work like moles, blind in the paths
That are bor❜'d thro' the crannies of the earth.”
(FORD, The Lover's Melancholy, ii. 2.)
Sylvester, in his translation of Du Bartas' great work,
Divine Weekes and Workes, published 1605, introduces
the following simile:
"Even as the soft, blinde, mine-inventing moule,
In velvet robes under the earth doth roule,
Refusing light, and little ayre receives,
And hunting worms her moving hillocks heaves."
(Ed. 1633, p. 186.)
In Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, published 1621,
we read:
"Comfort thyself with other men's misfortunes, as the mouldiwarpe
in Æsope told the fox for complaining of want of a tail, You complain
of toies, but I am blind, be quiet." (Page 310, ed. 1837.)
Owen Glendower probably employed these little
animals in his incantations. Hotspur replies to his
uncle's lecture upon the impropriety of petulant im-
patience :-
'I cannot choose: sometime he angers me
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies."
(1 Henry IV., iii. 1, 148.)
To Topsell we are indebted for an account
of the Shrew, or the erdshrew :—
Shrew.
"The word hamaka of the Hebrewes remembred in the second
16
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
•
chapter of Leviticus, is diversely interpreted by the translators, some
call it a reptile beast which alwaies cryeth: some a reptile-flying
beast, some a horse-leach, or bloud-sucker, some a hedghog, and some
a beaver, as we have shewed before in the hedghog. But the Septua-
gints translate it mygale, and S. Jerom mus araneus, that is, a shrew.
The Hollanders call it moll musse, because it resembleth a mole.
And concerning the description of this beast, it may be taken from the
words of an auncient English phisition, called doctor William Turner.
I have seene, saith he, in England, the shrew-mouse of colour blacke,
having a taile very short, and her snout very long and sharp, and from
the venomous biting of this beast, we have an English proverb or
imprecation, I beshrow thee, when we curse or wish harm unto any
man, that is, that some such evil as the biting of this mouse may
come upon him. . . . It is a ravening beast, feynging it selfe to be
gentle and tame, but being touched it biteth deepe, and poisoneth
deadly. It beareth a cruell minde, desiring to hurt any thing, neither
is there any creature that it loveth, or it loveth him, because it is
feared of all. The cats as we have saide do hunt it and kill it, but
they eat not them, for if they do they consume away in time."
(Historie of Foure-Footed Beasts, pp. 534–536.)
The character here attributed to this harmless little
animal is not unlike that bestowed by the old chroniclers
upon Richard III. It is quite undeserved by the British
shrew, which feeds only on insects and grain. Some
European varieties are more destructive, and will even eat
small birds if opportunities offer.
The Lion, King of Beasts.
17
CHAPTER II.
Lion.
DEPOSED as he is by modern classification from the first
place in the ranks, the Lion has from the
earliest times reigned supreme and undis-
puted monarch of the animal kingdom. He has been
endowed by poets with many virtues, most of them quite
imaginary. Unlike some beasts of prey, he does not
destroy for the mere pleasure of killing, and this forbear-
ance has perhaps gained for him a reputation for clemency
and magnanimity beyond his merits. Possibly one reason
why the lion was credited with this generosity by the
early intruders into his domain, was that his supply of
provisions was still plentiful, and his larder in no danger
of becoming empty; he could therefore afford to be
generous, and he had not learned to fear man both on
his own account and as a rival in the chase.
Chester, writing in the time of Elizabeth, rather goes
beyond the truth when he represents other animals
deliberately giving up their prey to the animal monarch :
“The princely lion, king of forrest-kings,
And chiefe commaunder of the wildernesse,
At whose faire feete all beasts lay down their offrings,
Yielding allegiance to his worthinesse :
His strength remaineth most within his head,
His vertue in his heart is compassed."
(Love's Martyr, p. 112.)
Shakspeare seems to have completely adopted the
C
18 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
popular view of the lion's noble qualities, and to hold him
in high estimation. Richard's queen tries to rouse her
husband to more dignified conduct by reminding him
that-
"The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw,
And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
To be o'erpower'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod,
And fawn on rage with base humility,
Which art a lion and a king of beasts?"
(Richard II., v. 1, 29.)
And Troilus taunts Hector by aid of a comparison which
is decidedly complimentary to the animal:-
Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man."
(Troilus and Cressida, v. 3, 37.)
Ben Jonson introduces the lion occasionally:-
"The Libyan lion hunts no butterflies,
He makes the camel and dull ass his prize."
(Epigram on Inigo Jones.)
By painters and writers on religious subjects the lion
was employed as a symbol of strength, courage, nobility,
and other lofty qualities, of which the companion and pro-
tector of Una is the personification.
In heraldry the lion was more frequently utilized than
any other member of the animal kingdom, and it has from
the earliest period been claimed as an appropriate emblem
by English sovereigns. As denoting fortitude, it was
usually placed, in Christian art, at the feet of martyrs,
and was sculptured on the tombs of crusaders.
The frequent mention of the lion in English literature
may arise from the fact that the somewhat mythical
character attributed to him is exactly the same with
which the English have always invested their heroes.
This union of strength and courage with clemency and
tenderness was the secret of Richard Coeur de Lion's
Lions first born in England.
19
popularity; and Shakspeare's lines on Edward the Black
Prince-
"In war was never lion raged more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman,"
may serve for a description of the men whom England in
all times has delighted to honour.
Lions were kept in the Tower for the purpose of afford-
ing entertainment to the court by their combats. As they
were expensive both to obtain and to keep, lion-baiting
was a sport chiefly reserved for royalty. John Stow, in his
record of the reign of James I., considers the birth of a
young lion an event of sufficient importance to enter with
great gravity in his Chronicle (p. 844): "Sunday, fift
of August [1604], a lionesse named Elizabeth, in the Tower
of London, brought forth a lyons whelpe, which lyons
whelpe lived not longer than the next day." The next
year he tells of a similar arrival, and gives as a reason for
chronicling it that this was the first time that young
lions had been born in Great Britain.
Topsell (p. 475) quotes from Crantzius a notable story
of a lion in England, who by evident tokens was able to
distinguish betwixt the king, nobles, and vulgar sort of
people. Patrick Gordon of Ruthven, in a work, written
about the year 1647, and reprinted by the Spalding Club
in 1844, entitled, A Short Abridgement of Britane's Diɛ-
temper, tells a story which, if it could only be believed,
would confirm the theory that there was a close connexion
between kings and lions:-
"It is constantly related by all, nor could I ever find it contra-
dicted by any, that some little time after the kinges death [Charles I.]
there ware sevin or eight gentlemen that went to the Towre to sie the
lyons. . . . They were brought by the keiper near to their caiges, that
they might looke in throw the barrs and sie them; when upon a
sudden the Old Harie, a lyone called so after Henrie the Eight,
because he had brought him their, began to blow, to snort, and to
brissell his haire, and then to roare with such a terible and furious
20
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
countenance, tearing the grats with his paws, as if he would have
devored or torne them all in pieces; which made all to recoill bak,
much affrighted, the keeper telling them seriously that he had never
done the lyk befor, altho all sorts came daylie and saw him, and
therefore he was perswaded that some one of them had done him ane
injurie. They all swore they had not come near the grats of his cabin
by more then a yeare: wherefor sieing him still to roare, to bray, and
to become more furious, the keeper tells them that they must all goe
furth, and he would call them in one by one, to sie if that way he
could find furth the reasone. This was done; and behold, when they
ware all gone, he groaned a little while and then was peaceable.
Wherefor the keiper would neids try this conclusion; he bringes first
in one of them and leids him to the grats, whereat the lyon made no
sturre till one gentleman came in, whom he no sooner espyes, when he
begines againe to raige, and become more furious than befor; where-
for the keiper, with an angrie countenance, beseeches him to tell what
he had done. The gentleman, avoueing his owne innocencie, was yet
much confounded to sie that terrible beast angrie with non but him;
and having ruminate within himselfe of his former lyfe, at last he tells
the keiper that he knew himself guiltie of nothinge except that he was
on the skafold when the kinge was execute, and had dipt ane handkirt-
cheff in his blood, which he had yet in his pocket; and drawing it
furth, gives it to the keiper, who threw it to the lyone; and he no
sooner gets it, when, leaving his former roaring, he takes it betwixt
his former feit, and fallinge growfflings to the ground, he laid his head
on it, and never rose from that posture till hee died, which was the
third day after. This discourse, because it seemed so onprobable, I
kept up two years, before I would insert it in my Abridgment, yet
could never find anie that opposed the trueth of it, but everie man
avoued it to be reallie true." (Page 221.)
The sensitive nature of this centenarian lion must have
been sorely tried by the frequent "deaths of kings" he
had bewailed. We are not told of any acts of kindness
on the part of English sovereigns which could account
for this one-sided affection.
The Tiger was generally considered the personification
Tiger.
of remorseless cruelty. Lear calls Regan and
Goneril "tigers, not daughters;" and York
calls his unrelenting foe, Queen Margaret,-
"O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide!"
Tiger, or Jaguar.
· 21
and declares that she is-
"More inhuman, more inexorable,
O, ten times more, than tigers of Hyrcania.”
(3 Henry VI., i. 4.)
The distinction drawn between the natures of the
lion and tiger has little foundation in fact. The habits
of both species are very similar. The tiger does occa-
sionally destroy more than is sufficient to satisfy its
hunger, but in general it is content with a single victim.
The name Tiger was given by travellers and early
writers on natural history to many species, some of
which, like the jaguar, are undoubtedly more bloodthirsty
than others. The character of the natives of the coun-
tries which these animals inhabit may have something to
do with their respective attributes.
Oviedo, in an account of the West Indies, sent by
him to the Emperor Charles V., in 1525 (Purchas, vol.
iii. p. 990), describes the jaguar under the name of tiger.
His misgivings as to the correctness of the name are well
founded, as the range of the tiger is confined exclusively
to Asia. He writes-
"In the Firme Land [S. America] are found many terrible beasts,
which some think to be tigres. Which thing nevertheless I dare not
affirme, considering what authors doe write of the lightnesse and
agilitie of the tigre, whereas this beast, being otherwise in shape very
like a tigre, is notwithstanding very slow.”
The stealthy motion it frequently adopts in order to
approach its victim, probably gave this writer the idea
that the jaguar was a slow animal. Oviedo proceeds to
point out that many creatures of undoubtedly the same
species vary considerably in different parts of the world :-
"The sheepe of Arabie draw their tailes long and bigge on the
ground, and the bulls of Egypt have their haire growing toward their
heads, yet are those sheepe, and these buls. . . . Men, likewise, which
in some countries are blacke, are in other places white: and yet are
22
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
both these and they men.. My intent is onely to proove that this
beast may be a tigre, or of the kinde of tigres, although it bee not of
such lightnesse and swiftnesse, as are they whereof Plinie and other
authors speake, describing it to bee one of the swiftest beasts of the land,
and that the river of Tygris, for the swift course thereof, was called by
that name. The first Spaniards, which saw this tygre in the Firme
Land, did so name it. Of the kind of these was that which Don Diego
Columbo, the admiral, sent your majestie out of New Spaine to
Toledo. Their heads are like to the heads of lions, or lionesses, but
greater: the rest of their bodies and their legs are full of black spots,
one neere unto another, and divided with a circumference, or fringe of
red colour, shewing (as it were) a faire work and correspondent picture.
About their croopes or hinder parts they have these spots biggest,
and lesse and lesse toward their bellies, legs, and heads. I have seen
some of three spans in height, and more than five in length. They
are beasts of great force, with strong legs, and well armed with nayles
and fanges which we call dog-teeth: they are so fierce that in my
judgment no reall lyon of the biggest sort is so strong or fierce."
As this author is so precise in his description, it is
somewhat strange that he should fail to notice the chief
difference between this animal and the tiger. Even the
rudest and the most heraldic drawing of a tiger must
have had stripes and not spots.
By early writers the Leopard, pard, or pardale, and
the Panther, were considered to be two dis-
Leopard.
tinct animals, though these authors made no
attempt to show in what particulars the difference existed.
Modern naturalists are of opinion that there is but one
species. Leopards may no doubt vary in size and shape
according to the locality in which they are found. In
Christian art the leopard was symbolized as the repre-
sentative of perseverance in evil. This idea is prominent
in the interpretations of the passage in Jeremiah, "Can
the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?'
It may be that Shakspeare had this verse in mind when
he wrote "Lions make leopards tame," "Yea, but not
change their spots." (Richard II., i. 1, 175.)
The conventional lion of heraldic artists was supposed
The Panther's Breath.
23
to exist in a chronic state of dignified rage. This con-
dition could be best depicted by the attitude known in
heraldry as rampant. In profile only could due promi-
nence be given to teeth, claws, and tail. When for the
sake of variety or economy of space the lion was repre-
sented as passant gardant, or walking, with his face
turned to the spectator, he was called a lion-leopardé, to
denote that his ferocity was partially subdued. When
rampant gardant he was a leopard-lionné. The charge of
three lions leopardé, which now appears on the escutcheon
of England, was first borne by Richard I. This nomen-
clature gave rise to some confusion, and for a time the
notion existed that leopards had a place in the English
It was not until the middle of the fifteenth cen-
tury that the animals on the royal shield were blazoned
as "lions."
arms.
The leopard, or panther, of antiquity was chiefly
remarkable for the sweetness of his breath, which was
supposed to have an attraction for other animals. Ben
Jonson has several allusious to this fancy :—
"You have a tongue steeped in honey, and a breath like a panther."
(Cynthia's Revels, v. 2.)
Other poets write:-
"The panther so,
Breathes odors pretious as the sarmaticke gums
Of Easterne groves, but the delicious sent,
Not taken in at a distance, choakes the sense
With the too muskie savour."
(GLAPTHORNE, The Hollander.)
"Your grace is bound
To hunt the spotted panther to his ruin,
Whose breath is only sweet to poison virtue."
(SHIRLEY, The Royal Master.)
Sir William Segar (Harleian MS. 6085) tells us :—
"The panther is admired of all other beasts for the beauty of
his skyn, being spotted with variable colours, and beloved and followed
24
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
of them for the sweetness of his breath, that streameth forth of his
nostrils and ears like smoke, which our paynters mistaking, corruptly
doe make fire."
By painters this author probably meant heraldic artists.
The correct blazonry of a panther has flames issuing from
the mouth and ears. When thus depicted it is termed
"incensed." The looks of this animal were supposed to
have a most baneful influence.
"The panther, knowing that his spotted hyde
Doth please all beasts, but that his looks them fray,
Within a bush his dreadful head doth hide,
To let them gaze while he on them may prey."
(SPENSER, Sonnet 53.)
Mr. Elvin, in Anecdotes of Heraldry, 1864 (p. 59), tells
the following story:-
"In the early part of the reign of Henry VIII. a leopard, which
had been presented to Sir John Giffard of Chillington, escaped from
her cage, and was pursued by the knight, bow in hand, accompanied
by his son. Having hurried to the top of a steep ascent, nearly a mile
from his house, Sir John overtook the beast as it was about to spring
upon a woman with an infant; and as, in his still breathless state, he
was preparing to shoot at it, his son, fearing his haste might weaken
the force of the shot, called out, 'Preigne haleine, tire fort.' Sir John
paused, took breath, drew his bow strongly with a sure aim, killed the
leopard, and saved the woman. To this day the Giffards of Chillington
bear as their crest a leopard's head and an archer with bended bow,
whilst the words' Preigne haleine, tire fort,' form the family motto."
Sir John Mandeville, in his Travels, written about the
year 1350, mentions the small hunting leopard, or cheetah,
employed in Cyprus :
"In Cipre men hunten with papyonns, that ben lyche lepardes,
and thei taken wylde bestes right welle, and thei ben somdelle more
then lyouns; and thei taken more scharpely the bestes and more
delyverly than don houndes." (Page 29.)
The Puma was considered by the early colonists of
the New World to be merely a degenerate
variety of the lion, and was spoken of by
Puma.
them under that name.
The Ounce.
25
The puma is especially to be
met with in the more tropical regions of America, though
its range extends over the whole continent.
The Ounce, a native of some parts of Asia, according
to modern authorities, is mentioned as an Ounce.
inhabitant of Brazil by a Portuguese who
had long lived there. With that confusion of pronouns
which characterizes writers of the Elizabethan period, he
says:-
"There are many ounces, some blacke, some grey, some speckled.
It is a very cruell beast, and fierce. They assault men exceedingly,
that even on the trees they cannot escape them, especially if they be
bigge. When they are flesht there is none that dare abide them,
especially by night. They kill many beasts at once, they spoile a
whole hen-house, or a heard of swine; and to open a man, or whatsoever
beast, it sufficeth to hit him with one of his clawes. . The Indians
use the heads for trumpets, and the Portugall women use the skinnes
for rugs or coverlets." (Purchas, vol. i. p. 1301.)
The early explorers seem to have been somewhat puzzled
by the different varieties of the leopard tribe, and this
much-dreaded animal may have been the jaguar or puma.
Du Bartas, in his poem on the Creation, alludes to-
"The cat-fac'd ounce, that doth me much dismay,
With grumbling horror threatens my decay."
(Divine Weekes and Workes, 6th day, p. 50.)
Shakspeare has but one reference to this animal:-
"Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair."
(Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 2, 30.)
Topsell says that he can follow no better author in
the description of this animal than Dr. Caius, who
evidently wrote from personal observation :-
“The ounce is a most cruel beast, of the quantity of a village or
mastiffe dog, having his face and ears like to a lyons, his body, taile,
26
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
feet, and nails like a cat, of a very terrible aspect, his teeth so strong
and sharpe that he can cut wood in sunder with them."
After a long description of the appearance of the
ounce, and the exact place and number of most of his
spots, the doctor proceeds:
"It liveth on flesh, and the female is more cruell then the male,
though lesser, and one of either sex was brought out of Mauritania into
England in a ship, for they are bred in Libia. When they are angry
they utter a voice like an angry dog, but they double the arr twice,
and also bigger then any dogs, proceeding out of a large breast and wide
arteries, much like to the howling of a great mastive, that is shut up
in a close roome alone against his will. Some say that it is longer then
a dog, but it did not so appeare in England, for we had many mastive
dogs as long as it, but yet was it every way greater then any other
kind of dogs." (Historie of Four-Footed Beasts, 1607, p. 570.)
The Wild Cat is the true English cat. It was common
in this country in the Middle Ages. Its fur
Cat.
was much used as a trimming for dresses
and other articles of clothing. Like the marten it was
frequently hunted for the sake of its skin, and so long
ago as the time of Richard II. an abbot of Peterborough
obtained a charter granting him permission to hunt cats.
It has now become entirely extinct in England, though
in the wilder parts of Scotland it is not uncommon.
The domestic "harmless necessary cat" has no con-
nexion with the above, and was introduced to us from
the East in early times. Some varieties may have been
brought over by the Crusaders, but the original home of
the species seems to have been Persia. In Wales the
cat was held in great estimation. It was enacted by
Howel Dha," the Good," that the price of a kitten before
it could see was to be a penny; if it caught a mouse its
value was raised to twopence, and afterwards to fourpence.
If any one stole or killed a cat that guarded the prince's
granary, the offender was compelled either to forfeit a
ewe, or as much wheat as would cover the cat when
suspended by its tail.
Dangerous Friends.
27
Topsell (p. 106) writes of the cat with the interest of
intimate personal acquaintance:-
"It is needlesse to spend any time about her loving nature to man,
how she flattereth by rubbing her skinne against ones legges, how she
whurleth with her voyce, having as many tunes as turnes; for she
hath one voice to beg and to complain, another to testifie her delight
and pleasure, another among hir own kind by flattring, by hissing,
by spitting, insomuch as some have thought that they have a peculiar
intelligible language among themselves."
Topsell also notices the various peculiarities of the
cat, her dislike to water, her fondness for dwellings
rather than persons:
"Although their maisters forsake their houses yet will not these
beastes beare them company, and being carried forth in close baskets
or sackes, they will yet returne againe or loose themselves. As this
beaste has beene familiarly nourished of many, so have they payed deare
for their love, being requited with the losse of their health, and some-
times of their life for their friendship; and worthily, they who love
beasts in a high measure, have so much the lesse charity unto man.”
This last remark is not without truth; but the author is
somewhat vague as to the injuries inflicted by the cat on
its benefactor.
It has been said that the cat owed the consecration
and divine honours it received among the Egyptians to
a peculiar physical attribute, the power of contracting
and dilating the pupil of the eye, exhibiting so mys-
terious a representation of the moon's changes, as to give
rise to the notion that the animal was in some degree
under the influence of that luminary, and therefore to be
propitiated.
The absence of any mention of the cat in the Bible,
except in the Apocrypha, is probably owing to the venera-
tion of this animal by the Egyptians. The Jews would
naturally have unpleasant associations both with dogs
and cats, as animals that they had seen idolized during
their captivity in the land of Pharaoh. But fondness for
animals of any kind seems to have been entirely wanting
28
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
among the Jews. In every early history, except the
Bible, we meet with some allusion to a favourite horse,
or dog, or tame gazelle. No wonder Jessica, freed from
the trammels of her Jewish home, could give a turquoise
ring for a monkey!
Another explanation as to the singular scarcity of
allusions to animal life in the Bible may be suggested.
The Jews appear to have been quite indifferent to the
beauties of nature. The only traces of admiration of
the external world are found in the writings of Job and
Solomon. Job was not of Hebrew birth, and Solomon
had by his large knowledge gained a wider sympathy
with nature than his compatriots. It is almost incredible
that a nation should wander for forty years through lands
rich enough to furnish pasture for vast flocks and herds,
materials for clothing, ornament, and manufactures, and
that the chronicle of their Exodus should be absolutely
deficient in a single reference to the rich animal life.
around them. Many species of birds and animals are
indeed mentioned, but only to be avoided as unclean.
From the list of creatures that might not be used as food,
we gather the only information from a Jewish source
respecting the fauna of Arabia or Palestine.
A similar disregard of natural beauty exists in the
Mohammedan scriptures. The poetry of nature animates
every other mythology. Love of beauty led the Greeks
to personify the waterfall and the rainbow, to find dryads
in trees, nereids in running brooks, altars in stones, and
gods in everything. The Grecian deities were sur-
rounded in the imagination of their worshippers with
all that was strong or lovely in nature. Zeus had his
princely eagle; Phoebus, his dappled coursers; ox-eyed
Hera, her peacock train; whilst Aphrodite was born of
the ocean froth, and Pan sat hidden in the tangled
thickets. Even in the religion of the frozen North we
find a loving sympathy with external nature. The sacred
Whittington's Cat.
29
ash-tree that spread its roots to encircle the world; the
frisking squirrel; the croaking raven, whispering tidings
into Odin's ear; the ferocious wolf; even the little
mistletoe that was "too young to swear,"—all were woven
into the Scandinavian mythology, and added a reality
and beauty to the Norse belief.
The pertinacity of the cat in contending fiercely
against all efforts to deprive it of liberty caused this
animal to be chosen by the Dutch as their ensign. It
was an appropriate emblem for a nation that so long and
so valiantly struggled for independence.
The cat plays a conspicuous part in the story of
Dick Whittington. Modern folk-lore Dryasdusts would
have us believe that the ship which contained the mer-
chandise of the young City apprentice was called The
Cat, and that thence arose the legend. Something of this
sceptical spirit is to be found in the writings of Shak-
speare's time: “When the famous fable of Whittington
and his Puss shall be forgotten." (Eastward Hoe, v. 1.)
Both Shakspeare and Lyly use the proverbial com-
parison, "As melancholy as a cat," though it does not
seem a specially appropriate simile.
In Jacob and Esau, an interlude, 1568, we find the
nickname Puss. Mido exclaims-
"But Esau beguil'd me, I shrew him for that,
And left not so much as a lick for Puss our cat."
This name occurs again in Middleton:
"I shall be moused by puss-cats, but I had rather die a dog's
death: they have nine lives apiece, like a woman, and they will make
it up ten lives, if they and I fall a scratching." (Blurt, Master
Constable, iv. 2.)
Tib, from the French Thibert, and Gib from Gilbert, the
Northern name for a male cat, were as usual names for
the cat, as Tom is in our own time.
Though the strange cures and remedies attributed by
30
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
B
medieval physicians to various animals have no rightful
place in natural history, yet the account of the medicinal
virtues of the cat, as recorded by Topsell, is too grotesque
to be omitted. He writes-
"For the pain and blindness in the eye, by reason of any skins,
webs, or nails, this is an approved medicine: take the head of a black
cat, which hath not a spot of another colour in it, and burn it to
powder in an earthen pot, leaded or glazed within; then take this
powder and, through a quill, blow it thrice a day into thy eye; and if
in the night any heat do thereby annoy thee, take two leaves of an
oke, wet in cold water, and bind them to the eye, and so shall all pain
flie away, and blindness depart, although it hath oppressed thee a
whole year: and this medicine is approved by many physicians both
elder and later." (Page 83.)
The Lynx has a wide range. It is met with in Asia,
Africa, and America. The European lynx is
Lynx. an animal of Northern origin. It is mentioned
under the name of lyserne, by Doctor Giles Fletcher, in
his account of Russia in 1588 (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 417).
In a description of the device of a pageant borne before
Woolstone Dixi, Lord Mayor of London, 1585, a speech
is given that is "spoken by him that rid on a luzarne,
before the pageant, apparelled like a More.
"From where the sun dooth settle in his wayn
And yoakes his horses to his fiery carte,
And in his way gives life to Ceres corne,
Even from the parching zone, behold, I come,
A straunger, straungely mounted, as you see,
Seated upon a lusty luzern's back;
And offer to your honour, good my lord,
This emblem thus in showe significant.'
(Harleian Miscellany, vol. x. p. 351.)
The lynx is here called a tropical animal. The name
luzarne, or lozarde, is derived by Minsheu from the
French "loup cervier." Olaus Magnus (History of
Scandinavia, p. 182) has a short account of the lynx :-
"In the northern woods the lynxes are not so commonly bred as
A Lynx in the Tower.
31
wolves, though they are as greedy as these. The nature of the lynx
is never to look back, but he always runs and leaps forward. The
meat he commonly or chiefly eats is wild cats; and as he most
willingly feeds on them, so he always lyes in wait about their holes
to catch them. The skins of them, as they are framed with light down,
and rare spots, are sold very dear, especially such as are taken in the
most sharp winter, for then their colour and virtue is best, but in
summer they are far worse."
The fur of this animal was held in high estimation in
England. In the inventory of the goods of the Duke of
Richmond, 1527, occurs mention of a gown of crimson
damask, furred with luzardes.
The lynx was credited by ancient writers with such
wonderful acuteness of vision that it could see through a
stone wall. If, as Magnus asserts, its principal diet was
wild cats, the powers of sight and agility possessed by
the lynx must have been fully exercised.
Topsell (p. 490) quotes from Dr. Caius a description
of an individual of this species, which, at the time the
latter wrote (1550), was in the Tower collection.
•
"In the top of his eares there are placed some blacke haires, as it
were a foretop or tuft. The colour of this beast in the outmost parts
is red, in the innermost white, but sprinkled here with blacke spots
and almost by rowes, and there with spots somewhat lighter then the
other, all his haire being for the most part white all over all his
body except the aforesaid spottes, as it is in certaine skinnes of young
conies. And on both the sides of his nose there are foure spots set in
order. He doth climbe wonderfully, so that what he may be able to
do in that thinge, either in his cave or den, nature her selfe doth teach:
he is a quicke-mooving creature, and cannot stand still in a place, so
that except, by meer chance, the voice of a woodpecker in the basket
of a certaine country man, who came then onely to see the lyone, had
made him quiet and attentive, there had bene no hope of the portraiting
out the picture of his body. He being present he was most quyet :
but he going away, hee would never stande still: wherefore I was
constrained to send my man after the countrey man to buy the birde,
which beeing present, he stood very still until the busines was dis-
patched and the worke absolutely performed. . . . Our country men
call it luzarne, it is doubtfull whether we should call it leunce,
32
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
or lynx, in the affinity of the words. His skinne is used by noble-
men, and is sold for a great price. He is angry at none but them
which offer him injury. His voice is like a cat's, when he would snatch
away the food from his fellow. He is loving and gentle unto his
keeper, and not cruell unto any man.”
Civet.
The Civet was found in Africa and India. By some
writers it was called the hyæna, by others the
musk cat. The only resemblance between
the civet and a cat lies in the shape of the ears and some
strong whisker-like hairs. A Frenchman, who wrote a
Commentary on Du Bartas (p. 264), tells us that-
“Belon, in the second booke of his singularities, the twentieth
chapter, holdeth that the hyena of the ancients is the civet, which
is somewhat greater then a badger, with a pointed muzzell, having
mustachies, her eyes shining and red, her eares round, with two black
spots, her body spotted with black and white, her feete and tayle
blacke: she liveth upon flesh, and is very nimble, but that which
Pliny saith, seemeth to allude to some beast more strange and savage."
The perfume obtained from the civet was formerly
valued as a medicine, and realized a high price. It was
also an indispensable article in the toilet of a fop. Among
the other changes in Benedick's appearance, Don Pedro
notices, "A' rubs himself with civet: can you smell him
out by that?" to which Claudio adds, "That's as much
as to say,
The sweet youth's in love." (Much Ado, iii. 2, 50.)
The Ichneumon was sometimes called the Indian
mouse, or Pharaoh's rat.
Its life history is
so closely connected with that of the crocodile
Ichneumon.
Hyæna.
that nothing further need be said of it in this place.
The Hyæna was the scavenger of the East, and from
its fondness for carrion, which led it to rifle
graveyards, it was always regarded with feel-
ings of horror and disgust. There was a notion that it
could imitate the voice of a man. Lyly (Euphues, p. 110)
writes, "Hiena, when she speaketh lyke a man deviseth
most mischief."
The Hyæna's Device.
33
Sir Kenelm Digby, who is somewhat of a Darwinian
in his suggestions as to the mode in which various crea-
tures may have acquired their different ways of escaping
capture and obtaining food, thus accounts for the hyæna's
mode of proceeding :-
:
"That the jaccatray, or hyæna, when he is hungry, should have
his fantasy call out from his memory the images of those beasts
which use to serve him in that occasion, is the ordinary course of
nature and that together with those images, there should like wise
come along the actions and soundes which used to accompany them,
and are lodged together with them in the memory, is also naturall;
then, as little strange it is, that by his owne voice he should imitate
those soundes, which at that time do so powerfully possesse his ima-
gination and having a great docility in those organes which forme
the voice, like a parrat, he representeth them so lively, that the
deceived beasts flock to him, and so are caught by him: which at the
first happeneth by chance, but afterwardes by memory." (A Treatise
of Bodies, ed. 1644, p. 314.)
Hence it would follow that the hyæna which had the best
memory, and could imitate the largest number of beasts,
would have the greatest chance of a dinner.
Topsell (p. 434) has, as usual, something marvellous
to add as to the structure of this animal :-
"Their back bone stretcheth it selfe out to the head, so as the
necke cannot bend except the whole body be turned about, and there-
fore whensoever he hath occasion to wry his necke, he must supply
that qualitie by removing of his whole bodie."
Wolf.
Mr. Harting, in his Extinct British Animals, 1880, has
completely refuted the popular notion that
Wolves were exterminated in England and
Wales in consequence of the tribute imposed upon the
latter country by King Edgar in the year 965, and has
traced the history of the wolf in Great Britain. From his
account, which is derived both from historical evidence
and from tradition, we find that no wolf is reported to have
been seen in England later than the reign of Henry VII.
In Scotland wolves were plentiful till the beginning of
D
34
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
the seventeenth century, and stray specimens were killed in
that country at a still more recent date. In Ireland these
animals were so numerous, that as late as Cromwell's time
a law was passed prohibiting the exportation of wolf-dogs.
Of all evils that from time to time have sprung from
purely imaginary sources, none was more terrible in its
results than the strange hallucination known as lycan-
thropy (from lycos, a wolf, and anthropos, a man), or
wolf-madness. Men and women believed that by super-
natural agency they could transform themselves for a
certain period into wolves. Human beings, when under
this delusion, roamed through forests and desert places
actuated by the same passions as the wild beasts whose
name they bore. They howled, walked on all fours, tore
up graves in search of prey, attacked unarmed passengers,
devoured children, and committed the wildest excesses.
Mr. Baring-Gould, in his Book of Were-Wolves, 1865, has
traced this frightful superstition back to the very earliest
times. The origin of the were-wolf myth may be found
in the dread of wolves experienced by the early pastoral
inhabitants of various countries, and in the natural ten-
dency of the human mind to attribute every physical
evil to superhuman power. The hurricane, the water-
spout, the volcano, were universally supposed to be
animated by some demon; consequently, we find were-
wolf legends in countries as far asunder as Norway and
India, and they may be discovered in almost every
country whose forests were extensive enough to harbour
wolves in formidable numbers. The myth varies, indeed,
among different nations according to the particular
animal by which the flocks were molested. That it is
seldom alluded to in English folk-lore is due to the early
destruction of wolves, and the consequent cessation of
dread on their account. The more harmless cat and dog
are substituted for the wolf in the various witchcraft
stories.
.
Were-Wolves.
35
In the Middle Ages lycanthropy seems to have spread
like an epidemic. In the year 1600 the inhabitants of
the Jura were attacked by this disease, and numbers
of men and women formed themselves into packs and
hunted through the country, spreading terror and de-
struction. This superstition lingers to-day among the
ignorant peasantry in Southern France, where the "loup
garou" is still an object of intense alarm to the belated
traveller. A modified form of this disease still exists as
hydrophobia.
A curious account is given of the midnight meetings
and orgies of were-wolves by the Norwegian chronicler,
Olaus Magnus:-
"In the feasts of Christ's nativity, in the night, at a certain place
that they are resolved upon amongst themselves, there is gathered
together such a huge multitude of wolves changed from men that dwell
in divers places, which afterwards the same night doth so rage with
wonderful fiercenesse, both against mankind and other creatures that
are not fierce by nature, that the inhabitants of that country suffer
more hurt from them than ever they do from true natural wolves. . . .
They go into beer-cellars, and there they drink out some tuns of beer
or mede, and they heap all the empty vessels one upon another in the
midst of the cellar, and so leave them: wherein they differ from natural
and true wolves. And it is constantly affirmed that amongst that
multitude there are the great men and chiefest nobility of the land.
The reason of this metamorphosis, that is exceeding contrary to nature,
is given by one skilled in this witchcraft, by drinking to one in a cup
of ale, and by mumbling certain words at the same time, so that he
who is to be admitted into that unlawful society do accept it. . Then,
when he pleaseth, he may change his human form into the form of a
wolf entirely. Again, he can alter the form he had before at his plea-
sure. It is fresh in memory how the Duke of Prussia, giving small
credit to such a witchcraft, compelled one who was cunning in this
sorcery, whom he held in chains, to change himself into a wolf, and
he did so.
Yet, that he might not go unpunished for his idolatry, he
afterwards caused him to be burnt." (History of Scandinavia, p. 193.)
The Norwegian word "berserker," meaning a man
possessed of superhuman powers and subject to accesses
36
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
of diabolical fury, was originally applied to doughty
champions who went about wrapped in bear-skins, or who
wore habits made of bear-skin over their armour. These
warriors, writes Mr. Baring-Gould (p. 45), were often
dressed in wolf-skins, and it was an easy transition to
imagine these unscrupulous destroyers of the public
peace as possessing the strength as well as the ferocity
of the animals whose skins they wore. Among the
Anglo-Saxons an outlaw was said to have the head of a
wolf, and the legal form of sentence against the offender
was that "he shall be driven away as a wolf and chased so
far as men chase wolves farthest.'
""
Reginald Scot, in his work on witchcraft, 1584,
relates some stories as to the power of men to change
themselves into wolves and other animals, but treats
them with great ridicule. He concludes his chapter on
these transformations with the remark-
"But I have put twenty of these witchmongers to silence with
this one question, to wit, whether a witch that can turn a woman into
a cat, etc., can also turn a cat into a woman?" (Discovery of Witch-
craft, ed. 1654, p. 70.)
There are numerous stories of unfortunate men and
women being hanged or burnt for ravages imagined to be
committed by them in their lupine shape. In France
and Italy these executions occurred even so late as the
year 1684.
Trials of animals for crimes and misdemeanors
prompted by simple natural depravity were also frequent
in Europe in the Middle Ages. According to a writer in
Notes and Queries (3rd series, vol. v. p. 218), a sow, in
1403, killed and devoured a child at Meulan. All the
forms of law were carried out, and the bill of costs was
duly chronicled. A treatise was published so late as
1668, by Gaspard Bailly, a lawyer at Chambery, on legal
proceedings against animals, with forms of indictments
and modes of pleading. Nothing corresponding to this
Trials of Animals.
37
occurs in English tradition, but, in one sense, animals
here were proceeded against in cases of their killing,
accidentally or otherwise, a human being. For instance,
if a horse should strike his keeper, and so kill him, the
horse was to be a deodand. He was to be sold, and his
price given to the poor in expiation of the calamity and
for the appeasing of the Divine wrath. It is curious to
note that these statutes have only been repealed in the
present century.
These trials probably had their origin in the Levitical
law, as propounded in the twenty-first chapter of Exodus.
Here we find that the punishment of the owner of an ox
that had gored a man or a woman varied according to the
rank of the individual, but in every case the ox was to be
put to death by the cruel process of stoning, and its flesh
was prohibited as food.
Topsell tells how some lions, which had grown so bold
that they would attack men, were turned into scarecrows
as a warning to their fellows:
“Polybius affirmeth that he saw them besiege and compasse about
many citties of Affricke, and therefore the people tooke and hanged
them up upon crosses and gallowses by the high waies to the terror of
others." (Page 464.)
The following passage in The Merchant of Venice
(iv. 1) suggests the inquiry whether Shakspeare wittingly
or by error of memory applied this punishment to man-
eating wolves:—
"Gratiano. O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!
And for thy life let justice be accus'd.
Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith,
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit
Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam,
Infus'd itself in thee; for thy desires
Are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous."
38
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Shakspeare may have had the passage from his great
authority, Holinshed, in his mind when he wrote thus:-
"For, said they [Plato and others] (of whom Pythagoras also
had, and taught this errour), if the soule apperteined at the first
to a king, and he in this estate did not leade his life worthie his
calling, it should, after his decease, be shut up in the bodie of a slave,
begger, cocke, owle, dog, ape, horsse, asse, worme, or monster, there to
remaine as in a place of purgation and punishment, for a certeine period
of time. Beside this, it should peradventure susteine often translation
from one bodie to another, according to the quantitie and qualitie of
his dooings here on earth, till it should finallie be purified and restored
againe to an other humane bodie." (Chronicles, vol. i. p. 35.)
James Howell, in his Familiar Letters, 1624 (p. 169,
ed. 1754), tells the following anecdote of a Scotch piper
and wolves:
"A pleasant tale I heard Sir Thomas Fairfax relate of a soldier in
Ireland, who having got his passport to go for England, as he passed
through the wood with his knapsack upon his back, being weary, he
sat down under a tree, where he opened his knapsack, and fell to some
victuals he had; but on a sudden he was surprized with two or
three wolves, who coming towards him, he threw them scraps of bread
and cheese, till all was gone; then the wolves making a nearer approach
to him he knew not what shift to make, but by taking a pair of bag-
pipes which he had, and as soone as he began to play upon them, the
wolves ran all away as if they had been scared out of their wits:
whereupon the soldier said, A pox take you all, if I had known you
had loved music so well, you should have had it before dinner."
The habit of the wolf of howling by moonlight is
alluded to by Shakspeare, ""Tis like the howling of Irish
wolves against the moon" (As You Like It, v. 2, 118),
and by Lyly, "I am none of those wolves that barke most
when thou [the moon] shinest brightest" (Endimion).
The Jackal is not often mentioned in old writings.
Richard Jobson, in some observations touching
the river Gambia (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1575),
describes this animal's mode of hunting:
Jackal.
66
They have many lions, hardly seene by day, easily knowne by
night, by reason of his ushers or fore-runners the jackall, sometimes
The Lion's Provider.
39
two or three, which is a little blacke shag-haired beast, of the bignesse
of a small spaniell; which when evening comes hunts for his prey, and
comming on the foote, followes the scent with open crie: to which the
lion as chiefe hunt, gives diligent eare, following for his advantage.
If the jackall set up his chase before the lion comes in, he howles out
maynly, and then the lion seiseth on it, making a grumbling noyse,
whiles his servant stands by barking (as we not onely heard of the
countrey people, but might heare our selves riding at anchor by night
in our passing up the river). When the lion hath done, this attendant
feeds on the relikes."
40
A
.
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Dog.
CHAPTER III.
Sporting dogs he
affection; but "to
WHILE Shakspeare has admiration to bestow on the
"awless lion" and the "princely eagle," he has in no
one instance mentioned with appreciation the
moral qualities of the dog.
certainly describes with spirit, if not
snarl, and bite, and play the dog," appears to him the
normal condition of the domestic animal. The poet must
have been singularly unfortunate in his experience of the
canine race, for his allusions are almost all of an un-
favourable nature. Sir Henry Holland, in his Recollections
of Past Life (p. 254), tells us that Lord Nugent, the
greatest Shakspearian scholar of his day, declared that
no passage was to be found in Shakspeare, "commend-
ing, directly or indirectly, the moral qualities of the dog."
A bet of a guinea was made, which Sir Henry, after a
year's search, paid. This was before the publication of
Mrs. Cowden Clarke's concordance. The only passage
which could have had a chance of winning the wager is
the speech of Timon:-
"Tim. Who, without those means thou talk'st of, didst thou ever
know beloved?
Apem. Myself.
Tim. I understand thee; thou hadst some means to keep a dog."
(Timon of Athens, iv. 3, 113.)
Are Dogs snobbish?
Lear asks of Gloucester—
"Lear. Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar?
Glou. Ay, sir.
41
Lear. And the creature run from the cur? There thou might'st
behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office.”
(King Lear, iv. 6, 158.)
Professor Huxley, sad to say, in his recent work on
Hume, endorses Shakspeare's opinion as to the total
depravity of dog nature. He writes:-
"One of the most curious peculiarities of the dog mind is its
inherent snobbishness, shown by the regard paid to external respecta-
bility. The dog who barks furiously at a beggar will let a well-dressed
man pass him without opposition. Has he not then a 'generic idea'
of rags and dirt associated with the idea of aversion, and that of sleek
broadcloth associated with the idea of liking?" (Hume, 1879, p. 106.)
May not this distinction of persons be due to snobbish-
ness on the part of the owners of dogs, to education,
rather than to any natural tendency? A lady, who was
in the habit of giving food to all who asked, saw her dog
go to the open bread-pan, take out half a loaf, and give it
to a beggar. What had become of this dog's "inherent
snobbishness"?
The beautiful description of Argus in the Iliad, so
pathetic in its simplicity, shows that appreciation of the
good qualities of the dog is not entirely of modern origin.
Chester, a writer contemporary with Shakspeare, pays
the following tribute to the attachment of the animal to
its master:—
"The dogge, a naturall, kind, and loving thing,
As witnesseth our histories of old:
Their master dead, the poore foole with lamenting
Doth kill himself before accounted bold:
And would defend his maister if he might,
When cruelly his foe begins to fight."
(Love's Martyr, ed. New Shak. Soc.,
1878, p. 110.)
Doubtless some of the evil report attaching to dogs
42
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
has descended to them in consequence of certain passages
in the Bible. In the Old Testament this animal is
generally spoken of as being, what he still is in Oriental
countries, a shy, greedy, mean-spirited creature, uncared
for, and left to dwell among the refuse of the city. Had
he been in any way the companion of man, the dog must
have been more favourably mentioned.
Ben Jonson is not much more complimentary to the
dog than Shakspeare. In one play he writes:-
“O, 'tis an open-throated, black-mouthed cur,
That bites at all, but eats on those that feed him;
A slave, that to your face will, serpent-like,
Creep on the ground, as he would eat the dust,
And to your back will turn the tail, and sting
More deadly than a scorpion.”
(Every Man out of his Humour, i. 1.)
But in another play he makes some amends by reporting
how, when Sabinus, by order of the tyrant, Sejanus, was
thrown into the river Tiber,-
His faithful dog, upbraiding all us Romans,
Never forsook the corpse, but seeing it thrown
Into the stream, leaped in, and drowned with it."
(Sejanus, iv. 5.)
The writer Churchyard thus classifies the dog :-
"A Turk, a Jew, a Pagan, and a dog."
Sir John Davies, in an epigram, ridicules the preva-
lent fancy for making unmeaning comparisons between
unpopular individuals and dogs, and shows a truer appre-
ciation of the "friend of man" than his contemporaries.
"Thou doggèd Cineas, hated like a dog,
For still thou grumblest like a mastiff dog,
Compar❜st thyself to nothing but a dog :
Thou say'st thou art as weary as a dog,
As angry, sick, and hungry as a dog,
As dull, and melancholy as a dog,
Defence of Dogs.
As lazy, sleepy, and as idle as a dog;
But why dost thou compare thee to a dog,
In that for which all men despise a dog?
I will compare thee better to a dog:
Thou art as fair and comely as a dog,
Thou art as true and honest as a dog,
Thou art as kind and liberal as a dog,
Thou art as wise and valiant as a dog."
(Marlowe's Works, ed. Cunningham, p. 265.)
43
In the play by Thomas Nash, Summer's Last Will and
Testament, printed in the year 1600, Orion, the hunter,
thus answers a tirade of Autumn against his hounds:
"A tedious discourse built on no ground,
A silly fancy, Autumn, hast thou told,
Which no philosophy doth warrantise,
No old-received poetry confirms.
I will not grace thee by refuting thee;
Yet, in a jest, since thou rail'st so 'gainst dogs,
I'll speak a word or two in their defence.
That creature's best that comes most near to men;
That dogs of all come nearest, thus I
prove:
First, they excel us in all outward sense,
Which no one of experience will deny :
They hear, they smell, they see better than we.
To come to speech, they have it questionless,
Although we understand them not so well,
They bark as good old Saxon as may be,
And that in more variety than we.
For they have one voice when they are in chase:
Another when they wrangle for their meat:
Another when we beat them out of doors."
(Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, vol. 8.)
Dogs seem to have been sufficiently plentiful in
number and variety in England at this period. Fynes
Morrison, in his Itinerary, writing about 1591, tells us:
“England hath much more dogges, as well for the severall kinds as
the number of each kind, then any other territorie of like compasse in
the world, not onely little dogges for beauty, but hunting and water-
dogges, whereof the bloudhounds and some other have admirable
qualities." (Ed. 1617, p. 148.)
44
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
L
Amoretto, in the play The Return from Parnassus, enu-
merates some of the different varieties:-
"He hath your greyhound, your mungrell, your mastiff, your
leurier, your spaniell, your kennets, terriers, butchers dogges, bloud-
houndes, dunghill-dogges, trindle tailes, and prick-eard curres.'
""
Orion concludes his defence of dogs by the following list
of their acquirements :-
"Yea, there be of them, as there be of men,
Of every occupation more or less:
Some carriers, and they fetch; some watermen,
And they will dive and swim when you do bid them;
Some butchers, and they worry sheep by night;
Some cooks, and they do nothing but turn spits.
Cynics they are, for they will snarl and bite;
Right courtiers to flatter and to fawn;
Valiant to set upon their enemies;
Most faithful and most constant to their friends."
Shakspeare was perhaps indebted to this passage.
“First Murderer. We are men, my liege.
Macbeth. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men:
As hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves, are clept
All by the name of dogs: the valued file
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous nature
Hath in him clos'd; whereby he does receive
Particular addition, from the bill
That writes them all alike and so of men."
(Macbeth, iii. 1, 91.)
Dr. John Kaye, or Caius, as he called himself, was
physician to three sovereigns of England, Edward VI.,
Mary, and Elizabeth. Amongst other works, Dr. Caius
wrote, about the year 1550, a short treatise in Latin on
English dogs, which was translated into English by
Abraham Fleming in 1576. This hitherto scarce work
has recently been reprinted, and published at a moderate
The Bloodhound.
45
price. Mr. Jesse, in his History of the British Dog, has
drawn largely upon the pages of this pamphlet, which is
indeed the chief authority on the subject.
The translator, in his preface, informs his readers that
this little treatise was written by Dr. Caius at the request
of Conrad Gesner, a Swiss naturalist, one of the most
learned men of his time.
The most formidable of our English dogs was the
Bloodhound. This dog was sometimes called
Bloodhound.
limier, or limehound, from the leash, lyme,
or line, by which he was held while tracking the deer.
He was employed to find the stag, but did not as a rule
run with the pack. His superior sense of smell made
him the most valuable addition to a hunting establish-
ment. Dr. Caius distinguishes between the bloodhound
and the limier. According to him the limier was a
hound remarkable for quick running as well as for his
scent, in size between a harrier and a greyhound. Other
names for the bloodhound were slough, sleuth, slow, or
slug hound; he was not unfrequently employed for
tracing thieves and cattle-stealers through the mosses
and bogs, impassable save to those intimately acquainted
with them. Mr. Jesse quotes from Nicolson and Burn's
History of the Antiquities of Westmoreland and Cumberland,
published 1777, a warrant, dated September, 1616, from
Sir Wilfride Lawson and Sir William Hutton, two of his
Majesty's commissioners for the government of the middle
shires of Great Britain, to the garrison of Carlisle,
ordering that in consequence of the numerous robberies
slough dogs should be provided, and kept at the charge
of the inhabitants, at nine parishes in the neighbourhood
of the Marches. A more formidable ally could scarcely
be given to a pursuer.
Shakspeare has only one allusion to this variety by
name: "Ay, come, you starved blood-hound" (2 Henry
IV., v. 4, 31). Ben Jonson writes, "A good bloodhound,
46
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
""
a close-mouthed dog, he followeth the scent well
(Every Man out of his Humour, iv. 4). And again, “No,
an I had, all the lime hounds o' the city should have
drawn after you by the scent rather" (Bartholomew
Fair, i. 1).
Mr. Low, in his work The Domesticated Animals of
Great Britain, 1846 (p. 739), is of opinion that the
hounds described by Theseus, in Midsummer Night's
Dream, were talbots. The talbot, he tells us, was a
breed of bloodhound, differing in some slight peculiarities
from the ordinary type. Unfortunately the author gives
no authorities for his information.
"The hounds employed in England for the chase of the wild deer
were generally termed raches. They likewise received the name of
talbots—a word of uncertain origin, perhaps merely the proper name
of some person, or of some place where a good breed was reared.
They were a race of large dogs, nearly of the size of mastiffs, and with
something of the same aspect. They had the muzzle broad, the
upper lip hanging over the lower, the ears long and pendulous, the
chest wide, with a kind of dewlap, and the limbs muscular and
crooked. Their voice was deep and sonorous, and they were endowed
with an exquisite sense of smell. They were far inferior in speed to
the modern hunting dogs, but excelled them in their adherence to the
track of the game, and their pertinacity in pursuing it. At first only
a few of the more experienced hounds were let into the covert, in
order to find the game, when they manifested unrivalled sagacity and
powers of scent. Disregarding all inferior quarry, they could discri-
minate, by the smell alone, what was called the warrantable game
from the fawns which were not to be hunted, and the hinds when
out of season for the chase. The instant a dog caught the scent
he opened mouth, and was joined in chorus by his fellows. A few
lines, often quoted, of our great dramatic poet, describe to the life the
ancient stag-hounds of England :—
"My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-knee'd, and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable
Braches and Raches,
Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly,
Judge when you hear.
(Midsummer Night's Dream, iv. 1, 124.)
Topsell writes (p. 149):
47
"There are in England and Scotland two kinds of hunting dogs,
and no where else in the world. The first kind they call in Scotland
ane rache, and this is a foot-smelling creature, both of wilde beasts,
birds, and fishes also which lie hid among the rockes; the female
hereof in England is called a brache. The second kind is called in
Scotland a sluth-hound, being a little greater than a hunting hound,
and in colour for the most part browne or sandy-spotted."
In the Mirror for Magistrates, vol. ii. p. 74, ed. Hasle-
wood, 1815, we read:-
"For as the dogges pursue the seely doe,
The brache behinde, the houndes on every side,
So traste they mee among the mountaynes wide."
When told to keep
to keep silence and listen to Lady
Mortimer's Welsh song, Hotspur uncivilly replies, "I had
rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish" (1 Henry IV.,
iii. 1, 240).
66
Buckhounds and harriers were frequently called
running-hounds."
The Harrier, a very Harrier.
different animal from the small foxhound
known by that name at the present day, is described by
Caius as having "long, large, and bagging lippes, hanging
eares, reachyng downe both sydes of their chappes.
The word "heirers," or harriers, is as old as the time
of Henry V. Though used for hunting the hart as well
as the hare, harriers were distinct from "herte-hounds,"
or "greyhoundes." The fondness of James I. for hunting
may be gathered from the many allusions in the State
Papers of his reign to the various requirements for that
sport.
48
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Beagle.
The Beagle was another kind of sporting dog.
Markham speaks of the little beagle, which
may be carried in a man's glove, and of—
"the little small mitten-beagle, which may be companion for
a ladies kirtle, and in the field will run as cunningly as any hound
whatever, only their musick is very small like reeds, and their face
like their body only for exercise and not for slaughter." (Jesse, vol. ii.
p. 330.)
Much attention was paid to the cry of the pack.
Hounds were selected, not only for the more useful
qualities of scent and speed, but for the various tones of
their voice, ranging from base to treble, so as to form a
complete choir. Hippolyta replies to her lover's proposal
to hunt :-
"I was with Hercules and Cadmus one,
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the boar
With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear
Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder."
(Midsummer Night's Dream, iv. 1, 117.)
Roderigo complains—
"I do follow here in the chase, not like a hound that hunts,
But one that fills up the cry."
(Othello, ii. 3, 369.)
On one occasion the cry of the pack would seem to
have constituted the chief part of the entertainment.
Sir John Savile gives an account of festivities on the
occasion of the arrival of James I. at London. After
the customary addresses and congratulations had been
graciously received and acknowledged, his loyal subjects
proceeded to indulge their sovereign after a somewhat
cockney fashion, with his favourite recreation of hunting.
"From Stamford Hill to London was a train made with a tame
deer, with such turnings and doubles that the hounds could not take
"Full of Vent."
49
it faster than his majesty proceeded; yet still by the industry of the
huntsman and the subtilty of him that made the train in a full
mouthed cry all the way, it was never further distant that one close
from the highway whereby his highness rode, and for the most part
directly against his majesty ; who, together with the whole company,
had the lee wind from the hounds; to the end they might the better
receive and judge of the uniformity of the cry." (Arber's English
Garner, 1882, vol. v. p. 631.)
Commentators have been sorely puzzled by an ex-
pression that occurs in Coriolanus, iv. 5. The servants
of Aufidius are discussing the news, just brought by one
of their fellows, of the intention of their master and
Coriolanus to march against Rome: "1st Servant. Let
me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does
night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent."
The phrase "full of vent" is explained by the writer
of an article on Shakespeare's Knowledge of Field Sports,
contributed to the Edinburgh Review, October, 1872, to be
a technical term in hunting, to express the scenting of
the game by the hounds employed in the chase. War
is thus personified as a trained hound, "keenly excited,
full of pluck and courage, of throbbing energy and im-
petuous desire, in a word, full of all the kindling stir and
commotion of anticipated conflict.”
Terrier.
Terriers, which Dr. Caius rather curiously classes.
with hounds, were employed in hunting "the
foxe, and the badger or greye only." Ac-
cording to this author they were called-
“Terrars, because they (after the manner and custome of ferrets in
searching for connyes) creepe into the grounde and by that meanes
make afrayde, nyppe, and byte the foxe and the badger in such sort,
that eyther they teare them in peeces with theyr teeth beying in the
bosome of the earth, or else hayle and pull them perforce out of their
lurking angles, darke dongeons, and close caves, or at the least through
conceaved feare, drive them out of their hollow harbours, in so much
that they are compelled to prepare speedy flight, and being desirous
of the next (albeit not the safest) refuge, are otherwise taken and
E
50
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
intrapped with snarre and nettes layde over holes to the same purpose."
(Reprint, p. 5.)
Turbervile, in his Noble Art of Venerie, translated from
Du Fouiloux, mentions two kinds of terriers. One sort
he imagines to have come from Flanders, or the Low
Countries: "They have crooked legges and are shorte-
heared most commonly. Another sorte there is which
are shagged and streight-legged." The former variety
was probably the progenitor of the long-bodied dachshund,
or badger-hound, so popular in modern times.
Of the Gazehound, Camden writes, "That very dog
which of the old name, agasæus, we call yet
Gazehound.
at this day a gazehound, those ancient Greeks
both knew and had in great price." Caius says (Reprint,
p. 9) this variety is called a gazehound—
“because the beames of his sight are so stedfastly and unmouve-
ably fastened. These dogges are much and usually occupyed in the
northern partes of England more then in the southern parts, and in
fealdy landes rather then in bushy and wooddy places. Horsemen use
them more then footemen, to th' intent that they might provoke their
horses to a swift galloppe (wherewith they are more delighted then with
the pray it selfe).”
Mr. Low (Domesticated Animals, p. 722) says:—-
"This dog was employed in the pursuit of the stag or fallow-deer.
The great Irish wolf-dog was of this class. He was one of the tallest
dogs of Europe, measuring from three to four feet high at the shoulder.
He approached to the general conformation of the ancient deerhound,
but his muzzle was broader, his neck relatively thicker, his breast
proportionably wider, and his limbs were more muscular. He followed
the game chiefly by the eye, grasping it in the manner of the grey-
hound with his long and powerful jaws. He was a dog of amazing
courage, and could destroy unaided the fiercest wolf."
Poor Gelert, of ballad celebrity, was probably a gaze-
hound. Mr. Baring-Gould and other myth-students, who
have an unhappy knack of destroying some of our most
cherished and earliest beliefs, assure us that this noble
Coursing.
51
dog, whose tragic fate has been mourned for centuries,
and whose monument is still to be seen, never existed.
The Greyhound was also used in—
taking the bucke, the harte, the dowe, the foxe, and other
beastes of semblable kindes ordained for the game of
hunting. But more or lesse, each one according to the Greyhound.
measure and proportion of theyr desire, and as might and
habilitie of theyr bodyes will permit and suffer. For it is a spare and
bare kinde of dogge (of fleshe but not of bone). Some are of a greater
sorte, and some of a lesser, some are smooth skynned and some are
curled, the bigger therefore are appointed to hunt the bigger beasts,
and the smaller serve to hunt the smaller accordingly." (Reprint, p. 10.)
The greyhound was an object of value and esteem,
not only to the sportsman, but also to men of birth and
means. According to Mr. Jesse, "the famous Shane
O'Neill wrote to Lord Robert Duddeley, in 1562, with
a present of two horses, two hawks, and two greyhounds,
requesting his interest with Queen Elizabeth" (vol. ii.
p. 218). The passion of James I. for sport of all kinds
rendered a good hunting establishment essential to any
nobleman or country gentleman who was desirous of
entertaining the "British Solomon.”
At the time of which we write, horse-racing, as now
practised, was unknown, and all coursing-matches were
dog to dog, in manner thus described by Mr. Tomlins
(Shakspere Society Papers, 1844, vol. i.):-
"In the paddock were two harriers. At one end was kept a buck
educated for the purpose; he was let go from the other and to go
home as fast as he could; after a little law given him, the greyhounds
were slipped, and the dog first in won the prize. 'Hay! voux!' is dog-
language to this day with harriers. In the Book of Sports, or Laws of
the Paddock, published the end of King James I., are these directions:
'No keeper shall slip his greyhound till the warden throws down his
wardour and cries, Hay! voux!' Is not this," asks Mr. Tomlin, “ the
meaning of the passage in Julius Cæsar (iii. 1)?—
'And Cæsar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Até by his side, come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war."
52
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
No material alterations have been made in the rules
and laws of coursing since they received the fiat of the
Duke of Norfolk, in the reign of Elizabeth. The man
who slipped the greyhounds was called a fewterer, a term
that frequently occurs in the dramas of the time.
The naturalist Buffon is of opinion that the modern
greyhound is derived from what he calls the " matin," but
in its descent the variety has become finer, more slender,
and more delicate in shape and skin, from climate, care,
and attention to breeding only with its own species. In
Wynkyn de Worde's Treatise on Hawking, 1496, the proper-
ties of a good greyhound are thus given :-
“A greyhounde should be headed lyke a snake, and
neckyd like a drake,
Fotyd lyke a cat: taylyd lyke a ratte:
Syded like a teme: and chyned lyke a bream."
Thomas Fuller derives the word "greyhound" from the
gray or badger, from a theory that this dog was employed
in hunting grays, that is, brocks or badgers. This deriva-
tion is manifestly incorrect, as the badger is far too
sagacious an animal to come above ground in order to
provide sport for such a swift-footed antagonist.
Ben Jonson speaks of some one who-
"Restrained, grows more impatient; and in kind
Like to the eager, but the generous greyhound,
Who ne'er so little from his game withheld,
Turns head, and leaps up at his holder's throat."
(Every Man in his Humour, i. 1.)
Lyly has a similar comparison: "You resemble the gray-
hounde, that seeing his game, leapeth upon him that
holdeth him, not running after that he is held for."
(Ephues, p. 420.)
Dr. Nathan Drake (Shakspeare and His Times, 1817,
vol. i. p. 252) informs us that—
(c
a very popular diversion was celebrated, during the age of Shak-
speare, and for more than twenty-five years after, on the Cotswold
The Tumbler's Guile.
53
Hills in Gloucestershire. It has been said that the rural games which
constituted this anniversary were founded by one Robert Dover, on the
accession of James I., but it appears to be ascertained that Dover was
only the reviver, with additional splendour, of sports which had been
yearly exhibited, at an early period, on the same spot, and perhaps
only discontinued for a short time before this revival in 1603."
In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Slender asks Page, "How
does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say he was out-
run on Cotsall?” (i. 1).
Joshua Sylvester interpolates into his translation of
Du Bartas a simile drawn apparently from his personal
recollection of these games:-
"So have I seen on Lamborn's pleasant douns,
When yelping begles or some deeper hounds
Have start a hare, how milk-white Minks and Lun
(Gray-bitches both, the best that ever run)
Held in one leash, have leapt and strain'd, and whin'd
They might be slipt, to purpose; that (for sport)
Watt might have law neither too-long nor short."
(Page 182.)
The Tumbler was principally used in taking rabbits.
It acquired this name from the eccentricity
of its movements. It ran in a circle, and
Tumbler.
then suddenly turned upon its prey, in the manner thus
described by William Browne in his pastorals:-
"As I have seene
A nimble tumbler on a burrow'd greene
Bend cleane awry his course yet give a checke, .
And throw himself upon a rabbet's necke."
(Britannia's Pastorals, book ii., song 4.)
These dogs, according to Caius,—
are somewhat lesser then the houndes, and they be lancker and
leaner, beside that they be somwhat prick eared. A man that shall
marke the forme and fashion of their bodyes, may well call them
mungrell grehoundes if they were somwhat bigger. But notwith-
standing they countervaile not the grehound in greatnes, yet will he
take in one dayes space as many connyes as shall arise to as bigge a
54
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
burthen, and as heavy a loade as a horse can carry, for deceipt and
guile is the instrument wherby he make this spoyle, which pernicious
properties supply the place of more commendable qualities." (Reprint,
p. 12.)
Caius mentions also a light dog of the lurcher type,
used for poaching, which will not bark "least he shoulde
bee prejudiciall to his owne advantage."
Spaniels were employed in falconry to rouse the
herons, ducks, etc., from the reeds and marshy
ground frequented by them. Spenser writes:
Spaniel,
"Like as a fearfull partridge that is fledd
From the sharpe hawke which her attacked neare,
And falls to ground to seeke for succor theare,
Whereas the hungry spaniells she does spye,
With greedy jawes her ready for to teare."
(Faerie Queene, b. 3, c. 8, s. 33.)
Shakspeare's allusions to the spaniel, if taken liter-
ally, seem to show that the affection which this dog so
often displays was scarcely appreciated by the poet.
Cæsar, when he rejects the suit of Metellus Cimber, warns
him to avoid vain adulations:
"I mean, sweet words,
Low-crooked court'sies and base spaniel-fawning.
Thy brother by decree is banished;
If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him,
I spurn thee like a cur out of my way."
(Julius Cæsar, iii. 1, 42.)
Launce, however, who was fond of dogs, says in praise of
his mistress, "She hath more qualities than a water-
spaniel, which is much in a bare Christian" (Two Gentle-
men of Verona, iii. 1, 271).
Caius declines to undertake the task of enumerating
the many varieties of dogs used in fowling. He says
they are called after the birds that they are trained to
take. Some are called dogs for the falcon, dogs for the
pheasant, and such like:-
The Spaniel.
55
"The common sort of people call them by one general word,
namely spaniells, as though these kinde of dogges came originally
and first of all out of Spaine. The most part of their skynnes are
white, and if they be marcked with any spottes, they are commonly
red, and somewhat great therewithall, the haires not growing in such
thicknesse but that the mixture of them maye easely be perceaved.
Other-some of them be reddishe and blackishe, but of that sorte there
be but a very few. There is also at this day among us a newe kinde of
dogge brought out of Fraunce (for we Englishe men are marvailous
greedy gaping gluttons after novelties, and covetous cormorauntes of
things that be seldom, rare, straunge, and hard to get). And they bee
speckled all over with white and black, which mingled colours incline
to a marble blewe, which bewtifyeth their skinnes and affordeth a
seemely show of comelynesse." (Reprint, p. 15.)
Topsell writes :-
"Unto all these smelling dogs, I may also adde the water spagnell,
called in French barbati, and in Germany wasserhund: who is taught
by his maister to seeke for thinges that are lost by words and tokens.
These also will take water-foule, and hunt otters and beavers, and
watch the stroke of the gun when the fouler shooteth. They use
to sheare their hinder parts, that so they may be the lesse annoyed
in swimming; whose figure is in the bottome of the former page
described." (Page 154.)
The picture referred to represents a spaniel clipped
after the fashion of the French poodle of our own day.
Setter.
The Setting-dogge, or Setter, was a large land spaniel,
probably similar in appearance to his modern
namesake. His mode of action is thus de-
scribed by Caius:-
"When he hath founde the byrde, he keepeth sure and fast silence,
he stayeth his steppes and wil proceede no further, and with a close,
covert, watching eye, layeth his belly to the grounde, and so creepeth
forward like a worme. When he approcheth neere to the place where
the birde is, he layes him downe, and with a marcke of his pawes,
betrayeth the place of the byrdes last abode, whereby it is supposed
that this kinde of dogge is called index, setter, being indeede a name
most consonant and agreable to his quality." (Reprint, p. 15.)
The smallest variety of this class of dogs was the
56
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
-
Spaniel
Gentle.
Spaniel Gentle, Comforter, or Fisting Hound, of which
Dr. Caius speaks with great contempt. Accord-
ing to this writer, an animal whose chief pur-
pose in life was to enliven the solitude of his mistress, to
amuse her, to give her pleasure, instead of assisting her
to destroy some other creature, was a mere "instrument
of follie, to plaie and dally withall, to trifle away the
treasure of time." In the dedication of Euphues to the
ladies of England, Lyly speaks less harshly:
"It resteth ladies, that you take the paines to read it [his book],
but at such times, as you spend in playing with your little dogges:
and yet will I not pinch you of that pastime, for I am content that
your dogges lye in your laps, so Euphues may be in your hands,
that when you shall be wearie in reading of the one, you may be
ready to sport with the other." (Euphues and his England, Arber's
Reprint, p. 220.)
According to Ben Jonson, a fashion prevailed of scent-
ing these small pets :-
"From perfumed dogs, monkies, sparrows, lildoes, and paraquettoes,
Good Mercury defend us."
(Cynthia's Revels, v. 3.)
Mary Queen of Scots had one of these little favourites,
so despised by the worthy doctor. After her execution
the animal refused to leave the dead body of its mistress,
and had to be forcibly removed. That dogs were the pets
not only of women but, on occasion, of men, is shown by
the following anecdote. Manningham writes in his dairy,
1602:-
"Mr. Francis Curle told me howe one Dr. Bullein, the queenes
kinsman, had a dog which be doted on, soe much that the queene
understanding of it requested he would graunt hir one desyre, and
he should have what soever he would aske: shee demaunded his
dogge; he gave it, 'And now, madame,' quoth he, 'you promised to
give me my desyre.' 'I will,' quothe she. "Then, I pray you give me
my dog againe.'" (Diary of John Manningham. Reprinted by Camden
Society, 1868.)
Lear's Little Dogs.
57
Mr. Kirkman, in a very interesting paper on Animal
Nature versus Human Nature in King Lear (New Shakspere
Society's Transactions, 1877), comments on the infinite
pathos of the last touch of humiliation which the old
king endures when he fancies that the—
"defection and disaffection of the palace has spread to the dogs.
'The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.'
(Lear, iii. 6, 65.)
It has a deep touch of human distress and disgrace equal to the bitter-
ness of Anthony's humiliation when the servant Thyreus derides his
orders, and he feels the vile sting which a contemptible nature can so
easily dart."
Edgar, his voice broken with tears, keeps up the delusion:
"Tom will throw his head at them.
Avaunt, you curs!
Be thy mouth or black or white,
Tooth that poisons if it bite;
Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,
Hound or spaniel, brach or lym;
Or bobtail tike, or trundle-tail,
Tom will make them weep and wail :
For, with throwing thus my head,
Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled :'
as if Lear's uncontrollable mortification at the disaffection of the three
pampered pets caught from their mistresses' laps, had touched one of
those cerebral chains of association we all know we possess, and he
must needs run over the links."
Mastiff.
Of domestic dogs the Mastiff, Ban-dog, or
Tie-dog, was the largest and most powerful.
Mr. Jesse quotes the following passage from a trans-
lation, by Barnaby Googe, of Conrad Heresbach's Whole
Art of Husbandry :-
First the mastie that keepeth the house: for this purpose you must
provide you such a one, as hath a large and a mightie body, a great
and a shrill voyce, that both with his barking he may discover, and
with his sight dismay the theefe, yea, being not seene, with the horror
58
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
:
of his voice put him to flight; his stature must neither be long nor
short, but well set, his head great, his eyes sharpe, and fiery, either
browne or grey, his lippes blackish, neither turning up, nor hanging too
much downe, his mouth black and wide, his neather jawe fat, and
comming out of it on either side a fang, appearing more outward then
his other teeth; his upper teeth even with his neather, not hanging too
much over, sharpe, and hidden with his lippe. His countenance like
a lion, his brest great and shaghayrd, his shoulders broad, his legges
bigge, his tayle short, his feet very great; his disposition must neither
be too gentle, nor too curst, that he neither fawne upon a theefe, nor
flee upon his friends; very waking, no gadder abroad, not lavish of his
mouth, barking without cause; neither maketh it any matter though
he be not swift: for he is but to fight at home, and to give warning of
the enemie."
""
Mr. Jesse remarks that although this description is taken
from a foreign work, it probably gives a correct portrait
of the mastiff, or rather of the bull-mastiff of the England
of that period. Shakspeare makes the “repining enemy
commend the English breed of this variety. Rambures
admits, “That island of England breeds very valiant
creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage
(Henry V., iii. 7, 150).
CC
Lyly also writes-
""
They excel for one thing there [England] dogges of al sortes,
spaniels, hounds, maistiffes, and divers such, the one they keepe for
hunting and hawking, the other for necessarie uses about their houses,
as to draw water, to watch theeves &c., and thereof they derive the
word mastiffe, of mase and thiefe.” (Euphues, p. 438.)
Dr. Caius give the mastiff a variety of names: the
dog-keeper, or watch-dog, from his usefulness in guard-
ing houses; the butcher's dog, from the help he affords
to the butcher, both in following and in driving the cattle;
the carrier, because he was occasionally employed as a
messenger with letters carefully sewn up inside his
collar; the mooner, because he does nothing but watch,
wasting the wearisome night season without sleeping,
bawing and wawing at the moone;" the water-drawer,
because he was made to turn the wheel of the well in court-
C6
The Bulldog.
59
yards; and the tinker's cur, from his use in drawing trucks
and barrows. Our word bulldog may come from the em-
ployment of the mastiff in driving cattle, as well as from
the pertinacity with which the bulldog attacks his bovine
enemy. The first line of the following quotation suggests
yet another etymology :-
"Than came one with two bolddogges at his tayle,
And that was a bocher, without fayle,
All be gored in red blode.”
(Cocke Lorelles Bote, about 1520, Percy Society,
vol. v. p. 2.)
After the various uses enumerated by Caius, the many
accounts of the misuse of this noble dog in baiting lions,
bears, horses, and asses fall harshly on the ear. These
sports have been so fully described by authors that there
is no occasion to dwell on them.
Thomas Fuller writes of mastiffs :
They are not (like apes) the fooles and jesters, but the useful
servants in a family, viz. the porters thereof. Pliny observes, that
Brittan breeds cowardly lions and courageous mastiffes, which seems
to me no wonder; the former being whelped in prison, the latter at
liberty. An English mastiff, anno 1602, did in effect worst a lion, on
the same token that Prince Henry allowed a kind of pension for his
maintenance, and gave strict orders, that he that had fought with the
king of beasts should never after encounter any inferior creatures.'
(Worthies of England, ed. Nichols, 1811, vol. 2, p. 276.)
The ban-dog, or tie-dog, was probably a small variety
of the mastiff.
"Whose noise, as me-thinketh, I could best compare
To a cry of hounds, following after the hare,
Or a rabblement of bandogs barking at a bear.”
(New Custom, an Interlude, 1573.)
"I know the villain is both rough and grim;
But as a tie-dog I will muzzle him.
I'll bring him up to fawn upon my friends,
And worry dead my foes."
(H. CHETTLE, The Death of Robert Earl
of Huntingdon.)
60
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The Sheep Dog, or Ramhundt, was employed then as
now to guard the flock. According to Caius
it was a dog of medium size, and exceedingly
Sheep Dog.
intelligent.
Iceland Dogs were kept as pets by ladies, and are
often mentioned. The dramatist Shirley seems
to consider them as a necessary part of the
establishment of a woman of fashion :-
Iceland Dog.
"You have a waiting-woman,
A monkey, squirrel, and a brace of Islands,
Which may be thought superfluous in your family
When husbands come to rule."
(Hyde Park, i. 2.)
Pistol exclaims: "Pish for thee, Iceland dog! Thou
prick-ear'd cur of Iceland!" (Henry V., ii. 1, 43). Drayton
declares, in one of his minor poems, that in consequence
of the prevalent fashion for light hair among ladies-
"Our water-dogs and Islands here are shorn,
White hair of women here so much is worn.'
"
(Mooncalf.)
From the description of these little favourites by Dr.
Caius, they would seem to have been long-haired, white,
sharp-eared dogs, not unlike the Skye terriers of the
present day, though of a less amiable disposition. Caius
writes:-
"Use and custome hath intertained other dogges of an outlandishe
kinde, but a few of the same beying of a pretty bygnesse; I mean
Iseland dogges, curled and rough all over, which by reason of the
length of their heare make showe neither of face, nor of body. And
yet these curres, forsoothe, because they are so straunge, are greatly set
by, esteemed, taken up, and made of, many times in the roome of the
spaniell gentle or comforter."
Then follows the usual sneer of the author at the
eagerness of the English people for foreign novelties:-
"A beggerly beast brought out of barbarous borders, from the utter-
most countryes northward, &c., we stare at, we gase at, we muse, we
marvaile at, like an asse of Cumanum, like Thales with the brasen
shancks, like the man in the moone." (Reprint, p. 37.)
Performing Dogs.
61
Topsell mentions some varieties of performing dogs.
One is the Mimicke or Getulian dog :
“There is also in England two other sorts of dogs, the figure of
which is here expressed, being apt to imitate al things
Performing
Dogs.
it seeth, in face sharpe and blacke like a hedgehog,
having a short recurved body, very long legs, shaggy
haire and a short taile. These being brought up with apes in their
youth learne very admirable and strange feats." (Page 161.)
In the next page he describes some miniature dogs,
artificially dwarfed :-
"Now a daies, they have found another breede of little dogs in all
nations, beside the Melitean [Maltese] dogs, either made so by art, as
inclosing their bodies in the earth, when they are whelpes, so as they
cannot grow great by reason of the place, or els, lessening and impayring
their growth, by some kind of meat or nourishment. . . . They are not
above a foot or half a foote long, and alway the lesser the mor delicate
and precious. Their head like the head of a mouse, but greater, their
snowt sharpe, their eares like the eares of a cony, short legs, little feete,
long, and white colour, and the haire about the shoulders longer then
ordinary is most commended. They are of pleasant disposition, and
will leape and bite without pinching, and barke prettily, and some of
them are taught to stand upright, holding up their fore legs like hands,
other to fetch and cary in their mouths that which is cast unto them."
The little toy Maltese dog, here referred to, is now
almost extinct. The useful little Whappet, or Turnspit,
needs no description.
To write a full description of the various dogs known
at this period would require, not a chapter, but a volume.
Many interesting particulars, as well as numerous anec-
dotes of the different varieties, are to be found in Jesse's
History of the British Dog, already quoted. The con-
cluding sentence of the description of the mastiff by
Dr. Caius, sums up the good qualities of the dog :—
"Who by his barcking (as good as a burning beacon) foreshoweth
hassards at hand? what maner of beast stronger? what servant to
his master more loving? what companion more trustie? what watch-
man more vigilant? what revenger more constant? what messinger
more speedie? what water-bearer more paine full? finally, what pack-
horse more patient? And thus much concerning English dogges."
(Tract on Dogs, tr. Fleming, 1576; Reprint, 1880.)
62
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FOX is seldom mentioned as an animal of chase by
early writers. As rabbits were most abundant
Fox. in all parts of England, foxes were probably
numerous. Olaus Magnus (p. 193) informs us that in
Scandinavia-
"There are in the Northerne woods foxes, white, black, red, crosse-
bearers on the back, and others of a blew colour, spotted, but they all
partake of the same malice and fraud; the black skins are dearest
because the Emperours of Moscovie use these often; next are the
crosse-bearing skins, that is, such as are marked on the back with a
black crosse by nature, because they are more adorned, and the skins
are greatest; for the foxes have not this crosse till they grow of a full
age."
The fox has always been considered the personifi-
cation of craft and cunning. Edgar declares that he has
been "a hog in sloth, a fox in stealth, a wolf in greedi-
ness (Lear, iii. 4, 195). Venus attempts to dissuade
Adonis from his intention to pursue the boar:
""
"But if thou needs wilt hunt, be ruled by me;
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox which lives by subtlety."
(Venus and Adonis, 1. 673.)
The skin of a fox, hare, or rabbit was called its case.
The Duke thus reproaches Viola for her supposed
deception,-
Furs from Russia.
'O thou dissembling cub! what wilt thou be
When Time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy case?
Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow,
That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?
(Twelfth Night, v. 1, 167.)
63
At the period of which we write dress was regulated
by strict sumptuary laws, according to the
rank or profession of the wearer. Lawyers
Furs in
Dress.
were prohibited from wearing any fur except fox or
lamb skin. Shakspeare has an allusion to this regula-
tion,-
""Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest was
put down, and the worser allowed by order of law a furred gown to
keep him warm; and furred with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify,
that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing."
(Measure for Measure, iii. 2, 10.)
Fur was largely used as an ornament in dress by all
classes, so much so that the importation of skins threat-
ened to interfere with cloth and woollen manufacture in
England. To encourage the sale of materials of home
growth, restrictions were placed upon the use of foreign
furs. According to a law passed in the reign of Queen
Mary, no one below the rank of an earl was allowed to wear
sable; fur of black genet, or luserne, was prohibited to
all under the degree of knight, and no one was permitted
to wear any fur, "whereof the like groweth not within the
queenes dominions, except foynes, gray jenet, calaber,
budge, outlandish hare, or fox, except he have 100 marks
by the year."
Dr. Giles Fletcher was sent to Russia as ambassador
from Queen Elizabeth to the Czar Vasilievitch, and in
1591 he published a full account of the manners and
customs, commodities and government of the country.
The internal arrangements of Russia were not sufficiently
satisfactory to be thus exposed to the common gaze, and
the Government despatched a remonstrance to the English
64
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Court against the publication of the book. The work was
accordingly suppressed. The report of Dr. Fletcher to
Queen Elizabeth from Russia, is printed in Hakluyt's
collection of voyages (vol. i. p. 538, ed. Evans, 1810). He
gives a list of the various fur-producing animals of that
part of the country:-
"The chiefe furres are these, blacke fox, sables, lusernes, dun fox,
martrones, gurnestalles or armins, lasets or miniver, bever, wulverins,
the skin of a great water rat that smelleth naturally like muske,
The blacke
calaber or gray squirrel, red squirrel, red and white fox.
foxe and red come out of Siberia, white and dunne from Pechora, whence
also come the white wolfe and white beare skin. The best wulverin
also thence and from Perm. The best martrons are from Siberia, Cadam,
Morum, Perm, and Cazan. Lyserns, minever, and armins, the best are
out of Gallets, and Ouglits, many from Novogrod, and Perm. The
beaver of the best sort breede in Murmonskey by Cola."
The Ermine, though one of the smallest of the animals
hunted for the sake of their skins, takes pre-
Ermine. cedence of others from the fact that its fur
was chiefly worn by royal personages. From the snowy
whiteness of its coat, and perhaps from the dislike it has
to any substance that can soil it, this animal was con-
sidered as the emblem of purity and stainless honour.
As such it has been, as accurate students of history would
naturally expect, appropriated by sovereigns to their
peculiar use-
"Whose honour, ermine like, can never suffer
Spot, or black soil.”
(BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, Knight of Malta.)
The ermine, or armin, is the Siberian stoat. The name is
a corruption of Armenia, in the woods of which country
the animal abounded.
Olaus Magnus gives a strange account of the Nor-
wegian ermines:
"These small beasts, for the most part, every three years, for the
merchants exceeding great gain, grow to have their skins very long,
The Ermine's Spots.
65
because they eat so much: which after the same manner happens not
onely in Norway, but in the foresaid Helsingia, and provinces that are
near to it in the diocess of Upsal, namely, that small beasts with four
feet, that they call lemmar, or lemmus [Norwegian rat or lemming], as
big as a rat, with a skin diverse coloured, fall out of the ayr in tempests,
and sudden showres; but no man knows from whence they come,
whether from the remoter islands, and are brought hither by the wind,
or else they breed of seculent matter in the clouds: yet this is proved,
that so soon as they fall down, there is found green grass in their bellies
not yet digested. These, like locusts, falling in great swarms, destroy
all green things, and all dyes they bite on, by the venome of them.
This swarm lives so long as they feed on no new grass: also they come
together in troops like swallowes that are ready to fly away; but at
the set-time they either dye in heaps, with a contagion of the earth, or
they are devoured by beasts, called commonly lekat, or hermelin, and
these ermins grow fat thereby, and their skins grow longer. And these
skins also are sold by tens, especially fourty in a bundle, as sabel, or
martins, fox, beaver, squirrel, or hares skins are, and are carryed forth
by shipping into far distant countries.” (Page 185.)
The ermine, in its brown summer coat, was called the
rosetel. The English stoat is called in Norfolk the
lobster. In his account of English dogs Dr. Caius tells
us that harriers were trained to hunt, besides the hare
and the fox, the polecat, lobster, and weasel.
Some poets of the time were wont to imagine that the
spotted appearance of the ermine's fur was natural, but
this ignorance was possibly feigned for the sake of the
illustration. Greene says:-
"The manners and the fashions of this age
Are like the ermine's skin so full of spots."
(James IV.)
And Randolph informs us that—
"Nature adorns
The peacock's tail with stars; 'tis she attires
The bird of Paradise in all her plumes;
She decks the fields with various flowers; 'tis she
Spangled the heavens with all those glorious lights
She spotted the ermin's skin; and arm'd the fish
In silver mail."
(The Muse's Looking-Glass, iv. 1.)
F
1
1
66
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Lettice.
The laws that regulated the costume of both ladies
and gentlemen at this period were so arbitrary,
that even in matters so trifling as the spots
on their fur no scope was allowed for the fancy of the
wearer. It was ordered that none should appear in an
ermine, or lettice-bonnet, unless she were a gentlewoman
born, having the right to bear arms.
"Item, a gentleman's wife, she being a gentlewoman born, shall
wear an ermine or lettice bonnet, having one powdering to the top.
And if she be of honourable stock, to have two powderings, one before
another in the top. Item, an esquire's wife to have two powderings.”
(S. PEGGE, Curialia Miscellania, 1818, p. 313.)
In other articles of dress the numbers of spots varied
according to the wearer's rank. A knight's wife might
wear seven powderings or spots, a baron's wife thirteen, a
viscount's wife eighteen, a countess twenty-four, and after
that estate as many as convenient. On the occasion of
Anne Boleyn's coronation the queen was followed by
ladies-
“being lordes wives, which had circotes of scarlet, with narrow
slceves, the breast all lettice, with barres of pouders, according to their
degrees." (NICHOLS, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 12.)
The word Lettice has been variously explained. By
some authors it is considered to mean lattice, or network.
Mr. Planché, in his Cyclopædia of British Costume, adopts
the explanation of Cotgrave, that it was the fur of a small
animal of a whitish grey colour. It evidently resembled
ermine, but it is impossible that ermines could be supplied
in sufficient quantities for ornamenting robes on state
occasions. In the account given in Wriothesley's Chro-
nicle of the procession of Henry VIII. to open Parliament
in 1536, we find that the bishops were attired in-
"robes of scarlett furred with white lettis with hoodes of the same.
Then my Lord Chauncelor of Englande, in his perliament robe of scar-
Fir and Beech Martens.
67
lett with a hood to the same furred with white lettis, with the kinges
great seale borne before him;... the king following in a robe of crimson
velvet furred with poudre ermyns, with a hood of the same. Then
after the king followed the Duke of Suffolke, and all erles, marques,
and lordes, all in their perliament robes of scarlett furred with white,
and their hoodes about their neckes, which were fortie in number;
everie duke having fower barres of white furre alongest the right side
of their robes, and everie earle having three barres of white furre
alongest the right side of their robes, and everie lord two barres in
likewise." (Ed. Hakluyt Society, 1875, p. 45.)
Marten.
The Marten, martern, martron, or marten-cat, was
hunted for the sake of its skin, which in
good specimens is little inferior to that of
the sable. Topsell divides martens into two varieties
-the "beech-martin" and the "fir-martin." He writes
(p. 496) :-
"Princes and great nobles are clothed therewith, every skinne being
woorthe a French crowne, or foure shillings at the least. And they are
so much the better when there are more whit haires aspersed among
the yellowe. By inspection of the foines, that is, the martins of the
beech, for the Frenchmen called a beech fau, from whence cometh the
word foines, you may see that their skins are more dusky, having a
tail both greater and blacker then the martins of the firres. And
therefore you must understand that they of the firs, are by way
of excellency called martins and the other of the woods called foines.
In France there are no martins of the wall; but these martins live in
hollow beaches. There are also woods full of these beastes in Brussia,
which the people there call gayns. There are also store of martins
near Bragansa, and generally in all parts of Europe except in England."
We learn from the account of a Lord Mayor's pageant
(Percy Society, vol. ix. p. 14) that when Sir William
Draper served the office of Lord Mayor, in 1566-1567, the
Ironmongers exerted themselves to their utmost ability
in honouring the procession, as he was what is termed
"free of the company." Forty-six persons, bachelors,
were nominated, whose drapery was composed of satin
cassocks, gowns furred with foynes, and crimson satin
hoods.
68
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Olaus Magnus distinguishes between martens and
sables :-
"Martins and sables are creatures of cold countries. All know
them by their names, but few by their virtues, unless by the quality
of their skins a man may know what creatures they are.
They will bite terribly for their bigness, for they have teeth naturally
as sharp as razours, and exceeding small and sharp nails. But as
their flesh is said to be nothing worth, so their skins are of huge prices,
especially among forrainers, that use them more for their pleasure than
commodity. The difference between them is this, that the martins
are of a grosser fur from the crown of their head to their tail, but not
if you rub them the contrary way: but the sabels are not so; for if you
stroak them with your hand from their tail to their crowns, they are
equally smooth, because they are furry, and their hair is thicker; and
therefore they are sooner eaten by the worms then other skins are,
unless they are constantly used, or wormwood leaves put between them
to preserve them. And if sable skins are laid in the sun to dry, they
will consume more in one day than if they were worn a whole year.
When the beast is alive he always lyes in some shady grove, and gets
his living by lying in wait for small birds." (Page 184.)
Topsell (p. 755) writes thus
Sable.
"Of the zebel, commonly called a sabell.-Among all the kindes of
weasels, squirrels, wood-mice, wilde-mice, or other little
beasts of the world, there is none comparable to this
zebeth. It is bred in Muscovia and the northerne
partes of the worlde, among the Lapones, but no where more plentifull
then in Tartaria, Scythia, and Sarmasia; and it is therefore called by
some Mus Scythicus, the Scythian mouse. In the furthest part of
Lithuania they have little or no mony, and therefore the marchants
which traffick thither do exchange their wares for zebel or sabel skins.
Those are the best which have most white and yellow haires mingled
in them, and the garments of princes are onely fringed and lined
with these sabel skinnes; and honorable matrons, auncient noble men
and their wives, doe likewise use two or three of these to weare about
their neckes. For it is certaine that a garment of these skinnes is
much deerer then cloth of gold; and I have heard, and also read, that
there have beene two thousand duckets payed for so many as were
put in one cloake."
As a besant is supposed to have been equivalent to a
ducat, the following passage from Marco Polo's Travels,
Furs out of Fashion.
69
which were written about the year 1300, may possibly
be Topsell's authority for his assertion as to the value of
the sable. Describing the tents of some grand khan
of Tartary, Marco Polo says:-
“Withinside they are lined with the skins of ermins and sables,
which are the most costly of all furs; for the latter, if of a size to trim
a dress, is valued at two thousand besants of gold, provided it be
perfect, but if otherwise, only one thousand. It is esteemed by the
Tartars the queen of furs. The animal, which in their language is
named rondes, is about the size of a polecat." (Travels, ed. Marsden,
1817, p. 344.)
The following letter from the Muscovite Company in
London to their agents in Russia, in 1560, shows that
at that date foreign furs were already going out of
fashion. The ladies of the period had, no doubt, exerted
their influence in support of the development of British
woollen manufactures:-
"The sables which you sent this yeere be very base. Among them
all we could not make one principall timber. We have alwayes written
unto you to send them that bee good or else none. The wolverings
were indifferent, and some of the wolves; the rest verie base, the
lusernes but meane, the lettes not so large skinnes as we have had:
the best is, they were of a new death. As for the ermines, they cost
more there with you then we can sell them for here. Therefore buy
no more of them, nor of squirrels, for wee lost the one halfe in the
other. The wares that we would have you provide against the
comming of the shippes are waxe, tallowe, trayne oyles, flaxe, cables and
ropes, and furres, such as we have written to you for in our last letters
by the shippes: and from hencefoorth not to make any great provision
of any rich furres except principal sables and lettes; for now there is a
proclamation made that no furres shall be worne here but such as the
like is growing here within this our realm. The sables that you doe
mind to send to us let them be principall and fayre, and not past foure or
five timbars; for they will not be commonly worne here as they have
bin with noble men: and likewise of luserns send fewe and principal
good." (Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. i. p. 342, ed. Evans, 1810.)
A timber, or timmer, of sables, martens, or ermines, was
a bundle of 40 skins; of other furs it included 120 skins.
70
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The animal lette here mentioned probably supplied the
lettice fur already referred to.
The wearing of sable was prohibited by statute in the
reign of Queen Mary, to any one below the rank of earl.
Gowns furred with sable were deemed of sufficient value
to be bestowed as presents, and to be mentioned as rich
legacies by the possessors unto their heirs. Sir John
Wallop, in 1551, bequeaths to different friends gowns
furred with sable, lucerns, and black coney. In the col-
lection of wills, Testamenta Vetusta, by Sir H. Nicolas,
1826, we find many such bequests.
Hamlet's exclamation, "Let the devil wear black, for
I'll have a suit of sables," has given rise to much con-
troversy. The only passage in Shakspeare's plays where
the word sable may be understood to mean the fur is in
the same play:
"For youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness."
(Hamlet, iv. 7, 79.)
But in these latter lines the meaning may well be the
dark and sombre costume appropriate to advanced years,
in contrast with the more lively colours and the paler
tints preferred by youth. If Hamlet, after speaking of
his "inky cloak," professes his intention of going into
mourning, the announcement is certainly unnecessary.
At the same time, there is no reason why he should
array himself in a costume so expensive as a suit of
sables. Warburton, the commentator, suggested a plau-
sible reading "Let the devil wear black, 'fore [before]
I'll have a suit of sables." Mr. G. Wightwick, in The
Critic, declares that Hamlet meant to say, "I'll have a
suit of sabell,” i.e. of flame colour. A misspelling, this
writer considers, has caused the confusion. There would
certainly be a novelty in Hamlet's making his appear-
ance in a brilliant red costume.
Ferret and Polecat.
71
In The Seven Days of the Week, an interlude performed
at Oxford in 1607, the word sable occurs in connexion
with mourning. But as the rhyme is evidently the
author's first consideration, it is not easy to decide
whether a noun or an adjective is intended by the name.
Night enters, and thus announces himself:-
"Blacke Night, as black as any mourninge sable is,
Comes for to prompt the actors if they stumble ;
For who can see what Night doth say, or able is
To heare how Night doth walke about and mumble.”
The Ferret, originally a native of Africa, was brought
into Spain with the design of freeing the Ferret.
latter country from the multitudes of rabbits
that infested it. Thence the whole of Europe was in
time stocked.
The solitary reference to this animal by Shakspeare
is more expressive than polite. Brutus describes Cicero
as looking—
"With such ferret and such fiery eyes
As we have seen him in the Capitol,
Being cross'd in conference by some senators."
(Julius Cœsar, i. 2, 186.)
The Polecat was called also, on account of its strong
scent, the foulmartin or foumart, and fitchet
or fitchew.
Polecat.
The first name is derived by some authorities from
the French words, poule and chat, and has been bestowed
on this animal on account of the destruction it works
in hen-roosts. Shakspeare uses the word polecat only as
a term of abuse. The foul-mouthed Thersites exclaims:-
"To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a
puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care: but to be
Menelaus! I would conspire against destiny." (Troilus and Cressida,
v. 1, 64.)
The animals of the weasel tribe found in England are
72
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
i
known under a variety of names, and do not appear to
have been clearly distinguished one from another.
Harrison, in his description of England (Holinshed's
Chronicles, vol. i. p. 377, ed. 1577), says, "I might here
entreat largelie of other vermine, as the polcat, the
miniver, the weasell, stote (fulmart), squirrell, fitchew,
and such like."
A correspondent in Notes and Queries, 1853, started
a somewhat unprofitable discussion by an
inquiry as to the meaning of the word mouse-
hunt in Romeo and Juliet (iv. 4, 11):-
Mousehunt.
(C
Ay, you have been a mousehunt in your time;
But I will watch you from such watching now."
One suggestion was that the Mousehunt was a little
animal of the weasel species, about the length of a rat,
with a long and hairy tail, bushy at the tip. Another,
quoting Fennell's Natural History, asserted that the
reference was to the beech-marten. A third considered
that this was a mistake, and that the mousehunt, if any
actual animal of that name exists, is only the young of
the common weasel. In The Storye of Reynard the Foxe,
as it was printed by Caxton in 1481, an animal named
the mousehunt appears in the list of Master Reynard's
relations:
“Rukenawe [the she-ape, Reynard's aunt] called hem [them] forth
and sayde, Welcome, my dere chyldren; come forth and stande by
Reynard your der nevew. Thenne sayd she, Come forth, alle ye that
ben of my kynne and Reynarts; and late us praye the kynge that he
wille doo to Reynard ryght of the lande. Tho cam forth many a beest
anon, as the squyrel, the musehont, the fychews, the martron, the
bever wyth his wyf Ordegale, the genete [wild cat], the ostrole, the
boussyng and the fyret." (Ed. Percy Society, 1844, vol. xii. p. 109.)
In explanation of the appearance of the beaver in such
disreputable company, it is stated that he only attended
in deference to the command of Dame Rukenawe. Rey-
4
The Quarrelsome Weasel.
73
nard's aunt had the reputation of great wisdom, and
was much dreaded on account of her unlimited power of
mischief. That mousehunt was at a much later period
the name of an animal is evident from a passage in
Milton:-
'Although I know that many pretend to be great rabies in these
studies, have scarce saluted them from the strings to the title page;
or to give them more, have been but the mousehunts and ferrets of an
index." (Of Reformation in England, etc.)
The Weasel, like the polecat, was a great enemy to
poultry. Shakspeare compares England's
invading neighbour to this little intruder :
"For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs,
Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
To tear and havoc more than she can eat.”
Weasel.
(Henry V., i. 2, 169.)
Pisanio warns Imogen that if she assumes male attire
she must adopt the manners "should attend it." She
must be-
'Ready in gibes, quick-answer'd, saucy, and
As quarrelous as the weasel."
(Cymbeline, iii. 4, 161.)
Miniver.
Owing to the want of accurate knowledge of animals
great confusion exists as to the names given
to the furs worn at this period. According
to some authors, Miniver was the lighter portion of the
skin of squirrels and weasels. According to others it
was the skin of a small animal caught in Russia.
Henry VII. wore at his coronation a "surcote closed,
furred with menyver pure, a hode of estate furred with
menyver pure and purfuld [bordered] with ermyns, a
gret mantell of crymesyn saten furred also with menyver
pure." From this record it would appear that the fur
74
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
was without spots. In other accounts spots are mentioned.
They were probably smaller in size than those on the fur
called ermine. In Massinger's play, The City Madam,
Luke describes the costume of a wealthy merchant's
wife:
"He made a knight,
And your sweet mistress-ship ladyfied, you wore
Satin on solemn days, a chain of gold,
A velvet hood, rich borders, and sometimes
A dainty miniver cap” (iv. 4).
Joseph Hall satirizes some candidates for ecclesiastical
honours, who—
"Sit seven years pining in an anchores cheyre,
To win some patched shreds of minivere."
(Satires, book iv., satire 2.)
Vair was a fur largely used in heraldry. It was
represented by a series of shield or bell-
Furs. shaped pieces placed together alternately,
commonly blue and white. Some say this form was
taken from the pattern which is made by the dark fur
on the back of the squirrel when entire skins of this
animal are laid flat and sewn edge to edge. Mr. Planché,
in his Cyclopædia of Costume, explains the names of other
furs that were occasionally worn.
Biche, according to him, was the skin of the female
deer. By statute passed in the reign of Henry IV.,
furs of biche were prohibited to clergymen below the
dignity of resident canon.
Budge, bogy, bogys or burge, was lambskin with the
wool dressed outwards. Garments were often edged and
lined with this fur, and the hood of the bachelor of arts
is still so ornamented. Powderings of bogy shanks, or
tips cut from the legs of black lambs, were used in
spotting ermine.
Calabrere, or calabar, was the summer coat of the
The Glutton.
75
gray squirrel of Russia. It was so called from Calabria,
whence it was imported. Piers Ploughman describes
a physician as clad in a furred hood and cloak of
calabrere.
Chisamus, cicimus, or sismusilis was a valuable species
of fur mentioned by the historians and poets of the
Middle Ages. It was probably the skin of the Pontic
mouse.
Lituite, a fur only used in doublings, was so called
from the skin of the lituit, or white martyn cat. Jennet,
or genet, was the fur of the wild cat.
Dossus, from the French dos, was the fur from the
back of the squirrel, the same as the fur called in France
petit gris.
Olaus Magnus describes the Wolverine, Glutton, or
Wood Dog (Gulo luscus), one of the fur-pro-
ducing animals mentioned by Dr. Fletcher
in his list of Russian commodities:-
Wolverine.
"Amongst all creatures that are thought to be insatiable in the
northern parts of Sweden, the gulo hath its name to be the principall;
and in the vulgar tongue they call him jerff, but in the German
language vielfras, in the Sclavonish speech rossamaka, from his much
eating; and the made Latin name is gulo; for he is so called from his
gluttony. He is as great as a great dog, and his ears and face are like
a cats; his feet and nails are very sharp: his body is hairy with long
brown hair, his tail is like the foxes, but somewhat shorter, but his
hair is thicker, and of this they make brave winter caps. The flesh
of this creature is altogether uselesse for man's food: but his skin is
very commodious and pretious. For it is of a white brown black
colour, like a damask cloth wrought with many figures; and it shews
the more beautiful, as by the industry of the artists it is joyn'd with
other garments in the likenesse or colour. Princes and great men use
this habit in winter made like coats; because it quickly makes heat
and holds it long; and that not only in Swethland, and Gothland, but
in Germany, where the rarity of these skins makes them to be more
esteemed, when it is prised in ships among other merchandise. And I
do not think fit to overpasse, that when men sleep under these skins,
they have dreams that agree with the nature of that creature and have
an insatiable stomach." (Page 180.)
76
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
There is a delightful vagueness in the description of
this animal's colour. It is a pity that the worthy arch-
bishop's accuracy was not on a par with his credulity.
The description given by Grieve, in his History of Kam-
schatka, 1764 (p. 99), of the wolverine deserves quota-
tion, although of a more recent date, as showing the high
value set by the natives upon the animal :
"There is a creature of the weasel kind, called the glutton, whose
furr is so greatly esteemed above all others, that when they would
describe a man most richly attired, they say that he is cloathed with
the furr of the glutton. The women of Kamtschatka dress their heire
with the white claws of this animal, and reckon them a very great
ornament. However, the Kamtschadales kill so few of them that
they not only have not enough for exportation, but even import some
from Jakutski at a very great price. They put the greater value upon
the furr of the glutton the whiter and yellower it is, although every-
where else this sort is despised; nay, they esteem it so much, that they
say the heavenly beings wear no other garments than of this furr."
The general colour of the wolverine is a rich brown,
deepening in parts to black; the young ones are much
lighter, of a pale cream yellow. It is only the claws
that are white, but they form a striking contrast with the
jet black fur of the paws. Marvellous stories are told of
the insatiate appetite of the glutton, but after making
due allowance for exaggeration it must be admitted that
its voracity entitles it to the name, "the vulture of
quadrupeds."
The Otter was in these times a denizen of most of the
rivers in the north and west of England.
Otter. Fuller, in his Worthies of England (vol. 2,
p. 573, ed. Nichols, 1811), writes :—
"Plenty of these in Brecknock-meer; a creature that can dig and
dive, resident in the two elements of earth and water. The badger,
where he bites, maketh his teeth to meet; and the otter leaves little
distance between them. He is as destructive to fish as the wolf to
sheep. See we here, more is required to make fine flesh than to have
fine feeding; the flesh of the otter, from his innate rankness, being
nought, though his diet be dainty."
Medieval Dishonesty.
Shakspeare has but one mention of this animal:-
"Hostess. Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?
Falstaff. What beast! why, an otter.
Prince. An otter, Sir John! why an otter?
Fal. Why, she's neither fish nor flesh."
(1 Henry IV., iii. 3, 141.)
77
The doubt among learned men as to the nature of the
otter, hinted at in the above passage, was not quite
cleared up even in the time of Izaak Walton, who
declines to commit himself by speaking positively on the
subject.
Olaus Magnus writes of the otters of Norway :-
"The otters have a square mouth, and bite as beavers, they are like
them in their skins but they are a third part longer. Their skins are
greatly used by the northern people, to enlarge the borders of their
garments, because their skin will hold fast. They are sold by tens, as
beavers and foxes, and martins skins are: and they are falsified with
smoke of a stone-tree upon coles, that they may appear to be of a
shining black; but if you rub them presently with a white cloth, the
colour is gone, and the sophistication is discovered. So wolves skins
powdred, with coal and chalk, rubbed with a linnen cloth, are proved
to be falsified. So squirrels skins, called in Italian dosso, strewed over
with chalk, are discovered to be false by a black cloth. We must
search out which colour is natural, and which artificial, and so prize
them." (Page 183.)
Those who talk sentimentally about the "good old
times," would fain have us believe that such deceptions
as are here described are inventions of a modern date.
Sir Thomas Browne records that otters were plentiful
in his time: "They are accounted no bad dish by many ;
they are to be made very tame; and in some houses have
served for turnspits" (vol. iv. p. 336, ed. Wilkins). They
could hardly have been trusted when fish formed part of
the meal.
The Badger was also known by the names bawson,
brock, and gray. In Ben Jonson's Sad Shep-
herd, a country swain brings as a present to
his mistress a fine-
Badger.
78
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
:
"Smooth bawson cub, the young grice of a gray,
Twa tyny urshins and this ferret gay " (i. 1).
The first line of this passage has given rise to some
discussion. Whalley reads "bawson's cub, and the young
ones of a badger." Gifford, in his edition, explains bawson,
which, used as a substantive, is a badger, to mean here
plump, sleek. This epithet cannot be applied to a full-
grown badger, but might very well be said of a cub.
Grice, he says, is a suckling of any kind. That this is
the correct explanation is shown by the lines a little
later on :-
"Thou woo thy love! thy mistress! with twa hedgehogs?
A stinkand brock, a polecat? Out, thou houlet !”
The only mention of this animal that occurs in
Shakspeare is when Sir Toby Belch applies it as a term
of reproach to Malvolio: "Marry, hang thee, brock!"
(Twelfth Night, ii. 5, 114).
The absurd idea that the badger's right legs were of
a different length from those on its left, to enable it to
run with ease on the side of a hill, lasted long after this
period. William Browne, in his poems on country life,
is evidently a firm believer in the notion:-
"And as that beast hath legs; which shepherds feare,
Yclep'd a badger, which our lambs doth teare,
One long, the other short, that when he runs
Upon the plaines he halts; but when he wons
On craggy rocks, or steepy hills, we see
None runs more swift, nor easier than he."
(Britannia's Pastorals, book i., song 4.)
Topsell writes of the badger,-
"His back is broad, his legs as some say longer on the right side
then on the left, and therefore he runneth best when he getteth to the
side of a hill or a cart road way." (Page 34.)
To correspond with this statement, the badger in the
woodcut which accompanies it is represented as using the
legs on the same side together instead of alternately. Sir
The Uneven-Legged Badger.
79
Thomas Browne, in his Enquiry concerning Vulgar Errors,
ridicules this idea, and points out that as, like other
auimals, it uses its legs diagonally, the brevity had been
more tolerable in the cross legs.
Drayton, in his poetical account of the Flood, probably
refers to the use made of the skin of this animal as the
outer covering for the Jewish tabernacle :
"Th' uneven-legg'd badger, whose eye-pleasing skin
The case to many a curious thing hath been,
Since that great flood, his fortresses forsakes
Wrought in the earth, and tho' but halting, makes
Up to the Ark."
(Noah's Flood.)
Canon Tristram, however, considers that though the
badger is found commonly in Palestine, it was not
likely to have been attainable in sufficient numbers in
the Sinaitic wilderness to have furnished skins to the
amount required. He imagines that the animal referred
to in the Bible was the seal, or dugong; both of which
animals, together with the dolphin, are found in consider-
able abundance in the Red Sea. The badger is also
spoken of as furnishing the sandals of the Jewish women
(Natural History of the Bible, 1873, p. 44).
Topsell mentions two kinds of badgers-
one resembling a dog in his feet, which is cald canine, the other
a hog in his cloven hoofe, and is cald swinish: also these differ in the
fashion of their snowt, one resembling the snowt of a dog, the other of
a swine, and in their meat, the one eating flesh and carrion like a
dogge, the other roots and fruits like a hog; both kinds have bene
found in Normandy and other parts of France and Sicillie. In Italy
and Germany they eat grayes flesh and boile with it peares, which
maketh the flesh tast like the flesh of a porcupine. The flesh is best
in September if it be fat, and of the two kindes, the swinish badger is
better flesh then the other." (Page 34.)
For this distinction Topsell is probably indebted, to
Olaus Magnus, who writes:-
80
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
“There are two sorts of them [badgers] one that is tame; another
wilde, that hath stiffer bristles. It is also called the dog-badger,
because his foot is divided like to the dogs: another is called the
hog-badger, because his hoof is divided into two. There are some'
also greater than foxes, that have a hairy bristly skin, and the bristles
are stiff, and the skin rough; and with these they cover all their
quivers for war or hunting, to keep their arrows from the wet and
snow. Also mens cloaths are made of them." (Page 187.)
In an early version of Reynard the Foxe, the badger is
called "grymbart the dasse," from the German dachs,
whence also comes the modern dachshund, or badger-
hound.
Skunk.
Every variety of the weasel tribe possesses as a weapon
of defence a disagreeable scent. The Skunk
has the power of emitting, at will, a secretion
so fetid that the odour thereof can put to flight both man
and beast. "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten
any substance that has been tainted by this "odoriferous
stench." The skunk is described, though under another
name, by a Portuguese resident in Brazil:-
"The biarataca is of the bignesse of a cat, like a ferret; it hath
a white stroake and a grey along the backe, like a crosse, very well
made; it feeds upon birds and their egges, and upon other things,
especially upon ambar, and loveth it so well that all the night he goeth
by the seaside to seeke it, and where there is any, hee is the first. It
is greatly feared, not because it hath any teeth, or any other defensive
thing, but it hath a certaine ventositie so strong, and so evill of sent,
that it doth penetrate the wood, the stones, and all that it encountreth
withall, and it is such that some Indians have died with the stench.
And the dog that commeth neere it escapeth not: and this smell lasteth
fifteene, twentie, or more days, and it is such that if it lighteth neere
some towne, it is presently disinhabited." (Purchas, vol. iv., p. 1304.)
The last statement savours of exaggeration.
The same writer describes the Coati, or Coati-mundi,
an animal found in Central and South
America:
Coati.
"The coaty, is of the height of an hare, with short and spotted
Fighting Bears.
81
haire, with little and sharpe eares, both of a little head, and also with
an eminent snout from the eyes, more then a foote long, round like
a walking-staffe, suddenly decreasing at the end, so that it is alto-
gether of an equall thicknesse, with so narrow a mouth that it can
scarce receive the little finger. None may be found more monstrous:
afterward, when this wilde beast is taken, gathering her foure feet
together, shee bendeth her selfe to the one side or the other, or falleth
flat downe: nor can shee ever bee raised, nor compelled to eate, unlesse
ants be given her, on which shee also feedeth in the woods.” (Purchas,
vol. iv. p. 1328.)
Besides ants and other insects, the coati lives on eggs and
small birds.
Bear.
The Bear might almost claim to be classed among
the domestic animals, so familiar must it have
been in Elizabeth's time to all who lived in
London or any other large town. Its life, however, was
far less enjoyable than that of its fellows who had been
more completely domesticated by man. It was either
penned up in a shed, or led about the country by a chain
in company with a monkey and one or two performing
dogs. Shakspeare's references to the sport of bear-baiting
Slender says-
are numerous.
"I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at it, as any
man in England. You are afraid, if you see the bear loose, are you
not?
"Anne. Ay indeed, sir.
"Slen. That's meat and drink to me, now. I have seen Sackerson
loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain; but, I warrant
you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it, that it passed:
but, women, indeed, cannot abide 'em; they are very ill-favoured
rough things." (Merry Wives, i. 1.)
This bear is mentioned also by Sir John Davies, who
describes a law student-
"Leaving old Ploydon, Dier, and Brooke alone,
To see old Harry Hunks and Sacarson."
(Epigrams.)
G
1
་
82 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Ben Jonson mentions two of the most famous fighters who
were named after their owners:
"When Ned Whiting or George Stone were at the stake."
(The Silent Woman, iii. 1.)
Bear-baiting was at this time considered not only a suit-
able exhibition to be presented before the queen and her
nobles, but the amusement was placed under the particular
patronage of her Majesty. An order of the Privy Council
in July, 1591, prohibited the performance of plays on
Thursdays, because on Thursdays bear-baiting, and the like
pastimes, had been usually practised; and an injunction
to the same effect was sent to the Lord Mayor, wherein it
is stated, “That in divers places the players do use to
recite their plays, to the great hurt and destruction of
bear-baiting, and the like pastimes, which are maintained
for her Majesty's pleasure" (Nichols, Progresses, p. 438,
note). The bears for the queen's royal pleasure were
kept at the Paris Garden, Bankside, Southwark, close to
the river; and as the land lay somewhat low, probably
when the tide rose higher than usual the bears found
their quarters rather damp.
"It was the day what time the powerful moon
Makes the poor Bankside creature wet its shoon
In its own hall."
(BEN JONSON, Epigram 133.)
Paris Garden was named after Robert de Paris, a noble-
man of the time of Richard II., who had a house and
garden on the same site. Crowley, a poet of the time
of Henry VIII., describes these gardens as then existing.
He says that exhibitions were held there on Sundays,
and that the price of admission was one halfpenny. The
popularity of the pastime in Elizabeth's time caused the
entrance fee to be raised. Lambarde tells us (Perambu-
lation of Kent, p. 248) that, in 1570, visitors to Paris.
Gardens were charged "one pennie at the gate, another
sue Butter Gudiben
linder
Bear versus Bible.
83
to the entrie of the scaffold, and a third for quiet stand-
ing." Sunday was the day usually selected for the sport,
but towards the end of the century public opinion declared
against such desecration of the sabbath. An accident at
Paris Gardens, Sunday, January 13, 1583, when many
people were injured by the falling of the stage during a
bear-baiting, was made the occasion of much moralizing
in clerical pulpits.
At this period every town of importance had its bear,
bearward, and set of dogs. A story is told against the
people of Congleton, in Cheshire, which, though it varies
in different versions, is a good illustration of the fond-
ness of this pastime which prevailed. One version of the
story is that the people of Congleton, about the year
1620, being in want of a new Bible at the chapel, laid up
a sum of money for the purpose of replacing the worn-out
volume. But the town bear happened to die at that
time, and the bearward being unable to purchase another
applied to the corporation for assistance. The corporation
gave him the sum set apart for buying the new Bible, and
left the minister to put up with the old one as well as hẹ
could. Others say that the authorities only gave the
bearward the money arising from the sale of the old Bible,
or gave him the old Bible to sell for that purpose. How-
ever it arose, the tale spread, and grew into a rhyme,
which is still occasionally quoted, to the great indignation.
of the inhabitants of the town :-
66 6
Congleton rare, Congleton rare,
Sold the Bible to pay for a bear.""
(Notes and Queries, 3rd series, vol. ii. p. 166.)
Bears were brought to England from various countries.
In a description of a voyage to Cherie Island by Jonas
Poole, 1609, the author says:-
"The thirtieth day we slue 26 whales, and espied three white
beares: we went aboord for shot and powder, and comming to the ice
84
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
:
againe, we found a shee-beare and two young ones: Master Thomas
Welden shot and killed her: after shee was slayne, wee got the young
ones, and brought them home into England, where they are alive in
Paris Garden." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 563.)
Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsal, the naturalist of
the North, has a good deal of information, more or less
trustworthy, to give about bears and their uses. He
writes:-
"The bears are huge, white, and strong, and they will break the
ice with their paws.
These white bears skins are wont to be offered
by the hunters, for the high altars, or cathedrals, of parochial churches,
that the priest celebrating Mass standing, may not take cold of his
feet when the weather is extream cold. In the church at Nidrosum,
which is the metropolis of the kingdom of Norway, every year such
white skins are found, that are faithfully offered by the hunters devo-
tion, whensoever they take them, and wolves-skins, to buy wax-light,
and to burn them in honour of the saints." (Page 187.)
According to this author the brown varieties, which were
often taught to dance and beg, were made the medium of
instruction as well as amusement:
"The master of these bears, that cannot speak the language of
other countries, will get a good gain by his dumb beast. Nor doth this
seem to be done onely, because that these should live by this small
gain for the bearherds that lead these bears, are at least ten or twelve
lusty men; and in their company, sometimes, there go noblemens
sons, that they may learn the fashions, manners, and distances of
places, the military arts, and concord of princes, by these merry pas-
times. But since they were found in Germany to spoil travellers and
to cast them to their bears to eat, most strict laws are made against
them, that they may never come there again. But that tame bears
may not onely be kept unprofitably to feed and make sport, they are
set to the wheels in the courts of great men, that with one or two, or
more company to help them, they may draw up water out of deep
wells; and that in huge vessels made for this purpose, and they do not
help alone this way, but they are set to draw great waggons, for they
are very strong in their legs, claws, and loins; nor is it unfit to make
them go upright, and carry burdens of wood, and such like, to the
place appointed, or they stand at great mens doors, to keep out other
hurtful creatures. When they are young, they will play wonderfully
with boys, and do them no hurt." (History of the Goths, p. 191.)
..
Bear's cubs shapeless.
85
It is to be feared that the worthy archbishop was some-
what credulous, and listened too readily to stories of the
Norwegian bears' docility, as he does not mention that he
witnessed any of these feats.
The notion handed down from antiquity, notwith-
standing its manifest absurdity, and the numerous oppor-
tunities that must have occurred for its disproof, that the
bear's cubs are shapeless and require to be moulded into
form by the mother's tongue, is referred to by Shak-
speare:-
“Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp,
That carries no impression like the dam.”
Chester tells us that the bear—
66
(3 Henry VI., iii. 2, 161.)
Brings forth at first a thing that's indigest,
A lump of flesh without all fashion,
Which she by often licking brings to rest,
Making a formal body good and sound,
Which often in this iland we have found."
(Love's Martyr, p. 208.)
Olaus Magnus makes the same mistake. Describing the
bear, he writes:-
"For the most part she useth to bring forth five whelps not much
greater than mice, without any shape: their flesh is white but they
have not eyes, nor hair: yet the nails appear: the dams by degrees,
lick these whelpes into form." (Page 188.)
Lyly, who delights in all the absurdities connected
with ancient natural history, informs us that "where the
bear cannot find origanum to heal her griefe, hee blasteth
all other leaves with his breath " (Epilogue to Campaspe).
Mr. Furnivall notes that so early as this period bear's
grease was recommended for promoting the growth of the
hair. He quotes the following passage from W. Bulleyn's
Booke of Simples, fol. 76:—
"The beare is a beaste whose flesh is good for mankynd: his fat
is good, with laudanum, to make an oyntment to heale balde headed
86
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
men to receive the hayre agayne. The grease of the beare, the fatte
of a lamb, and the oyntment of the fox, maketh a good oyntment to
anoynt the feete against the payne of travell or labour of footemen."
(Notes and Queries, 4th series, vol. ix. p. 484.)
Bear's grease is also recommended in old works on hus-
bandry as a preventive against mildew and blight. All
tools, such as rakes, spades, and shovels, were to be
smeared with this substance preparatory to beginning
gardening operations.
Marine Animals.
87
CHAPTER V.
ALTHOUGH whales, seals, and other marine inhabitants
were always included among fish by writers of
the Elizabethan period, yet there evidently Marine Ani-
existed in the minds of some authors a mis-
giving as to whether this arrangement was correct. Pious
Catholics were slow to be persuaded that these aquatic
mammalia were blood relations of the bear, and resolved
as long as possible to take the benefit of the doubt.
Harrison, in his description of England prefixed to
Holinshed's Chronicle, decides that under the head of
sea-fish should be included "the seale, the dolphin, the
porpoise, the thirlepoole, whale, and whatsoever is round
of bodie be it never so great and huge" (Holinshed, vol. i.
p. 377). Pennant, writing so late as 1791, quite declines
to accept the modern classification. He admits that they
have in many respects the structure of land animals, but
he holds that their want of hair and feet, their fish-like
form, and their constant residence in the water, are argu-
ments for separating them from this class, and forming
them into another independent of the rest.
Captain John Monck, in his account of a voyage to
Greenland, taken about the year 1600, thus
describes the Walrus :-
Walrus.
"The sea horses are very strange creatures, approaching to the big-
ness of a moderate ox, having four legs, the two hindermost being very
88
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
unshapable, and a very thick hide. Their heads are vastly large,
having teeth each of about a foot long, as white as the best ivory.
The English call them sea-horses, the Dutch wallnissets and the Mus-
covites morse. It was in the year 1593 that the English sent the first
time their ships to catch the sea horses, and continued the trade with
great advantage for several years after." (Churchill's Voyages, vol. i.
p. 441.)
A Briefe Note of the Morsse and the use thereof, further
explains the value of the different parts of the walrus:—
•
"In the voyage of Jaques Carthier, wherein he discovered the
Gulfe of S. Laurance and the said 'Isle of Ramea in the yeere 1534, he
met with these beastes, as he witnesseth in these words: About the
said island are very great beasts as great as oxen, which have two
great teeth in their mouthes like unto elephants teeth, and live in the
sea. Wee sawe one of them sleeping upon the banks of the water,
and thinking to take it, we went to it with our boates, but so soone as
he heard us, he cast himselfe into the sea. Touching these beasts
which Jaques Carthier saith to be as big as oxen, and to have teeth in
their mouthes like elephants teeth: true it is that they are called in
Latine boves marini, or caccæ marinæ, and in the Russian tongue
morsses, the hides whereof I have seene as big as any oxe hide, and
being dressed I have yet a piece of one thicker then any two oxe or
buls hides in England. The leather dressers take them to be excellent
good to make light targets against the arrowes of the savages: and I
hold them farre better then the light leather targets which the Moores
use in Barbarie against arrowes and lances, whereof I have seene divers
in her majesties stately armorie in the Towre of London. The teeth of
the sayd fishes, whereof I have seene a dry flat full at once, are a foote
and sometimes more in length: and have bene sold in England to the
combe and knife maker at 8 groats and 3 shillings the pound weight,
whereas the best ivory is sold for halfe the money: the graine of the
bone is somewhat more yellow then the ivorie. One M. Alexander
Woodson of Bristoll, my old friend, an excellent mathematician and
skilful phisition, shewed me one of these beasts teeth which were
brought from the Isle of Ramea in the first prize, which was half a
yard long or very little lesse: and assured mee that he had made tryall
of it in ministering medicine to his patients, and had found it as
soveraigne against poyson as any unicornes horne."
This note was appended to a letter sent to the "Right
Honourable Sir William Cecill, Lord Burghley, from
Ferocity of the Walrus.
89
Thomas James, of Bristoll." The letter is dated the 14th
of September, 1591, and announces the discovery of the
Isle of Ramea by two small ships of Saint Malo, one of
which was taken as a prize by a ship of which James was
part owner (Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 238).
According to Olaus Magnus the walrus was a formid-
able antagonist of the whale, and occasionally of human
beings:-
"The Norway coast, toward the more northern parts, hath huge
great fish as big as elephants, which are called morsi, or rosmari, may
be they are so called from their sharp biting; for if they see any man
on the sea-shore, and can catch him, they come suddenly upon him,
and rend him with their teeth, that they will kill him in a trice.
Therefore, these fish called rosmari, or morsi, have heads fashioned
like to an oxes, and a hairy skin, and hair growing as thick as straw or
corn-reeds, that lye loose very largely." (Page 231.)
The Norwegian word, rosmar, signifies a sea-horse. Not-
withstanding its size and formidable appearance the
walrus is not the ferocious animal here described. It will
not attack man unprovoked, and only uses its teeth when
driven to extremities. The walrus is probably the same
as the rosmarine mentioned by Spenser in his list of
marine monsters.
Jonas Poole, in an account of a voyage to Cherie
Island, in the North Seas, chronicles the capture of a
young walrus, and its safe conduct to London.
“The twelfth day [July, 1608] we took into our ship two young
morses, male and female, alive: the female died before we came into
England, the male lived above ten weekes. The twentieth of August
wee arrived at London; and having dispatched some private businesse,
we brought our living young morse to the court, where the king and
many honourable personages beheld it with admiration for the strange-
nesse of the same, the like whereof had never before beene seene alive
in England. Not long after it fell sicke and died. As the beast in
shape is very strange, so is it of strange docilitie, and apt to be
taught, as by good experience we often proved." (Purchas, vol. iii.
p. 560.)
90
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Olaus Magnus has no mention of the Seal by that
name, but his description of the sea-calf can
apply to no other animal. He writes (p. 226) :
Seal.
"Because in the Bothnick and Finland Sea, there is a vast com-
pany of sea-calves: wherefore I will set down briefly the nature of
them, and the way to catch them, which I have seen. The sea-calf,
which also in Latine is called helcus, hath its name from the likeness
of a land-calf, and it hath a hard fleshy body; and therefore is hard to
be killed, but by breaking the temples of the head. They will low in
their sleep, thence are they called calves. They will learn, and with
their voyce and countenance salute the company, with a confused
murmuring; called by their names, they will answer: no creature
sleeps more profoundly; the fins that serve them for to swim in the
sea, serve for legs on land, and they go hobling up and down as lame
people do.
Their skins, though taken from their bodies, have always
a sense of the seas, the right fin hath a soporiferous quality, to make
one sleep, if it be put under ones head. They that fear thunder, think
those tabernacles best to live in, that are made of sea-calves skins,
because onely this creature in the sea, as an eagle in the ayr, is safe
and secure from the stroke of thunder."
Camden also uses the word sea-calf, in his notes on
Sussex.
66
Selsey befor said, is somewhat lower in the Saxon tongue, seal-
sey, that is to say, the Isle of Sea-calves, for these in our language we
call seale, which alwaies seek to islands, and to the shore, for to bring
forth their yong, but now it is most famous for good cockles, and full
lobsters." (Britain, p. 308, ed. Holland, 1610.)
From Carew's Survey of Cornwall, published 1602, we
learn that seals were no unfrequent visitors on the Cornish
coast. Carew writes
“The seal, or soyl, is in making and growth not unlike a pig, ugly
faced, and footed like a moldwarp [mole]; he delighteth in music, or
any loud noise, and thereby is trained to approach near the shore, and
to shew himself almost wholly above water. They also come on land
and lie sleeping in holes of the cliffs; but are now and then waked
with the deadly greeting of a bullet in their sides." (Page 106, ed.
1811.)
1
•
Seal, Fish or Flesh?
91
Spenser attributes combativeness to the seal, but un-
fortunately does not state his authority :—
"As when a dolphin and a sele are met
In the wide champian of the ocean plaine,
With cruell chaufe their courages they whet,
The masterdome of each by force to gaine."
(Faerie Queene, vol. 2, 15.)
The amphibious nature of the seal caused great per-
plexity to Catholics, as to whether they might lawfully
indulge in it during Lent. After much discussion, eccle-
siastics came to the conclusion that if the creature were
surprised on land, and took refuge in the woods, men must
forbear to eat of it in Lent, when flesh is forbidden; but
if he should run to the waters, men may safely eat thereof.
This nice distinction deserves credit for its ingenuity, and
we may easily imagine that hungry sailors would take care
that seals, when pursued, took the desired direction.
Whale.
We find many notices and descriptions of the Whale
by the early navigators. The most accurate
account of the different varieties of whales is
given by Thomas Edge, in a narrative of the first whaling
expedition sent out by the Russian company in London
to the coast of Greenland in the year 1611-
"The whale is a fish or sea-beast of a large bignesse, about sixtie
five foot long, and thirtie five foot thicke, his head is a third part of
all his bodies quantitie, his spacious mouth contayning a very great
tongue, and all his finnes, which we call whale finnes. These finnes
are fastned or rooted in his upper chap, and spread over his tongue on
both sides his mouth, being in number about two hundred and fiftie
on one side, and as many on the other side. The longest finnes are
placed in the midst of his mouth, and the rest doe shorten by their
proportionable degrees, backward and forwards, from ten or eleven
foot long to foure inches in length, his eyes are not much bigger
then an oxes eyes. There are eight severall kinds of whales, and
differing the one from the other in goodnesse, quantitie and qualitie.
"The first sort of whale is called the grand-bay, taking his name
from Grand Bay in Newfoundland, as having there beene first killed :
92
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
he is blacke of colour, with a smooth skinne, and white underneath
the chaps.
"The second sort of whale is called sarda, of the same colour as the
former, but somewhat lesser, and the finnes likewise lesser, and yeelds
in oyle according to his bignesse. This whale hath naturally growing
upon his backe white things like unto barnacles.
"The third sort of whale is called trumpa, being as long as the
first but thicker forwards, of colour more gray then the former, having
but one spoute in his head, and the rest have all two; he hath in
his mouth teeth about a span long, and as thicke as a mans wrist, but
no finnes. In the head of this whale is the permesitie, which lieth
there in a hole like a well. This is the whale that is supposed to yeeld
the ambergreese.
"The fourth sort of whale is called otta sotta, and is of the same
colour of the trumpa, having finnes in his mouth all white, but not
above halfe a yard long, being thicker then the trumpa, but not so
long.
"The fift sort of whale is called gibarta, of colour blacke like the
two first, saving that it hath standing upon the top of his backe, a
finne half a yard long. This whale is as bigge as the first, his fins
little or nothing worth, being not above halfe a yard long.
"The sixt sort is called sedena, being of a whitly colour, and bigger
then any of the former, the finnes not above one foot long, and he
yeelds little or no oyle.
"The seventh is called sedena negro, of colour blacke, with a bumpe
on his backe; this whale yeelds neither oyle, finnes, nor teeth, and
yet he is of a great bignesse.
"The eight sort is called sewria, of colour as white as snow,
of the bignesse of a wherrie, he yeelds not above one hogshead or two
of oyle, nor any finnes, and is good meate to be eaten." (Purchas, vol.
iii. p. 476.)
Olaus Magnus, who ought to be the chief authority on
the subject of whales, owing to the opportunities he had
for personal observation, gives such scope to his imagi-
nation that his account is more amusing than instructive.
He writes:
"There are many kinds of whales, some are hairy, and of four
acres in bigness: the acre is 240 foot long, and 120 broad: some are
smooth-skinned, and those are smaller, and are taken in the west and
northern sea; some have their jaws long and full of teeth, and the
teeth are 6 or 8 or 12 foot long, but their two dog-teeth, or tushes, are
Introduction of Whalebone.
93
longer than the rest, underneath like a horn, like the teeth of bores,
or elephants. This kind of whale hath a fit mouth to eat and his
eyes are so large, that 15 men may sit in the room of each of them.
His horns are 6 or 7 foot long, and he hath 250 upon each eye, as
hard as horn, that he can stir stiff or gentle, either before, or behind.
These grow together, to defend his eyes in tempestuous weather, or
when any other beast that is his enemy sets upon him; nor is it
a wonder, that he hath so many horns though they be very troublesome
to him; when as between his eyes, the space of his forehead is 15 or
20 foot." (Page 226.)
Du Bartas is scarcely less absurd :-
"Our fear-less saylers, in far voyages
(More led by gain's hope than their compasses)
On th' Indian shore, have somtime noted som
Whose bodies covered two broad acres room:
And in the South-seas they have also seen
Some like high-topped and huge armed treen;
And other-som whose monstrous backs did bear
Two mighty wheels with whirling spokes, that were
Much like the winged and wide spreading sayles
Of any winde-mill turn'd with merry gales."
(Divine Weekes, p. 40.)
The whale fishery, so important a branch of maritime
industry and adventure, had its rise in the time of
Elizabeth. Hakluyt, 1575, reports the request of an
honest merchant, by letter to a friend of his, to be advised
and directed in the course of killing the whale. The oil
was the only produce for which the whale was at first
valued. Anderson, in his Origin of Commerce, 1801,
traces the introduction of whalebone into England to an
accident. Some English ships were sent, in 1593, to Cape
Breton on a whaling expedition. At the entrance of the
Bay of Saint Lawrence the sailors found no whales, but
came to a store of 800 whale fins which had been left on
an island by some Biscay ship, that was afterwards
wrecked. Deeming the fins of some value, the sailors
brought them home, and we have soon after this date the
94
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
.
first mention of whale bones or fins being used in various
articles of ladies' dress. These fins, as explained by
Edge, are the horny laminæ adhering to the upper jaw
of the whale, and are a substitute for teeth. They are
only found in perfection in the Greenland whale and a
few other varieties. The spermaceti and white whales
possess teeth and no fins. The expression so often used,
"white as whale's bone," arose from the supposition on the
part of early English writers that ivory was a portion of
the bones of the whale. The ivory of the Middle Ages
was supplied chiefly by the walrus, whose teeth were
brought over in considerable quantities by the Northern
fishermen. Shakspeare only follows numerous examples
when he writes:
“This
"This is the flower that smiles on every one,
To show his teeth as white as whale his bone."
(Love's Labour Lost, v. 2, 331.)
Harrison, describing the extreme North of Scotland
and the Orkney Isles, writes:-
"Such plentie of whales also are taken on this coast that the verie
tithe hath beene knowne in some one yeere to amount unto seaven
and twentie whales of one greatnesse and other." (Holin shed, vol. i.
p. 73, ed. 1807.)
Shakspeare mentions the whale several times, and it is
quite possible he may have seen a stranded specimen.
Gesner tells of a whale that was cast on shore near Tyne-
mouth Haven, in 1532, which measured ninety feet in
length.
The Whirlpool is included
of English fishes.
creature by Olaus
Marine
Monsters.
apply to no known species.
informs us that—
by Harrison in his list
The description of this
Magnus will, however,
The northern chronicler
"the whirlpool, or prister, is of the kind of whales, two hundred
cubits long, and is very cruel. For, to the danger of sea-men, he will
1
Spenser's Marine Monsters.
95
sometimes raise himself beyond the sail-yards, and casts such floods of
waters above his head, which he had sucked in, that with a cloud of
them he will often sink the strongest ships, or expose the mariners
to extream danger. This beast hath also a long and large round mouth
like a lamprey, whereby he sucks in his meat or water, and by his
weight cast upon the fore or hinder deck, sinks and drowns a ship. He
hath a thick black skin all his body over, long fins like to broad feet,
and a forked tail, 15 or 20 feet broad, wherewith he forcibly binds
any parts of the ship, he twists it about. A trumpet of war is
the fit remedy against him, by reason of the sharp noise, which he
cannot endure." (Page 226.)
By other writers the sawfish is called the whirlpool, or
physeter. It would not, perhaps, be worth while to
notice these extravagancies but that Spenser must have
some authority or suggestion for his list of marine
monsters in the Faerie Queene (xii. 23, 24) :
"Spring-headed hydres; and sea-shouldring whales,
Great whirlpooles, which all fishes make to flee;
Bright scolopendraes armd with silver scales;
Mighty monoceros with immeasured tayles;
"The dreadful fish, that hath deserved the name
Of Death, and like him lookes in dreadfull hew;
The griesly wasserman, that makes his game
The flying ships with swiftness to pursew;
The horrible satyre, that doth shew
His fearefull face in time of greatest storme;
Huge ziffius, whom mariners eschew
No less than rockes, as travellers informe;
And greedy rosmarines with visages deforme."
In these lines scolopendra, the name of the centipede, is
probably applied to the sea-serpent; monoceros is the
narwhal or sea-unicorn; the dreadful fish is the morse or
walrus, so also is the rosmarine; the satyr is the merman,
dreaded by sailors as foreboding tempest; ziffius is pro-
bably xiphias, the sword-fish.
Harrison mentions both the Dolphin and the porpoise,
and they seem to have been generally recog-
nised as distinct species, notwithstanding
Dolphin.
96
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
their strong likeness. Sir Richard Hawkins, in his
account of a voyage to the South Sea, writes:
"Ordinarily such ships as navigate between the tropickes are
accompanied with three sorts of fish: the dolphin, which the Spaniards
call dozado: the bonito, or Spanish mackerill: and the sharke, alias
tiberune. The dolphin I hold to be one of the swiftest fishes in the
sea. He is like unto a breame, but that he is longer and thinner, and
his scales very small. Hee is of the colour of the rain-bow, and his
head different to other fishes; for, from his mouth halfe a span it goeth
straite upright, as the head of a wherry, or the cut-water of a ship.
He is very good meate if he be in season, but the best part of him is
his head, which is great. They are some bigger, some lesser; the
greatest that I have seene might be some foure foot long." (Purchas,
vol. iv. p. 1330.)
In the city pageants a dolphin was a common device.
It was sometimes crowned, and then represented the arms
of the Fishmongers' Company. In allusion to the classical
myth, Arion, the lyric poet of Lesbos, was often depicted
seated on the dolphin's back. Ben Jonson refers twice
to this device :-
"Another Orpheus, you slave, another Orpheus! An Arion riding
on the back of a dolphin." (The Poetaster, iv. 1.)
"Give him allowance,
And that but a moderate, he will make a syren
Sing in the kettle, send in an Arion
In a brave broth, and of a watery green,
Just the sea-colour, mounted on the back
Of a grown conger, but in such a posture
As all the world would take him for a dolphin."
(The Staple of News, iii. 2.)
Shakspeare possibly refers to one of these city shows:
"My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
Arion on a Dolphin.
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.”
(Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 1, 148.)
97
Here, as elsewhere, Shakspeare confuses the mermaid of
mediæval times with the siren of classical authors. The
fish-like tail of the mermaid, which would have rendered
her quite independent of any assistance from the dolphin,
would also have caused her to have a somewhat insecure
seat on so frolicsome a steed. In Twelfth Night (i. 2, 14)
we find another allusion to this water Pegasus. The
captain of the shipwrecked vessel encourages Viola to
hope for her brother's safety by telling how he saw
Sebastian bind himself-
"To a strong mast that lived upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves
So long as I could see.”
Sir Thomas Browne treats as a vulgar error the notion
that the back of the dolphin was permanently bowed,
alluded to by Ford:-
'Straight comes a dolphin playing near your ship,
Heaving his crooked back up."
(The Lover's Melancholy, i. 1.)
In art the dolphin was employed as an emblem of
social feeling and affection.
Narwhal.
The Narwhal, or Sea-Unicorn, another semi-mythical
beast of the sea, was the object of much specu-
lation, and his horn was supposed to have
the same virtue as an antidote to poison as that of the
land unicorn. It is described in a letter quoted from
Mr. Wormen, a Danish gentleman, as having the head
of a whale, with a long pointed horn, fixed to the upper
part of the left jawbone. The creature is called by the
Icelanders narwhall, which implies a whale living upon
H
98
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
a dead carcase-wall signifying a whale and nar the
carcase (Churchill's Voyages, vol. i.).
Baffin, the discoverer, writes to Sir John Wosten-
holme :-
"As for the sea unicorne, it being a great fish, having a long horn
or bone growing forth of his forehead or nostrill, such as Sir Martin
Frobisher in his second voyage found one, in divers places we saw
them, which if the horne be of any good value, no doubt but many of
them may be killed." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 843.)
The specimen found by Frobisher is described by him in
Hakluyt's Travels. It is a pity that the experiment
recorded was not tried also on some non-poisonous
insect.
(C
"On this west shore," he writes, we found a dead fish floating,
which had in his nose a horne streight and torquet, of length two yards
lacking two ynches. Being broken in the top, here we might perceive
it hollow, into the which some of our sailors, putting spiders, they
presently died. I saw not the triall hereof, but it was reported unto
me of a truth: by the vertue whereof we supposed it to be the sea
unicorne." (Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 59.)
Porpoise.
The appearance of the Porpoise was always
held to foretell a storm :-
"Come, porpoise, where's Haterius?
His gout keeps him most miserably constant!
Your dancing shows a tempest."
Webster writes:-
(BEN JONSON, Sejanus, v. 10.)
"He lifts his nose like a porpus before a storm."
(Duchess of Malfy.)
Shakspeare's only reference to the porpoise is to the
same effect. The fishermen in Pericles discuss the recent
tempest, and one of them sagely observes:-
"Nay, master, said not I as much when I saw the porpus how he
bounced and tumbled? They say they're half fish, half flesh : a plague
on them! they ne'er come but I look to be washed " (ii. 1, 24).
Stewed Porpoise.
99
The porpoise, though not now considered a palatable
dish, was in earlier times frequently eaten. It was even
thought a dainty, and was dressed in a variety of ways.
Sometimes it was prepared with a sauce made of fine
bread-crumbs, mixed with vinegar and sugar; at other
times it was roasted or stewed with blanched almonds or
onions. Andrew Boorde, in his Dietary, 1542, speaks
contemptuously of its culinary properties: "A yonge
porpesse, the which kynde of fysshe is nother praysed in
the Olde Testament nor in physycke" (Early English
Text Society, ed. Furnivall, 1870, p. 268.)
The Ork, or Orca, was apparently the same as the
grampus, thresher, or ardluk. It is not
unlike the porpoise in shape, but larger
Ork.
and more powerful. It has been invested by poets with
mythical powers. Du Bartas writes:--
"When on the surges I perceive, from far,
Th' ork, whirl-poole whale, or huffing physeter,
Methinks I see the wandering ile again
(Ortygian Delos) floating on the main."
(Divine Weekes, p. 40.)
Olaus Magnus tells us that—
"an orca is like a hull turned inside outward; a beast with fierce
teeth, with which as with the stern of a ship he rends the whales guts,
and tears his calves body, or he quickly runs and drives him up and
down with his prickly back, that he makes him run to fords and shores.
But the whale that cannot turn its huge body, not knowing how to
resist the wily orca, puts all its hopes in flight: yet that flight is weak,
because this sluggish beast, burdened with its own weight, wants one
to guide her, to fly to the foords to escape the dangers." (Page 226.)
Jonas Poole, one of the early whalers, gives a similar,
but less exaggerated, description of this cetacean. The
grampus is in truth the great terror of the inhabitants
of the northern seas. Not content with seals and por-
poises, it will even attack large whales, and its appearance
is sufficient to put whole shoals of the latter to flight.
Um
100
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
1
The grampus has a fin on its back, but not of the dimen-
sions or sharpness sometimes ascribed to it. Insatiate in
its appetite, this creature may well be accounted the
emblem of voracity.
""Twere to consider too curiously" to attempt to give
an accurate scientific description of the marine mon-
strosity which Lear imagined to exceed in deformity
filial ingratitude :-
66
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster."
(Lear, i. 4, 281.)
Blefkens, whose account of Iceland in 1563 is included
in Purchas's Collection, has evolved from his inner con-
sciousness a creature of whom he might have written-
"Which cannot look more hideously upon me
Than I have drawn it in my fantasy:"
"The Iseland Sea hath a monster also, whose name is unknowne.
They judge it a kinde of whale at the first sight, when hee shews his
head out of the sea, he so scarreth men that they fall downe almost
dead. His square head hath flaming eyes, on both sides fenced with
long hornes; his body is blacke, and beset with black quills. If he be
seen by night his eyes are fiery, which lighten his whole head, which
he putteth out of the sea. Nothing can either bee painted or imagined
more fearefull. Olaus Magnus makes mention of this monster in his
twentieth booke, and saith that it is twelve cubits long." (Purchas,
vol. iii. p. 650.)
Manatee.
It has been thought that the Manatee, or Dugong, a
marine animal, with a round head, two finlike
flappers, a long body, and a short broad tail,
was the original of the strange stories that were brought
home by travellers of the mermaids of the far West.
Anything less like the form of a beautiful woman than
this dull, shapeless creature it would be difficult to
imagine. The manatee exhibited a few years ago at the
The Manatee.
101
Westminster Aquarium, when seen at close quarters, was
an inert, clumsy-looking animal, bearing far more rèsem-
blance to an overgrown conger than to a human being.
But sailors are gifted with considerable powers of fancy,
and it may be that the appearance of this creature at dusk,
with rounded head lifted above the waves, and sometimes
holding its young one to its breast, had a sufficiently
human aspect to afford material at least for yarns.
There are some good descriptions of the manatee by
some of the more accurate observers who "sailed the
Spanish Main." Robert Harcourt, in his relation of a
voyage to Guiana, 1608, thus describes this animal:-
"There is also a sea-fish which usually commeth into the fresh
waters, especially in the winter and wet season. It is of great esteeme
amongst us, and we account it halfe flesh, for the bloud of it is warm.
It commeth up into the shallow waters in the drowned lands, and feedeth
upon grasse and weedes: the Indians name it coiumero, and the Spaniards
manati, but we call it the sea-cow. In taste it is like beefe, will take
salt, and serve to victuall ships. Of this fish may bee made an excellent
oile for many purposes; the fat of it is good to frie either fish or flesh.
The hide, as I have heard, being dried in the sunne and kept from wet,
will serve for targets and armour against the Indian arrowes. In the
wet season the store of them are infinite. Some of these were here-
tofore brought into England by Sir Walter Rawleigh.” (Purchas,
vol. iv. p. 1275.)
Joseph Acosta, a learned Jesuit, and a careful writer, tells
us in his observations on the West Indies, that-
"at the Islands which they cal Barlovente, which are Cuba, Saint
Dominique, Portrique, and Jamaique, they finde a fish which they call
manati, a strange kind of fish, if we may call it fish, a creature which
ingenders her young ones alive, and doth nourish them with milke,
feeding of grasse in the fields, but in effect it lives continually in the
water, and therefore they eate it as fish; yet when I did eate of it at
Saint Dominique on a Friday I had some scruple, not for that which
is spoken, but for that in colour and taste it was like unto morsels of
veale. . . . Manate therefore, is a fish of the sea, of the biggest sort,
and much greater than the tiburon [shark] in length and breadth, and
is very brutish and vile, so that it appeareth in forme like unto one of
102
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
J
those great vessels made of goats skins, wherein they use to carry new
wine in Median de Campom. The head of this beast is like the head
of an oxe, with also like eyes, and hath in the place of armes, two great
stumps wherewith he swimmeth: it is a very gentle and tame beast,
and commeth oftentimes out of the water to the next shoare, where if
he finde any herbes or grasse he feedeth thereof." (Purchas, vol. iii.
pp. 931, 987.)
This author is much perplexed by the mode by which
the various species of animals, known and unknown, could
have found their way to the Indies. As it was not likely
that people should have taken the fiercer kinds in ships,
and as they could not have swum from the mainland, he
concludes that the old and new world were once united.
A separate creation in a different part of the world would
destroy the value of Noah's ark; moreover, the creation.
could not be completed in six days if there were yet other
kinds to make. It follows then, according to Acosta-
"that those beasts, of whose kindes wee finde not any but at the
Indies, have passed thither from this continent, as wee have said of
other beasts that are knowne unto us. This supposed, I demand, how
is it possible that none of their kinde should remayne here? and how
they are found there, being as it were travellers and strangers? Truly
it is a question that hath long held me in suspence. Wee must then
say, that though all beasts came out of the arke, yet by a naturall
instinct, and the providence of heaven, divers kindes dispersed them-
selves into divers regions, where they found themselves so well as they
would not part, or if they departed they did not preserve themselves,
but in processe of time perished wholly, as we doe see it chance in
many things." (Page 964.)
Robert Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy (vol. i.
p. 497, ed. 1837), alludes to the difficulty suggested by
the worthy Jesuit, but is equally at a loss to solve the
problem of the distribution of species. He writes:-
'Why doth Africa breed so many venemous beasts, Ireland none?
Athens owles, Creet none? Why hath Daulis and Thebes no swal-
lowes, so Pausanias informeth us, as well as the rest of Greece?—Ithaca
no hares, Pontus asses, Scythia swine? Whence come this variety of
complections, colours, plants, birds, beasts, metals, peculiar almost to
Mermaids.
103
every place? Why so many thousand strange birds and beasts proper
to America alone, as Acosta demands? Were they created in six dayes,
or ever in Noahs arke? If there, why are they not dispersed and
found in other countries? It is a thing, saith he, hath long held me
in suspence. No Greek, Latine, Hebrew, ever heard of them before,
and yet as differing from our European animals, as an egg and a
chesnut: and, which is more, kine, horses, sheep, etc., till the Spaniards
brought them were never heard of in those parts."
The popular notion of the Mermaid owed its origin to
the classical fable of the siren, a sea maiden, who sat on
a rock singing sweetly, and often luring mariners to their
destruction. Shakspeare's mermaids are all of the sweet-
voiced siren type. Drayton also confuses the two:—
"To call for aid, and then to lie in wait,
So the hyena murthers by deceit :
By sweet enticement sudden death to bring,
So from the rocks th' alluring mermaids sing.”
(England's Heroical Epistles.)
The mediæval mermaid was supposed to be half fish, half
woman, and there are many accounts of specimens that
were exhibited at shows. In the time of Elizabeth the
mermaid was often adopted as a crest or charge, and was
heraldically depicted as a beautiful woman, holding a
mirror in her right hand and combing her long golden
hair with her left. The arms of the Fishmongers' Com-
pany of London were supported most appropriately by
a merman and a mermaid.
The Mermaid tavern in Cornhill was the familiar resort
of Shakspeare and other writers of the time, whose wit
combats are commemorated by Beaumont in his epilogue
to Ben Jonson :—
"What things we have seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtile flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole life in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life."
104
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Horse.
CHAPTER VI. .
HOWEVER little Shakspeare cared for dogs he always
writes as if he loved horses. The enthusiastic
praises heaped upon his horse by the Dauphin,
though spoken by a foreigner, are evidently genuine. So
is the grief of the poor groom of Richard's stable at the
degradation of "Roan Barbary.”
"Groom. O, how it yearn'd my heart when I beheld
In London streets, that coronation day,
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary,
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
That horse that I so carefully have dress'd!
Rich. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
How went he under him?
Groom. So proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.
Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down,
Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck
Of that proud man that did usurp his back?"
(Richard II., v. 5, 76.)
The description of the courser of Adonis is almost too
familiar to quote. The striking resemblance the lines
bear to a passage in Du Bartas may, however, be worth
noting :-
Horse tamed by Cain.
"Look, when a painter would surpass the life,
In limning out a well-proportion'd steed,
His art with nature's workmanship at strife,
As if the dead the living should exceed;
So did this horse excel a common one
In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone.
"Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlock shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head and nostrils wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide :
Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,
Save a proud rider on so proud a back."
(Venus and Adonis, 11. 289–300.)
105
Du Bartas, in his sacred history of the world, tells how
Cain, when preparing to found a new habitation and a
colony, turns for assistance to animals, as human beings
are scarce. The troops of wild horses bounding across
the plains attract his attention, and-
Among a hundred brave, light, lusty horses
(With curious eye marking their comly forces,)
He chooseth one for his industrious proof,
With round, high, hollow, smooth, brown, jetty hoof.
With pasterns short, upright, but yet in mean;
Dry sinewy shanks; strong, flesh-less knees, and lean;
With hart-like legs, broad brest, and large behinde,
With body large, smooth flanks, and double-chin'd;
A crested neck bow'd like a half-bent bowe,
Whereon' a long, thin, curled mane doth flowe;
A firm full tail, touching the lowly ground,
With dock between two fair fat buttocks drownd;
A pricked ear, that rests as little space,
As his light foot; a lean, bare, bonny face,
Thin joule, and head but of a middle size,
Full, lively-flaming, quickly rowling eyes,
Great foaming mouth, hot-fuming nostrill wide,
Of chest-nut hair, his fore-head starrifi'd,
Three milky feet, a feather on his brest,
Whom seven-years-old at the next grass he ghest."
(Divine Weekes and Workes, p. 106.)
This description would better apply to a horse competing
106
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
for a prize at a show than to the desert-born. The
reference to the "next grass" is whimsically out of place.
Shakspeare was doubtless too well acquainted with the
points of a good horse to seek instruction from a foreigner,
but less likely still is it that the gallant Huguenot, Sieur
du Bartas, had ever seen the English poem. Both writers
may have derived their materials from some veterinary
work of the time. The date of Venus and Adonis is fixed
by critics at about 1593. The complete translation of
the Divine Weekes was published in 1606, but portions of
the book had already appeared.
Owing to the state of the roads, which were highly
unfavourable for wheeled traffic, horses were largely
employed in England as a means of locomotion. Nicander
Nucius, in his Travels through England in the sixteenth
century, observes that the English horses were for the
most part white.
Thomas Fuller is not particularly enthusiastic about
the English breed. Our English horses, he says—
"have a mediocrity of all necessary good properties in them; as
neither so slight as the Barb, nor so slovenly as the Flemish, nor so
fiery as the Hungarian, nor so airy as the Spanish gennets, nor so
earthly as those in the Low Countries, and generally all the German
horse. For stature and strength they are of a middle size, and are
bothe seemly and serviceable in a good proportion. And, whilst the
seller praiseth them too much, the buyer too little, the indifferent
stander-by will give them this due commendation. Yorkshire doth
breed the best race of English horses, whose keeping commonly in
steep and stony ground bringeth them to firmness of footing and
hardness of hoof. Well may Philip be so common a name amongst
the gentry of this county, who are generally so delighted in horseman-
ship." (Worthies of England, vol. ii. p. 491, ed. 1811.)
Hobby.
"
Camden mentions an Irish variety of horse,
with a special kind of pace :-
They have likewise excellent good horses, wee terme the Hobies,
which have not the same pace that other horses in their course have,
but a soft and round amble, setting one legge before another very
finely."
Beauty of the Gennet.
107
Fynes Moryson, describing the natural commodities of
the Irish, says :-
"Their horses, called hobbies, are much commended for their
ambling pace and beuty: but Ireland yeelds few good horses for
service in war, and the said hobbies are much inferior to our geldings
in strength to endure long journies, and being bred in the fenny soft
ground of Ireland, are soone lamed when they are brought into
England." (Itinerary, 1617, part iii. p. 160.)
Galloway nags are said to have sprung from some
Spanish stallions washed on shore at Galloway,
during the wreck of the Armada. Gambald-
Galloway.
ing horses were managed horses of show and parade. The
gennet, which Froissart calls a light speedy pleasure
horse, Cotgrave makes a Spanish horse. Hackneys, a
word derived from the French haquenée, and the Italian
achinea, a little nag, and not, as Maitland (History of
London, p. 1365) supposes, from hired horses being
chiefly engaged for journeys to Hackney, were ridden
in marches to ease the war-horses (Fosbroke, Enc. of
Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 1018, ed. 1843).
Gennet.
The Gennet was kept principally for display, and was
a handsome showy animal. In Winwood's
State Papers (vol. ii. p. 149) we find a letter
from Sir Charles Cornwallis, 1605, to the Earl of
Salisbury. He writes from Spain, of the Spaniards, “If
they get but a day's rest they are not unlike your
pampered gennets, which are only estimable for their
outward show, nothing for service of effect." Philip
Bliss, in his edition of Bishop Earle's Microcosmography,
gives a passage from an early writer, name unknown, who
enthusiastically praises this kind of horse:
"When Nature first framed him she took a secret complacence in
her worke. He is even her masterpeece in irracionall things, borrowing
somewhat of all things to set him forth. For example, his silke bay
coat hee tooke from the chesnut; his necke from the rainbow, which
perhaps makes him rain so well. His maine belike he took from
108
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Pegasus, making him a hobbie, to make this a compleat gennet,
which main he wears so curld, much after the women's fashions now
adayes; this I am sure of, howsoever it becomes them, it sets forth
our gennet well. His legges he borrowed from the hart, with his
swiftnesse, which make him a true courser indeed; the starres in his
forehead hee fetcht from heaven, which will not be much mist, there
being so many."
""
Montaigne, in his Essays, 1580, explains the origin
of the word Destrier, a name sometimes given
Destrier. to horses employed in tournaments :—
“I am now become a grammarian; I who never learn'd any
language but by rote, and who do not yet know adjective, conjunction,
or ablative, I think I have read, that the Romans had a sort of horses
by them call'd funales, or dextrarios, which were either led-horses, or
horses laid in at several stages to be taken fresh upon occasion; and
thence it is, that we call our horses of service destriers: and our
romances commonly use the phrase of destrer for accompagner, to
accompany. They also call'd such as were dress'd in such sort, that
running full speed side by side without bridle or saddle, the Roman
gentlemen arm'd at all pieces, would shift, and throw themselves from
the one to the other, desultorios equos." (Essay 37.)
In the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII., there
are frequent mentions of the king's horses, and especially
of a Barbary horse, called in one place the Barra horse,
and in another the Barbarista horse. This horse may
have been an Arabian sent as a present from some district
of Barbary. The high price of 7s. 2d. was paid at one
time for a bath for him.
The drink prepared from mare's milk, now known as
koumiss, is described by one of Purchas's
Koumiss,
pilgrims as early as the year 1253. William
de Rubruquis, a French friar of the order of Minorites,
went a missionary journey through Tartary and China,
and sent a detailed account of his travels to King Louis
IX. of France. He describes at some length the prepara-
tion of cosmos, or fermented mares' milk. As many as three
thousand mares were kept on a single estate to furnish the
superior article called caracosmos, or black cosmos, a
Racing.
109
beverage reserved for the nobility. The milk, according
to this traveller, was poured into a bladder, and shaken till
it formed a sediment as thick as butter; the clear portion.
of the liquid was strained off, and formed a pleasant,
slightly intoxicating drink. The lees or dregs were given
to servants (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 5).
The history of racing in England dates from the reign
of James I. This monarch had a passionate
fondness for field sports.
Under his super-
Racing.
intendence a code of regulations was drawn up, which
served as a foundation for the laws of racing as they
exist to-day. Regular courses were established, in which
what were called running-horses competed. Manningham,
in his Diary, takes notice of what was probably one of
the earliest races in England:
"This day [April 6, 1602] there was a race at Sapley neere
Huntingdon, invented by the gentlemen of that county: at this Mr.
Oliver Cromwell's horse won the sylver bell; and Mr. Cromwell had
the glory of the day. Mr. Hynd came behinde." (Ed. Camden
Society, 1868, p. 49.)
In Baker's Chronicle, 1612, we read that private
matches between gentlemen who rode their own horses
were very common in that year. The most celebrated
races of the time were called bell courses. At these
races the prize of a bell was given to the winner. It has
been contended that the phrase "to bear the bell" may
have had its origin in this custom. It is probably to
one of these matches that Imogen alludes:-
"I have heard of riding wagers,
Where horses have been nimbler than the sands
That run i' the clock's behalf."
(Cymbeline, iii. 2, 74.)
Exhibitions of animals trained to perform tricks were
not unfrequent at this period. The plays of Marocco.
the time contain many references to Marocco,
a bay gelding, fourteen years old, belonging to a Scotch-
110
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
man named Banks. This docile animal was taught to
perform a variety of feats: among other exploits, he is
reported to have climbed up to the top of St. Paul's,
though whether he went up by the galleries within or
over the dome is not recorded. "Could the little horse
that ambled on the top of St. Paul's carry all the
people?" (Webster, Northward Hoe, iv. 1). "He keeps
more ado with this monster than ever Banks did with
his horse" (Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour,
iv. 5). "I'll teach thee to turn me into Banks his horse
and to tell gentlemen I am a jugler and can shew tricks"
(Decker, Satiromastix).
Shakspeare alludes to Marocco in Love's Labour Lost,
i. 2: "How easy it is to put 'years' to the word 'three,'
and study three years in two words, the dancing horse
will tell you." As to the future fate of this intelligent
quadruped we read in Mr. Payne Collier's Poetical
Decameron, 1820, that "poor Marocco and his master
were many years afterwards both burnt in Portugal, or,
as others say in Rome, for having dealings with the
devil." Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World,
seems to have had a sort of presentiment of the fate of
poor Banks, for speaking of " the divers kindes of unlawful
magicke,” he says,
"And certainly if Bankes had lived in elder times he would have
shamed all the inchanters of the world, for whosoever was inost famous
among them could never master or instruct any beast as he did his
horse."
Sir Kenelm Digby also mentions this animal, and
observes:
"He that should tell an Indian, what feates Banks his horse would
do; how he would restore a glove to the due owner, after his master
had whispered that mans name in his eare; how he would tell the
just number of pence in any piece of silver coyne barely shewed him
by his master, would make him, I beleeve, admire more at this learned
beast, then we do at their docile elephantes, upon the relations we
have of them. Whereas every one of us knoweth by what means his
.
Marocco.
111
painefull tutor brought him to do all his trickes: and they are no
whitte more extraordinary, then a fawkeners manning of a hawke, and
trayning her to kill partridges, and to fly at the retrive." (A Treatise
of Bodies, p. 321, ed. 1644.)
Marocco's feats were apparently outdone in other coun-
tries. George Sandys, an Eastern traveller, during his
residence in Cairo, seems to have been amused at the
number and variety of performing animals in that city:
dancing camels, talking ravens, learned dogs, and goats
were exhibited. "Asses they will teach to doe such
tricks, as if possessed with reason: to whom Bankes his
horse would have proved but a zany" (Purchas, vol. ii.
p. 907).
The earliest notice of Marocco's popularity occurs in
a manuscript copy of one of Dr. Donne's satires, dated
1593, preserved in the Harleian manuscript, No. 5110.
The best account of Bankes and his horse, says Mr.
Douce, is to be found in the notes to a French transla-
tion of Apuleius's Golden Ass, by Jean de Montlyard,
1602.
Ass.
The Ass is a native of hot countries; and though it
has been in a measure acclimatized in Eng-
land, the breed has degenerated in the trans-
ference. This animal does not appear to have been
common in the time of Elizabeth. Nicander Nucius
notes, in his travels in England in the reign of Henry
VIII., that this country is deficient in the breed of asses
and mules.
Batman derives the name ass from sedendo, sitting, as
it were a beast to sit on; for men sat and rode upon
asses before they used horses to ride upon. Or, he
suggests, this name asinus may come from a, not
having, and synos, wit, as it were a beast without wit.
Quoting Aristotle, Batman further states that as the ass
feeds among thorns and briars he excites the enmity
of the small birds that build in bushes. His habit of
112 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
rubbing himself against the thorns causes the birds' eggs.
to fall out of their nests; and again, when he lifts his
head, "then by a strong blast the thorns moveth and
shaketh, and of the great noyse the birdes be affeard full
sore and falleth out of the nest " (Batman upon Bartho-
lome, p. 341). The synonym donkey is never used in the
time of Shakspeare. It is impossible to write of this
animal without recalling Dogberry's indignant exclama-
tion, "O that I had been writ down an ass!" (Much
Ado About Nothing, iv. 2, 90).
The Zebra, one of the most beautiful animals inhabit-
ing the continent of Africa, is mentioned by
Zebra. early travellers, though no specimen seems to
have been brought to England, at least up to the time of
Shakspeare. Edward Lopes, a Portuguese, in his report
of the kingdom of Congo, states that—
"there breedeth in this country, another creature, which they call a
zebra, commonly found also in certaine provinces of Barbary and
Africa. It hath a most singular skin, and peculiar from all other
creatures. For from the ridge of the chin downe towards the belly it
is straked with rowes of three colours, blacke, white, and browne bay,
about the breadth of three fingers a piece, and so meet againe together
in a circle, every row, with his owne colour.”
After giving a full description of the various parts of the
animal the writer goes on to admire its speed, which, he
says, is admirable:--
“insomuch as in Portugall and in Castile also, it is commonly used (as
it were for a proverbe) as swift as a zebra, when they will signifie an
exceeding quicknesse." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1001.)
Andrew Battell, an Englishman, writing a description
of the same part of Africa, also mentions the zevera, or
zebra.
John Huighen van Linschoten, in his
Rhinoceros. description of a voyage to Goa, informs us
that-
The Armed Rhinoceros,
113
"the Abada, or Rhinoceros, is not in India, but only in Benegala and
Patane. They are lesse and lower then the elephant. It hath a
short horne upon the nose, in the hinder part somewhat bigge, and
toward the end sharper, of a browne, blew, and whitish colour; it
hath a snout like a hog, and the skin upon the upper part of his body
is all wrinckled, as it were armed with shields or targets. It is a great
enemie of the elephant. Some thinke it is the right unicorne, because
that as yet there hath no other beene found, but onely by hear-say, and
by the pictures of them. The Portugalls and those of Bengala affirme,
that by the river Ganges in the kingdome of Bengala, are many of
these rhinocerots, which when they will drinke, the other beasts stand
and waite upon them, till the rhinoceros hath drunke, and thrust
their horne into the water, for hee cannot drinke but his horne must
be under the water, because it standeth so close unto his nose, and
muzzle: and then after him all the other beasts doe drinke. Their
hornes in India are much esteemed and used against all venome,
poyson, and many other diseases." (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1773.)
Shakspeare has but one reference to this animal-
"The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger" (Macbeth,
iii. 4). For the epithet armed he may have been indebted
to the foregoing description.
The Indian rhinoceros is a one-horned species, and is
probably the original of the unicorn of the Greeks and
Romans. It is, however, distinguished from that animal
by Drayton :-
"The unicorn leaves off his pride and close
There sets him down by the rhinoceros."
(Noah's Flood.)
In a pageant written by Thomas Heywood, on the
occasion of the mayoralty of Sir Maurice Abbot, printed
1638, the following account is given of this curious
animal
The second show by land is an Indian beast called a rhinoceros,
which being presented to the life, is for the rarenesse thereof, more fit
to beautifie a triumph. His head, necke, backe, sides, aud thighes,
armed by nature with impenetrable skales; his hide or skinne of the
colour of the boxe tree; in greatnesse equall with the elephant, but
his legges are somewhat shorter; and enemy to all beasts of rapine
I
114
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
and prey, as the lyon, leopard, beare, wolfe, tiger, and the like; but to
others, as the horse, asse, oxe, sheep, &c. which feede not upon the life
and blood of the weaker, but of the grasse and hearbage of the field,
harmlesse and gentle, ready to succour them, when they be any way
distressed. Hee hath a short horne growing from his nose, being in
continual enmity with the elephant before hee encounter him, he
sharpeneth it against a stone." (Lord Mayor's Pageants, ed. Percy
Society, vol. 9, p. 71.)
The enmity between these two animals, the elephant and
rhinoceros, is a myth of ancient growth, which has sur-
vived to recent times. The amiability of the rhinoceros
towards his weaker comrades is a trait of character for
which this animal is indebted to the imagination of
Heywood.
Mr. Timbs, in his Eccentricities of the Animal Creation,
1869, tells us that a specimen of the one-horned variety
was sent from India, to Emmanuel, King of Portugal, in
the year 1513:-
"The sovereign made a present of it to the pope; but the animal
being seized during the passage with a fit of fury, occasioned the loss
of the vessel in which it was transported."
The first rhinoceros brought to England was in the year
1684. It is noticed by Evelyn in his Diary as the rhino-
ceros or unicorn.
Another frequenter of the mudbanks of rivers in the
Hippopota- East, the Hippopotamus, is thus described by
a Portuguese who travelled in Ethiopia and
along the southern coast of Africa :-
mus.
"In these rivers are many zouo or zoo, so they call the river-horses;
greater then two of our horses together, with thick and short hinder-
legs, having five clawes on each fore-foot, and foure on the hinder-foot;
the footing large as it were of an elephant, the mouth wide and full of
teeth, some of which are remarkable, each above two palmes or spans
long, the two lower straight up, and those above turned like a bores
tusks, all foure being above a great spaune eminent from the mouth.
The head is as big as of three oxen. Their hides are much thicker
1
The Boar.
115
then an oxe-hide, all of one colour, ash-coloured gray, most of them
with a white strake on the face all quite downe, and a starre in the
fore-head, haire rough, mane little and short." (Purchas, vol. ii.,
p. 1544.)
Edward Lopes, a Portuguese traveller, relates that one
of the islands at the mouth of the river Zaire, in Congo,
is called the "Ile of horses, because there are bred and
brought up in it great store of these creatures that the
Greekes call hippopotami, that is to say, water-horses."
This writer is a little in error in his etymology. The
name is derived from the words hippos, a horse, and
potamos, a river.
There is no record of any living specimen of the
hippopotamus being brought to England till the year
1850, when the arrival of a young one at the Zoological
Gardens caused quite a flutter of interest.
We come now to a more familiar animal.
"The great wild Bore of nature terrible,
With two strong tushes for his armourie,
Sometimes assailes the beare most horrible,
And 'twixt them is a fight both fierce and deadly.
He hunteth after marjoram and organie,
Boar.
Which as a whetstone doth his need supply.”
(CHESTER, Love's Martyr, p. 109.)
The Boar, once the most abundant of British wild
animals, had been gradually driven by the cultivation of
the forest lands into remote regions of England. Accord-
ing to Mr. Harting, the exact date of the extinction of the
wild boar in England is uncertain. James I. was regaled
with "wild boar pie" on the occasion of a visit he paid
to Lancashire, 1617, and his Majesty hunted this game
in Windsor Forest in the same year (Extinct British
Animals, p. 100).
Thomas Fuller writes of the oak woods of Hampshire:
'Hantshire hogs are allowed by all for the best bacon, being our
English Westphalian, and which well-ordered hath deceived the most
=
116 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
L
judicious pallats. Here the swine feed in the forrest on plenty of
acorns (men's meat in the golden, hog's food in this iron age;) which,
going out lean, return home fat, without either care or cost to their
owners. Nothing but fulness stinteth their feeding on the mast
falling from the trees, where also they lodge at liberty (not pent up, as
in other places, to stacks of pease), which some assign the reason of
the fineness of their flesh; which, though not all glorre (where no
bancke of lean can be seen for the deluge of fat), is no less delicious to
the taste, and more wholsome for the stomack." (Worthies of England,
vol. i. p. 400, ed. 1811.)
Glore is a word still used for fat in the north of
England.
Venus, fearful for the safety of Adonis, reminds him
of the dangerous nature of the beast he proposes to
encounter:
"Thou hadst been gone,' quoth she, 'sweet boy, ere this,
But that thou told'st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.
O, be advised! thou know'st not what it is
With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore,
Whose tushes never sheathed he whetteth still,
Like to a mortal butcher bent to kill.
""On his bow-back he hath a battle set
Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes;
His eyes, like glow-worms, shine when he doth fret;
His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes;
Being moved, he strikes whate'er is in his way,
And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.
"His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd,
Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter;
His short thick neck cannot be easily harm'd;
Being ireful, on the lion he will venture;
The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,
As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.'"
(Venus and Adonis, 11. 619–630.)
The antiquary, John Stowe, gives an account of Saint
Anthony's pigs, in his Survey of London, written in the
reign of Elizabeth :-
"Some distance from this, the Merchant-Tailors' Hall, is Finke's
Lane, so called of Robert Finke, and Robert Finke his son, James
St. Anthony's Pigs.
117
Finke, and Rosamond Finke. On the north side of this street, from
over against the east corner of St. Martin's Oteswich Church, have ye
divers fair and large houses till ye come to the hospital of St. Anthonie,
sometime a cell to St. Anthonie's of Vienna. The proctors of this
house were to collect the benevolence of charitable persons towards the
building and supporting thereof. And amongst other things observed in
my youth, I remember that the officers charged with oversight of the
markets in this city, did divers times take from the market people, pigs
starved, or otherwise unwholesome for man's sustenance; these they
slit in the ear. One of the proctors for St. Anthonie tied a bell about
the neck, and let it feed on the dunghills. No man would hurt or take
them up, but if any gave to them bread, or other feeding, such would
they know, watch for, and daily follow, whining till they had some-
what given them; whereupon was raised a proverb, 'Such an one will
follow such an one, and whine as it were an Anthonie pig;' but if such
a pig grew to be fat and came to good liking, as oftimes they did,
then the proctors would take him up to the use of the hospital." (Page
69, ed. 1842.)
It is said that pigs were placed under the protection
of Saint Anthony, but if such a precarious existence was
the outcome of his favour, the poor animals might well
have desired the patronage of some more kind-hearted
saint. An illustration of the custom recorded by Stowe
is found in Bale's comedy of Thre Lawes, 1538, in which
play Infedelity begins his address :—
"Good Christen people, I'm come hyther verelye
As a true proctor of the house of S. Antonye."
He offers, among other charms-
"Lo, here is a belle to hang upon hour hogge,
And save your cattel from the bytynge of a dogge."
John Leo, in his book of the history of Africa, gives
a good description of another animal most
useful to man, the Camel:
Camel.
"Camels are gentle and domesticall beasts, and are found in Africa
in great numbers, especially in the desarts of Libya, Numidia, and
Barbaria. And these the Arabians esteeme to bee their principall
possessions and riches; so that speaking of the wealth of any of their
princes, or governours, He hath, say they, so many thousand camels,
118
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
and not so many thousand duckets. Of camels there are three kinds;
whereof the first, being called hugiun, are grosse, and of a tall stature,
and most fit to carrie burthens. The second kinde of camel is called
becheti, and having a double bunch, are fit both to carrie burthens and
to ride upon; and these are bred onely in Asia. The third kind, called
raguahill, are camels of a slender and low stature, which albeit they
are unfit to carry burthens, yet doe they so excell the two other kinds
in swiftnesse, that in the space of one day they will travell one hundred
miles, and so continue over the desarts for eight or ten dayes together
with very little provender: and these doe the principall Arabians of
Numidia and the Moores of Libya usually ride upon." (Purchas,
vol. ii. p. 842.)
The kind, here mentioned, with the double bunch, ist
the Bakhtee, or Bactrian camel, found in Persia. By the
third variety Leo probably means the lighter breed of
camel, usually called a dromedary.
Mr. Palgrave, in his book on Central and Eastern Arabia,
1865, demolishes the common belief that the camel and
the dromedary are distinct varieties.
He says:
"It may be well to make my readers aware, once for all, of the
fact that the popular home idea of a dromedary having two humps
and a camel one, or vice versa (for I have forgotten which of the
animals is supplied with a duplicate boss in coloured picture-books), is
a simple mistake. The camel and the dromedary in Arabia are the
same identical genus and creature, excepting that the dromedary is a
high-bred camel, and the camel a low-bred dromedary; exactly the
same distinction which exists between a race-horse and a hack; both
are horses, but the one of blood, the other not. The dromedary is the
race-horse of his species, thin, elegant (or comparatively so), fine-
haired, light of step, easy of pace, and much more enduring of thirst
than the woolly, thick-built, heavy-footed, ungainly, and jolting camel.
Both and each of them have only one hump, placed immediately
behind their shoulders, where it serves as a fixing-point for the saddle
or burden."
This modern account confirms the accuracy of Henry
Timberley, a traveller contemporary with Shakspeare,
who writes:-
"The dromedarie is like a camel, but that his head is lesse, his
legs longer, and a very small necke, the difference being as betweene
a greyhound and a mastiff." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1642.)
Voracity of the Camel.
119
Shakspeare has several allusions to the camel, but
none to the dromedary. Chester, in his list of animals,
1601, distinguishes between them :—
"The bunch-back'd, big-bon'd, swift-foote dromidary,
Of dromas, the Greeke word, borrowing the name,
For his quicke flying speedy property:
Which easily these countrymen do tame.
He'l go a hundred miles within one day,
And never seeke in any place to stay.
"The camel is of nature flexible,
For when a burden on his backe is bound,
To ease the labourer, he is known most gentle,
For why he kneeleth downe upon the ground:
Suffering the man to put it off or on,
As it seemes best in his discretion."
(Love's Martyr, p. 110.)
The camel was credited with a prodigious appetite,
but considering the long fasts to which it was occasionally
subjected this voracity was perhaps excusable.
"Anannestes. Why, lad, they be pure cameleons, they feed only
upon air.
"Mendacio. Cameleons? I'll be sworn some of your fiddlers be
rather camels, for, by their good wills, they will never leave eating.”
(Brewer, Lingua, iv. i.)
Llama.
The Llama is the representative of the camel in the
New World. There are several species, some
of which are described by the early travellers.
H. Brewer, in some notes on Chili and Peru, included in
Churchill's collection, gives the llama the appropriate
name of the camel-sheep, "whose neck is nearly four feet
long, and the wool very fine." Joseph Acosta, a learned
Jesuit, in his Natural and Moral History of the East and
West Indies, writes:
"There is nothing in Peru of greater riches and profit than the
cattell of the country, which our men call Indian sheepe, and the Indians
120
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
in their generall language call them lama. For all things well con-
sidered, it is a beast of the greatest profit and least charge of any that
I know; from them they draw meate and clothing, as from the sheepe
of Spaine. . There are two kindes of these sheepe or lamas, the one they
call pacos, or sheepe bearing wool, and the other are bare, and have
little wooll, so are they better for burthen; they are bigger then
great sheepe, and lesse then calves, they have a very long necke, like
to a camel, whereof they have good need: for being high of stature, they
have neede of a long necke, else should they be deformed. They are
of divers colours, some all white, others all blacke, some grey, and
some spotted." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 968.)
The same author also describes the Vicuna, a species of
llama:
(C
Amongst the most remarkable things at the Indies of Peru, be
the vicugnes, and sheepe of the countrie, as they call them, which are
tractable beasts and of great profit. The vicugnes are wilde, and the
sheepe are tame. Some thinke that the vicugnes are those which Aris-
totle, Plinie, and other authors call capreas, which are wilde goats,
and in truth they have some resemblance, for the lightnesse they have
in the woods and mountaines, but yet they are no goates, for the
vicugnes have no hornes, as those have whereof Aristotle makes mention.
These vicugnes are greater then goates and lesser than calves. Their
haire is of the colour of dried roses, somewhat clearer. They have no
hornes like stags and goates. They feed upon the highest tops of the
mountaines, which they call Pugnas. They are accustomed to sheere
these beasts, and of their fleece to make coverings and rugge of great
value, for that this wooll is like to white silke, which lasts long; and
as the colour is naturall and not dyed, so is it perpetuall." (Page 967.)
The Guanaco, another species of llama, is described
by Pigafetta in an account of the voyage of Fernando de
Magalhanes, as having the head and ears like those of a
mule, the body like a camel, legs like a stag, and a tail
like that of a horse, which it resembled in the neighing.
The natives of those parts of South America visited by
Magellan wore a kind of shoe made of its skin, which
caused their feet to appear like those of the animal. On
this account Magellan, or as he is here called, Magalhanes,
named the people Pata-gones: Pata signifying in the
7
יר
The Elk.
121
Spanish language a hoof or paw (Burney's Travels, p. 34,
ed. 1802). Xaco is a name given to the llama by another
traveller.
The first llama brought to Europe was landed at
Middleburgh, in 1558, and sent as a present to the
German Emperor. A rude figure of this animal, en-
graved at Nuremberg, was copied by Gesner, the great
naturalist of the time, in his work on quadrupeds
(Bennett, Menagerie of the Zoological Society, 1830).
Of the known varieties of deer the largest was the
Elk. This animal is a native of Northern
Europe and Asia. It also inhabits North
Elk or
Moose.
America, where it is usually called the Moose, from the
Indian word musu. It is described in an account of
the discovery and colonization of New England:-
“There is also a certaine beast, that the natives call a mosse, hee
is as big bodies as an oxe, headed like a fallow deere, with a broad
palme, which hee mues every yeare, as dothe the deere, and neck like
a red deere, with a short mane running down along the ranes of his
back, his haire long like an elke, but esteemed to be better then
that for saddlers use, he hath likewise a great bunch hanging downe
under his throat, and is of the colour of our blacker sort of fallow
deere, his legs are long, and his feet as big as the feet of our oxen, his
taile is longer then the single of a deere. His fleshe is excellent
food, which the natives use to jerkin and keepe all the yeere to serve
their turne, and so proves very serviceable for their use." (Purchas,
vol. iv. p. 1829.)
Another traveller asserts that "the elk, that so much
desired and salutiferous beast is frequently to be met with
in those parts, and which for the virtue of one of his feet
has obtained the name of ncoco, signifying the excellent
beast" (Churchill's Voyages, vol. i. p. 537). Drayton, in
his poem, Noah's Flood, represents this animal as taking
his place in the procession towards the ark:-
“The great unwieldly elk, whose skin is of much proof,
Throngs with the rest t' attain this wooden roof."
122 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Shields and targets were made of the skin of the elk,
which were thick enough to resist the point of the
sharpest spear.
In Kennet's History of England, 1706, we find men-
tion of an animal whose name is not to be found in modern
dictionaries. We are told that Sir Hierom Bowes, the
English ambassador to Russia, 1583, was-
“the first (if an historian may have leave to mention so trivial a
matter) who brought into England the beast call'd a machlis, never
before seen here; it is like an elk, in Latin alce, having no joints in
the legs and yet wonderful swift. He brought also certain fallow deer
of admirable swiftness, which being yoked together, would draw a
man sitting in a sled with incredible speed." (Vol. ii. p. 493.)
The machlis was in all probability the elk, and the fallow
deer were no doubt reindeer.
Topsell (p. 592) gives us some information, etymo-
logical and otherwise, concerning that most
valuable animal to the natives of the cold
regions which it inhabits, the Reindeer.
Reindeer.
"This beast is called by the Latines rangifer, by the Germains
rein, reiner, raineger, reinsthier, by the French raingier, and ranglier,
and the later Latins call it reingus. It is a beast altogither unknowne
to the auncient Græcians and Latins, except the machlis that Pliny
speaketh of be it. This beast was first of all discovered by Olaus
Magnus in this northerne part of the world, towardes the Poale
attique, as in Norway, Swetia, and Scandinavia, at the first sight
whereof he called it raingifer, because he beareth hornes on his head like
the boughes of a tree. This beast chaungeth his colour, according to
the time of the yeare, and also according to the quality of the place
wherein he feedeth, which appeareth by this, because some of them are
found to be of the colour of asses, and shortly after to be like hartes.
The King of Swetia had ten of them nourished at Lappa, which he
caused every day to be driven unto the mountains into the colde ayre,
for they were not able to endure the heat. The mouth of this beast
is like the mouth of a cow, they many times come out of Laponia
into Swetia, where they are wonderfully anoied with wolves, but they
gather themselves togither in a ring, and so fight against their enimies
with their hornes. They are also in their owne naturall countrey
The Reindeer.
123
annoyed with gulons [gluttons], and generally all beastes that live
upon the spoile of flesh, are enemies unto them, and desire to destroy
and eate them. In their pace, both slow and speedie, the articles of
their legs make a noise like the craking of nuts. There was one
of these beasts given unto the Duke of Saxony in the year of our Lord,
1561."
Olaus Magnus, the chronicler of Northern Europe
referred to in the preceding passage, informs us that—
"in the northern parts of both the Bothnians, (for so are the utmost
parts of the north countrey called, as if it were from the bottome of a
vessel) and Great Lapland, there is a beast with three horns, that is of
the kind of stags, but is far taller, stronger, and swifter: and it is
called rangifer, for two reasons; one is, because it carryeth high horns
on the head, like the boughs of an oke-tree; the other is, because the
instruments that are put upon the horns and breast to draw their
waggons withall in winter, are called in that language rancha and
lochai, of these horns it hath two bigger than the rest, growing as the
stags horns do; but they are with more branches, and farther out, for
they augment to fifteen branches. Another stands in the middle of
their head, with little small branches shorter than the other, standing
round about it. These arm the head on all sides against the beasts
that are enemies unto it, especially wolves; and it shews comely, and
to be admired amongst strange things. The meat this beast eateth
is mountain moss, that is white, chiefly in winter, that lyes on the
superficies of the ground covered with snow. And though these snows
be thick, yet by an instinct of nature, will it 'dig in them like a wilde
horse to seek for its neat. In summer
In summer it feeds on leaves and boughs
of trees, better standing and going, than stooping down the head,
(because the horns are too crooked forward) and that inclining the
head obliquely, and on one side. It hath a mane-like a horse, and the
hoofs are divided in two.
"If they be carried into other countries, especially beyond seas, they
will not live long, either by reason of the climate changes, or unusual
food they feed on, unless their ordinary keeper feeds them; as I
remember that formerly the most illustrious Prince of Sweden, Steno
Sture, the younger, sent six of these rangifers to Frederick Duke of
Holsatia, and he sent two keepers with them, the man and wife that
were Laplanders; these being carried out of their native countrey, and
being under the government of others, because they wanted their rest,
and manner of living, neither they nor the beasts, wanting a particular
care for them, did live long. Likewise in the year of our Lord, 1533,
124
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Gustavus King of Sweden sent ten pair of these beasts to some noble
men in Prussia, both for sight, and for propagation, and they were all
set free into the woods but there came nothing of it and changing the
place did not profit for their increase." (History of the Goths, Swedes,
and Vandals, p. 176.)
Olaus Magnus, whose work on the manners, customs,
and wars of the northern nations of Europe is frequently
quoted by writers of the Elizabethan era, was Archbishop
of Upsal, and Metropolitan of Sweden. He died in 1568.
His work was originally published in Latin. It contains
much information not found elsewhere, but is uncritically
written, and the author's unbounded credulity leads him
occasionally to make the most absurd statements with the
profoundest gravity.
Red Deer.
The Red Deer, the most important of the wild animals
of our own country, must have been at this
time extremely plentiful in the forests
throughout the land. Fynes Moryson, 1591, speaks of
the number and extent of parks containing both red and
fallow deer existing in his time :-
"The kings forrests have innumerable heards of red deare, and all
parts have such plenty of fallow deare, as every gentleman of five
hundred or a thousand pounds rent by the yeere hath a parke for
them inclosed with pales of wood for two or three miles compasse.
Yet this prodigall age hath so forced gentlemen to improve their
revenews, as many of these grounds are by them disparked, and con-
verted to feed cattell. Lastly (without offence be it spoken) I will
boldly say, that England (yea perhaps one county thereof) hath more
fallow deare, then all Europe that I have seene." (Itinerary, part
iii. b. 2, p. 148.)
In Ireland, however, he finds a different state of things:
"The Earle of Ormond in Munster, and the Earle of Kildare in
Lemster, had each of them a small parke inclosed for fallow deare, and
I have not seene any other parke in Ireland, nor have heard that they
had any other at that time, yet in many woods they have many red
deare, loosely scattered, which seeme more plentifull, because the in-
habitants used not to hunt them, but onely the governours and com-
manders had them sometimes killed with the piece." (Page 160.)
Sale of Venison.
125
Englishmen who travelled for pleasure were not very
numerous at this period. Fynes Moryson was a gentle-
man of good position and ample means. He travelled for
the space of twelve years through Germany, Bohemia,
and several other countries of Europe. His Itinerary,
which is an account of his wanderings, was first written in
Latin, and then translated by himself into English. It
extends over the years 1591 to 1603. This work contains
many interesting details concerning early manners, both
English and foreign. Moryson died about the year 1614.
John Norden, in his Description of Essex, 1594, writes:-
"About the hundredes of Waltham, Onger, Becontré, and muche
of the Libertie of Havering are for the most part woods and woodie
groundes, and foreste, as the most parte of Essex in time paste hath
bene. This forest is well replenished with deere, red and fallow, who
seeme noe good neighbors to the foreste inhabitantes: but the kindnes
which they receyve of the forest, may worke their patience towardes
the game. Ther is also nere Hatfeylde Broadokes a chace called Hat-
feyld Chace, a grounde well replenished with fallow deare.
This
shire seemeth not anie wher altogether destitute of wood, thowgh no
wher well stored. It is full of parkes." (Page 9, ed. Camden Society.)
Thomas Fuller bewails the necessity which forced land-
lords to economize, and the consequent decrease in number
of both deer and parks. He writes:-
"Deer are daily diminished in England, since the gentry are neces-
sitated into thrift, and are forced to turn their pleasure into profit:
'jam seges est ubi parcus erat;' and, since the sale of bucks hath be-
come ordinary, I believe, in process of time, the best-stored park will
be found in a cook's shop in London." (Worthies of England, vol. ii.
p. 217.)
James I., who like his predecessor, Elizabeth, took
great delight in hunting, has generally had
the credit of introducing the dark variety
Fallow Deer.
of fallow deer into England. In the State Papers of his
time there is more than one allusion to expenses for the
transfer of deer from Denmark to this country.
126
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
So tenacious was James of any interference with his
favourite sport, that a writer of the time declares that in
his reign one man might with greater safety kill another
man than cause the death of a stag.
In the Antiquarian Repertory, 1807 (vol. i. p. 2), a
feat of agility and skill in horsemanship is reported of
one John Selwyn, an under keeper of the park at Oat-
lands, in Surrey, in the reign of Elizabeth. A grand
stag-hunt was given in Oatlands Park, on the occasion of
her Majesty's visit to its owner. Selwyn attended, as
was the duty of his office, and in the heat of the chase
suddenly leaped from his horse upon the back of the
stag, both running at that time with their utmost speed,
and kept his seat gracefully in spite of every effort of the
affrighted beast to dislodge him. Then drawing his
sword, with it he guided the stag towards the Queen, and
coming near her presence, plunged it into its throat, so
that the animal fell dead at her feet. This was thought
sufficiently wonderful to be chronicled on his monument,
and he is accordingly there portrayed in the act of stab-
bing the beast. The brass which records this feat of
activity was, at the beginning of the present century,
preserved in the church of Walton-on-Thames, but
whether it has survived the epidemic of restoration from
which so many churches have suffered in late years is
uncertain.
Hunting the stag was the most popular sport of the
Middle Ages. The works on hunting were
Hunting. books without which no gentleman's library
was complete, and to make a mistake in any of the
technical terms employed was to show a lamentable
ignorance of the ways of good society. The pages of
both poets and dramatists abound in allusions to this
pastime. Shakspeare's knowledge of woodcraft is fre-
quently apparent. A spirited account of a stag-hunt, in
the Return from Parnassus, a play written about the year
Hunting Terms.
127
1600, is so illustrative, and contains so much of the
glossary of the stag-hunters, that quotation of it may not
be out of place. The passage is purposely crowded with
technical expressions, in order to confuse and put to
silence the scholar, Academico :—
"Amoretto. It was my pleasure two dayes ago, to take a gallant
leash of greyhounds, and into my fathers parke I went, accompanied
with two or three noblemen of my neere acquaintance, desiring to
shew them some of the sport: I caused the keeper to sever the rascall
deere, from the bucks of the first head; now sir, a bucke the first yeere
is a fawne, the second yeare a pricket, the third yeare a sorell, the
fourth yeare a soare, the fift a buck of the first head, the sixt yeare a
compleat buck: as likewise your hart is the first yeare a calfe, the
second yeare a brochet, the third yeare a spade, the fourth yeare a
stagge, the fift yeare a great stagge, the sixt yeare a hart: as likewise
the roe-bucke is the first yeare a kid, the second yeare a girl, the third
yeare a hemuse, and these are your speciall beasts for chase, or, as we
huntsmen call it, for venery. . . . Now sir, after much travell we
singled a buck, I rode that same time upon a roane gelding, and stood
to intercept from the thicket: the buck broke gallantly; my great
swift being disadvantaged in his slip, was at the first behinde, marry,
presently coted and out-stript them, when, as the hart presently de-
scended to the river, and being in the water, proferd, and reproferd, and
proferd againe and at last he upstarted at the other side of the water,
which we call soyle of the hart, and there other huntsmen met him
with an addauntreley: we followed in hard chase for the space of eight
houres, thrise our hounds were at default, then we cryed a slaine,
streight so ho; through good reclaiming my faulty hounds found their
game againe, and so went through the woods with gallant notice of
musicke, resembling so many viols de gambo: at last the hart laid
him downe, and the hounds seized upon him, he groned, and wept,
and dyed. In good faith it made me weepe too, to think of Acteon's
fortune, which my Ovid speaks of." (Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. ix.,
ed. W. C. Hazlit, 1874.)
In Love's Labour Lost the pedant Holofernes plays on
the words pricket, sore, and sorel (Act iv. sc. 2).
Ben Jonson has many hunting allusions. In his
pretty pastoral fragment, The Sad Shepherd (i. 1), occurs
the following:
128
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
"A hart of ten
I trow he be, madam, or blame your men:
For by his slot, his entries, and his port,
His frayings, fewmets, he doth promise sport,
And standing 'fore the dogs : he bears a head
Large and well beamed, with all rights summed and spread.”
The slot of a deer is the print of his feet in the ground;
entries are places through which the deer has lately
passed, which indicate his size; frayings are the peelings
of the horns. Many other phrases are met with in plays,
such as abature, grass trampled down by the passing
deer; and foile, grass only slightly pressed down.
"Besides these ambiguous contigigrated phrases," writes John
Taylor, the Water Poet," the horns have many dogmatical epithets, as
a hart hath the burrs, the pearls, the antlers, the surantlers, the royals,
the surroyals, and the croches. A buck's horns are composed of burr,
beam, branch, advancer, palm, and speller. I think Nimrod the great
hunter would have been a madman or a wood-man, if he had studied
half the wild and hare-brained terms that belong to this ship [wood-
man-ship]." (Works, p. 61, ed. Hindley, 1872.)
In a note on the Merry Wives of Windsor, in Singer's
edition of Shakspeare, we find an explanation of a passage
that has been altered by several commentators. Falstaff,
when attired in the spoils of a hart of ten, naturally uses
the terms of the forest. He
says:
"Divide me like a brib'd buck, each a haunch: I will keep my
sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns
I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman? Ha! Speak I like
Herne the hunter?" (Act v. sc. 5.)
"This," says Mr. Singer, "is the reading of the old copies, which
has been unnecessarily changed to a bribe-buck by all recent editors.
A brib'd buck was a buck cut up to be given away in portions. Bribes
in O.F. were portions or fragments of meat which were given away
Hence bribeur was a beggar, and the O.E. bribour a petty thief.”
The shoulders of the buck were the perquisites of the
keeper, or fellow of the walk.
Venison appreciated.
129
The order of precedence in hunting is thus given by
Holinshed:-
"The stag is accounted for the most noble game, the fallow deere
is the next, then the roe, whereof we have indifferent store; and last
of all the hare, not the least in estimation, because the hunting of that
seelie beast is mother to all the terms, blasts, and artificial devises
that hunters do use." (Chronicles, vol i. p. 380.)
In the light of our modern civilized sport it is strange to
notice that the fox is not even mentioned.
Exaggerated notions prevailed respecting the longevity
of the stag. The life of a stag, according to modern
authorities, does not exceed twenty years.
A "hot venison pasty" was a favourite dish at all
times, but was not reckoned a very wholesome one.
Andrew Boorde, better known by his nickname, "Merry
Andrew," was physician to Henry VIII. He wrote a
dietary, in 1542, which has been recently edited by Mr.
Furnivall for the Early English Text Society. Herein
the worthy doctor admits that his love of venison out-
weighs his discretion:
"I have gone rownde about Crystendome, and overthwarte Crys-
tendom, and a thousande or two and more myles out of Crystendom,
yet there is not so moche pleasure for harte and hynde, bucke, and
doo, and for roo bucke and doo, as is in Englande; and although the
flesshe be dispraysed in physycke I pray God to sende me parte of the
flesshe to eate, physycke not-withstandyng."
The pretty little Musk Deer, so valued for its perfume,
was found in Thibet and Northern India. It
is thus described by Marco Polo in his
Travels in the East, in the fourteenth century :-
Musk Deer.
"In this country [Thibet] it is that the finest and most valuable
musk is procured. The animal which yields it is not larger than the
female goat, but in form resembles the antelope. Its coat is like that
of the larger kind of deer: its feet and tail are those of the antelope,
but it has not the horns. It is provided with four projecting teeth or
K
!
130
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
tusks, three inches in length; two in the upper jaw pointing down-
wards, and two in the lower jaw pointing upwards; small in proportion
to their length, and white as ivory. Upon the whole it is a handsome
creature." (Travels, p. 252, ed. Marsden, 1818.)
This account is incorrect, in so far as the long canine
teeth of the musk deer exist only in the upper jaw of the
animal. The scent of the musk was greatly in favour
with our ancestors. Mistress Quickly represents the wooers
of Mistress Ford as sending "coach after coach, letter
after letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk"
(Merry Wives, ii. 2, 66).
Giraffe.
Amongst all the wonders of animal life met with by
medieval travellers none could have excited
more their wonder and admiration than that
beautiful inhabitant of tropical Africa, the Giraffe. Pro-
bably the earliest, and certainly the quaintest, notice of
this animal by an English writer occurs in Sir John
Mandeville's Travels, written about the year 1356. In
Chinese Tartary he meets with—
"many bestes, that ben clept orafles. In Arabye, their ben clept
gerfauntz; that is a best pomelée or spotted; that is but a litylle more
highe, then is a stede : but he hathe the necke a 20 cubytes long: and
his croup and his tayl is as of an hert: and he may loken over a gret
highe hous." (Page 289, ed. Halliwell, 1839.)
John Sanderson, a London merchant who visited Con-
stantinople about the year 1600, relates his impressions
at the first sight of the giraffe:
"The admirablest and fairest beast that ever I saw was a jarraff,
as tame as a domesticall deere, and of a reddish deere colour, white
brested and cloven footed: he was of a very great height, his fore-legs
longer then the hinder, a very long necke, and headed like a camell,
except two stumps of horne on his head. This fairest animall was sent
out of Ethiopia, to this great Turkes father for a present; two Turkes
the keepers of him, would make him kneele, but not before any
Christian for any money." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1619.)
The giraffe's legs are in reality of equal length, but the
་
A Giraffe's Caresses.
131
shoulder-blades are greatly elongated. The slope of the
back thus caused gives the appearance of inequality.
John Leo, an African explorer of the same period,
says:-
"The giraffa are so savage and wild, that it is very rare matter to
see any of them: for they hide themselves among the desarts and
woods, where no other beasts use to come; and so soone as one
of them espieth a man, it flieth forthwith, though not very swiftly.
It is headed like a camell, and eared like an oxe: neither are any
taken by hunters, but while they are very young." (Purchas, vol. ii.
p. 842.)
Fynes Moryson, in his Itinerary, 1597 (p. 263), also
describes the giraffe :-
Here [Constantinople] be the ruines of a pallace upon the very
wals of the city, called the pallace of Constantine, wherein I did see
an elephant, called philo by the Turkes, and another beast newly
brought out of Affricke (the mother of monsters), which beast is
altogether unknowne in our parts, and is called surnapa by the people
of Asia, astanapa by others, and giraffa by the Italians, the picture
whereof I remember to have seene in the mappes of Mercator; and
because the beast is very rare, I will describe his forme as well as I
can. His haire is red coloured, with many blacke and white spots;
I could scarce reach with the points of my fingers to the hinder part
of his backe, which grew higher and higher towards his foreshoulder,
and his necke was thinne and some three els long. So as hee easily
turned his head in a moment to any part or corner of the roome
wherein he stood, putting it over the beams thereof, being built like a
barne, and high for the Turkish building, not unlike the building of
Italy, both which I have formerly described, by reason whereof he
many times put his nose in my necke, when I thought myselfe
furthest distant from him, which familiarity of his I liked not; and
howsoever the keepers assured me he would not hurt me, yet I avoided
these his familiar kisses as much as I could. His body was slender,
not greater, but much higher then the body of a stagge or hart, and his
head and face was like to that of a stagge, but the head was lesse and
the face more beautifull: he had two hornes, but short and scarce halfe
a foote long; and in the forehead he had two bunches of flesh, his
ears and feete like an oxe, and his legges like a stagge."
There is some difficulty in identifying the different
132
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Bison.
kinds of wild cattle known at this period. Topsell
(p. 51) describes an animal which he calls a
Bison, and which he says has been falsely called
a buffalo by earlier writers. He derives the name from
Thracia, called in ancient times Bistonia. He says:-
"It is generally held for a kind of wild oxe, bred in the northern
parts of the world, for the most part, and never tamed; as in Scythia,
Moscovia, Hercynia, Thracia, and Brussia."
He attributes extraordinary strength to the tongue of
this beast:
"For by licking they grate like a file any indifferent hard substance,
but specially they can therewith draw unto them any man or beast of
inferiour condition, whom by licking they wound to death. The haire
is red, yellow, or black, their eyes very great and terrible, they smell
like a moschus or musk-cat, and their mane reacheth over their
shoulders, shaking it irefully when he brayeth. Their face or forehead
very broad, especially betwixt their hornes. For Sigismund, king of
Polonia, having killed one of them in hunting, stood betwixt his
hornes with two other men not much lesser in quantity then himselfe,
who was a goodly, well proportioned, and personable prince.”
This animal is apparently the European bison, sometimes
called aurochs, oryx, or bonassus. It is still found in the
forests of Lithuania and the Caucasus.
The American bison is described by Francis Lopez de
Gomara in his General History of the West Indies, 1542:
"These oxen are of the bignesse and colour of our bulles, but their
hornes are not so great. They have a great bunch upon their fore-
shoulders, and more haire on their fore part then on their hinder part :
and it is like wooll. They have as it were an horse-mane upon their
backe bone, and much haire and very long from the knees downwards.
They have great tuftes of haire hanging downe their fore-heads, and
it seemeth that they have beardes, because of the great sorte of haire
hanging downe at their chinnes and throates. The males have very
long tailes, and a great knobbe or flocke at the end: so that in some
respect they resemble the lion, and in some other the camell. They
push with their hornes, they runne, they overtake and kill an horse
when they are in their rage and anger. Finally, it is a foule and fierce
beast of countenance and force of bodie. The horses fledde from them,
Losh Hides.
133
either because of their deformed shape, or else because they had never
seene them. Their masters have no other riches nor substance: of them
they eat, they drinke, they apparel, they shooe themselves. And of
their hides they make many things, as houses, shooes, apparell, and
ropes. To bee short, they make so many things of them as they have
neede of, or as many as suffice them in the use of this life." (Hakluyt,
vol. iii. p. 455.)
Topsell (p. 57) declares that the ancient writers con-
fused the Buffe with the elk and the rangifer
(reindeer), but the picture he gives is not
unlike that of the elk :-
Buffalo.
"The head of this beast," he writes, "is like the head of a hart,
and his hornes branched or ragged, his body for the most part like a
wild oxes, his haire deepe and harshe like a beares, his hide is so hard
that the Scithians make breastplates which no dart can pierce
through. His colour for the most part like an asses, but when he
is hunted or feared he changeth his hue into whatever thing he seeth :
as among trees he is like them; among greene boughs he seemeth
greene; amongst rocks of stone he is translated into their colour also;
as it is generally by most writers affirmed."
While admitting the difficulty of hair being so suddenly
affected by the sensations of the animal, this author
observes that, as the buffe has the face, so has he the fear
of a hart, but in a higher degree.
The buffe, or losh, whether bison or buffalo, was an
animal greatly valued for its hide. In a letter of the
Moscovite Company in London to their Russian agents,
1560, the following instructions are given:-
"Our mind is you should provide for the next ships, five hundred
losh hides, of them that be large and faire, and thickest in hand, and
to be circumspect in the choosing, that you buy them that bee killed
in season and well dryed and whole. If they be good we may sell
them here for sixteene shillings and better the piece. We would have
the whole skinnes, that is the neckes and legges withall, for these what
you sent now lacke their neckes and legges. Neverthelesse for this
time you must send them as you may get them. If you could find
the meanes that the haire might bee clipped off them, they woulde
not take so much room in the shippes as they doe.” (Hakluyt,
vol. i. p. 342.)
!
134
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Dr. Giles Fletcher reports from Russia, 1588, that
"the largest kinde of losh or buffe breedeth about
Rostove, Wichida, Novogrod, Morum, and Perm. The
lesser sort within the kingdome of Cazan" (Hakluyt,
vol. i. p. 538).
Andrew Boorde informs us in his Introduction to
Knowledge, a cyclopædia of miscellaneous information,
that
"the kyngdome of Boeme [Bohemia] is compassed aboute wyth
great hygh mountaynes and great thyck wods, in the whyche wods
be many wylde beastes; amongst al other beastes there be bugles, that
be as bigge as an oxe; and there is a beast called a bovy, lyke a bugle,
whyche is a vengeable beast." (Page 133, ed. Furnivall, Early English
Text Society, 1870.)
The Zebu, or Indian Ox, is noticed by Marco Polo
in his observations on Armenia, Turkey, and
Persia. Of the last-named country he writes:
Zebu.
"It hath also very great oxen, and all white, thin hayred with
thicke blunt short hornes, with a camels bunch on the backe, accus-
tomed to beare great burthens. And when the packe-saddles are set
upon the bunch, they bow the knee like camels, and having received
the burthen rise againe, being so taught by men." (Purchas, vol. iii.
p. 71.)
English
The wild white cattle of Britain, at one time plentiful
in the northern counties of England and in
Scotland, are mentioned by Camden in his
account of Scotland :-
Cattle.
"Caledon Forest," he tells us, “nourished in times past a number
of white wild buls, with thicke manes in manner of lions, but in these
daies few, and those very cruell, fierce, and so hatefull of mankind,
that on a certaine time they abhorre whatsoever they had either
handled or breathed upon: yea, they utterly skorne the forcible
strength of dogges."
Of these cattle Topsell writes (p. 58):-
"In the woods of Scotland there are bred white oxen, maned about
the necke like a lyon, but in other parts like ordinary and common
English White Cattle.
135
oxen. This wood was once full of them, but now they are all slaine,
except in that parte which is called Cummirland. This beast is so
hatefull and fearful of mankind that it will not feede of that grasse or
those hearbes, whereof he savoureth a man hath touched, no not for
many daies togither. And if by art or pollicy they happen to be
taken alive, they will die with very sullen griefe. If they meete a
man presently they make force at him, fearing neither dogs, speares,
nor other weapons. Their flesh is very pleasant, though full of
sinewes, and very acceptable to the greatest nobles, for which cause
they are now growen to a small number. Their qualities being like to
the former beast [bison] except their colour and beard, I will tearme
them the white Caledonian, or Scotian bison."
Mr. John Storer has lately published a work, The
Wild White Cattle of Great Britain, wherein he traces
the history of this beautiful breed, and gives an account
of the few herds which have been preserved to our own
day. Many noblemen have attempted to restore the
white cattle on account of their beauty, but their ferocity,
which remains undiminished, renders them dangerous.
inmates of a park.
We find but little notice in the writings of the
Elizabethan period of the various breeds of domestic
animals. Thomas Fuller writes of the long-horned
variety of Lancashire cattle:-
"The fairest in England are bred (or if you will made) in this
county, with goodly heads, the tips of whose horns are sometimes dis-
tanced five feet asunder. Horns are a commodity not to be slighted,
seeing I cannot call to mind any other substance so hard, that it will
not break; so solid, that it will hold liquor within it; and yet so clear,
that light will pass through it. No mechanick trade, but hath some
utensils made thereof: and even now I recruit my pen with ink from
a vessel of the same. Yea, it is useful cap-u-pie, from combs to
shooeing-horns. What shall I say, of the many gardens made of
horns, to garnish houses? I mean, artificiall flowers of all colours,
and, besides what is spent in England, many thousand weight are
shaven down into leaves for lanthorns and sent over daily into France.
In a word, the very shavings of horn are profitable, sold by the sack,
and sent many miles from London for the manuring of ground. No
wonder then that the horners are an ancient corporation, though why
136
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
they and the bottle-makers were formerly united into one company
passeth my skill to conjecture. The best horns in all England, and
freest to work without flaws, are what are brought out of this county to
London, the shop-general of English industry." (Worthies of England,
vol. i. p. 537.)
Fuller, taking a line of Drayton's Polyolbion,
"Set the band-dog on the bull,”
as his text, thus moralizes on the favourite amusement of
bull-baiting :-
"It seems that both the gentry and country-folk in this shire
[Somersetshire] are much affected with that pastime, though some
scruple the lawfulness thereof. 1. Man must not be a barrater, to set
the creatures at variance. 2. He can take no true delight in their
antipathie, which was the effect of his sin. 3. Man's charter of
dominion empowers him to be a prince, but no tyrant, over the
creatures. 4. Though brute beasts are made to be destroyed, they are
not made to be tormented. Others rejoyn, that God gave us the crea-
tures as well for our pleasure as necessity; that some nice consciences,
that scruple the baiting of bulls, will worry men with their vexatious
cruelties. All that I dare interpose is this, that the tough flesh of
bulls is not onely made more tender by baiting, but also thereby it is
discoloured from ox-beef, that the buyer be not deceived." (Worthies,
vol. ii. p. 277.)
That neat was a general term for oxen we learn from
Shakspeare:-
"Leontes.
Come, captain,
We must be neat; not neat, but cleanly, captain:
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf
Are all call'd neat."
(Winter's Tale, i. 2, 123.)
A young ox or bullock was called a stot, a young heifer
a whie,-names still used in Yorkshire. Hage kye was a
term applied in the northern counties of England to cows
with white faces, having white spots or streaks.
Shakspeare has no mention of the Antelope. Spenser
classes this harmless creature with beasts of
prey:-
Antelopes.
T
1
し
​The Lant or Dant.
"The spotted panther, and the tusked bore,
The pardale swift, and the tigre cruell,
The antelope and wolfe, both fiers and fell."
(Faerie Queene, i. 6, 26.)
137
Topsell (p. 1) accounts for the supposed scarcity of ante-
lopes in his day by the fact that Alexander and his
soldiers, on their journey towards India, slew 8550. He
does not inform us who kept the register of this battue.
He describes the antelope as having the body of a roe,
with long sharp horns made like a saw, with which it cuts
asunder the branches of osiers or small trees.
Several varieties of antelopes are described by the
early explorers in Africa, but generally under the
native names. The accounts are not sufficiently full to
make identification possible. An animal called a lant or
dant is frequently mentioned, whose hide appears to have
been valued in commerce. One writer tells us that the
skin is red, another that it is white; according to one
traveller it has long goat-like horns, another declares
that it is entirely without these appendages. John Leo
pays a visit to Cairo, where he finds-
a beast called lant or dant, in shape resembling an oxe, saving that
he hath smaller legs, and comlier hornes. His haire is white, and his
hoofs are as blacke as jet, and he is so exceeding swift that no beast
can overtake him, but onely the Barberie horse. He is easier caught
in summer then in winter, because that in regard of the extreme
fretting heat of the sand his hoofs are then strained and set awry, by
which meanes his swiftnesse is abated, like as the swiftnesse of stagges
and roe-deere. Of the hide of this beast are made shields and targets
of great defence, which will not be pierced, but onely with the forcible
shot of a bullet, but they are sold at an extreme price." (Purchas,
vol. ii. p. 846.)
Pigafetta, in his account of Congo and the surrounding
country, writes:-
"There are also to be found in this countrie certaine other foure-
footed beasts, somewhat lesse then oxen, of colour red, with hornes
138
!
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
+
like goats hornes, which are very smooth and glistrin, and inclining
to blacke, whereof they make divers pretie knackes, as they doe like-
wise of the buffes hornes. They have their heads and their haires like
the heads and haires of oxen, and their skins are of great estimation;
and therefore they are carried into Portugall and from thence into
Germanie to be dressed, and then they are called dantes. The king of
Congo is very desirous to have some men that had skill to cleanse
them, and dresse them, and to make them fit for use, to the end he
might employ them for armour of defence. There are besides these
other beasts, called empalanga which are in bignesse and shape like
oxen, saving that they hold their head and necke aloft, and have their
hornes broad and crooked, three hand-breadths long, divided into
knots, and sharpe at the ends, whereof they might make very faire
cornets to sound withall: and although they are in the forrests, yet are
they not noysome nor harmefull; the skins of their necks are used for
shoo-soles, and their flesh for meate. They might likewise be brought
to draw the plough, and doe good service in any other labour, and
tilling of the ground." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1002.)
The eland, a large bovine antelope, seems in shape and
size to correspond with these descriptions, but it cannot
be called a fleet animal. Attempts have been made in
recent times to introduce the eland into English parks,
but without much success.
As the word chamois occurs in the authorized version
of the Bible, the animal must have been known to
English naturalists in the sixteenth century. Canon
Tristram, however, considers that this animal is incor-
rectly placed in the catalogue of Arabian quadrupeds.
He writes:-
"In the list of the clean animals permitted as food in Deut. xiv. 5,
the zemer occurs, and nowhere else in Scripture. From the Arabic
zamar we conclude that some leaping animal is intended. It cannot
be the chamois, of the existence of which there is no trace in Bible
lands. Nor can it be the giraffe or camelopard, an animal of Central
Africa, which is the interpretation of some ancient commentators. As
other words designate the rock-goats or ibex, and the various antelopes,
it is probable that zemer is applied to the wild mountain sheep, called
kebsch in Arabia, very like the mouflon of Sardinia." (Natural
History of the Bible, 1873, p. 73.)
Cannibal Sheep.
139
The translators of the Bible could not well be ex-
pected to give names to animals with which they were
not themselves acquainted, but by the substitution of the
names of species other than those originally intended
they are responsible for many false notions respecting
natural history.
Sheep.
are
There appears to have been in the time we
studying great discontent at the number of
Sheep kept, to the exclusion of other farm
produce. In The Briefe Conceipt of English Policie, by
W. Stafford, a husbandman complains that—
"the sheepe is the cause of all these mischieves; for they have
driven husbandry out of the countrey, by the which was increased
before all kinde of victuals, and now all together sheepe, sheepe,
sheepe. It was farre better when there were not onely sheepe ynough,
but also oxen, kine, swyn, pig, goose, and capon, egges, butter, and
cheese yea, and breade corne, and malte corne ynough besides, reared
altogether upon the same lande." (Harleian Miscellany, vol. ix.
p. 149.)
The British farmer is somewhat given to grumbling, but
that this complaint was general we may gather from
Fuller's Worthies :-
"In Warwickshire the complaint of J. Rous continueth and in-
creaseth, that sheep turn cannibals, eating up men, houses, and
towns; their pastures make such depopulation. But, on the other
side, it is pleaded for these enclosures, that they make houses the
fewer in this county, and the more in the kingdom." (Vol. ii. p. 402.)
The small outlay and trouble required by this kind of
stock, together with the high price of wool, induced a
great number of landowners to turn their arable lands
into sheep-runs. Acts passed with the object of diminish-
ing this evil were evaded in every possible way. We
learn from Mr. J. S. Brewer's introduction to Starkey's
England in the Reign of Henry VIII. (Early English Text
Society, 1871) that—
a single furrow was driven across a field to prove that it was still
140
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
under the plough; the cattle owners, to escape the statutes against
sheep, held their flocks in the names of their sons or servants; the
highways and the villages were covered in consequence with outcast
families who were wholly reduced to beggary."
In a volume of reprints by the Percy Society is included
It was
an old ballad, anonymous, and without date.
probably written in the reign of Henry VIII., and may
well have reference to the great increase of sheep at that
time, although the editor, Mr. James Goodwin, considers
it a satire against the orders of friars mendicant, the
number of whom had increased to so enormous an extent
that England may be said to have been almost over-
run by them. The power and influence of the friars
was checked by the dissolution of monasteries under
Henry VIII.
"The blacke shepe is a perylous beast;
Cuius contrarium falsum est.
"The leon of lyme ys large and long;
The beare to fyght is stowte and strong;
But of all beastes that go or crepe,
The mightiest ys the horned shepe.
The blacke shepe, &c.
"The shepe y's off a monstruous myght,
What thyng soever his hornes on lyght,
He bearyth downe bothe castell and towre,
None is him like in marciall powre.
The blacke shepe, &c.
Syx hundreth howsys with cart and plowgh
I have earst knowen, where nowght ys now
But grene moll-hilles, they are layde playne;
This cruell beast over all dothe rayne.
The blacke shepe, &c.
"This shepe he is a wycked wyght,
Man, woman, and chylde he devowreth quite;
No hold, no howse can him wythstande,
He swallowth up both see and lande.
The blacke shepe, &c.
The Ryeland Breed.
"Men were wont ones off shepe to fede,
Shepe now eate men on dowtfull dede,
This wollwysshe shepe, this rampyng beast,
Consumeth all thorow west and est.
The blacke shepe, &c.
"Halfe Englande ys nowght now but shepe,
In everye corner they playe boe pepe;
Lorde, them confownde by twentye and ten,
And fyll their place with Cristen men.
The blacke shepe, &c."
(Percy Society, vol. xiii., 1845.)
141
Topsell perhaps refers to this ballad when he writes
(p. 626):-
"Till now I thought the common proverb did but jest,
That saies a blacke shepe is a biting beast."
The short-woolled breed of sheep was the most abun-
dant, and was found in every county. According to Mr.
Low the Ryeland breed, so called from their living on
certain sandy tracts of country devoted to the production
of rye, situated southward of the river Wye, was the
breed which extended over most of the western counties.
As there is no historical record of the introduction
of this variety, he assumes that it was indigenous beyond
all memory to the districts which it inhabited. It
was admirably suited, from its endurance of scanty
fare, to the commons, waste lands, and woods where it
abounded. For, though that district of England is now
rich and fertile, at this time it was still for the most part
wild and barren, and incapable of affording rich pasture.
(C
"The wool of the Ryeland breed," writes Mr. Low, was long
regarded as the finest that the British islands produced. The ancient city
of Leominster, being surrounded by a country producing this kind of
wool, and being the market-town to which it was brought for sale,
gave the name to the wool of the county, which was termed Lemster
wool, or Lemster ore. Camden, describing the town of Leominster,
says, 'The greatest name and fame is of the wool in the territories
142
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
round about it; Lemster ore they call it, which setting aside that of
Apulia and Tarentum, all Europe counteth to be the verie best.'
(Domesticated Animals.)
The Cotswold breed, whose range extended over the
hills of Gloucestershire, was also much esteemed for the
quantity and quality of its wool. In the former of these
it was superior, according to Drayton, to the Ryeland :
"T' whom Sarum's Plaine gives place, though famous for her flocks,
Yet hardly doth she tythe our Cotswolde's wealthy locks:
Though Lemster him exceed in finesesse of her ore,
Yet quite he puts her downe for his abundant store."
(Polyolbion, song 14.)
According to Fuller, the finest sheep were bred in Buck-
inghamshire. The price he thought so exorbitant would
hardly excite the astonishment of sheep-growers to-
day :
"The best and biggest-bodied in England are in the Vale of
Ailsbury in this county, where it is nothing to give ten pound or
more for a breed-ram. So that should a forrainer hear of the price
thereof, he would guess that ram rather to be some Roman engine of
battery, than the creature commonly so called." (Worthies of England,
vol. i. p. 133.)
Justice Shallow inquires of his cousin, "How a score of
ewes now?" To which Silence replies, "Thereafter as
they be: a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds
(2 Henry IV. iii. 2, 54).
A lamb brought up by hand was called a cosset.
William Browne writes:-
"And full gladly give I wold
The best cosset in my fold,
And a mazor for a fee,
If this song thou'lt teachen me.”
(The Shepherd's Pipe, eclogue i.)
We find this expression also in a tract called Maroccus
Extaticus, 1595: "I have brought thee up right tenderly,
Sheep never drink.
143
as a baker's daughter would bring up a cosset by hand,
and allow it bread and milke." Topsell (p. 640) gives the
different names applied to a lamb:-
"The first year we call it in English a lamb, so the second year a
hog, lam-hog, or teg if it be a female, the third yeare hoggrils and
theaves. The common epithits expressing the nature of this beast are
these rough, yearling, weake, unripe, sucking, tender, butting, fat,
milke-eater, merry, sporting, bleating, affable or gentle, field-wanderer,
horne-bearer, horne-fighter, unarmed, vulgar, wooll-skinned, wooll-
bearer, wanton, meeke, delicate, and fearefull; and all these are the
epithets of a male lamb, but of the female I find these following:
dumb, snow-white, neate, young, fearefull, blacke, tame, humble, and
tender."
Topsell bestows epithets on most of the animals that he
describes. They are for the most part taken from his
classical authorities. Dodded, or hornless sheep, were
considered the most profitable. To Topsell also we are
indebted for the following information concerning sheep:-
"There bee many that trouble themselves about this question;
namely, for what cause the sheep of England do never thirst, except
they see the water, and then also seldom drink, and yet have we more
sheep in England then are in any other country of the world, insomuch
as we thinke it a prodigious thing that sheep should drinke; but the
true cause why our English sheepe drinke not is, for there is so much
dew on the grasse that they need no other water; and therefore
Aristotle was deceived, who thinketh that the northern sheep had
more neede of water then the southern. In Spaine those sheep bear the
best fleeces of wool that drinke least." (Page 605.) "The common
time whereat we sheare sheepe is in June, and lambes in July; the
quantitie of wool upon our sheep is more then in any other countrey
of the world, for even the least among us, such as are in hard grounds,
as in Norfolke, the upper most part of Kent, Hertfort-shier, and other
places, have better and weightier fleeces then the greatest in other nations.
The quantitie in the least is a pound, except the sheep have lost his
wooll, in the middle sort of sheepe two pounds or three pounds, as is
vulgar in Buckingham, Northampton, and Leicestershieres; but the
greatest of all in some of those places, and also in Rumney Marsh in
Kent, foure or five pounds: and it is the manuer of the shepheards and
sheepe masters to wet their rams, and so to keepe their wooll two or
three years together growing upon their backs, and I have credibly
144
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
heard of a sheepe in Buckingham-shier in the flock of the L. P. that had
shorne from it at one time, one and twentie pound of wooll. After the
shearing of our sheepe, we doe not use either to annoint or wash
them, as they doe in other nations, but turne them foorth without
their fleeces, leaving them like meadowes new mowen, with expecta-
tion of another fleece the next yeare." (Page 624.)
Wool.
The number of sheep reared in the country rendered
the employment of the wool in various manu-
factures a matter of national importance, and
protection was resorted to in order to secure the monopoly.
The introduction of felt hats interfered to a great extent
with the sale of the woollen caps that had been previously
worn. Accordingly, the cappers, or knit-capmakers, of
England applied to Parliament for relief, and in 1571
obtained a law purporting—
"that every person above seven years of age, should wear, on Sundays
and Holidays, a cap of wool, knit, made, thicked, and dressed in England,
and dressed only and finished by some of the trade of cappers, on the
forfeiture of three shillings and four pence for every day so neglected
to be worn: excepting, however, out of this act, maids, ladies, and
gentlewomen, and every lord, knight, and gentleman, of twenty marks
in land, and their heirs; and also such as have born office of worship
in any city, town, or shire, and also the wardens of London Companies."
(Anderson, Origin of Commerce, p. 135.)
Notwithstanding this extreme measure, the superiority of
the felt hats obtained for these articles an easy victory.
They were lighter, stronger, more ornamental, and afforded
greater protection against wind and rain, and in a few
years knit caps were only to be seen in remote parts of
the kingdom.
In consequence of the diminution of religious disputes.
in England, and the continuance of the like dissensions
abroad, artisans of all kinds were induced to come to this
country for security during the reign of Elizabeth. Hence
fresh impulse was given to the woollen trade, which had
languished under this queen's predecessors. Several
towns near the coast, such as Norwich, Canterbury,
Lamb-producing Trees.
145
Colchester, and Southampton, were crowded with refugees,
who brought over superior machinery as well as better
taste, and contributed to the lasting prosperity of the
country which gave them a new home. Towards the close
of Elizabeth's reign, an event occurred which affected
every branch of commerce, and which opened an almost
unlimited market for English woollen goods. The East
India Company came into existence on the last day of
the sixteeenth century. On the 31st of December, 1600,
Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to George, Earl of
Cumberland, and two hundred and fifteen knights, alder-
men, and merchants—
that, at their own cost and charges, . . . they might set forth one or
more voyages to the East Indians, in the country and parts of Asia
and Africa, and to the Islands thereabouts, ... divers of which countries,
islands, &c., have long sithence been discovered by others of our
subjects; to be one body politic and corporate, by the name of, the
Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading to the East
Indies."
The whole of the document, of which the above is a part,
may be found in Anderson's Origin of Commerce, already
quoted.
Sir John Mandeville professes to have discovered a
tree whereon gourds containing little beasts like lambs
were to be seen hanging in clusters :—
"And there [somewhere beyond Cathay] growethe a maner of
fruyt, as thoughe it were gowrdes, and whan they ben rype, men kutten
hem a to, and men fynden with inne a lytylle best, in flessche, in bon,
and blode, as though it wer a lytylle lomb, with outen wolle and men
eten bothe the frut and the best; and that is a gret marveyle. Of that
frute I have eten.” (Travels, p. 264.)
The author proceeds to crush any doubts that might
arise in his reader's mind by citing the similar develop-
ment of the barnacle tree into a bird.
Of Goats there is little to be said. Harrison writes,
"Goats we have plentie, and of sundrie colours
in the west parts of England; especiallie in
L
Goat.
146 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
1
1
and towards Wales, and amongst the rockie hilles, by
whome the owners doo reape no small advantage (Holin-
shed, vol. i. p. 372, ed. 1807). "Not for Cadwallader and
all his goats," exclaims Pistol (Henry V., v. 1, 29).
Many accounts of hunting and training the Elephant
are to be found in the travels collected by
Elephant. Purchas and Hakluyt, together with numerous
anecdotes of the sagacity of this animal, which have
become the stock in trade of all subsequent writers on
natural history. The Great Mogul is described by Captain
William Hawkins, in the year 1610, as having three
hundred elephants royal, which are elephants whereon he
himself rideth:
"And when they are brought before him, they come with great
jollitie, having some twentie or thirty men before them with small
stremers. When hee rideth on progresse or hunting, the compasse of
his tents may bee as much as the compasse of London and more, and
I may say, that of all sorts of people that follow the campe, there are
two hundred thousand; for hee is provided, as for a citie. This king
is thought to be the greatest Emperour of the East, for wealth, land,
and force of men; as also for horses, elephants, camels, and dromedaries.”
(Purchas, vol. p. 219.)
His Majesty's time must have been fully employed if he
had to keep so large a number of elephants in exercise.
The elephant, or "carry-castle," according to the
herald, Guillim—
"is a beast of great strength, but greater wit, and greatest ambition,
insomuch, that some have written of them, that if you praise them,
they will kill themselves with labour; and if you commend another
above them, they will break their hearts with emulation. The beast
is so proud of his strength, that he never bows himself to any, neither
indeed can he; and when he is once down, as usually is the case with
proud great ones he cannot rise up again." (Display of Heraldry,
p. 146, ed. 1744.)
The popular idea that the elephant has no joints in his
legs, often occurs in plays:-
!
The Elephant.
Ulysses. The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy:
His legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.”
(Troilus and Cressida, ii. 3, 113.)
"I hope you are no elephant, you have joints.
""
(All Fools, 1605.)
147
Sir Thomas Browne considers this absurd notion
sufficiently prevalent in his time to be worthy of refuta-
tion. He also notes another fallacy regarding this animal.
In consequence of its lack of joints it was necessarily
unable to lie down, and as a substitute for a couch it had
to lean up against a tree to sleep. Hunters came before
dusk to saw the tree almost asunder, and when the tired
animal sought repose the trunk gave way, and once down
rising was an impossibility. Travellers, who had oppor-
tunities of watching the elephant's habits, contradict
this statement as to the joints. Cada Mosto, a Venetian,
writing in 1509, says:-
"Before my voyage to Africa I had been told that the elephant
could not bend its knee, and slept standing; but this is an egregious
falsehood, for the bending of their knees can be plainly perceived when
they walk, and they certainly lie down and rise again like other
animals."
This author, while correcting one error, gives credit to
another not less absurd; he says, "Of the large teeth, or
rather tusks, each elephant has two in the lower jaw, the
points of which turn down, whereas those of the wild boar
are turned up" (Kerr's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 233). The
first elephant seen in England was a specimen brought
from France in the year 1255.
Cæsar Fredericke, a Venetian merchant, giving an
account of his travels in the East Indies, mentions the
white elephant of Siam, an animal as rare as it is
proverbially expensive. Describing the King of Siam's
court at Pegu, he writes :—
:
Truly it may be a king's house: withing the gate there is a faire
large court, from the one side to the other, wherein there are made
148
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
places for the strongest and stoutest eliphants appointed for the service
of the king's person, and amongst all other eliphants, he hath foure
that be white, a thing so rare that a man shall hardly finde another
king that hath any such, and if this king knowe any other that hath
white eliphantes, he sendeth for them as a gift.” (Hakluyt, vol. ii.
p. 363.)
The Black Rat.
149
į
CHAPTER VII.
Rat.
THE only species of Rat known at this time was the
black, or as it is sometimes called, the old
English rat. Mr. Frank Buckland, in his
Curiosities of Natural History (1st series, p. 57), considers
that this species was introduced into England from
France. The Welsh name for the rat is Llygoden Frengig,
the French mouse. The earliest account of it is by
Gesner, in his Historia Animalium, published at Zurich,
about the year 1587. The brown species, erroneously
called the Norway rat, was a native of India and Persia,
and did not make its way from those distant regions
till many years after the arrival in England of its black
congener. The black rat, like other primitive occupiers
of the soil, has been gradually expelled from its haunts
by the later colonist, and is now almost extinct in this
country. According to Carew, rats were rather too
plentiful in Cornwall in 1602 :—
"Of all manner of vermin, Cornish houses are most pestered
with rats, a brood very hurtful for devouring of meat, clothes, and
writings by day; and alike cumbersome through their crying and
ratling, while they dance their gallop gallyards in the roof at night.”
(Survey of Cornwall, p. 73, ed. 1811.)
The effect of poetry on Irish rats is often mentioned
by dramatists. Ben Jonson writes:-
"Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats
In drumming tunes."
(The Poetaster, v. apologue.)
150 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
And again, “Or the fine madrigal-man in rhyme to have
run him out of the country, like an Irish rat" (The Staple
of News, iv. 1). Shakspeare has a similar allusion. Rosalind
says, "I never was so berhymed since Pythagoras' time,
that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember"
(As You Like It, iii. 2, 187). Shakspeare also alludes to
the popular notion that rats will desert a sinking vessel.
Prospero describes to Miranda how both he and she were
turned adrift by his usurping brother, in—
"A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast: the very rats
Instinctively had quit it.”
(Tempest, i. 2, 146.)
Topsell devotes fifty folio pages to the history and
literature of the "vulgar little Mouse."
Among other pieces of information, he tells us
Mouse.
that-
"the epithets of myce are these: short, small, fearful, peaceable,
ridiculous, rustik, or country mouse, urbane, or citty mouse, greedy,
wary, unhappy, harmefull, blacke, obscene, little, whiner, biter, and
earthly mouse. Mice are sometimes blackish, sometimes white, some-
times yellow, sometimes broune and sometimes ashe colour. There
are white mice amonge the people of Savoy, and Dolphin in France,
called alaubroges, which the inhabitants of the country do beleev that
they feede upon snow. The enemies of mice are many, not onely men,
which by sundry artificiall devises kill them because of harme, but
also beasts and wilde foule doe eat their flesh, and live upon them.
And first of all cats and weasels, do principally hunt to catch mice,
and have bin therefore by the late writers called murilegi [from mus,
mouse; and lego, I catch], for their taking of mice. And the nature of
the weasell is not onely more enclined to hunt after them, then the
cat, but is more terrible also unto them, for if the braines of a weasell,
the haire or rennet be sprinkled uppon cheese or any other meate
whereto mice resort, they not onely forebear to eat thereof, but also
to come in that place."
Batman mentions several kinds of mice: "The field
mouse, the farie, with a long snout; the sleeper, that is
A Plague of Mice.
151
of a dun colour and will run on the edge of a sword and
sleep on the point." The dormouse from its awakening
from sleep with the return of the spring was sometimes
employed in ecclesiastical art as a type of the resurrection.
Stow mentions, in his Chronicles of England-
a great plague of mice in the marshes of Dainsey, in Essex, which
gnawed the grass, tainting the same with their venomous teeth,
so that the cattle were poisoned and died."
The inhabitants of that county were in some perplexity
how to deal with their small enemies, till from all the
country round gathered a large number of owls, and
to the great delight of the farmers soon cleared the
marshes.
The odd simile, "As drunk as a mouse," dates back
to the time of Chaucer. In the Knight's Tale (line 402)
we read-
"We faren as he that drunke is as a mous."
Mr. Charles Mackay would fain save the little animal
from such discredit by a suggestion that the expression is
taken from the Gaelic. The word miosa, in this language,
means the worse or worst, consequently the phrase implies
simply a very advanced state of inebriation (Notes and
Queries, 5th series, vol. v. p. 394).
Lemming.
Olaus Magnus was the first to notice the curious
periodic migrations of the Norway Lemming.
These animals sometimes make their appear-
ance in locust-like swarms. They march steadily across
the country, allowing no obstacle to stop them, destroying
the crops in their route. Their numbers are thinned by
foxes and ermines, but nothing daunted they pursue their
way to the sea-shore and finally perish in the waves.
Beavers were at one time inhabitants of this country.
Camden, in his description of Britain, states
that the Tivey, in Cardiganshire, was in
Beaver.
152 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
times past the only British river that harboured these
animals.
"This beaver," he says, "is a creature living both on land and water,
footed before like a dog, and behind like a goose, with an ash-coloured
skin somewhat blackish, having a long taile, broad and gristly, which
in his floting he useth in lieu of a sterne. Concerning the subtile
wilinesse of which creatures, Giraldus hath observed many things,
but at this daie none of them are to be seene."
Drayton, in his Polyolbion, has a long account of the
beaver, and its mode of building, but as he is indebted to
some earlier writer for his information, and not to personal
observation, the passage is hardly worth quoting. Mr.
Frank Buckland, in his Curiosities of Natural History,
gives it as his opinion that beavers could not have been
common at any time in this country, as he has never seen
a beaver's bone or tooth among ancient British or Saxon
remains:
"These former inhabitants of Great Britain used much bone in their
household implements, and had beavers been common, we should
probably find some bone or other converted to some useful domestic
purpose." (First series, 1873, p. 90.)
Beaver hats were considered as an extravagant
luxury in the time of Elizabeth. Philip Stubbes speaks
of them in terms of high indignation, and says they cost
twenty, thirty, and forty shillings apiece, and "were
fetched from beyond the seas, from whence a great sort
of other vanities do come besides."
Squirrel.
"The Squirrell," says Topsell, "is greater in compasse then a
weasil, but a weasil is longer than a squirrel. The
mouth of their nest is variable, sometimes at the sides,
and sometimes at the top, but most commonly it is shut
against the winde, and therefore I thinke that shee maketh many
passages, stopping and opening them as the winde turneth. In
summer time they gather together abundance of fruits and nuttes for
winter, even so much as their little dray will holde and containe,
which they carrie in their mouthes, and they lodge manie times two
:
The Flying Squirrel.
153
togither, a male and a female (as I suppose). They sleep a great part
of the winter like the Alpine mouse, and very soundly, for I have seen
when no noise of hunters could wake them with their cries, beating
their nests on the outside, and shootinge boltes and arrowes thorough
it, until it were pulled asunder, wherein many times they are found
killed before they be awaked. They growe exceeding tame and
familiar to men if they be accustomed and taken when they are
young, for they runne up to mens shoulders, and they will oftentimes
sit upon their handes, creepe into their pockets for nuttes, goe out of
doores, and returne home againe; but if they be taken alive, being olde,
when once they get loose, they will never returne home againe. They
are very harmefull, and will eat al manner of woollen garments, and
if it were not for that discommodity, they were sweete-sportful-beastes,
and are very pleasant playfellowes in a house." (Page 658.)
Du Bartas writes (p. 50):-
"There skips the squirrill, seeming weather-wise,
Without beholding of heav'ns twinkling eyes:
For, knowing well which way the winde will change,
He shifts the portall of his little grange.”
Dr. Giles Fletcher describes the flying squirrel found
in Russia :-
They have a kinde of squirrell that hath growing on the pinion
of the shoulder bone, a long tuft of haire, much like unto feathers, with
a far broader tayle then have any other squirrels, which they move
and shake as they leape from tree to tree, much like unto a wing.
They skise a large space, and seeme for to flie withall, and therefore
they call them letach vechse, that is, the flying squirrels. Their hares
and squirrels are of the same colour with ours. In winter the hare
changeth her coate into milke white, the squirrel into gray, whereof
commeth the calabar." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 417.)
In Linschoten's narrative of a voyage to Goa, in
1583, we find mention of the common grey squirrel of
India:-
"There are many monkies or marmosets, that doe great hurt to
the palme trees, whereon the Indian nut or cocus doth growe. In
those trees you shall commonly see certaine little beasts, called bichos
de palmeyras, that is, beasts of the palme trees: they are much like
ferrets, wherewith men use to hunt and catch cunnies, and have a taile
154
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
like the penner of an ink-horne, and grayish speckled haire: they are
pretie beasts to keepe and to passe the time withall." (Purchas,
vol. ii. p. 1771.)
Marmot.
Topsell enlightens us as to the deriva-
tion of the word Marmot :-
"The Alpine mouse taketh her name from the Alpes wherein she
is bred, and although there be many other kindes of mice bred in the
Alpes, yet this being the principal thereof, receiveth denomination
from the mountaines. The Italians cal it marmota, in Fraunce mar-
mote, although marmot be a word also among them for a munkey.
The Helvetians by a corrupt word, drawne from a mouse of the
mountain, murmelthier, and murmentle, and some mistbellerle, by
reason of his sharp whining voice like a little dogs." (Page 551.)
Another species of rodent, much prized for its
beautiful silky grey fur, was the Chinchilla.
Chinchilla. The earliest account of this animal is given
in Joseph Acosta's Observations on the East and West
Indies, of which a translation was published in London in
1604. He says:-
"The chinchilles is an other kinde of small beasts, like squirrels.
They have a wonderfull smoothe and soft skin, which they weare as a
healthfull thing to comfort the stomacke; they make coverings and
rugs of the haire of these chinchilles, which are found on the Sierre of
Peru." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 966.)
The confusion of pronouns here is worthy of Clarendon
himself.
Viscacha.
The Viscacha of the Pampas, a strange-looking
animal somewhat resembling a marmot, with
a double set of whiskers, is also mentioned by
Acosta, in company with another burrowing animal, the
cuye:-
"There is likewise a small beast very common, which they call
cuyes, and which the Indians hold for a very good meate, and they are
accustomed to offer these cuyes in their sacrifices. They are like
small conies, and have their burrowes in the ground, and in some
places they have undermined all the land: some are grey, some white,
The Porcupine.
155
and some speckled. There are other small animals which they call
viscachas, and are like to hares, although they are bigger, they hunt
them and eate the flesh. Of common hares there are great store in
some parts." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 966.)
Porcupine.
A notion was prevalent among poets that the Porcu-
pine, Porkespick, or Porkespyne could employ
his quills as darts or assagais, shoot them
with unerring aim, and transfix his enemies therewith.
What the poor beast was to do if he was often pursued
does not seem to have occurred to these writers. The
porcupine uses its quills as weapons of defence; and if
they penetrate deeply into its opponent, they are at times
drawn from the rightful owner. Dogs and other animals
have often been found with the smaller spines imbedded
in their flesh. This error may have arisen from the fact
that the loose quills about to be shed have been seen to
drop out of the animal's skin when they were suddenly
raised. The quaint writer, Du Bartas, has an amusing
description of the porcupine's mode of warfare :—
"But O! what monster's this that bids me battell,
On whose rough back an hoast of pikes doth rattle,
Who string-less shoots so many arrowes out,
Whose thorny sides are hedged round about
With stiff steel-pointed quils, and all his parts
Bristled with bodkins, arm'd with auls and darts,
Which by fierce darting, seem still fresh to spring,
And to his aid still new supplies to bring?
O fortunat shaft-never-wanting bow-man!
Who, as thou fleest, canst hit thy following foe-man,
And never missest, or but very narrow,
Th' intended mark of thy selfs-kindred arrow."
(Divine Weekes, p. 50.)
This idea is not confined to poets, but is corroborated by
John Nieuhoff in his voyage to the East Indies. He
writes:
"About Batavia and in the woods of Java are abundance of iron pigs
156 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
or porcupines. When they are at rest they lay their pens or pegs close
to the body, but if they are vexed they can by contracting themselves
cast them forth with such strength that they kill man or beast. In
the winter they retire into holes where they remain without eating or
drinking, they feed upon herbs and roots and cast their pens as other
creatures do their hair.” (Churchill's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 298.)
Roger Ascham, in his Toxophilus, 1515, tells us that
"Claudiane the poete saith, that Nature gave example
of shootynge first by the porpentine, which shootes his
prickes and will hitte anye thinge that fightes with it."
Marlowe employs the porcupine as a simile in Tam-
burlaine, where the emperor complains that his sons are
wanting in a martial appearance :-
"Their hair as white as milk and soft as down,
Which should be like the quills of porcupines
As black as jet and hard as iron or steel."
(2 Tamburlaine, i. 3.)
This comparison may have been in Shakspeare's mind
when, in Hamlet, the ghost speaks of a tale of horror which
could make—
"Each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretfull porpentine."
(Hamlet, i. 5, 19.)
A Portuguese writer, whose account of his residence
in Brazil has been previously quoted, mentions
the Agouti, an animal common in South
Agouti.
America :-
"The acutis are like the conies of Spaine, chiefely in their teeth: the
colour is dunne, and draweth toward yellow. They are domesticall
creatures, so that they goe about the house, and goe out and come in
againe to it. They take with their fore-feet all that they eate, and so
they carrie it to the mouth, and they eate very fast, and hide that
which they leave against they be an hungrie. Of these there are
many kindes, and all are eaten." (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1301.)
Guinea Pigs eaten.
157
John Lerius, a Frenchman who lived in Brazil during the
years 1557 and 1558, tells us :-
"There is also among the Americans a certaine red wilde beast,
which they name agouti, of the height of a weaned pig of thirty dayes
old, with a cloven foot, a very short tayle, and with the nose and eares
almost of an hare, most delightfull to the taste. There are also others
of two or three kindes, which they call tapitis, not much unlike our
hares, but somewhat of a reddish haire." (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1326.)
Instead of a cloven foot, the agouti has four well-developed
toes.
Paca.
This author also describes the pretty little Paca, a
species of cavy. Like the agouti it is easily
tamed, and of lively habits. Specimens are
occasionally brought over to this country. Lerius writes:-
Pag, or pague (for after what manner they pronounce it, you can
scarce, or not at all understand), is a wilde beast of the indifferent
height of an hound, with a deformed head, the flesh comming neere
the taste of veale, with a very faire skinne, distinguished with white,
russet, and blacke spots, so that it would be of great price with us, if
they were to be gotten."
Guinea Pig.
The Guinea Pig, though now only kept as a pet in
this country, was once apparently considered
a palatable dish. In a list of the expenses
of a dinner given by William Muigay, Mayor of Norwich,
to the Duke of Norfolk and the principal knights of the
county, in the year 1561, we read, among other items,
two brace of partridges at two shillings, four couple
rabbits at one and eightpence, and two "guiny piggs"
at a shilling.
This little animal has been strangely misnamed. It
is not a pig, but a species of cavy. It is not found in
Guinea, but in Brazil and Peru.
The Hare is frequently mentioned by poets and
dramatists, while allusion to its more plebeian
relative, the rabbit, is rare. Drayton gives
Hare.
a description of the hunting of the hare, which, though
.
158
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
of some length, has an interest on account of the technical
terms introduced :—
"The man whose vacant mind prepares him to the sport,
The finder sendeth out, to seek out nimble Wat,
Which crosseth in the field, each furlong, every flat,
Till he this pretty beast upon the form hath found,
Then viewing for the course, which is the fairest ground,
The greyhounds forth are brought, for coursing them in case,
And choicely in the slip, each leading forth a brace;
The finder puts her up, and gives her coursers law,
And whilst the eager dogs upon the start do draw,
She riseth from her seat, as though on earth she flew,
Forc'd by some yelping cur to give the greyhounds view,
Which are at length let slip, when gunning out they go,
As in respect of them the swiftest wind were slow,
When each man runs his horse, with fixed eyes, and notes
Which dog first turns the hare, which first the other coats,
They wrench her once or twice, ere she a turn will take,
What's offered by the first, the other good will make;
And turn for turn again with equal speed they ply,
Bestirring their swift feet with strange agility:
A harden'd ridge or way, when if the hare do win,
Then as shot from a bow, she from the dogs doth spin,
That strive to put her off, but when he cannot reach her,
This giving him a coat, about again doth fetch her
To him that comes behind, which seems the hare to bear;
But with a nimble turn she casts them both arrear :
Till oft for want of breath, to fall to ground they make her,
The greyhounds both so spent, that they want strength to take her."
(Polyolbion, song xxiii.)
"To cote is not simply to overtake, but to surpass; this being the
distinctive meaning of the term; going beyond is the essential point: so
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, having coted the players on their way,
reach the palace first." (Edinburgh Review, October, 1872.)
In Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis (lines 752-708) “hot
scent-snuffing hounds" are spoken of as employed in a
hare-hunt instead of the more usual greyhounds.
We learn from Fuller that hares were common in
Cambridgeshire:
66
'Though these are found in all counties, yet because lately there
The Melancholy Hare.
159
was in this shire an hare-park nigh Newmarket, preserved for the
king's game, let them here be particularly mentioned. Some prefer
their sport in hunting before their flesh for eating, as accounting it
melancholicke meat, and hard to be disgested; though others think all
the hardness is now to come by it." (Worthies of England, vol. i.
p. 153.)
66
Burton attributes melancholy in many cases to diet, and
includes this animal among the articles of food that pro-
dnce it. Hare, a black meat, melancholy, and hard of
digestion; it breeds incubus, often eaten, and causeth fear-
ful dreams; so doth all venison, and is condemned by a
jury of phisicians" (Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. i. p. 218).
The solitary habits of the hare have probably gained for
it the reputation of gloominess. Drayton writes:—
"The melancholy hare form'd on brakes and briars."
(Polyolbion, song ii.)
Prince Henry suggests, in reply to Falstaff's assertion that
he is "as melancholy as a gib cat:" "What sayest thou to
a hare or the melancholy of Moor-ditch ?" (1 Henry IV.,
i. 2, 86).
A hare was called a leveret the first year, a hare the
second, and a great hare the third. There were several
curious fancies connected with this animal. When it
sleeps the hare's eyelids do not quite join, which gave
rise to the notion that it slept with its eyes open :—
"That looking to my gold with such hare's eyes,
That ever open, ay, even when they sleep."
(BEN JONSON, The Case is Altered, v. 4.)
"Tread softly, Trollio, my father sleeps still.
Ay, forsooth: but he sleeps like a hare, with his eyes open,
An that's no good sign.”
(FORD, The Lover's Melancholy, ii. 2.)
Topsell gives an odd explanation of the expression hare-
eyed :-
"The eyelids comming from the brows are too short to cover their
eyes, and therefore this sence is very weake in them, and besides their
160
}
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
over much sleepe, for fear of dogs and swiftnesse causeth them to see
the lesse; when they run they shut their eies, and when they sleep
they open them." (Page 265.)
Lyly alludes to a very curious notion: "Hares we cannot
be, because they are male one year and the next female”
(Mydas); and Fletcher, in the Gentle Shepherd, writes,
"Hares that yearly sexes change."
"Mad as a March hare" is an old proverb:
"The blast of the brymston blew away his braine
Mased as March hare."
(SKELTON, The Crowne of Lawrell.)
It was considered unlucky if a hare crossed the path:-
"Nor did we meet
With nimble feet,
One little fearful lepus,
That certaine sign, as some divine,
Of fortune bad to keep us."
(ELLISON, Trip to Benwell, lx.)
Shakspeare has many references to this creature's
timidity. Sir Toby Belch declares that Viola is “
a very
dishonest, paltry boy, and more a coward than a hare
(Twelfth Night, iii. 4, 420).
""
In his treatise on English dogs, Dr. Caius makes
mention of a performing hare:-
"A hare (being a wilde and skippishe beast) was seene in England
to the astonishment of the beholders, in the yeare of our Lorde God
1564, not onely dauncing in measure, but playing with his former feet
uppon a tabbaret, and observing just number of strokes (as a practi-
tioner in that arte) besides that nipping and pinching a dogge with
his teeth and clawes, and cruelly thumping him with the force of his
feete. This is no trumpery tale, (nor trifling toye) as I imagine, and
therefore not unworthy to be reported, for I recken it a requitall of my
travaile, not to drowne in the seas of silence any speciall thing, wherein
the providence and effectual working of nature is to be pondered."
(Reprint, 1880, p. 16.)
The worthy doctor omits to inform us if the aforesaid dog
A Performing Hare.
161
was kept in the company of the hare for the purpose of
being periodically pommelled for the amusement of the
spectators.
If he was so retained, we may imagine
without much difficulty what the reflections of the un-
fortunate dog may have been, both upon the providential
working of nature and upon the humanity of his owner.
Ben Jonson includes a similar performing animal in his
list of curiosities which were exhibited at Bartholomew
Fair:-
Waspe. I have been at the eagle, and the black wolf, and the bull
with the five legs-he was a calf at Uxbridge Fair two years agone—
and at the dogs that dance the morrice, and the hare of the tabor; and
mist him at all these! Sure this must needs be some fine sight that
holds him so, if it have him." (Bartholomew Fair, v. 3.)
Mrs. Palliser (Historic Devices, 1870, p. 236) tells us
that one of the many emblems adopted by Mary, Queen
of Scots, and embroidered by her during her captivity,
was a lion taken in a net, and hares wantonly passing over
him, with the words, Et lepores devicto insultant leone-
"Even hares trample on the conquered lion." Of this
device Alciati gives a representation in his work on
emblems. To this drawing Shakspeare possibly refers.
Philip Faulconbridge says, tauntingly, to Austria:
"You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard."
(King John, ii. 1, 127.)
Rabbits were plentiful in all parts of England.
William Lambarde, in his Perambulation of
Kent, writes of that county, in 1576:
Rabbit.
'Parkes of fallow deere, and games of gray conies, it maintaineth
many, the one for pleasure, and the other for profit, as it may well
appear by this, that within memorie almost the one halfe of the first
sorte be disparked, and the number of warreyns continueth, if it do not
increase daily. As for red deere, and blacke conies, it nourisheth them
not, as having no forest, or great walks of waste grounde for the one,
M
4
}
1
:
1
*
162
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
and not tarying the time to raise to gaine by the other: for blacke
conyes are kept partly for their skins, which have their season in
winter; and Kent by the nearnesse to London, hath so quicke market
of yong rabbets, that it killeth this game chiefly in summer."
Holinshed, dealing with England more generally, gives
much the same account:
"As for warrens of conies, I judge them almost innumerable and
dailie like to increase, by reason that the blacke skins of those beasts
are thought to countervaile the prices of their naked carcases, and this
is the onelie cause whie the graie are lesse esteemed. Neere unto
London their quickest merchandize is of the yong rabbets, wherefor
the older conies are brought from further off, where is no such speedie
utterance of rabbets and sucklings in their season, nor so great losse
by their skins, sith they are suffered to grow up to their full greatnesse
with their owners." (Chronicles, vol. i. p. 343, ed. 1807.)
In this work (p. 57) we are told that in the group of
islands known as the Channel Islands-
"is also the rocky Isle of Burhoo, but now the Isle of Rats, so called of
the huge plentie of rats that are found there, though otherwise it is
replenished with infinit store of conies, betweene whome and the rats
as I conjecture, the same which we call Turkie conies are oftentimes
produced among those few houses that are to be seene in this island.”
Fynes Moryson also notices the abundance of these
little rodents. "England," he says, "hath infinite
number of conies, whereof the skinnes especially black
and silver haired are much prised, and in great quantities
transported, especially into Turkey" (Itinerary, p. 148).
The rabbit, or cony, was considered to have but a
scanty allowance of brains. The verb "to cony-catch"
was often used when a simple-minded victim was deceived
or entrapped. A French commentator on Du Bartas
informs us that the cony is-
"a beast, which by reason of his feare, loseth all ordinarie remem-
brance; whence the French proverb commeth, Thou hast as much
memory as a hare, or conny: thou hast lost it in running.”
Earth-delving Conies.
163
The name rabbet-sucker, or young cony, was sometimes
given to the dupe of any imposture. Shakspeare uses
the former name in its literal sense
"Prince. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me,
and I'll play my father.
"Fal. Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically,
both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker,
or a poulter's hare." (1 Henry IV., ii. 4, 476.)
On account of their abundance rabbits were not
held in high estimation for the table. Instructions
are given in Wynkyn de Worde's Boke of Kervynge
for unlacing, or cutting up, a cony. The sauce recom-
mended is either vinegar and ginger, or mustard aud
sugar.
No doubt Shakspeare had often watched with amuse-
ment the antics of these merry little creatures. He may
have seen, in the evening of a showery summer day, the
furzy down or the woodland glade at one moment bare
and deserted, and the next alive with "earth-delving
conies," frisking and gambolling on the dewy grass.
The servants of Aufidius comment on the reception which
Coriolanus has met with from their master, and discuss
the chances of a speedy attack upon Rome. One of the
men declares that, although the enemies of the warlike
visitor have triumphed for a time, yet Coriolanus has left
many friends behind him. They have withdrawn from
his side, and taken shelter from the storm of unpopularity
that has overwhelmed him; "But when they shall see,
sir, his crest up again, and the man in blood, they will
out of their burrows, like conies after rain, and revel all
with him" (Coriolanus, iv. 5, 224).
It is not easy to identify all the animals described
by the early travellers, but the minute details
given by Gonzalo Ferdinando de Oviedo in
Ai.
his account of the West Indies leaves little doubt that
164 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
A
the subject of his discourse is the Ai, or Three-toed
Sloth, a species common in Brazil.
"There is," he writes, "another strange beast, which, by a name of
contrary effect, the Spaniards call cagnuolo, that is, the Light Dogge,
whereas it is one of the slowest beasts in the world, and so heavie and
dull in moving, that it can scarcely goe fiftie pases in a whole day:
these beasts are in the same land, and are very strange to behold for
the disproportion that they have to all other beasts: they are about two
spans in length when they are growne to their full bignesse, but when
they are very young, they are somewhat more grosse then long: they
have foure subtill feete, and in every one of them foure clawes like unto
birds, and joyned together: yet are neither their clawes or their feet
able to susteine their bodies from the ground, by reason whereof, and
by the heavinesse of their bodies, they draw their bellies on the
ground: their neckes are high and streight, and all equal like the pestle
of a morter, which is altogether equal even unto the top, without
making any proportion or similitude of a head, or any difference except
in the noddle, and in the tops of their neckes: they have very round
faces much like unto owles, and have a marke of their own haire after
the manner of a circle, which maketh their faces seeme somwhat more
long then large: they have small eyes and round, and nostrils like unto
monkeyes: they have little mouthes, and moove their neckes from one
side to another, as though they were astonished: their chiefe desire
and delight is to cleave and sticke fast unto trees, or some other thing
whereby they may climbe aloft, and therefore for the most part, these
beasts are found upon trees, whereunto cleaving fast, they mount up
by little and little, staying themselves by their long clawes: the
colour of the haire is betweene russet and white, and of the proper
colour of the haire of a weasell: they have no tayles, and their voice is
much differing from other beasts, for they sing onely in the night,
and that continually from time to time, singing ever sixe notes one
higher then another, so falling with the same, that the first note is
the highest, and the other in a baser tune, as if a man should say, La,
sol, fa, mi, re, ut, so this beast saith, Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And
doubtlesse, it seemeth to me that as I have said in the chapter of the
beast called bardati, that those beasts might be the originall and
document to imbarbe horses: even so the first invention of musicke
might seeme by the hearing of this beast, to have the first principles
of that science, rather then by any other thing in the world. But now
to returne to the historie. I say that in a short space after this beast
hath sung, and hath paused a while, shee returneth againe to the selfe-
same song, and doth this onely in the night and not in the day. And
Unhappy Condition of the Sloth.
165
whereas I my selfe have kept them in my house, I could never perceive
other but that they live onely of aire: and of the same opinion are in
like manner all men of those regions, because they have never seene
them eate any thing, but ever turne their heads and mouthes toward
that part where the wind bloweth most, whereby may be considered
that they take most pleasure in the ayre. They bite not, nor yet can
bite, having very little mouthes: they are not venemous or noyous any
way, but altogether brutish, and utterly unprofitable, and without
commoditie yet knowne to men." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 978.)
Joseph Acosta, another traveller, is more accurate
as to the number of claws that this musical animal
possesses:-
"There is another strange beast, which for his great heavinesse,
and slownesse in moving, they call perico-ligero, or the little light
dogge; hee hath three nailes to every hand, and mooves both hand and
feete, as it were by compasse and very heavily: it is in face like to a
monkey, and hath a shrill crie; it climeth trees and eates ants."
(Purchas, vol. iii. p. 966.)
Buffon, in his Natural History, gives an account of
the ai. According to this naturalist every part of the
unfortunate sloth is an error in nature. It is unable to
walk or even to crawl; it has no weapons of offence or
defence; slowness, habitual pain, and stupidity are the
results of the "strange and bungling conformation of
creatures to whom nature has been unkind, and who
exhibit to us the picture of innate misery." More recent
observers, who have studied the habits of the animal in
its native haunts, tell us that its formation is in perfect
harmony with its environments. The sloth's progress
along the level surface of the ground is tedious and
painful, but when it gains the branch of a tree, its natural
habitat, the strong curved claws, which impeded its loco-
motion before, form so many grappling irons, by means of
which it can pass from bough to bough with ease and
comfort, and with fair celerity. It feeds, not upon ants,
but upon young leaves and shoots.
166
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Don Gonzalo writes further:-
“There is another kinde of beaste seene in the firme land [South
America] which seemeth very strange and marvelous
Armadillo.
to the Christian men to behold, and much differing
from all other beasts which have beene seene in other parts of the
world: these beasts are called Bardati, and are foure footed, having
their taile and all the rest of their bodies covered onely with a
skin like to a barbed horse, or the checkered skin of a lisart or cro-
codile, of colour betweene white and russet, inclining somewhat more
to white. And if these beasts had ever beene seene in these parts of
the world where the first barbed horses had their original, no man
would judge but that the forme and fashion of the coperture of horses
furnished for the warres, was first devised by the sight of these beasts."
(Purchas, vol. iii. p. 977).
Joseph Acosta, in the same work, informs us that in
Peru-
"there bee little beasts which goe through the woods, called Arma-
dillos, by reason of the defence they have, hiding themselves within
their scales, and opening when they list: I have eaten of them, and
doe not hold it for meate of any great worth; but the flesh of the
yguanas is a better meate, but more horrible to the eye: for they are
like to the very lizardes of Spaine, although they bee of a doubtfull
kinde, for they goe to the water, and comming to land, they climbe
the trees upon the bankes, and as they cast themselves from the trees
into the water the boates watch underneath to receive them."
Topsell gives an account of two extraordinary animals,
the latter of which corresponds to the armadillo, with the
exception of the duck-like bill.
"Of the Tatus, or Guinean Beast," he writes, "this is a foure-footed
strange beast, which Bellonius saith, he found in Turchia, among the
mountebankes and apothicaries. It is brought for the most part out
of the new-found world, and out of Guinia, and may therefore be safely
conveyed into those parts, because it is naturally covered with a harde
shell, devided and interlined like the fins of fishes, outwardly seeming
buckled to the backe like coat-armor, with which the beast draweth
up his body as a hedghog doth within his prickled skin, and therefore
I take it to be a Brasilian hedghog. The merchants as I have heard
and cittizens of London keepe off with these their garden wormes. . .
There is another beast that may bee compared to this, whereof Car-
dianus writeth, and he calleth the name of it Aiochtochth. It is a
The Ant-eater.
167
strange creature, found in Hispania Nova, neare the river Alvaradus,
being not greater then a cat, having the bil or snowt of a mallard, the
feet of an hedge-hog, and a very long necke. It is covered al over
with a shell like the trappinges of a horse, divided as in a lobster and
not continued as in an oyster; and so covered therewith, that neither
the necke nor the head appeare plainely, but onely the eares; and the
Spaniards for this cause call it armato and contaxto: there be some doe
affirme that it hath a voice like swine, but the feet thereof are not
indeed so cloven that they remaine unequal, but are like to a horses,
I meane the several cloves, there are of these as I have hearde to be
seene in gardens in London, which are kept to destroy the garden
wormes." (Page 706.)
The former animal is possibly the Peba armadillo (Tatusia
peba), a species of armadillo found throughout Central
and South America.
A Portuguese resident in Brazil, gives a description
of the Ant-eater, or Ant-bear, which, though
somewhat grotesque in its wording, is fairly
correct.
Ant-eater.
"The tamandua," he says, "is of notable admiration, it is of the
bignesse of a great dog, more round then long, and the tayle is twice
or thrice as long as the bodie, and so full of haire, that from the heate,
raine, cold and winde, hee harboureth himselfe all under it, that yee
can see nothing of him. The head is small, and hath a thinne snout,
no greater mouth then an oyle cruze, round and not open, the tongue
is of three quarters long, and with it he licketh up the ants, whereon
he onely feeds; he is diligent in seeking of the ant-heapes, and with
the clawes hee breaketh them, and casting out his tongue the ants
stick to it, and so he drawes them in, having no more mouth then
to hold his tongue full of them; it is of a great fiercenesse, and
doth assault many people and beasts. The ounces doe feare them and
the dogs exceedingly, and whatsoever they catch, they teare with their
clawes; they are not eaten, neither are they good for any thing but to
destroy the ant-heapes; and they are so many that they will never
be destroyed altogether." (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1301.)
The ant-eater, though provided with powerful claws, and
a formidable antagonist when roused, does not attack either
man or beast unprovoked. This animal is called by other
travellers the baremoe.
168 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Gonzalo describes, under its native name, another,
and perhaps the strangest of the New-World animals,
the Opossum :-
“The Churchia is as bigge as a small conie, tawnie, sharp-snowted,
dogtoothed, long-tayled like a rat. They doe great
Opossum. harme to their hennes, killing sometimes twentie or
more at once to sucke their bloud: and if they then have young, shee
carrieth them with her in a bagge of skin under her belly, running
alongst the same like a satchell, which shee opens and shuts at
pleasure to let them in and out: and if any come with light when the
damme and young are at their hen-bloud dainties, shee receives them
into this bagge and runneth away with them. And if shee finde the
way stopped, shee climeth up above the hen roost, and is sometimes
taken alive or dead in this manner, as I have seene.
vol. iii. p. 995.)
(Purchas,
Another traveller, Girolamo Benzoni, a Milanese, writes in
a work published at Venice in 1565:—
"There exists also a monstrous animal, that has a pouch under its
stomach, into which it makes the young ones get when it wants to go
from one place to another; this animal has the body and the snout of a
fox, with fore paws and hind feet like those of a cat, but more handy,
and its ears are like those of the rat." (History of America, reprint,
Hakluyt Society, 1857.)
From one of these descriptions Du Bartas probably
derived his exaggerated notions of the formidable nature
of the opossum :-
"I fear the beast bred in the bloody coast
Of Cannibals, which thousand times (almost)
Re-whelps her whelps, and in her tender womb,
Shee doth as oft her living brood re-tomb."
(Divine Weekes, p. 50.)
Marshy Condition of England.
169
CHAPTER VIII.
Birds.
We must bear in mind when we pass from quadrupeds
to Birds, how different was the external aspect
of England in the time of Elizabeth from that
which it wears to-day. Forests extended for many miles,
of which now only the name and one or two patriarchal-
looking trees remain. That marshes stretched far inland
from the coast, even within sight of the large towns, is
evident from the frequent reference to ague, low fever,
and other maladies arising from malaria. Norden writes
of Essex, in 1593:-
"This shire seemeth to me to deserve the title of the Englishe
Goshen, the fattest of the lande: comparable to Palestina, that floweth
with milke and hunnye. But I cannot commende the healthfulnes
of it and especiallie nere the sea coastes, Rochford, Denge, Tendering
Hundreds and other lowe places about the creekes, which gave me a
moste cruell quaterne fever. But the manie and sweete commodities
countervayle the danger."
The same remarks would apply to many inland places.
Little by little these low-lying districts have been
drained, and the woods and forests have been cleared.
This transition must have had more effect on the life of
birds than on that of quadrupeds. The deer, though
restricted in their range, had parks set aside for their
preservation; laws against their destruction made amends.
for their loss of freedom. Of other wild animals, the fox
170
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
and hare were protected on account of the amusement
their pursuit afforded, and the badger, otter, and wild cat
still remained in parts of the island.
To the extensive drainage of marshy lands is to be
traced the diminution and final disappearance of a great
number of water and wading birds. Naturalists are
indebted to the slowness with which this work of
reclaiming the land proceeded for the preservation of
many species to a sufficiently recent period to be re-
corded by the sportsman or the chronicler. "The old
order changeth, yielding place to new," and though sports-
men and epicures may lament the scarcity of the heron,
the curlew, and the knot, the lover of melody has full
compensation in the song of the lark, the robin, and the
thrush, The traveller in the Lincolnshire fens, the last
resort of many species of water birds, would hardly now
send his friends at home a report such as old Camden
gives :-
"All this tract-over at certaine seasons, good God, what store of
foules, to say nothing of fishes, is heere to be found! I meane not
those vulgar birds which in other places are highly esteemed and beare
a great price, as teales, quailes, woodcocks, pheasants, partridges, &c., but
such, as we have no Latin names for, the very delicate dainties of service,
meates for the demigods, and greatly sought for by these that love the
tooth so well, I meane, puits, godwitts, knotts, that is to say, Canuts or
knoutsbirds, for out of Denmark they are thought to fly hither."
(Britaine.)
The Rev. R. Lubbock, in his work, The Fauna of
Norfolk, published 1845, gives many interesting particu-
lars of the feathered inhabitants of the marshy districts
of that county. He writes (page 48):-
"The Norfolk fens must in days of yore have literally swarmed with
different species of birds. If we glance at the position of Norfolk and
Suffolk upon the map, we at once perceive that they stand out as it
were offering an asylum to the storm-beaten bird coming from the
ocean. If we consider the great variety of soil to be found in the
marshy part of the county, and the way in which swamp and high
Presents to the Judges.
171
ground are continually intermingled, it is plain that formerly the
Norfolk fens must have offered the fairest retreat of water birds. It is
singular how universal has been the omission of this district amongst
older writers on natural history.
""
This author notices the preference our forefathers
appear to have had for water over land birds as delicacies
for the table.
"the
“On the occasion of any festival," he says (p. 67),
inhabitants of the marsh are found in the place of honour, and
land birds are quite neglected. The same preference for fen birds,
the waders especially, pervades the whole of the 'L'Estrange' house-
keeping. Knotts and plovers, with the curlews, appear most prized;
a redshank is about one fourth the value of a plover; teal occur only
twice, and the ruff is not mentioned. Pheasants and partridges appear
several times, but only two or three at the most. The sea-pye (oyster-
catcher) is in the list, and another mysterious fowl called a popeler,
which is inserted in company with herons."
In an account of the expenses of the Judges of Assize,
going the Western and Oxford Circuits, between the years
1596 and 1601, reprinted in the fourth volume of the
Camden Miscellany, 1857, mention is made of a variety of
birds which were sent as presents to the judges by the
sheriffs of the different towus. In the introduction to the
reprint we find a list of the various contributions :—
"We do not now dress the bustard, one of which was given at
Salisbury in 1600; or the heron; or the heronshawes, which came in
at Salisbury, Dorchester, Exeter, and Launceston; the curlew, or the
gull, or the puffin, which was a rarity met with in Cornwall alone; or
the kite, cooked at Exeter. The peacock was once dressed at Chard;
the swan at Winchester, Salisbury, Andover, Taunton, and two cygnets
at Oxford. Turkeys, then a rare bird, were presented on the earliest
circuit in Cornwall; the heath-poults, now seldom met with in the
west, were sent as presents at Salisbury, Dorchester, and Stafford; and
the heath-cock at Launceston. Pheasants, of which there were not
many, and partridges, which were abundant, were killed on both
Circuits in the months of June and July, and also in February.
Quails, now very scarce, formed a portion of the presents in each of
172
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
the western towns and at Oxford. Plovers, golden and green, arrived
at Taunton and Exeter; puetts at Winchester, Salisbury, Dorchester,
Exeter, Oxford, Worcester, and Stafford; and a dozen oxen and kyne,
being birds, [ruffs and reeves ?] appear once in July at Exeter."
Considering the difficulties of transport in the reign
of Elizabeth, England appears to have been well supplied
with commodities. The daily meal of even the nobles
was probably simple, but on state occasions the bill of
fare presented great variety. Christmas, one of the
characters in the play by Thomas Nash, Summer's Last
Will and Testament, printed 1600, exclaims—
O, it were a trim thing to send, as the Romans did, round about
the world for provision for one banquet. I must rig ships to Samos for
peacocks; to Paphos for pigeons; to Austria for oysters; to Phasis for
pheasants; to Arabia for phoenixes; to Meander for swans; to the
Orcades for geese; to Phrygia for woodcocks; to Malta for cranes; to
the Isle of Man for puffins; to Ambracia for chestnuts-and all for one
feast.
“Will Summer. O sir, you need not you may buy them at
London better cheap." (Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. viii., ed. W. C.
Hazlitt.)
Bird-fowling has from time immemorial been man's
favourite pursuit, and great has been also the ingenuity
displayed by him in devising methods for beguiling or
destroying his feathered prey. Thomas Burton quaintly
writes:
(6
Fowling is more troublesome [than hawking], but al out as
delightsome to some sorts of men, be it with guns, lime, nets, glades,
ginnes, strings, baits, pitfalls, pipes, calls, stalking-horses, setting-
dogges, coy-ducks, &c., or otherwise. Some much delight to take
larks with day-nets, small birds with chaffe-net, plovers, partridges,
herons, snite, &c. Henry the Third, King of Castile (as Mariana the
Jesuite reports of him, lib. 3, cap. 7), was much affected with catching
of quailes; and many gentlemen take a singular pleasure at morning.
and evening to go abroad with theyr quail-pipes, and will take any
paines to satisfie their delight in that kinde." (Anatomy of Melan-
choly, vol. i. p. 528.)
Theories of Migration.
173
Migration.
Among the ancients the migration of birds was made
the subject of close observation. Auguries
were drawn from the flight of passage birds,
and agricultural operations were to some extent regu-
lated by the early or late appearance of the different
species. But however accurate may have been the know-
ledge which the priests and farmers of Rome possessed.
concerning the times and seasons of the arrival and
departure of migrating birds, their conjectures, as well
as those of our own early naturalists, as to the destination
of the various kinds were somewhat eccentric. According
to some writers, the "half-year birds," as Izaak Walton
calls them, did not leave the country at all, but sought
shelter from the winter's cold in mudbanks and hollow
trees. Of all the different theories suggested in explana-
tion of the annual exodus of many species of birds, the
very strangest is propounded in a paper preserved in the
collection of curiosities, the Harleian Miscellany (vol. ii.
p. 583), entitled "An enquiry into the physical and
literal sense of that Scripture, 'The stork in the heaven
knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the
crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their
coming.' (Jeremiah viii. 7.)" The writer of this article
vouchsafes to the public neither signature nor date. He
argues that if the flight of storks had been in an hori-
zontal direction flocks of migrating birds would have
been frequently seen by travellers; he therefore assumes
that their route must be perpendicular, and fixes upon
the moon as their destination :
"Therefore the stork, and the like may be said of other season-
observing birds, till some place more fit can be assigned to them, does
go unto, and remain in some one of the celestial bodies; and that
must be the moon, which is most likely because nearest, and bearing
most relation to this our earth, as appears in the Copernican scheme;
yet is the distance great enough to denominate the passage thither an
itineration or journey."
174
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The imagination of a Jules Verne would be required
to supply the details of such a passage, and of the birds'
sojourn in their new habitation. Two months are allowed
by this ingenious writer for the upward flight, three for
the necessary repose and refreshment in the lunar world,
and two more for the return journey.
Lists of
Birds.
Harrison, in his description of Britain, prefixed to
Holinshed's Chronicle, gives a list of English
birds; but as his knowledge of the subject
is limited, the catalogue is necessarily incomplete. He
writes:-
"Order requireth that I speake somewhat of the foules also of Eng-
land, which I may easilie divide into the wild and tame: but alas
such is my small skill in foules, that, to say the truth, I can neither
recite their numbers, nor well distinguish one kind of them from
another. . . . Of such [wildfowl] therefore as are bred in our land, we
have the crane, the bitter, the wild and tame swan, the bustard, the
herron, curlew, snite, wildgoose, wind or dottrell, brant, larke, plover
(of both sorts), lapwing, teele, wigeon, mallard, sheldrake, shoveler,
pewet, seamew, barnacle, quaile (who onelie with man are subject to
the falling sickenesse), the notte, the oliet or olife, the dunbird, wood-
cocke, partrich and feasant, besides divers other, whose names to me
are utterlie unknown, and much more the taste of their flesh, where-
with I was never acquainted. . . . Our tame foule are such (for the
most part) as are common both to us and to other countries, as cocks,
hens, geese, duckes, peacocks of Inde, pigeons, now an hurtful evil by
reason of their multitudes, and such like. I would likewise intreat
of other foules which we repute uncleane, as ravens, crowes, pies,
choughes, rookes, kites, jaies, ringtailes, starlings, woodspikes, wood-
nawes, &c.
It may be that some looke for a discourse also of our
other foules in this place at my hand, as nightingales, thrushes, blacke-
birds, mavises, ruddocks, redstarts or dunocks, larkes, tivits, king-
fishers, buntings, turtles, white or graie, linets, bulfinshes, goldfinshes,
washtailes, cheriecrackers, yellowhammers, felfares &c. But I should
then spend more time upon them than is convenient. Neither will I
speake of our costlie and curious aviaries daile made for the better
hearing of their melodie, and observation of their natures." (Holinshed,
vol. i. p. 374, ed. 1807.)
The Northumberland Household Book, which gives
}
"Northumberland Household Book."
175
an account of the domestic economy of Percy, Earl of
Northumberland, was written in the year 1512. It was
reprinted by Dr. Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, at
the beginning of the present century. The minuteness
of the details given as to the price and quantities of
the articles required renders this and similar collections
valuable sources of information respecting the luxuries
and necessaries of the time. Bishop Percy points out, in
the preface to his edition, that-
"Our nobility in the more early times lived in their castles with a
gross and barbarous magnificence, surrounded with rude and warlike
followers, without control and without system. As they gradually
emerged from this barbarity, they found it necessary to establish very
minute domestic regulations in order to keep their turbulent followers
in peace and order; and from living in a state of disorderly grandeur,
void of all system, would naturally enough run into the opposite
extreme of reducing everything, even the most trifling disbursements,
to stated formal rules. It may be considered further, that a nobleman
in the Dark Ages, when retired to his castle, had neither books, nor
newspapers, nor literary correspondence, nor visits, nor cards, to fill up
his leisure; his only amusements were field-sports, and as these, how-
ever eagerly pursued, could not fill up all his vacant hours, the
government of his household would therefore be likely enough to
engage his attention."
We find from the above work that the list of birds
reserved exclusively for his lordship's table includes
many species which would in modern times be discarded.
as worthless. We see here, spelt in a variety of ways,
the names of the heron, bittern, peacock, pheasant, par-
tridge, quail, bustard, mallard, woodcock, snipe, lapwing,
redshank, plover, stint, widgeon, knot, dottrell, reys (or
ruffs and reeves), seagull, shoveler, curlew, seapye, and
tern.
Richard Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, 1602
(p. 108), gives. a short list of the waterfowl on the Cor-
nish coast:
“Besides these floating burgesses of the ocean, there are also certain
176 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
į
flying citizens of the air, which prescribe for a corrody [an allowance of
provisions] therein; of whom some serve for food to us, and some but
to feed themselves. Amongst the first sort we reckon the dipchick (so
named of his diving and littleness), coots, sanderling, sea larks, oxen
and kine [ruffs and reeves], seapies, puffins, pewits, meawes, murres,
creysers, curlews, teals, widgeon, burranets, shags, duck and mallard,
gull, wildgoose, heron, crane, and barnacle."
After the publication of Mr. Harting's learned and
Mr. Harting interesting work, The Ornithology of Shake-
on Birds. speare, it may be thought not only unneces-
sary but presumptuous to deal with the various kinds
of birds at any length in this volume. But, on referring
to his work, it will be seen that all the species of birds
not mentioned by Shakspeare are omitted. The author
also confines himself chiefly to Shakspeare for his illus-
trations. Mr. Harting's work is doubtless in the hands of
every student of our great dramatist; quotations of any
length will therefore not be made from The Ornithology,
nor will the birds described in its pages be treated of in
detail. The hope may be entertained that the following
account of the different varieties of birds mentioned by
Elizabethan writers generally may serve as an appendix
to Mr. Harting's admirable work.
Thrush.
It accords well with the idea that the reign of force
is no longer paramount, that in modern scien-
tific classification birds of song have usurped
the place once filled by birds of prey. The Song Thrush,
or Throstle, placed by Mr. Wallace first on the list of
the feathered race, is the compeer of the nightingale in
volume of song, though not in variety or in sweetness.
Drayton writes of this chorister—
"The throstel, with shrill sharps; as purposely he sang
T'awake the lustless sun; or chiding that so long
He was in coming forth, that should the thickets thrill."
(Polyolbion, song xiii.)
The mavis is considered by Yarrell to be another name
Jealousy of Philomel.
177
for the thrush; but a distinction between the two is
made by Spenser as well as by Harrison:-
The thrush replyes; the mavis descant playes."
(Epithalamion, line 80.)
And Skelton, in his poem, Philip Sparow, writes:-
The threstill with her warblynge,
The mavis with her whistell."
In a poem by Gascoigne, The Complaint of Phylomena, a
distinction is made between the mavis and the thrush.
The "
darling of the summer's pride" thus betrays all
the jealousy of a neglected opera-singer in decrying her
rivals:-
"These thriftles birds (quoth she) which spend the day
In needlesse notes, and chaunt withouten skil,
Are costly kept, and finely fedde alway
With daintie foode, whereof they feede their fil.
**
*
*
"The throstle, she which makes the wood to ring
With shryching loude, that lothsome is to heare,
Is costly kept, in cage: O wondrous thing!
The mavis eke, whose notes are nothing cleare.”
Missel-
thrush.
The Missel-thrush, or Storm-cock, sometimes called
the Holm-thrush from its fondness for holly-
berries, though now one of the best known of
our British birds, was apparently much scarcer in earlier
times. Thomas Muffett, in his Healths Improvement
(p. 101), says, "Thrushes and mavisses feed most upon
hawes, sloes, misle-berries, and privot-berries. Felde-
fares,” he adds, "are of the like feed, and give (almost)
as good nourishment, yea better, when juniper-berries be
ripe, for then all their flesh is perfumed with the scent
thereof."
The Redwing is mentioned in the article on migration
already noticed: "Such are the winter-birds
that breed not here, as the woodcock, and
Redwing.
wind-thrush (or the redwing, wheenerd, whindle; for so
N
178
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
many names it has in divers countries), field-fare, snipe,
&c."
Blackbird.
writes:
The Blackbird, Ouzel, Woozel, or Merle is
occasionally referred to by poets. Drayton
"The woosel near at hand, that hath a golden bill;
As nature him had markt of purpose t' let us see
That from all other birds his tunes should different be:
For, with their vocal sounds, they sing to pleasant May;
Upon his dulcet pipe the merle doth only play,
When in the lower brake, the nightingale hard by
In such lamenting strains the joyful hours doth ply,
As though the other birds she to her tunes would draw.”
(Polyolbion, song xiii.)
When Shallow meets his neighbour and fellow-justice,
he inquires after William and Ellen: "And how doth my
cousin, your bedfellow? and your fairest daughter and
mine, my god-daughter Ellen?" Silence answers, "Alas,
a black ousel, cousin Shallow" (2 Henry IV., iii. 2, 6).
The ambiguity of the reply has caused some discussion.
among commentators. Mr. Harting, who takes for granted
that it refers to the young collegian, considers the ex-
pression "a black ousell" equivalent to the phrase "a
black sheep." Mr. Guy, a writer in Notes and Queries
(5th series, vol. i. p. 19), assumes the reply to have
reference to the lady, and suggests that, as the blackbird
is a solitary warbler, Silence means to say that his
daughter is still unmarried. Another interpretation is
that Ellen is a comely brunette, and that her father uses
the expression to deprecate her godfather's too partial
commendation of her charms.
Nightingale.
The range of the far-famed Nightingale in England
is limited to certain counties. According to
Mr. Garner (History of Stafford, 1844), most
parts of the county of Stafford are without the nightingale,
and the bird is unknown in the rich valley of the Trent
Names of the Nightingale.
179
north of Lichfield. Its song is heard in Yorkshire and
occasionally in the more northern counties, but not in
Scotland. Fynes Moryson records that it was unknown
in Ireland.
Mr. Harting has noticed at some length the fable
that the nightingale leans against a thorn for fear she
should be overtaken by sleep, so often referred to by
poets. Of all epithets applied to this songster none is
more poetical and appropriate than that used by Ben
Jonson, in his pastoral poem, The Sad Shepherd (ii. 3)—
"I grant the linnet, lark, and bullfinch sing,
But best the dear good angel of the spring,
The nightingale."
Though, as Mr. Gifford points out, this expression is a
literal translation from the Greek of
used in the original signification of
harbinger. Spenser writes :-
Sappho, angel is
a messenger or
"Like as the darling of the summer's pryde
Faire Philomele.”
(The Tears of the Muses, 1. 235.)
Giles Fletcher calls the nightingale "the bird of sorrow,"
and Drayton," that charmer of the night." In the Mirror
for Magistrates (vol. ii. p. 468) we find a different
epithet :-
"Sweete are the songs that merry night crow singes,
For many parts are in those charming notes.
*
*
"It is a sport to heare the fine night crow
*
Chaunt in the queere upon a pricke-song plaine:
No musicke more may please a prince's vaine
Than descant strange, and voice of faurets breest,
In quiet bower when birds be all at rest.”
Of all the small birds that seek the neighbourhood
of dwelling-houses, the Robin Redbreast, or
Ruddock, has ever held first place in the
Robin.
affections of man; and the robin has been associated in
180
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
the minds of children with kind actions, through the
medium of the various ballads on the doleful story of
"the Babes in the Wood." Drayton probably refers to
that tragic history when he writes:
Covering with moss the dead unclosed eye,
The little red breast teacheth charity."
(The Owl.)
The robin is introduced with a double meaning in a
poem on Robert Earl of Essex, which is supposed to have
been written by one of the friends of that nobleman while
he was in possession of the queen's favour.
"The goose but gaggelith in her gate,
The cock he can but crowe,
A thousand birdes do not but prate,
And gangell where they goo:
The lark and lynnett singith well,
The thrisell dothe his best ;
The robbyn beares away ye bell,
And passeth all the rest.
He is famyllyer with a lorde,
And dreames wheare ladies are ;
He can in howse singe and recorde,
When busshe and bryer is bare."
(Camden Miscellany, vol. ii.)
Thomas Fuller, writing of Sussex, tells us that—
Wheat-ear.
“the Wheat-ear is a bird peculiar to this county, hardly found out of
it. It is so called because fattest when wheat is ripe,
whereon it feeds; being no bigger than a lark, which it
equalleth in the fineness of the flesh, far exceedeth in the fatness
thereof. The worst is, that being only seasonable in the heat of
summer, and then naturally larded with lumps of fat, it is soon subject
to corrupt. That palate-man shall pass in silence, who being seriously
demanded his judgment concerning the abilities of a great lord, con-
cluded him a man of very weak parts, because once he saw him,
at a feast, feed on chickens when there were wheat-ears on the table.'"
(Worthies of England, vol. ii. p. 382.)
This etymology is not quite correct. Notwithstanding the
The Wheat-ear.
181
name given to the bird, the wheat-ear is an insect-feeder.
Fuller was probably also mistaken when he confined the
range of this much-prized bird to one English county.
In modern times the wheat-ear, oenanthe, or stone-smatch,
is found in some abundance in the North of England and
in Scotland. In the northern counties a superstition
prevails that its note gives warning of approaching death.
John Taylor, "the Water Poet," also includes the
wheat-ear among the commodities of Sussex, in the
following doggrel rhymes:-
"There were rare birds I never saw before,
The like of them I think to see no more:
Th' are called wheat-ears, less than lark or sparrow,
Well roasted, in the mouth they taste like marrow.
When once 'tis in the teeth it is involv'd,
Bones, flesh, and all, is lusciously dissolv’d.
The name of wheat-ears, on them is ycleped
Because they come when wheat is yearly reap'd,
Six weeks, or thereabouts, they are catch'd there,
And are wellnigh 11 months, God knows where."
(Works, ed. Hindley, 1872.)
Wren.
The little Wren, by its habit of frequenting the neigh-
bourhood of human habitations, its bright
lively movements, and its peculiar shape,
has always been a favourite with country folk:-
"The hedge-sparrow and her compeer the wren,
Which simple people call our lady's hen.”
(DRAYTON, The Owl.)
Chester speaks of "the little wren that many young
ones brings." Sir Toby Belch, on the entrance of Maria,
exclaims, "Look where the youngest wren of nine comes !"
(Twelfth Night, iii. 2.) It is hardly safe to assume from
these words that Shakspeare had at any time counted the
number of wren's eggs, yet this expression has been
quoted by commentators in proof of the dramatist's
accuracy in ornithological details.
182
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The Archangel is the name given by Chaucer to
the Titmouse. In Gascoigne's Complaint of
Phylomena the nightingale laments over the
popularity of her diminutive rival:-
Titmouse.
"Now in good sooth, quoth she, sometimes I wepe
To see tom tyttimouse so much set by."
The patience must have been great and the appetite
small of any one who could make a meal on these tiny
songsters, and the caution contained in Andrew Boorde's
Dyetary cannot often have been required:-
“All maner of smale byrdes be good and lyght of dygestyon,
excepte sparowes, whiche be harde of digestyon. Tytmoses, colmoses,
and wrens, the whiche doth eate spyders and poyson, be not com-
mendable. Of all smale byrdes the larke is the beste: then is praysed
the blacke byrde and the thrusshe." (Early English Text Society,
ed. Furnivall, 1870, p. 133.)
Oriole.
The Golden Oriole, or Golden Ouzel, a brilliantly
coloured species of thrush, is an occasional
visitant to Great Britain. Giraldus Cambrensis
reports that on one occasion Baldwin, Archbishop of
Canterbury, made a progress through Wales. Travelling
through a valley near Bangor, Baldwin and his attendants
sat down under some trees to rest. Cambrensis, who
accompanied the archbishop in his tour, describes the
scene, and writes:-
"The sweet notes are heard, in an adjoining wood, of a bird, which
some said was a wood-pecker, and others more correctly, an aureolus.
The wood-pecker is called in French, spec, and, with its strong bill,
perforates oak trees; the other bird is called aureolus, from the golden
tint of its feathers, and at certain seasons utters a sweet whistling note,
instead of a song." (Itinerary through Wales, 1187, p. 442, ed. Wright,
1863.)
The note of the oriole is loud and flute-like, and may
well be called a whistle.
The Golden Oriole.
183
Woodwele, the name of a bird, occurs occasionally in
medieval poetry. Chaucer writes:-
'In many places were nyghtyngales,
Alpes, fynches, and wodewales,
That in her swete song deliten
In thilke places as they habiten."
(The Romaunt of the Rose, ed. Bell.)
The woodwele is explained by Percy, in his Reliques of
English Poetry, to be the oriole. We find the name again
in the ballad of Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne:
"The woodweele sang and wolde not cease,
Sitting upon the spray,
So lowde he wakened Robin Hood,
In the greenwood where he lay."
The oriole is said to prefer fruit when it can be procured,
but failing this it is not above eating insects. Thomas
Muffett, in his Healths Improvement (p. 100), informs us
that “witwols are of excellent good nourishment, feeding
upon bees, flies, snails, cherries, plums, and all manner of
good fruit." It may be that this beautiful bird was less
rare in former times than it is at present.
Magpie.
Mr. Harting gives the derivation of Magpie from magot-
pie; another explanation of the name of
this bird is that magot is the French for a
hoard of secreted money, and may have been bestowed
in consequence of the magpie's hiding propensities.
Another is that mag, a contraction of Margaret, is a
nickname corresponding to robin redbreast, or tom tit-
mouse. Skelton speaks of "the flecked pye."
Next we have—
"The caryon crowe, that lothsome beast,
Which cries against the rayne,
Both for hir hewe and for ther rest,
The devil resembleth playne."
Crow.
(GASCOIGNE, Good-morrow.)
184
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
·
This evil-disposed bird was much commoner than the
raven. It closely resembled that bird in its habits and in
appearance, and, like the raven, was regarded with super-
stitious awe by the country people. In his list of the
birds of Norfolk, Sir Thomas Brown includes "rooks,
crows, as every where also the pied crow, with dun and
black interchangeable." Moryson, in his History of
Ireland, 1600, says that "Ireland hath neither singing
nightingale nor chattering pie, nor undermining mole, nor
black crow, but only crows of mingled colour, such as
we call royston crows" (vol. i. p. 368). Derrick, in his
Image of Irelande, makes a similar observation:-
Rook.
"No pies to plucke the thatch from house
Are bred in Irishe grounde;
But worse then pies the same to burne
A thousand maie be founde."
The rook is seldom mentioned by early writers, which
may be accounted for by the fact that the
terms crow and rook were often used indis-
criminately. When Shakspeare makes Troilus announce
that-
"The busy day,
Waked by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows,"
he is probably recalling the effect of sunrise on the
rookery near the village green at Stratford,
According to Harrison, crows, or more probably rooks,
met with but little protection or encouragement at the
hands of the country people:-
“Neither are our crowes and choughs cherished of purpose to
catch up the woormes that breed in our soiles (as Polydor supposeth)
sith there are no uplandish townes but have (or should have) nets of
their owne in store to catch them withall. Sundrie Acts of Parlement
are likewise made for their utter destruction, as also the spoile of other
ravenous foules hurtful to pultrie, conies, lambs, and kids, whose
valuation of reward to him that killeth them is after the head: a
devise brought from the Goths, who had the like ordinance for the
The Indian Crow.
185
destruction of their white crowes, and tale made by the becke, which
killed both lambs and pigs. The like order is taken with us for our
vermines, as with them also for the rootage out of their wild beasts,
saving that they spared their greatest beares, especiallie the white,
whose skins are by custome and privilege reserved to cover those
planchers wher upon their priests doo stand at masse, least he should
take some unkind cold in such a long peece of worke: and happie is
the man that may provide them for him, for he shall have pardon
inough for that so religious an act, to last if he will till doomes day
doo approach: and manie thousands after." (Holinshed, vol. i. p. 375.)
Whether meant seriously or not, the reference to Olaus
Magnus in the latter part of this passage shows how well
the Northern chroniclers' work was known in England.
One of the chief features of East Indian life, the
impudent, intruding crow, is mentioned, and some of its
freaks described, by Linschoten, an early explorer :-
“There [Goa] is a most wonderfull number of blacke crowes, which
doe much hurt, and are so bold that oftentimes they come flying in at
their windowes, and take the meat out of the dish, as it standeth upon
the table, before them that are downe to eat and as I my selfe sate
writing above in a chamber of the house, the windowes being open, one
of those crows flew in at the window, and picked the cotton out of my
inke-horne, and blotted all the paper that lay on my table, doe what I
could to let him. They sit commonly upon the buffles and pecke off
their haire, so that you shall find very few buffles that have any haires
upon their backes, and therefore to avoyd the crowes they get them-
selves into marishes, and watrie places, where they stand in the water
up to their neckes, otherwise they could never be rid of them."
(Voyage to Goa, 1588, Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1770.)
The water buffaloes of India have probably other objects
in view in seeking the marshes than merely to rid them-
selves of the depredations of the crows, however perti-
nacious these may be.
The "Raven called Rolfe" performs the same office
in cold countries that the vulture does in
warmer regions, and, like the latter bird,
Raven.
pays the penalty of unpopularity on account of his un-
* See page 84.
186 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
savoury diet. The raven's croak, like many other rural
sounds, was thought to forebode illness and death:-
"The om'nous raven with a dismal chear,
Through his hoarse beak of following horror tells,
Begetting strange imaginary fear,
With heavy echoes like to passing bells.”
(POOLE, English Parnassus.)
Shakspeare and most of his brother dramatists have effec-
tively introduced the belief in the prophetic powers of
this bird. Thus Peele writes:-
"Like as the fatal raven, that in his voice
Carries the dreadful summons of our deaths,
Flies by the fair Arabian spiceries,
Her pleasant gardens, and delightsome parks,
Seeming to curse them with his coarse exclaims,
And yet doth stoop with hungry violence
Upon a piece of hateful carrion.”
(David and Bethsabe.)
Du Bartas has a very similar passage :
“Ev'n as the rav'ns with windy wings o'er-fly
The weeping woods of happy Araby,
Despise sweet gardens and delicious bowrs
Perfuming heav'n with odoriferous flowres,
And greedy, light upon the loathsom quarters
Of some late Lopez, or such Romish martyrs."
(Divine Weekes, p. 118.)
The voice of this bird is certainly sufficiently gruff to
afford some excuse for the dismay which it caused, espe-
cially when heard at night, in a lonely wood, by the
belated traveller.
Guillim, in his Display of Heraldry, refers to the
extraordinary belief handed down from antiquity that the
parent birds, not approving of the colour of their newly
hatched offspring, forsake the nest for a time.
says:-
He
i
!
1
The Night Raven.
187
"It has been an ancient receiv'd opinion, and the same also
grounded upon the warrant of the sacred Scriptures, if I mistake not,
that such is the property of the raven that from the time his young
ones are hatched or disclosed, until he seeth what colour they will be
of, he never taketh care of them, nor ministreth any food unto them;
therefore it is thought that they are in the mean space nourished with
the heavenly dew. And so much also doth the kingly prophet David
affirm, which giveth fodder unto the cattle, and feedeth the young
ravens that call upon him. Psal. 147, 9. The raven, when he per-
ceiveth his young ones to be penfeather'd and black like himself, then
doth he labour by all means to foster and cherish them from thence-
forward." (Page 222.)
Why the raven should be so deficient both in common
sense and in parental affection the worthy herald does
not attempt to explain.
By the Scandinavians the raven was consecrated to
Odin. By the early Christians it was tranferred from
him to St. Martin, who inherited Odin's reputation for
prophetic knowledge. Hence its name, " St. Martin's bird."
It is not quite clear what bird was meant by the
night raven. Spenser writes:-
“And after him owles and night ravens flew,
The hateful messengers of heavy tidings."
(Faerie Queene, ii. 7, 23.)
Lyly also classes these two birds together: "The owle
hath not shrikt at the window, or the night raven croked,
both being fatal” (Sappho and Phaon). These passages
would seem to have reference to the raven itself, but it
has been suggested that the bittern, from the weird
drum-like sound of its cry, is meant. Harrison perhaps
speaks of the latter, when he says:-
"There is no cause why I should describe the cormorant amongse
hawkes, of which some be blacke and manie pied chiefelie about the
Ile of Elie, where they are taken for the night raven, except I should
call him a water hawke." (Holinshed, vol. i. p. 382.)
188
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The night-crow, or gor-crow, was probably the same
bird as Lyly's night raven :-
"Raven and gorcrow, all my birds of prey,
That think me turning carcase, now they come."
Ben Jonson makes the augurs-
(BEN JONSON, The Fox, i. 1.)
"Shew all the birds of food or prey,
But pass by the unlucky jay,
The night-crow, swallow, or the kite."
(The Masque of Augurs.)
The Jackdaw, or monedula, seldom obtains honourable
mention. Drayton calls him "the thievish
daw." In the Interlude of the Four Elements,
Jackdaw.
1510, we read :-
"But he that for a commyn welth bysyly
Studieth and laboryth, and lyveth by Goddes law,
Except he wax rich, men count hym but a daw."
(Rep. Percy Soc., 1848, vol. xxii.)
Warwick, the king-maker, declares that, in nice legal
questions, he is "no wiser than a daw." These insinua-
tions that jackdaws are inferior to their feathered comrades
in intelligence will be treated as calumnies by all who
have been fortunate enough to possess one of these birds
as a pet.
Closely allied to the jackdaw is the Cornish Chough,
Cornyshe-daw, or Red-legged Crow, a slighter
Chough. made bird, and more elegant in shape, chiefly
frequenting the coasts in the west of England. It is
mentioned by Camden in his description of Cornwall:—
"The rocks underneath [St. Michael's Mount] as also along the
shore everywhere breedeth the Pyrrhocorax, a kind of crow with bill
and feet red, and not, as Plinie thought, proper to the Alpes onely.
This bird the inhabitants have found to be an incendiarie, and
theevish besides: for oftentimes it secretly conveieth fire sticks setting
their houses a fire, and as closely filcheth and hideth little pieces of
money." (Britain, p. 189.)
Wingless and Tailless Birds.
189.
Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, published 1602, gives
an account of the various sea-fowl found in that
country:
'Amongst which, jackdaw (the second slander of our country) shall
pass for company, as frequenting their haunts, though not their
diet. I mean not the common daw, but one peculiar to Cornwall, and
there-through termed a Cornish chough: his bill is sharp, long, and
red, his legs of the same colour, his feathers black, his conditions, when
he is kept tame, ungracious, in filching and hiding of money, and such
short ends, and somewhat dangerous in carrying sticks of fire." (Page
110, ed. Tonkin, 1811.)
Such an incendiary proceeding as these historians refer
to might have occasionally happened, but it could not
have been of frequent occurrence.
One of the earliest descriptions of the Bird of Para-
dise is given in the voyage of Magalhanes, or
Magellan, the celebrated explorer, in 1521 :—
Bird of
Paradise.
"The king of Bachian, one of the Molucca Islands, sent two dead
birds preserved, which were of extraordinary beauty. In size, they
were not larger than the thrush: the head was small, with a long bill;
the legs were of the thickness of a common quill, and a span in length;
the tail resembled that of the thrush; they had no wings, but in the
place where wings usually are, they had tufts of long feathers, of
different colours; all the other feathers were dark. The inhabitants of
the Moluccas had a tradition that this bird came from Paradise, and
they called it bolondinata, which signifies the "bird of God.' Gomara
relates some marvellous things concerning this bird and that it was
called mamucos." (Burney's Travels, p. 105.)
If the law of compensation is not universally carried
out in the animal kingdom, it certainly appears to be in
the case of the Bird of Paradise. The existence of this
bird, according to all accounts, must be most unhappy;
but perhaps the consciousness of its surpassing beauty
consoles it for the want of personal comfort.
The writer quoted above mentions the Bird of Paradise
as possessing legs, but in later times they were supposed
190
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
to be destitute of these appendages. Navarette, a mis-
sionary to China, about 1670, writes:-
"The bird of paradise has neither feet nor wings; I have often
viewed them carefully, but could never find any sign of feet, that they
have not wings is more visible to every body. The beak is somewhat
thick and large, fit to catch gnats, which is their food. They never
light nor can they rest upon the ground, as may be easily conceived
as they have no feet. Their fixed abode is the region of the air, for
which reason they are called birds of paradise. They alight upon trees
and by the help of the wind they fly from one to another, making use
of their sightly tail. If the wind fails they presently fall, and their
bill being heavy it is the first which lights upon the sand, where it
sticks so that they cannot stir but are taken with ease." (Churchill's
Voyages, vol. i. p. 41.)
Wonders like these lose nothing when transmitted by
poets. Accordingly we find, in that storehouse of natural-
history marvels, Du Bartas's Divine Weekes and Works
(p. 45), a still more astonishing account of the habits of
the Bird of Paradise :-
"But note we nowe, towards the rich Moluques,
Those passing strange and wondrous birds mamuques :
Wondrous, indeed, if sea, or earth, or sky,
Saw ever wonder swim, or go, or fly,
None knowes their nest, none knowes the dam that breeds them:
Food-less they live; for th' aire alonely feeds them:
Wing-less they fly; and yet their flight extends,
Till with their flight, their unknow'n lives-date ends."
The belief in the absence of wings and legs is easily
explained by the fact that the natives, when they pre-
pared the birds for exportation, removed these members
as likely to interfere with the beauty of the specimens.
These early writers surmounted the difficulty as to the
nests and parentage of these birds by the suggestion that
the female laid her eggs on the back of the male, and
hatched them as they floated through the air in their
endless flight. This explanation is met with in an
account of the Bird of Paradise given by the learned
An Ingenious Theory.
191
author of the Summary on the Poem of Du Bartas-a
commentary which was published in England in 1637:
“There is found (saith Cardan) in the Moluques, both upon the
sea, and on the land, a dead bird, which the ilanders call manucodiata,
and never was he seene living, because he hath no feete. I have seene
such a dead bird three times, and I suppose the cause why he hath no
feete, is for that he liveth very high in the ayre, and far severed from
the sight of men. He hath a body and beake almost like a swallow:
his wings, and taile containe more widenesse then those of the hawke,
and almost equall those of the eagle. His plumes are very soft, and
very much resemble the feathers of a pea-hen. The backe of the male
manucodiata is hollow, and within the same the female hatcheth and
layeth her egges, which by this meanes are kept as it were in a box.
The male hath in his tayle a long thred, more then three hands
breadth in length, blacke; neither square, nor round, nor thicke: but
small, and resembling a coblers grosse thred: which seemeth to serve to
tye and joyne the male with the female when she sitteth, to the end to
defend her from the winds and other accidents. So likewise it seemeth
to serve them for a grapple, or counterpoize, according to the changes
of the aire. It is not to be wondred at that this bird remaineth alwaies
in the aire: for his tayle and wings are spred so properly in a round
that this maketh an equal counterpoize, which sustaineth the bird
perpetually. I suppose that he liveth on no other thing but on dew.".
This explanation is all the more ingenious as the writer
admits that he had no opportunity of studying a living
specimen. He must be, therefore, indebted to his own
imagination or to a careful anatomical examination of the
bird's structure.
Swallow.
A distinction seems early to have been made between
the Swallow and the Martin. Lyly rather
confuses the two: "But thou, Euphues, dost
rather resemble the swallow, who in the summer creepeth
under the eaves of every house, and in the winter leaveth
nothing but dirt behind hir" (Euphues, 91).
Chester describes:-
"The artificiall nest-composing swallow,
That eates his meate flying along the way,
Whose swiftnesse in our eyesight doth allow,
That no imperial bird makes her his pray:
192
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
His yong ones being hurt within the eies,
He helpes them with the herbe calcedonies."
(Love's Martyr, p. 122.)
Drayton, in reference to the habit of feeding during
flight, in his account of the effect produced upon various
creatures by the approaching Deluge, writes:
"The swift-wing'd swallow feeding as it flies,
With the fleet martlet thrilling thro' the skies,
Feeling th' unusual moisture of the air,
Their feathers flag, into the ark they come,
As to the some rock or building, their own home."
(Noah's Flood.)
In connexion with the herb-cure referred to in the last
two lines of the quotation from Chester, it may be said
that Reginald Scot, in his book on witchcraft, 1584,
repeats with some caution statements as to the restorative
effect of certain herbs:-
"And for that you shall not say that hearbs have no vertue, for
that in this place I cite none, I am content to discover two or three
small qualities and vertues, which are affirmed to be in hearbes; marry
as simple as they be James and Jambres might have done much with
them if they had had them. If you prick out a young swallowes eies,
the old swallow restoreth again their sight, with the application, they
say, of a little celandine. Zanthus, the author of Histories, reporteth,
that a young dragon being dead, was revived by her dam, with an
hearb called balim." (Discovery of Witchcraft, p. 213, ed. 1654.)
Martin.
The heraldic Martin is always blazoned without legs.
It was frequently borne as a charge by those
who took part in the Crusades, as indicating
the sacrifice of personal ease and comfort they were pre-
pared to make. Guillim observes that—
"the martlet hath legs so exceeding short, that they can by no means
go. And if perchance they fall upon the ground, they cannot raise
themselves upon their feet, as others do, and so prepare themselves to
flight. For this cause they are accustomed to make their nests upon
rocks, and other high places, from whence they may easily take their
The Finch Tribe.
193
flight, from the support of the air. Hereupon it came, that this bird
is painted in arms without feet: and for this cause it is also given for
a difference of younger brethren, to put them in mind to trust to their
wings of vertue and merit, to raise themselves, and not in their legs,
having no land to put their foot on." (Display of Heraldry, p. 231.)
Of the Finch tribe only one or two kinds seem to
have been distinguished. Harrison mentions
"bulfinshes and goldfinshes."
Gascoigne writes:-
Finches.
“The finche which singeth never a note but peepe."
(Complaint of Phylomena.)
The Bullfinch was known by a variety of names.
Chaucer he appears as the Alp-
"In many places were nyghtyngales,
Alpes, fynches, and wodewales."
(The Romaunt of the Rose.)
In
He was also called bulspink, hoop, monk, pope, and in
Scotland coallyhood.
In the same poem by Chaucer we find mention of the
chalaundre, which is interpreted by commentators to
mean the Goldfinch:
"Chalaundres fele saw I there,
That very nigh forsongen were."
Drayton writes:-
"And of these chaunting fowles the goldfinch not behind,
That hath so many sorts descending from her kind.”
(Polyolbion, song xiii.)
In a poem by Alexander Montgomery, a Scotch poet,
about 1570, we read:-
"About a bank with balmy bewis,
Quhair nychtingales thair notis renewis,
With gallant goldspinks gay;
The mavis, merle, and progne proud,
The lintquhyt, lark, and lavrock loud,
Salutit mirthful May."
(The Cherrie and the Slae.)
0
194
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The learned commentator on Du Bartas, who has been
previously quoted, gives the etymology of goldfinch :—
"The Greekes call this bird pækilis, that is to say, painted, by
reason of the pleasant varietie of his feathers. The Latines call him
carduelis; the French, chardoueret; the English, gold-finch; and
therefore it is called chardoueret, because, saith Belon in his seventh
booke, and thirteenth chapter, he liveth upon the grain of the thistle
[carduus]."
Of the Spinke, a finch of some kind, probably the Chaf-
finch, the same writer adds:
"He is described by Belon in the seventh booke, chapter 28, and is so
called, because hee pincheth and holdeth very strongly with his neb,
as Belon saith. The Latines call him fringilla, and he useth a
pleasant warbling note." (Summary on Du Bartas, p. 235.)
The chaffinch was also known as the pink, or wet bird,
from a notion that its song indicated rain.
Thomas Muffett, in his Healths Improvement, informs
us that "finches for the most part live upon seeds,
especially the goldfinch, which refuses to eat of anything
else" (p.101). "So also," he says, "doth the canary finch or
siskin." The siskin is well named by this author the
canary finch.
It much resembles that bird in shape.
and movements, though it is not so brilliant in colour.
The siskin is called in the southern counties the barley-
bird, being seen about the time when barley is ripe; in
other parts of the country it is called the aberdavine.
Several of the finch tribe seem to have been taught
small accomplishments. Sir Thomas Browne mentions-
66
a kind of anthus, goldfinch, or fool's coat, commonly called a draw-
water, finely marked with red and yellow, and a white bill, which
they take with trap-cages, in Norwich gardens, and, fastening a chain
about them, tied to a box of water, it makes a shift, with bill and
leg, to draw up the water in to it from the little pot, hanging by the
chain about a foot below." (Vol. iv. p. 323, ed. Wilkins.)
In Whitney's Emblems, printed in 1585, there is a
Performing Birds.
195
drawing of a small bird in a cage; the bird is busily
employed in drawing up water in the manner above
described.
While on the subject of performing birds, it may not
be uninteresting to note another kind of bird-training
practised in Egypt, and described by John Leo, in an
account of his visit to that country.
"There is," he writes, "also another kind of charmers or juglers,
which keep certaine little birds in cages after the fashion of cupboords,
which birds will reach unto any man with their beaks certaine
skroules, containing either his good or evill successe in time to come.
And whosoever desireth to know his fortune, must give the bird an
half-penny; which shee taking in her bill, carrieth into a little boxe,
and then comming forth againe, bringeth the said skroule in her beake.
I my selfe had once a skroule of ill fortune given me, which although
I little regarded, yet had I more unfortunate successe then was con-
tained therein." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 837.)
A precisely similar exhibition to that by which the
itinerant mountebank of Cairo beguiled John Leo of his
coin may be seen at the present day in the London
streets.
Canary.
The precise date of the introduction of the Canary into
Europe is not known. Gesner, who wrote in
1585, makes mention of this bird, and Aldro-
vandus, in his Ornithology, printed at Frankfort, in
1610, gives the first good description of it. Bolton, in
his British Song Birds, says that probably the canary was
not known in England till after the time of Aldrovandus,
though Willoughby, in his History of Birds, tells us that
they were common in his time. Some uncertainty also
prevails as to what colour they were when first imported
from their native country. Writers of the sixteenth
century seem to concur in supposing them to be green
and yellow, and to bear a near resemblance to our siskin.
In a description of the Azores, by Linschoten, we
read :-
196
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
"The principal iland of them all, is that of Tercera, . . the iland hath
not any wild beasts or fowles, but very few, having onely canary birds,
which are there by thousands, where many birders take them, and
thereof make a daily living, by carrying them into divers places.”
(Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1669.)
In an account by Laurence Aldersey, merchant of
London, of his journey to Jerusalem and Tripolis, in 1581,
he relates that he stopped at Augusta, in Germany, where
a resident, to whom he had an introduction, took him
through the town to show him the sights:-
"He shewed me first the State House, which is very faire, and
beautifull. Then he brought mee to the finest garden, and orchard,
that ever I sawe in my life: for there was in it a place for canarie
birdes, as large as a faire chamber, trimmed with wier both above and
beneath, with fine little branches of trees for them to sit in, which was
full of those canaries birdes." (Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 268.)
Gascoigne, who died in 1577, tells us that-
"Canara byrds come in to beare the bell."
(Complaint of Phylomenu.)
Belon, who wrote about the year 1555, does not mention
the canary. It was sometimes called the sugar-bird, from
a supposed fondness for the sugar-cane.
Drayton places the Linnet second only to the
nightingale in his list of songsters, and
Gascoigne writes:-
Linnet.
"The lennet and the larke, they sing alofte,
And coumpted are as lordes in high degree."
(Complaint of Phylomena.)
Sir Thomas Browne in his catalogue of Norfolk birds
includes the Crossbill; he states that it was
Crossbill. at times kept as a cage bird, but that it
never survived its captivity throughout the winter. In
Carew's Survey of Cornwall, published 1602 (p. 73), occurs
mention of the crossbill, though not actually by name:
"Not long since, there came a flock of birds into Cornwall, about
The Battle of the Starlings.
197
harvest season, in bigness not much exceeding a sparrow, which made
a foul spoil of the apples: their bills were thwarted crosswise at the
end, and with these they would cut an apple in two at one snap,
eating only the kernels. It was taken at first for a foreboden token,
and much admired [wondered at], but soon after, notice grew that
Gloucestershire, and other apple countries, have from them an over-
familiar harm.'
These birds are called by Willoughby, the ornitho-
logist, shell-apples or crossbills. The statement that this
bird divides an apple at a bite must be received with
caution, as the crossbill hardly exceeds the bullfinch in
size. Moreover, the mandibles of the beak, instead of
being opposed, are curved right and left and cross each
other. The apple that would admit of being divided at
a single snap must have been a very small one.
John Locke, in an account of a voyage to Jerusalem,
1553, mentions a little bird which is possibly
the highly prized Ortolan, still a favourite
with epicures.
? Ortolan.
They have also in this island [Cyprus] a certaine small bird
much like unto a wagtaile in fethers and making, these are so extreme
fat that you can perceive nothing els in all their bodies: these birds
are now in season. They take a great quantitie of them, and they use to
pickle them with vinegar, and salt, and to put them in pots and send
them to Venice and other places of Italy for presents of great estimation.
They say they send almost 1200 jarres or pots to Venice, besides those
which are consumed in the island, which are a great number. These
are so plentiful that when there is no shipping, you may buy them for
10 carchies, which coine are 4 to a Venetian soldo, which is peny
farthing the dozen, and when there is store of shipping, 2 pence the
dozen, after that rate of their money." (Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 223.)
Starling.
The Starling, or Stare, was probably as common and
as widely distributed in early times as it is
now. At certain periods of the year starlings
congregate in great numbers, and fly from one part of
the country to another in large flocks. We are told by
Walter Yonge, in his Diary, that in September, 1621—
198
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
"there were an infinite company of birds, like unto stares, which
came flying over Corke, a town in Ireland, which fought in so terrible
a manner, as many thousands fell down dead into the town." (Rep.
Camden Soc., 1877.)
This battle of starlings, which is mentioned by other
historians, may have been the result of a chance meeting
of two migrating bodies of birds.
The talking powers of the starling are referred to by
Shakspeare:-
Lark.
"I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion."
(1 Henry IV., i. 3, 224.)
So much has been written in praise of Larks by poets
of all ages, that there is little to note respect-
ing this particular period of the bird's history,
except that it was probably less common than at present,
owing to the increase, in modern times, in the number
of well-drained fields and meadows. To the quotations
from Shakspeare given by Mr. Harting, a few from other
writers may be added. William Browne writes:-
"The mounting larke, daies herauld, got on wing,
Bidding each bird chuse out his bough and sing."
Drayton :-
(Britannia's Pastorals, b. i. song 3.)
"The lark that holds observance to the sun,
Quavered her clear notes in the quiet air.”
(The Legend of Robert Duke of Normandy.)
The beautiful lines of Lyly, to which Shakspeare may
have been indebted :-
"Who is 't now we heare?
None but the larke so shrill and cleare
Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings,
The morne not waking till shee sings."
(Campaspe, act v. song.)
A Merry Tale.
And lastly, Marlowe's poetical simile:-
"Now Phoebus ope the eyelids of the day,
And for the raven wake the morning lark,
That I may hover with her in the air,
Singing o'er these as she does o'er her young.”
(Jew of Malta, ii. 1.)
199
Without quoting any other passages at length, men-
tion may be made of the appropriate epithets, the
"crested lark" (Ben Jonson, The Vision of Delight); "the
airy lark" (Drayton, Noah's Flood); and "the lark with
the long toe" (Skelton, Boke of Philip Sparow).
Larks were plentiful in Fuller's time. We read in
the Worthies of England, that—
"the most and best of these are caught and well dressed about Dun-
stable in this shire [Bedfordshire]. A harmless bird whilst living, not
trespassing on grain; and wholesome when dead, then filling the
stomack with meat, as formerly the ear with musick. In winter they
fly in flocks, probably the reason why alauda signifieth in Latine both
a lark and a legion of souldiers; except any will say a legion is so
called because helmetted on their heads, and crested like a lark, there-
fore also called in Latine galerita. If men would imitate the early
rising of this bird it would conduce much unto their healthfulness."
(Vol. i. p. 133.)
Drayton gives the woodlark the third place in his list
of English songsters :—
"To Philomel the next the linet we prefer,
And by that warbling bird the wood-lark place we then.”
(Polyolbion, song xiii.)
The little Wagtail, or Washtaile, was once
made the theme of a lively jest:-
Wagtail.
"A certayn artificer in London there was, whyche was sore seke,
and coulde not well dysgest his meat. To whom a physician cam to
give hym councell, and sayd that he must use to ete metis that be light
of digestyon and small byrdys, as sparowes, swalowes, and specyally
that byrd which is called a wagtayle, whose flessh is mervelouse lyght
of dygestyon, bycause that byrd is ever moving and styryng. The
}
#
200
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
sekeman, herynge the phesicion say so, answered him and seyd: Sir, if
that be the cause that those byrdes be lyght of dygestyon, than I know
a mete moch lyghter of dygestyon than other sparow, swallow, or wag-
taile, and that is my wyves tong, for it is never in rest, but ever
meuying and sterryng." (A. C. Mery Tales, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, p. 21.)
This jest is repeated, with slight variation, in An
Interlude of Four Elements, which was written about the
year 1510.
The Sparrow, the commonest of our small birds,
especially in the neighbourhood of houses, is
frequently mentioned by Shakspeare, and is
Sparrow.
utilized as a simile by Ben Jonson :-
"The use of things is all, and not the store:
Surfeit and fulness have killed more than famine:
The sparrow with her little plumage flies,
While the proud peacock overcharged with pens,
Is fain to sweep the ground with his grown train
And load of feathers."
(The Staple of News, vol. ii.)
According to Chester this little bird was gifted with pro-
phetic power :-
"The unsatiate sparrow doth prognosticate,
And is held good for divination,
For flying here and there, from gate to gate,
Foretels true things by animadvertion ;
A flight of sparrowes flying in the day,
Did prophesie the fall and sacke of Troy."
(Love's Martyr, p. 122.)
Bishop Stanley, in his Familiar History of Birds (p.
89), considers the range of the sparrow to be co-extensive
with the tillage of the soil. He writes
"From certain entries in the Hunstanton Household Book, from
1519 to 1578, in which sparrows, or, as they are there written, spowes or
sparrouse, are frequently recorded, it would appear that these birds took
their place in the larders of the nobility as delicacies with other game,
from which we may infer that they were at that time as rare in Norfolk
Scarcity of Sparrows.
201
as they are still in some parts of Russia, owing probably to the same
cause, viz. the limited state of tillage and growth of corn."
On this passage, Mr. Stevenson (Birds of Norfolk, 1866,
vol. i. p. 213) has the following comment:-
"That the sparrow was scarce in that part of Norfolk in those days
is most probable, and for the cause alleged, but at the same time the
bishop was in error in supposing that the term 'spowes,' so frequently
met with in the L'Estrange Accounts, referred to our passer domesticus.
The term invariably occurs in connection with knots, ring-dotterels,
redshanks, and other grallatorial species, common enough then, as
indeed they still are, upon the Hunstanton beach, and under this name
the whimbrell was invariably designated in these old records. Once
only, in the same Accounts, is the word sparrouse used, as 'Item xij
sparrouse of gyste,' articles given in lieu of rent, and these, thus
entered alone, were in all probability real sparrows, brought as a delicacy
by some poor retainer.”
Drayton includes the red-sparrow in his list of song-
birds. Skelton, in his satirical poem, The Boke of Philip
Sparow, arranges that-
CC
Robyn red breaste
He shal be the priest
The requiem mass to syng
Lofty warbeling
With help of the red-sparow.”
By both these authors the reference is perhaps to the
reed-sparrow.
The Yellow Bunting, Yellow-hammer, or, as Harrison
spells it, Yellow-hamer, is not often mentioned.
Drayton, however, calls attention to its
song:
Yellow-
hammer.
"The yellow-pate, which though she hurt the blooming tree,
Yet scarce hath any bird a finer pipe than she.”
(Polyolbion, song xiii.)
Dr. Percival Wright (Animal Life, p. 263) says that
the song of the yellow-hammer is not equal to its beauty,
and attracts no human ear; whereas the note of this
202 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
little bird, by its very monotony and constant repetition,
inforces attention, and is one of the most familiar of
country sounds. Almost any day in summer, in the road-
side copse, the overgrown chalkpit, or even on the cottage
roof, may be heard the tuneful call of the yellow-hammer,
generally echoed back by some distant rival.
1.
The Woodpecker.
203
CHAPTER IX.
Woodpecker.
SHAKSPEARE has no mention of the Woodpecker, or
Laughing-hecco. Drayton, in his poem, The
Owl, describes the persecution which the un-
fortunate bird of night undergoes from the woodpecker
and the rest of his feathered comrades :-
"The wood-pecker, whose hardened beak hath broke,
And pierc❜d the heart of many a solid oak;
That where the kingly eagle wont to pray,
In the calm shade in heat of summer's day,
Of thousands of fair trees there stands not one
For him to perch or set his foot upon;
Upon the sudden all these murderous fowl,
Fallen together on the harmless owl,
*
*
*
*
*
The crow is digging at his breast amain;
*
And sharp-neb'd hecco stabbing at his brain."
The woodpecker is called in some countries the yaffle,
and rainbird, as his cry was held to foretell rain. Other
names were specke, woodspecke, and woodspike; in The
Parlyament of Byrdes—a poem, without date, reprinted
in the Harleian Miscellany (vol. v. p. 507)—two of these
names occur :-
"The Specke. Then in his hole, sayd the wood-specke,
'I wolde the hawk had broke his necke,
Or brought into mischevous dale,
For of every byrde he makyth a tale.""
•204
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
}
Sir Thomas Browne records that in Norfolk are
found-
The green, the red,
picus martius, or woodspeck, many kinds.
the leucomelanus, or neatly marked black and white, and the cinereus
or dun-colored little bird, called a nuthack. They make holes in the
trees without any consideration of the winds or quarters of heaven; but
as the rotteness thereof best affordeth convenience." (Vol. iv. p. 319.)
The Toucan, one of the most peculiar of the feathered
race, an inhabitant of America, is described
by John Lerius, a Frenchman, who lived in
Brazil about the year 1557.
Toucan.
66
'Among the rest of the American birds," he writes," the first place
shall be given to a certaine bird named toucan, whereof we made
mention before. It is of the bignesse of a pigeon, of a blacke colour
like a crow, except the brest, which is of a yellow colour, compassed
from the lower part with a ring of red feathers, which being taken
away, the Barbarians use it for ornament. And it is highly esteemed
with them, because they use it when they intend to dance. From this
it hath taken the name of toucan-tabourace, yet notwithstanding, they
have such store of them they refuse not to exchange them for our
merchandizes. The bill of this bird exceeds the whole body in length,
wherewith a crane's beak is not to be compared, and therefore it is to
be accompted the most monstrous bill of the whole world." (Purchas,
vol. iv. p. 1330.)
Gonzalo Ferdinando de Oviedo mentions these birds,
but under a different name:—
"There is another kind of bird in the Firme Land, which the
Christians call picuti because they have very great beakes, in respect of
the littlenesse of their bodies, for their beakes are very heavie, and
weigh more than their bodies: their feathers are very faire, and of
many variable colours. Their beakes are a quarter of a yard in length
or more, and bending downe toward the earth, and three fingers broad
neere unto the head. Their tongues are very quils, wherewith they
(Purchas, vol. iii. p. 980.)
make a great hissing."
The tongue of this bird differs from that of every
other species in being feathered.
The Cuckoo.
Chester writes of one of the most familiar
of our English birds, the Cuckoo :—
"The spring-delighting bird we call the cuckow,
Which comes to tell of wonders in this age,
Her pretie one note to the world doth show
Some men their destinie.
"The winters envious blast she never tasteth,
Yet in all countries doth the cuckoe sing,
And oftentimes to peopled townes she hasteth,
Therfor to tell the pleasures of the spring:
205
Cuckoo.
Great courtiers heare her voyce, but let her flye,
Knowing that she presageth destinie.
"She scornes to labour or make up a nest,
But creepes by stealth into some others roome,
And with the larkes deare yong, her yong-ones rest,
Being by subtile dealing overcome :
The yong birds are restorative to eate,
And held amongst us as a princes meatc."
(Love's Martyr, p. 118.)
Shakspeare is more correct in giving the hedge-
sparrow as the foster-mother whose nest is usually selected
by the parent bird.
"The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,
That it had its head bit off by its young.'
""
(Lea, i. 4, 235.)
And again:
"And, being fed by us, you used us so
As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird,
Useth the sparrow: did oppress our nest;
Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk,
That even our love durst not come near your sight,
For fear of swallowing."
(1 Henry IV., v. i. 59.)
Mr. Singer, in a note on this passage, remarks:-
CC
Shakespeare seems to speak from his own observation, and to have
been the first to notice how the hedge-sparrow was used by the young
cuckoo-a curious fact, now well known and established by the
206 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
observations of ornithologists. Something of the same kind is related
of the cuckoo and the titlark by Pliny, but Holland's translation wás
not published before 1602. 'The titling, therefore, that sitteth, being
thus deceived, hatcheth the egge, and bringeth up the chicke of another
bird:—and this she doth so long, untill the young cuckow being once
fledge and readie to flie abroad, is so bold as to seize upon the old titling,
and eat up her that hatched her' (Pliny, Nat. Hist., by Holland, b. x.
ch. 9)."
For the credit of bird nature, it is to be hoped that such
highly reprehensible conduct on the part of the young
cuckoo is of rare occurrence.
The cuckoo was sometimes called "the Welch
Ambassador." This name arose, perhaps, from the fact
that Welsh labourers came into the neighbouring counties
about spring time, in search of employment. In Middle-
ton's play, A Trick to catch an Old One, we read, "Why,
thou rogue of universality, do I not know thee? Thy
sound is like the cuckoo, the Welch Ambassador'
(iy. 5).
The change in this bird's note as summer advances is
observed by Ben Jonson :-
"From a fiddle out of tune
As the cuckow is in June."
(The Gipsies Metamorphosed.)
Also by John Heywood, 1587:-
"In April the Coocoo can sing her song by rote.
In June oft time she cannot sing a note.
At first, koo, koo; koo, koo; sings till can she do
At last, kooke, kooke, kooke; six kookes to one koo."
(Epigrams.)
Richard II. had, by too frequent appearance and by
his unseemly familiarity with the common people, "dis-
graced his kingly glory:
"So when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded.”
(1 Henry IV., iii. 2, 75.)
:

"Wise Men of Gotham."
207
The attempt of the "wise men of Gotham" to keep
perpetual spring by setting a hedge round a cuckoo is
often referred to by poets and dramatists. It may not be
out of place to give the origin of the allusion, though it
can hardly be said to come under the title of natural
history. The story, as given in T. Blount's Ancient Tenures
of Land, runs thus:-
tr
King John, passing through the village of Gotham towards
Nottingham, intending to go over the meadows, was prevented by the
villagers, they apprehending that the ground over which a king
passed was for ever after to become a public road. The king, incensed
at their proceedings, sent from his court soon after some of his servants,
to inquire of them the reason of their incivility and ill-treatment, that
he might punish them by way of fine, or some other way he might
judge most proper. The villagers, hearing of the approach of the king's
servants, thought of an expedient to turn away his majesty's displeasure
from them: when the messengers arrived at Gotham, they found some
of the inhabitants engaged in endeavouring to drown an eel in a pool
of water; some were employed in dragging carts upon a large barn,
to shade the wood from the sun; others were tumbling their cheeses
down a hill, that they might find their way to Nottingham for sale;
and some were employed in hedging in a cuckoo which had perched
upon an old bush which stood where the present one now stands;
which convinced the king's servants that it was a village of fools;
whence arose the old adage the wise men' or 'the fools of Gotham.'"
(Page 133, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1874.)
Kingfisher.
Michael Drayton was a close observer of nature, and
better acquainted with the habits of birds than
most of his contemporaries. In one of the
picturesque descriptions of the marshy district in which
he delighted, this poet paints the commotion that results
from the rapid swimming of a swan through the water:-
"The jealous swan, there swimming in his pride,
With his arch'd breast the waters did divide,
His saily wings him forward strongly pushing,
Against the billows with such fury rushing,
As from the same, a foam so white arose,
As seem'd to mock the breast that them oppose :

208
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
And here and there the wand'ring eye to feed,
Of scatter'd tufts of bulrushes and reed,
Segges, longleaved willow, on whose bending spray,
The py'd King-fisher, having got his prey,
Sate with the small breath of the water shaken,
Till he devour'd the fish that he had taken."
(The Man in the Moon.)
Mr. Harting has referred to the wide-spread belief
in the Halcyon days. William Browne in his pastoral
poems speaks of—
"The mevy and the halcyon famosed
For colours rare, and for the peaceful seas,
Round the Sicilian coast, her brooding days."
(Britannia's Pastorals, b. ii. song 1.)
Montaigne (essay liv.) gives a full account from
Plutarch of the structure of the kingfisher's nest, and of
the habits of the bird.
Giraldus Cambrensis calls the kingfisher the martinet.
The French name of this bird is the martinet-pêcheur.
This author never allows any marvel to shake his faith by
"supposing it a thing impossible." He has preserved
some curious folk-lore about the kingfisher:
vr
"It is remarkable in these little birds that, if they are preserved in
a dry place, when dead, they never decay; and if they are put among
clothes and other articles, they preserve them from the moth and give
them a pleasant odour. What is still more wonderful, if, when dead,
they are hung up by their beaks in a dry situation, they change their
plumage every year, as if they were restored to life, as though the
vital spark still survived and vegetated through some mysterious
remains of its energy." (Topography of Ireland, 1187, ed. Wright,
1813, p. 39.)
The students of folk-lore are much beholden to their
ancestors for this sublime credulity. Had they discarded
such stories as absurd they would not have cared to
record them, and the occupation of the students would
have been largely gone.
The Night-jar.
209
The range of the beautiful bird, the Hoopoe, is very
extensive. It was known to the Greeks as well
as to the Egyptians. Sir Thomas Browne tells
us that this bird is seen in Norfolk-
Hoopoe.
"Yet we often meet with it in this county. From the proper note
it is called an hoopebird with us; we apprehend not the hieroglyphical
considerations which the Egyptians made of this observable bird; who,
considering the order and variety of colors, the 26 or 28 feathers in its
crest, and mewing this handsome outside in the winter, they made it
an emblem of the varieties of the world, the succession of times and
seasons and signal mutations in them. And therefore, Orus, the
hieroglyphic of the world, had the head of an hoopebird upon the top
of his staff." (Vol. iv. p. 184.)
Muffett, in his Healths Improvement (p. 100), writes :-
Houpes were not thought by Dr. Torner to be found in England,
yet I saw Mr. Serjeant Goodrons kill one of them in Charingdon Park,
when he did very skilfully and happily cure my Lord of Pembroke at
Ivy Church; they feed upon hurthe-berries, and worms, but delight
to feed most upon graves."
Goat-sucker.
The Goat-sucker or Night-jar, sometimes called a Night-
hawk, must have been sufficiently common
to attract notice by its noiseless, owl-like
flight, and its weird monotonous cry. Its habits, however,
are so retiring that there was little chance afforded to
our forefathers of making observations that would be
correct.
Sir Thomas Browne, writing to Dr. Merritt, inquires,
"Have you a caprimulgus, or dorhawk: a bird as a
pigeon, with a wide throat, as little as a titmouse, white
feathers in the tail, and paned like a hawk?" (vol. i. p.
399). Gilbert White, of Selborne, a naturalist who paid
especial attention to the habits of this bird, writing still
later, gives it the various names of churn-owl, fern-
owl, eve-jarr, and puckridge. He ridicules the popular
belief that existed in his day, and that still lingers in
P
210 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
our own, that the night-jar is injurious to cattle, and
explains that what the bird really seeks as he wheels
round the sleeping kine is not a milk, but an insect diet.
Skelton probably refers to the night-jar in the follow-
ing lines:-
"The wodhacke, that singeth churre,
Horsly as hee had the murre."
(Philip Sparow.)
That this bird was classed among the foreboders of
evil will not surprise any one who has listened to the
curious sound it utters, on still summer evenings, whilst
itself hidden from view.
"Night-jars and ravens, with wide stretched throats,
From yews and hollies send their baleful notes.”
Humming-
bird.
(PooLE, English Parnassus.)
With a somewhat abrupt transition we turn from
the hoarse-voiced night-jar of our own country,
with its gloomy associations of darkness.
and ill omen, to the glittering fragments of sunshine that
enliven the forests of America. Joseph Acosta mentions
the jewel-plumaged Humming-birds, the feathered fairies
of the western world :-
"In Peru there are birds which they call tomineios, so small, that
oftentimes I have doubted, seeing them flie, whether they were bees or
butter-flies; but in truth they are birds." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 965.)
Gonzalo Ferdinando de Oviedo, in his description of
these beautiful little creatures, pays them but a poor
compliment when he compares them to the fanciful
representations of birds in the illuminated missals
painted by cloistered artists. He writes:-
"There are found in the Firme Land [South America] certaine birds,
so little that the whole bodie of one of them is no bigger then the top
of the biggest finger of a mans hand, and yet is the bare body without
feathers not halfe so bigge; this bird, beside her littlenesse, is of such
velocitie and swiftnesse in flying, that whoso seeth her flying in the
Humming-birds.
211
aire, cannot see her flap or beate her wings after any other sorte then
doe the dorres, or humble bees, or beetels: so that there is no man that
seeth her flye, that would thinke her to be any other than a dørre:
they make their nests according to the proportion of their bignesse, and
I have seene that one of these birds with her nest put into a paire of
gold weights altogether, hath waide no more then a tomini, which are
in poise 24 graines, with the feathers, without the which she would
have waied somewhat less; and doubtlesse, when I consider the finenesse
of the clawes and feete of these birds, I know not whereunto I may
better liken them then to the little birds which the lymners of bookes
are accustomed to paint on the margent of church bookes, and other
bookes of divine service. Their feathers are of manie faire colours, as
golden, yellow, and greene, beside other variable colours: their beake
is verie long for the proportion of their bodies, and as fine and subtile
as a sowing needle: they are verie hardy, so that when they see a man
clime the tree where they have their nests, they flye at his face, and
strike him in the eyes, comming, going, and returning with such
swiftnesse, that no man should lightly beleeve it that had not seene it,
and certainly these birds are so little, that I durst not have made
mention hereof, if it were not that divers others which have seene them
as well as I can beare witnesse of my saying. They make their nests of
flocks and cotten, whereof there is great plentie in these regions, and
serveth well for their purpose." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 977.)
We find these small birds mentioned elsewhere under
another name. Antonio Galvano, of New Spain, writes:-
"There be certaine small birds named vicmalim, their bil is small.
and long. They live of the dew, and the juyce of flowers and roses.
Their feathers bee small and of divers colours. They be greatly
esteemed to worke gold with. They die or sleepe every yeere in the
moneth of October, sitting upon a little bough in a warme and close
place: they revive or wake againe in the moneth of Aprill after that
the flowers be sprung, and therefore they call them the revived birds.”
(Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1693.)
The Portuguese naturalist, whose observations during
his residence in Brazil have been frequently quoted, also
describes the humming-bird, and adds some curious infor-
mation respecting its mode of reproduction :-
"Of all the small birds called guaimimbique, there are sundrie
kindes, as, fruit of the sunne; by another name, that is, the covering of
212
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
the sunne; or the haire of the sunne; in the Antilles they call it the
risen or awaken bird, and they say it sleepeth sixe moneths, and liveth
other sixe moneths. It is the finest bird that can bee imagined; it
hath a cap on his head, to which no proper colour can be given, for on
whatsoever side yee looke on it, it sheweth red, greene, blacke, and
more colours, all very fine, and shining; and yellow more fine then
gold. The bodie is grey; it hath a very long bill, and the tongue
twice the length of the bill; they are very swift in flight, and in their
flight they make a noise like the bee, and they rather seeme bees in
their swiftnesse then birds, for they alwaies feed flying without sitting
on a tree, even as the bees doe flie sucking the honnie from the flowers.
They have two beginnings of their generation, some are hatched of
egges like other birds, others of little bubbles, and it is a thing to bee
noted, a little bubble to beginne to convert itselfe into this little bird,
for at one instant it is a bubble and a bird, and so it converts itselfe
into this most faire bird, a wonderful thing, and unknowne to the
philosophers, seeing one living creature without corruption is converted
into another." (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1305.)
It is matter for regret that Shakspeare had no chance-
of seeing these flying jewels. Puck might have exchanged
his bat courser for one of these tiny steeds, " Swifter than
arrow from the Tartar's bow." But alas, had they been
permitted to grace the revels of Titania's court, prosaic
critics would have pointed out that fairies carefully avoid
the sunshine that these tropic gems delight in; so perhaps
it is well that humming-birds were unknown to the poet.
The Parrot, in consequence of its amusing ways, and
the ease with which it may be taught to talk
and imitate various sounds, has been in all
times a favourite domestic pet. The rose-ringed parrakeet
is described with minuteness by Skelton in his singular
poem, Speak Parrot :-
Parrot.
'My name is parrot, a bird of Paradise,
By nature devised, of a wondrous kynd
Dienteli dieted, with divers delicate spice
Tyl Euphrates that floud, driveth me into Inde
Where men of that countrey by fortune me find
And send me, to great ladyes of estate,
Then parrot must have an almond or a date.
J
"Pretty Poll."
"With my becke bent, my little wanton eye,
My feders fresh, as is the emrawde grene,
About my necke a circulet, lyke the ryche rubye,
My little legges, my fete both nete and cleane.
*
For parrot is no churlish chough, nor no fleked py,
Parrot is no pendugum, that men call a carlyng,
Parrot is no woodcocke, nor no butterfly,
Parrot is no stamring stare, that men call a starling,
But parrot is mine own dere harte, and my darling."
213
The phrase "An almond for parrot" seems to have been
proverbial. Shakspeare uses it, and Ben Jonson writes:-
"How do you, ladybird? so hard at work still!
What's that you say; so you bid me walk, sweet bird,
And tell our knight? I will. How! Walk, knave, walk !
I think you are angry with me, Pol. Fine Pol!
Pol is a fine bird! O, fine lady Pol!
Almond for parrot. Parrot's a brave bird."
(The Magnetic Lady, v. 5.)
The phrase occurs again in Haughton:
Ah, sirrah, now we'll brag with Mistress Moore,
To have as fine a parrot as she hath.
Look, sisters, what a pretty fool it is!
What a green greasy shining coat he hath,
An almond for parrot: a rope for parrot."
(English-Men for my Money: or a Woman will
have her Will, v. 2.)
There has been some discussion as to the meaning of
the word Popinjay, so often used by old writers. In some
cases a parrot is evidently intended; but Mr. Bell, in a
note in his edition of Chaucer, points out that this name
occurs in almost all Chaucer's descriptions of spring. He
considers it most unlikely that a poet so accurate in por-
traying nature should introduce the parrot in pictures of
European scenery, and that the jay is more probably the
bird intended. In Skelton's Philip Sparow, however,
both the jay and the popinjay are included. Phineas
214 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Fletcher, in one of his poetical miscellanies, classes the
parrot with the "fatal belman of the night" :-
"Cousin, day-birds are silenc't, and those fowl
Yet only sing which hate warme Phoebus' light:
Th' unlucky parrot, and death-boding owl."
Mr. Grosart in a note suggests that parrot may here be
the local name for some English bird.
Parrots were found in almost all the hot regions of
the globe, and were brought over in considerable numbers
by sailors; they are often mentioned by travellers in
their descriptions of foreign parts. Sir John Mandeville
indulges in his usual exaggeration, and tells of some
parrots in the land of Prester John, which rival the Irish-
man's echo, and speaks of " their propre nature, and
salven men that go throughe the desertes, and speken to
them appropriately as if they were human" (Travels, ed.
Halliwell, p. 274). These talking parrots, he goes on
to say, have a large tongue, and have five toes on each
foot, but those that only scream have but three toes.
Dr. Percival Wright, in his Animal Life (p. 289),
makes mention of a parrot supposed to be of the grey
species, the property of a cardinal in Rome, in the year
1500. This bird was bought for the high price of a
hundred pieces of gold, on account of its ability to
repeat, clearly and without hesitation, the Apostle's
Creed.
Navarette, a missionary to China, reports that “at
Marassa there are a great number of a sort of bird they
call cacatua. They are all white, their beak like a
parrot. They are easily made tame, and talk" (Chur-
chill's Voyages, vol. i.). From this word cacatua is derived
the English name Cockatoo.
Macaws are mentioned by one of Purchas's pilgrims,.
a Portuguese, who had lived for some time in Brazil:-
"The Arara parots are those that by another name are called
The Green Parokeet.
215
Macaos; it is a great bird, and are very rare, and by the east coast
they are not found, it is a faire bird in colours; their breasts are red as
scarlet; from the middle of the bodie to the taile some are yellow,
others greene, others blue, and through all the bodie they have
scattering some greene, some yellow and blue feathers, and ordinarily
every feather hath three or foure colours, and the taile is very long.
The Indians esteeme them very much, and of their feathers they make
very fine things, and their hangings for their swords. It is a very
pleasant bird, they become very tame and domesticall, and speake very
well if they be taught." (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1804.)
It is uncertain whether the confusion of pronouns in
the foregoing passage is the fault of the translator, or
whether it must be ascribed to the long exile of the
writer from civilization and books of grammar. These
macaws evidently made a very strong impression on the
traveller.
A Dutch traveller, whose description of the Gold
Coast of Guinea is also included in Purchas's collection of
travels, mentions the little Parokeets, now so common in
drawing-room aviaries:-
"The birds that are found there," he writes, "are of divers colours,
and are little birds like unto ours; first, there are blewe parrots, whereof
are great store, which being young, and taken out of their nests, and
made tame, having not flowne abroad, they are better to teach, and to
learne to speake; but they will not prate so much as the greene Brasilian
parrots doe. They have also another kind of greene birds as big as spar-
rows, like the catalinkins of West India, but they cannot speake. These
birds are called asuront, and by our Netherlanders, called parokites.
They are taken with nets, as you use to take sparrowes. They keepe
much in low land, where much corne or millet groweth, for they eate
much thereof. Those birds are alwaies very kind one to the other; for
when you put a male and a female in a cage, they will alwaies sit
together without making any noyse. The female is of such a nature,
that when she is coupled with the male, she respecteth him much, and
letteth him sit on the right hand, setting her selfe on the left hand;
and when he goes to eate, shee followeth him, and so they live together
quietly, being almost of the nature of the turtle-doves. They are of
a very faire greene colour, with a spot of orange-tawnie upon their
noses. There are another kind of parokiten, which are much like
them, being of the same nature, and condition, but are of colour as red
4
!
216
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
as bloud, with a spot of blacke upon their noses, and a blacke taile,
being somewhat greater than the parokites." (Purchas, vol. 2, p. 956.)
Another bird of the parrot tribe is described by
Linschoten, a Portuguese, in his account of a voyage to
Goa, 1583:
"There commeth in India, out of the iland of Molucas, beyond
Malacca, a kind of birds, called noyras: they are very faire to looke on,
and speake sweetly: there could never yet be any of them brought
living into Portugall, although they have sought and used all the
meanes they could to bring them for a present to the king, which he
greatly desireth: but they die upon the way, for they are very delicate,
and will hardly be brought up." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1771.)
The Purple-capped Lory is probably here intended.
This bird is a native of the Moluccas, and is arrayed
in gorgeous scarlet plumage. The difficulty of transit
has been overcome by modern collectors, and the ease
with which the lory is tamed, no less than its brillant
colouring, makes it a favourite cage-bird.
It seems almost unnecessary to suggest that Shak-
speare must in his youth have had the charge
Pigeon. of Pigeons, as few boys living in the country
have not; but only those who are well acquainted with
the habits of these birds can realize the almost photo-
graphic accuracy with which the poet has observed them.
The references to their "golden couplets" (Hamlet, v. 1),
their method of feeding their young (As You Like It, ii.
27), their gentleness (Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 2),
courage (2 Henry IV., iii. 2), and jealousy (As You Like
It, ii. 2), all show how closely he had watched them.
Mr. Harting has given a full description of pigeons, and
numerous illustrative quotations from Shakspeare's works.
The Dove, from its association with certain scriptural
legends, has in Christian art ever been held as a type of
love, simplicity, innocence, fidelity, gentleness, and peace.
The possession of all these amiable qualities has not,
however, procured for the bird any exemption from ill-
Pigeons too numerous.
217
In early times, among
treatment at the hand of man.
the Hebrews, doves were carefully reared in order to be
slain by thousands as sacrifices; in the medieval period
their chief mission was to provide food and exercise for
their unrelenting foe, the hawk; and in our own day they
are selected as the favourite victims for shooting matches.
The cruel custom of fastening or sewing up the eyes
of pigeons is referred to by Sir Philip Sidney :—
"Like as the dove, which seeled up, doth fly;
Is neither freed, nor yet to service bound;
But hopes to get some help by mounting high,
Till want of force do force her to the ground.”
(Vol. iii. p. 146, ed. 1726.)
And again, by Ford:
'Ambition, like a seeled dove, mounts upward,
Higher and higher still, to perch on clouds,
But tumbles headlong down with heavier ruin.”
(The Broken Heart, ii. 2.)
Thomas Fuller gives us some information with respect
to the number of pigeons that were kept, and the com-
plaints that consequently arose.
"Pigeons," he writes, "against their wills, keep one Lent for seaven
weeks in the year, betwixt the going out of the old and growing up of
the new grain. Probably, our English would be found as docile and
ingenious as the Turkish pigeons, which carry letters from Aleppo to
Babilon, if trained up accordingly. But such practices, by these wing-
posts would spoil many a foot-post, living honestly by that painful
vocation."
What would the worthy doctor have said had any one told
him that messages would one day be carried by a means
far outstripping in speed the swiftest pigeon! He adds:-
“I find a grievous indictment drawn up against the poor pigeons for
felony, as the grand plunderers of grain in this land; my author,
computing six and twenty thousand dovehouses in England and Wales,
and allowing five hundred pair in each house, four bushels yearly for each
1
218
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
pair, hath mounted the annual wast they make to an incredible sum;
and, if the moiety of his proportions hold true, doves may be accounted
the causers of death, and justly answer their etymology in Hebrew,
Jonah, which is deduced from a root signifying to spoil or destroy."
(Worthies of England, vol. ii. p. 158.)
Though pigeon-breeding was doubtless practised as
an amusement, we find no mention by name of any
fancy varieties. In a poem by Barnfield, published
about 1590, we meet with a suggestion of a feathered-toed
pigeon :—
“And when th' art wearie of thy keeping sheepe,
Upon a lovely downe, to please thy minde,
Ile give thee fine ruffe-footed doves to keepe,
And pretty pigeons of another kind."
Later on, we are informed that
"House-doves are white, and oozels blacke-birds bee."
(The Affectinate Shepheard.)
Thomas Muffett tells us that "wild doves be especially
four; rock-doves, stock-doves, ring-doves, and turtle doves "
(Healths Improvement, p. 100).
The wood-pigeon was called the wood-quist, or wood-
queest. Lyly writes:-
"Me thought I saw a stock-dove, or wood-quist, I know not how
to tearme it, that brought short strawes to build his nest on a tall
cedar." (Sappho and Phaon, iv. 3.)
Dodo.
Sir Thomas Herbert, in his lively narrative of the
travels on which he set out in 1626, gives
some interesting particulars of the long extinct
Dodo, a species of bird closely allied to the pigeon. He
is describing the island of Mauritius, and writes:-
"This noble isle, as it is prodigal in her water and wood, so she
corresponds in what else a fruitful parent labours in: not onely boast-
ing in that variety, but in feathered creatures also; yea, in the
rareness of that variety: I will name but some, and first the dodo; a
Complaint of the Dodo.
219
bird the Dutch call walgh-vogel or dod eersen: her body is round and
fat, which occasions the slow pace or that her corpulencie; and so great
as few of them weigh less than fifty pound: meat it is with some,
but better to the eye than stomach; such as only a strong appetite can
vanquish but otherwise, through its oyliness it cannot chuse but
quickly cloy and nauseate the stomach, being indeed more pleasurable
to look than feed upon. It is of melancholy visage, as sensible of
natures injury in framing so massie a body to be directed by com-
plemental wings, such indeed as are unable to hoise her from the
ground, serving only to rank her amongst birds: her head is variously
drest; for one half is hooded with down of a dark colour, the other
half, naked and of a white hue, as if lawn were drawn over it; her bill
hooks and bends downwards, the thrill or breathing place is in the
midst; from which part to the end, the colour is of a light green mixt
with a pale yellow: her eyes are round and bright, and instead of
feathers has a most fine down; her train (like to a Chyna [Chinaman's]
beard) is no more than three or four short feathers: her leggs are thick
and black; her tallons great; her stomach fiery, so she can easily
digest stones; in that and shape not a little resembling the ostrich."
(Travels, p. 383, 4th ed.)
With regard to the culinary properties of the dodo
it must be borne in mind that Sir Thomas Herbert was
somewhat hard to please, and scarcely ever condescended
to approve of the different dishes that necessity compelled
him to investigate.
The Rev. R. Lubbock writes of the
Capercaillie, or cock of the wood:-
Capercaillie,
By reclaiming waste lands and draining marshes we gradually lose
certain species; but by cultivating and planting we either encourage
or gain others. The greatest achievement is the one lately carried
through in the Highlands, the complete restoration of the cappercaillie.
This noble bird was annihilated with the pine forests which sheltered
him. The mountains were again clothed with wood, and, without
much trouble, he was reinstated in his former possessions." (Fauna of
Norfolk, 1845, p. 41.)
According to Sir Thomas Browne, Grouse were un-
known in Norfolk, as was also the Health-poult, by which
he meant, in all probability, the black grouse.
.
220. The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
'The corn-land loving Quail, the daintiest of our bits"
(DRAYTON, Polyolbion, song xxv.),
Quail.
was in the time of Elizabeth considered a delicacy. This
bird was plentiful in Lancashire and several
other counties, and Sir Thomas Browne men-
tions it as common in Norfolk. Quails, however, had one
peculiarity, which gave the ancients a dislike to their
flesh; Harrison writes, "They onelie with man are subject
to the falling sicknesse." Against the assertion that
quails were unwholesome, Muffett brings forward the fact
that these birds were sent to the Israelites in the wilder-
ness, when they wearied of manna, as the best and
daintiest meat that could be provided (Healths Improve-
ment, p. 98).
Lyly gives the quail credit for peculiar taste in the
way of food. He compares some one to "the quaile that
forsaketh the malowes to eat hemlock (Euphues,
p. 240).
Partridges were chiefly valued as quarry for the smaller
kinds of hawks. The French commentator on
Du Bartas writes of the partridge :-
Partridge.
"The reason why she is called delicate hath relation to their taste
who eat therof; although Martiall hath sometimes said, Charior est
perdrix, sic sapit illa magis. As if he had said, as they say in French,
The coust fait le goust: the cost makes the taste." (Summary on Du
Bartas, p. 235.)
The "Peacock of Inde," mentioned by Harrison, is
noticed by Navarette, in his account of China :
Peacock.
(C
They carry this bird from Siam, for they do
not breed in China, but abundance of them do in some
parts of India" (Churchill's Voyages, vol. i. p. 40).
Chester refers to the admiration expressed by Alex-
ander the Great and his soldiers at the sight of these
beautiful birds:
"The proud sun-braving peacocke with his feathers,
Walkes all along, thinking himselfe a king,
3
Peacock Fans.
And with his voyce prognosticates all weathers,
Although God knows but badly he doth sing;
But when he lookes downe to his base blacke feete,
He droopes, and is asham'd of things unmeete.
"The mighty Macedonian Alexander,
Marching in lovely triumph to his foes,
Being accounted the worlds conquerour,
In Indie spies a peacocke as he goes,
And marvelling to see so rich a sight
Charg'd all men not to kill his sweet delight."
(Love's Martyr, p. 121.)
Du Bartas writes:--
"There the fair peacock, beautifully brave,
Proud, portly-strouting, stalking, stately-grave,
Wheeling his starry trayn, in pomp displayes
His glorious eyes to Phoebus golden rayes."
(Page 46.)
221
Peacocks' plumes have in all ages been prized for
their beauty, but it is somewhat curious to find that these
birds were reared in the northern countries of Europe
expressly for their æsthetic value. Olaus Magnus tells
us that—
"in Ostrogothia, and Vestrogothia, and Sweden, many peacocks
breed, and they are bred up very carefully: so that at first they are
fed with pellets made of barley meal; after that with new-milk cheese,
pressed from the milk, for the whey hurts them, then when 35
days are past they are fed with whole barley; and next in the open
fields, where, by instinct of nature, they can feed themselves more
freely, especially where foxes cannot come at them. The reason why
they are fostered more than other birds is, the profit they make, and
their fine feathers, which painters and weavers imitate in the north, to
make distinction of colours, because the pictures of great artists are
seldome brought hither from far countries, because the way is so
long." (Page 203.)
Lyly mentions another use to which peacocks' feathers
may be put: "They that feare the stinging of waspes
make fannes of peacock tailes, whose spots are like eyes
(Prologue to Campaspe).
""
222
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
An attempt was apparently made to utilize these
feathers in archery. Roger Ascham, in his Toxophilus
(p. 152), 1551, writes:-
(C
Truly, at a short butt, which some men doth use, the peacock
feather doth seldom keep up the shaft either right or level, it is so
rough and heavy; so that many men, which have taken them up for
gayness, have laid them down again for profit: thus, for our purpose,
the goose is the best feather for the best shooter."
The peacock, probably more on account of the orna-
ment which its gorgeous plumage added to the banquet
than from any tenderness of its flesh, was a standard dish
on every great occasion. This royal bird was usually
"eten with gynger," and was served up amidst con-
siderable pomp and ceremony. If we may trust the poet,
the city feasts of this period were sometimes the occasion
of lavish expenditure. Thus Massinger writes:-
"Men may talk of country-Christmasses, and court-gluttony,
Their thirty-pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carp's tongues,
Their pheasants, drench'd with ambergris, the carcasses
Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to
Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts
Were fasts, compared with the city's."
(The City Madam, ii. 1.)
Montaigne refers to the extravagant luxury of these
banquets:-
"I could have been glad, the better to judge of it, to have tasted
the culinary art of those cooks, who had so rare a way of seasoning
exotick odours with the relish of meats; as it was particularly observed
in the service of the King of Tunis, who in our days landed at Naples,
to have an interview with Charles the Emperour, where his dishes were
forc'd with odoriferous drugs, to that degree of expence, that the cookery
of one peacock and two pheasants amounted to a hundred ducats, to
dress them after their fashion. And when the carver came to break
them up, not only the dining-room, but all apartments of his palace
and the adjoining streets were fill'd with an aromatick vapour, which
did not presently vanish." (Essay xlii.)
The custom frequently adopted by knights, of taking
Vows on the Pheasant.
223
a solemn vow on the pheasant to perform some deed of
prowess, is ascribed by Dr. Brinsley Nicholson to a Pagan
source, though at the same time he identifies it with the
token of the covenant of the rainbow, mentioned in
Genesis:
"The medieval knights," he writes, "seem to have known nothing
of the origin or meaning of the oath by the peacock or pheasant, there
is therefore the more reason for believing it to have been traditional
and imported. Its incongruous combination also with vows to God
and the Virgin seems to show that it was a Pagan oath Christianized in
outward form by the adspersion of holy words. From it as an example,
and when birds were divided into noble and common, and taken as
heraldic devices, other similar oaths would follow. But these were the
oaths of particular persons, and, as in the case of the swan, oaths by
one's ancestral honour, that by the peacock was universal among the
nobly born. I conjecture then, and believe, that the oath by the
peacock, and that by the pheasant, were variants of one and the same
oath, the irid-coloured pheasant being the representative of the peacock
where peacocks were scarce or unknown, and both of them the emblems
or representatives of the covenant bow in the clouds. The bringing of
the bird alive, or dressed in its feathers, the great solemnity of the
oath, the fidelity to it that was meant to be thus ensured, and perhaps
the taking of it by many or with many, as though entering into a
compact or covenant, are all further circumstances tending to cor-
roborate this view." (Notes and Queries, 4th series, vol. iii. p. 565.)
Dr. Nicholson explains the connexion between Iris
and the peacock as arising from the fact that Iris was
the attendant on Juno. When the peacock became
known, her place was taken by that bird. Be this as it
may, the oath thus taken was considered most binding.
In 1458, Philip le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, vowed, “Sur
le faisan," to go to the deliverance of Constantinople,
which had recently fallen into the hands of the Turks.
The Pheasant was apparently plentiful in England.
Though not preserved in the modern sense of Pheasant.
the word, it was the quarry pursued by the
goshawk, and was protected accordingly.
The Pheasant is repeatedly mentioned in the old
224
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
.:
""
"accounts.' The instructions for serving it, given in
Wynkyn de Worde's Boke of Kervynge, are that the legs
and wings are to be lifted the same as those of hens, and
that no sauce is to be used with it, but only salt and
powder of ginger.
According to Andrewe (Noble Lyfe, part ii. m. 4), the
pheasant was sometimes taken by the simple yet in-
genious device of painting a representation of the bird on
a cloth, and holding it in view of the quarry. This pro-
ceeding so attracted the attention of the bird, that another
fowler was able to approach from the rear and throw a
net over it. Considering the great want of likeness
prevalent in portraits of this period, it is more than
probable that if the pheasant was attracted at all it was
by curiosity, to discover what new species of fowl had
come into the neighbourhood. This same writer informs
us that-
66
thys byrde morneth sore in fowle weder, and hideth hym from the
rayne
under the bushes. Towarde the morning and towardes night,
than commetḥ he out of the busshe, and is oftentimes so taken, and he
putteth his hede in the ground, and he weneth that all his boddy is
hyden and his flessh is very light and good to disjest." (Babees Book,
ed. Furnivall, p. 101.)
Ben Jonson, in his enumeration of the various luxu-
ries which Penshurst afforded for its owner's entertain-
ment, writes:
"The tops
Fertile of wood, Ashore and Sydneys copp's,
To crown thy open table, doth provide
The purpled pheasant with the speckled side:
The painted partridge lies in ev'ry field,
And for thy mess is willing to be killed.”
(The Forest.)
The Argus Pheasant is a native of Sumatra. A variety
of the pheasant mentioned by Marco Polo may possibly
be this argus: "Pheasants are found in it [Thibet] that
Natural Antipathies.
225
are twice the size of ours, but something smaller than the
peacock. The tail-feathers are eight or ten palms in
length" (Travels, p. 225, ed. Marsden, 1813).
"The princely Cock distinguished the hours," writes
Drayton; and Du Bartas, in his poem on the
Creation, thus describes the "Harbinger of
Morn:
""
"Close by his side stands the courageous cock,
Crest-peoples king, the peasants trusty clock,
True morning watch, Aurora's trumpeter,
The lyons terror, true astronomer,
Who daily riseth when the sun doth rise;
Cock.
And when Sol setteth then to roost he hies."
(Fifth Day, p. 46.)
The notion to which reference is here made, that the
lion had a strong antipathy to the crowing of a cock, is
mentioned by Reginald Scot, 1584, in a passage which
recalls Shylock's answer to the Duke's appeal for
clemency :-
"It is almost incredible, that the grunting, or rather the wheeking
of a little pig, or the sight of a simple sheep should terrify a mighty
elephant; and yet by that means the Romans did put to flight Pyrrhus
and all his hoast. A man would hardly beleeve, that a cocks combe or
his crowing should abash a puissant lion; but that the experience
hereof hath satisfied the whole world. Who would think that a ser-
pent should abandon the shadow of an ash, etc.? But it seemeth not
strange because it is common, that some man otherwise hardy and
stout enough should not dare to abide or endure the sight of a cat.”
(Discovery of Witchcraft, p. 70, ed. 1654.)
According to Hakewill (Apologie, p. 13) King James I.
made trial of the lion's courage, and found that it was
quite proof against the crowing of a cock.
The porter in Macbeth replies to the accusation of
keeping late hours, "Faith, sir, we were carousing till the
second cock,”—a time identical with that referred to by
Lady Macbeth after the banquet, "Almost at odds with
morning, which is which.”
Q
226
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Spenser refers to the several periods of crowing:
“What time the native belman of the night,
The bird that warned Peter of his fall,
First rings his silver bell t' each sleepy wight,
That should their mindes up to devotion call."
(Faerie Queene, V. vi. 36.)
Tusser, more precise, gives the exact hours in the night
when the cock goes through his performance :-
"Cock croweth at midnight, few times above six,
With pause to his neighbour, to answer betwix:
At three a clock thicker; and then as ye know,
Like al in to mattins, near day they do crow.
"At midnight, at three, and an hour ere day,
They utter their language, as well as they may;
Which who so regardeth, what counsel they give,
Will better love crowing, as long as they live."
(Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie.)
Mr. Harting illustrates from Hamlet the popular notion
that ghosts vanished at the sound of cock-crowing, and
that consequently no spirit dare stir abroad at Christmas.
time, since at that period of the year chanticleer clamors
the livelong night. It has been suggested that as the
cock wakes readily, and crows lustily if roused by any
artificial light, the prolonged labours of the housewife
consequent upon the approaching Christmas festivities,
and the extension of hours of the lights of the household
at this season, keep him in constant activity.
The process of hatching eggs by artificial heat is not
by any means a recent invention. The plan adopted in
Cairo is minutely described by George Sandys, in his
account of a journey into Africa, in 1610 (Purchas, vol.
ii. p. 906). According to this author, as many as six
thousand eggs were laid on mats in a single oven. The
floor of the oven was grated, and a slow, smouldering fire
was kindled underneath. After eight days of moderate
heat the eggs were carefully sorted over, and the bad were
Artificial Egg-hatching.
227
distinguished from the good by holding them in front of
a lamp. The oven was shut up for ten days longer, at the
end of which time the eggs were "disclosed," or hatched
simultaneously. A similar method of hatching eggs was
employed in China, about the same date.
Sir John Mandeville relates that in China he found
hens without feathers, but with white wool like sheep.
Whether the worthy knight was indulging in romance, or
whether he mistook the furry appearance of the Cochin
China fowl for wool, is uncertain.
According to Mr. Bennett (Gardens of the Zoological
Society, 1830), much uncertainty prevails as to
the date of the introduction of the Turkey
into England. This author writes:-
Turkey.
"It is a singular fact that the origin of this, the most important
addition to our domestic poultry that has been made in modern times,
should have been involved in such obscurity, as to remain for more
than two centuries out of the three that the bird has been known to
us, doubtful and undetermined. . In 1541 we find it mentioned in
a Constitution of Archbishop Cranmer, published in Leland's Collec-
tanea, by which it was ordered that of such large fowls as cranes,
swans, and turkey-cocks, there should be but one in a dish. In 1566 a
present of twelve turkeys was thought not unworthy of being offered
by the municipality of Amiens to the king; at whose marriage, in
1570, it is said, they were first eaten in France.”
Daines Barrington, in his amusing Miscellanies, 1781,
tells us that "four young turkies, and consequently bred
in England, were dressed at a serjeant's feast in 1555,”
and claims to find a still earlier mention of this fowl in
the statement that-
re
capons of grease (Greece, probably) made part of an entertainment in
the sixth year of Edward IV., 1467; it being highly probable that
this bird was common to two countries lying so near to each other as
Greece and Asia Minor. Turkies had so increased in England that
Caius, in his account of our rarer animals, printed in 1570, omits men-
tion of them, though he is very particular in the description of a
guinea hen, stiling it meleagris."
}
228 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
In the Book of Carving, printed by Wynkyn de
Worde, in 1513, instructions are given for cutting up a
capon, or “henne of grece," by which is simply meant
a fat hen; and in John Russell's Book of Nurture, the
expression "hen of hawt grese" occurs, which, being inter-
preted, means plump, well fed, so that Mr. Barrington's
ingenious theory must be given up.
Mr. Harting (Ornithology, p. 179), referring to Shak-
speare's anachronism in introducing the domestic turkey
in the reign of Henry IV., gives full particulars of the
various names by which the bird has been known.
According to Mr. Henry Green-
:
a general knowledge of the bird was at any rate spread abroad in
Europe soon after the middle of the sixteenth century, for we find it
figured in the emblem-books; one of which, Freitag's Mythologia
Ethica, in 1579 (p. 237), furnishes a most lively and exact representa-
tion to illustrate the violated rights of hospitality." (Shakspeare and
the Emblem Writers, 1870, p. 356.)
In the accompanying picture a stately turkey-cock is
depicted advancing with spreading plumes. He is met
by a fine specimen of the domestic cock, who, with lifted
spur and threatening aspect, prepares to attack the in-
truder. Beneath the drawing is the text, "And if a
stranger sojourn with thee in your land ye shall not vex
him” (Lev. xix. 33).
Guinea-
Early travellers often confuse the Guinea-fowl with
the turkey. The former is a native of Africa,
fowl.. and the latter of America, which difference
of habitation should save them from being mistaken for
each other. Francis Pretty, in his account of a voyage
undertaken by Thomas Candish between the years 1585
and 1588, says :-
“We found in this place [Saint Helena] great store of guinie-cocks,
which we call turkies, of colour black and white, with red heads: they
are much about the same bignesse which ours be of in England: their
egges be white, and as bigge as a turkies egge." (Purchas, vol. i.
p. 70.)
!
Guinea-foul.
229
This author is quite incorrect in his statement respecting
the eggs of the guinea-fowl. They are not white, but
light red, with small dark spots, and they are not larger
than those laid by the domestic hen.
A traveller in Sierra Leone, in 1607, also mentions
this bird:-
"On land are great numbers of gray parrots, as also store of guiny
hennes, which are very hurtfull to their rice. This is a beautiful fowle,
about the bignesse of a phesant, with parti-coloured feathers. (Purchas,
vol. i. p. 416.)
(20
230
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
CHAPTER X.
As if to give importance to the most prominent repre-
sentative of a class which is often endowed
Vulture.
with virtues beyond its merits, the second in
rank is sometimes unfairly depreciated. Thus, while the
lion is ennobled the tiger is debased. The eagle is held
up for admiration, while the vulture, its rival in size and
really its superior in usefulness, has in all ages been
regarded with dislike. Mr. Bennett observes (Gardens of
the Zoological Society, 1830) that, ignoring the fact that
both birds are acting alike in accordance with their
peculiar instincts, and both fulfilling a part in the
economy of nature—
''
man has chosen to fix upon the one a character for bravery and
generosity, and to brand the other with the epithets of base, cowardly,
and obscene. The vulture, perhaps the most useful and certainly the
most inoffensive of birds, has been consigned to perpetual infamy,
while the eagle, in the true cant of that military romance which has
ever borne so great a sway over the passions of mankind, has been
exalted, in common with the warrior that desolates the world, as an
object of admiration, and selected as the type of military glory."
The Vulture is one of the most valuable scavengers of
the East. The repulsive nature of its food, together with
its ungainly appearance and great voracity, are some
excuse for the disgust it has inspired. From a passage
in Ben Jonson, it would appear that vultures were once
The Vulture.
231
seen on our shores, unless, as Gifford suggests, the Spanish
troops, which poured into the Netherlands, under D'Alva,
are thus complimented:-
"That ruff of pride
About thy neck, betrays thee; and is the same
With that which the unclean birds, in seventy-seven,
Were seen to prank it with on divers coasts."
(The Alchemist, iv. 4.)
The ancients were by no means precise in distinguish-
ing the species of either birds or quadrupeds. In the
English translation of the Bible, the word eagle is probably
substituted for the vulture in some instances. Spenser
speaks of a vulture striking at a heron on the wing, not a
very likely occurrence.
The vulture in Egypt and Southern Europe is not
much larger than a rook. John Leo, who was probably
familiar with the sight of this useful bird in the cities of
Italy, was surprised to find one of the larger African
species called by the same name.
He says:
“The nesir is the greatest fowl in all Africa, and exceedeth a crane
in bignesse, though the bil, necke, and legs are somewhat shorter. In
flying, this bird mounteth up so high into the aire, that it cannot be
discerned: but at the sight of a dead carcasse it will immediately
descend. This bird liveth a long time, and I myselfe have seene many of
them unfeathered by reason of extreme old age: wherefore, having cast
all their feathers, they returne into their nest, as if they were newly
hatched, and are there nourished by the younger birds of the same
kind. The Italians call it by the name of a vulture; but I thinke it
to be of another kind. They nestle upon high rocks, and upon the
tops of wilde and desart mountains, especially upon Mount Atlas."
(Purchas, vol. ii. p. 849.)
The Condor, the largest of the American vultures,
derives its name from a Mexican word expressive of a
keen sense of smell. It is mentioned by Joseph Acosta
in his Travels:
“In Peru there are birds which they call condores, of an exceeding
;
232
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
greatnesse, and of such a force, that not only they will open a sheep
and eate it but also a whole calfe." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 965.)
Though denied by modern scientific classification the
honour of heading the list of the feathered
Eagle. tribes, the Eagle held in earlier and more
poetic times the same position among birds that the lion
occupied among beasts, and was in consequence the chosen
emblem of royalty in many countries.
The lofty flight of the eagle, beyond the range of any
but the most practised archer, and quite out of the reach
of the clumsy guns of this period, together with the
inaccessible crags which it frequented, gave it com-
parative immunity from disturbance. The eagle must
have therefore been far more common than at present.
Sir Thomas Browne says that the great eagle was not
met with in Norfolk, though several of the fen eagles
were found there. Derricke, in his Image of Irelande,
describes-
"A mighty fowle, a goodlie birde,
Whom men doe eagle call,
This builds her nest in highest toppe
Of all the oken tree
Or in the craftiest place, whereof
In Irelande manie be."
Leland, in his Itinerary, tells us that an eagle built its
nest every year on the side of the rock on which the
Castle of Dinas Brane, near Chester, was built. This
castle was, at the time he wrote, in ruins. Robert Chester
speaks of-
"The princely eagle of all birds the king,
For none but she can gaze against the sunne,
Her eye-sight is so cleare, that in her flying
She spies the smallest beast that ever runne,
As swift as gun-shot using no delay,
So swiftly doth she flie to catch her pray.
The Eagle-stone.
"She brings her birds being yong into the aire,
And sets them for to looke on Phœbus light,
But if their eyes with gazing chance to water,
Those she accounteth bastards, leaves them quight,
But those that have true perfect constant eyes,
She cherisheth, the rest she doth despise."
(Love's Martyr, p. 118.)
233
Prince Edward, in 3 Henry VI. (ii. 1, 91), is appealed
to by his brother Richard to prove in like fashion his
royalty :-
CC
'Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,
Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun."
Spenser refers to the notion that the eagle by bathing
could renew its youth:-
'An eagle, fresh,out of the ocean wave,
Where he hath left his plumes all hory gray,
And deckt himselfe with fethers youthful gay,
Like eyas-hauke up mounts unto the skies,
His newly-budded pineons to assay,
And marveiles at himselfe, stil as he flies."
(Faerie Queene, I. xi. 35.)
In the English translation of the Bible a similar
expression occurs: "Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's”
(Psalm ciii. 5).
The eagle was evidently a favourite with Lyly, the
Euphuist, who has perpetuated some curious classical lore
concerning its habits. He writes, "The princely eagle,
who fearing to surfet on spices, stoopeth to bite on worm-
wood" (Sappho and Phaon). "The eagle is never stricken
with thunder, nor the olive with lightning" (Galathea).
"The eagles feathers consume the feathers of all others,"
and "every feather of the eagle is of force to consume the
beetle" (Euphues, p. 214). Lastly, he mentions "the
precious stone, ætites, which is found in the filthy neastes
of the eagle" (Euphues, p. 240). This stone, ætites, or
eagle-stone, is a flint, which rattles on being shaken,
234
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
and contains a nucleus. The story goes that the female
eagle takes up this stone into her nest, while she is
sitting, to prevent her eggs from becoming addled. The
corrosive quality of the eagle's feathers is mentioned by
other writers. Du Bartas writes:
"And so the princely eagles ravening plumes
The feathers of all other fowls consumes."
(Page 96.)
In heraldry the eagle ranks next in popularity to the
lion as a charge. It is portrayed in different attitudes,
and with a varying number of heads. It is occasionally
blazoned without either beak or legs; then it is termed
an allerion. According to the chroniclers, Godfrey of
Boulogne, Duke of Lorraine, during the siege of Jerusalem
shot three of these footless birds with an arrow. In honour
of that exploit three allerions upon a bend are borne in
commemoration by the Dukes of Lorraine to the present
day. "It is perfectly evident," observes Mr. Planché, in
commenting on this legend, "that the narrator was the
party who drew the long bow, and not the noble Godfrey."
The similarity of the two names, Lorraine and Allerion,
probably gave rise to the story.
Ben Jonson does not often mention the eagle. He
says, in one play :—
"Every stoop he made
Was like an eagle's at a flight of cranes:
As I have read somewhere."
(The New Inn, iv. 3.)
Shakspeare, on the contrary, though probably like
Jonson he drew his knowledge of this "royal bird” from
description, or from some tame specimens in the "costly
aviaries” mentioned by Harrison, has frequent references
to its power of flight, strength of vision, longevity, and
other qualities, all which may be found noticed in Mr.
Harting's volume.
Scandinavian Eagles.
235
As to synonyms for this bird, according to Harrison
the eagle was frequently called the erne.
He says:-
"I was once of the opinion that there was a diversitie of kind
between the eagle and the erne till I perceived that our nation used
the word erne in most places for the eagle." (Holinshed, vol. i. p. 381.)
Ben Jonson probably means the eagle when he repre-
sents the augurs watching-
"Which hand the crow cried on, how high
The vulture or the erne did fly."
(The Masque of Augurs.)
And again, Godolphin was the ancient Cornish name
for the white sea-eagle, now sometimes called the erne.
Olaus Magnus thus describes the varieties of eagles
found in Scandinavia:-
"There are six kinds of eagles: the first is Herodius, called also a
gir-faulcon, the most noble bird of all, of a blew colour, tending to
white, except the breast and wings, where it more evidently represents
a celestial colour: she is so strong, that she will carry an eagle, and so
full of animosity that if she be let fly in the ayr after four or five
cranes, she will never forsake the prey, till she strike them all down to
the ground one after another, and a dog bred for the sport takes them
away. Nor will this gir-faulcon come down for indignation, till he
takes away what is fallen. She never breeds more than one young
one.
"The second noble kind after this, is that, which when she hath
young ones, flyes at geese, swans, coneys, and hares chiefly. This is
lesse than the gir-faulcon, of divers colours, her feathers are white, and
ash-colour mingled, and she hath white feathers in her short tail.
The third, which sits on the bodies of trees, whose tops are cut off,
whence it hath its name; and it is of an ash-colour; she flyes at geese
and ducks, and is less in body and courage than the former two.
"The fourth, which catcheth fishes, is of divers colours under the
belly, white and black on the back, and upon the bunch it hath black
spots: it hath one foot like a duck, to swim with; another like the
hawk, to catch the prey: she sits on trees over rivers, lying in wait for
fish; and there are great multitudes of them in the northern waters.
"The fifth kind is small, and various in colour, but notable cunning,
236
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
•
for she will carry bones into the ayr, and let them fall down upon a
stone, that she may break them, and so come at the marrow.
“The sixth kind is white, and lives by flying at hares, coneys,
hogs, whelpes, foxes, and such like: yet the eagle so loves her young,
that she will put her self like a buckler, between her young ones and
the arrow shot.
"But all the kinds of them have this property, that they wrap
their eggs in fox or hare skins to be hatched, which they find by
chance or else flea them themselves, and these they leave in their
nests to come to maturity by heat of the sun. For they cannot always
sit and stay in their nests, because their talons would grow so crooked
that they would not be able to catch their prey." (History of the
Goths, etc., p. 196.)
The Kite is sometimes called the glead; though in
the English translation of Deuteronomy xiv.
Kite. 13, glede and kite are mentioned separately.
According to Belon, who wrote about the year 1560, an
amazing number of kites used to collect in the streets of
London for the sake of the refuse which was thrown into
the gutters. People were forbidden to kill them, and the
birds were so tame that they took their prey in the midst
of the greatest crowds, after the manner of pigeons in
our time. Their familiarity, however, was not quite so
harmless, for they occasionally invaded the butchers'
stalls, and helped themselves to what they fancied.
Gascoigne, in his Councell to Duglasse Dive, has the
following defence of the kite:-
"The kight can weede the worme from corne and costly seedes,
The kight can kill the mowldiwarpe, in pleasant meads that breedes,
Out of the stately streets the kight can clense the filth,
As men can clense the worthlesse weedes, from fruitfull fallowed tilth;
And onely set aside the hennes poor progenie,
I cannot see who can accuse the kight for felonie.
The falcon, she must feede on partridge, and on quayle,
On pigeon, plover, ducke and drake, hearne, lapwing, teale, and raile."
(English Poets, vol. ii., ed. Chalmers.)
The puttock was another name for this bird. In the
same poem we find:-
*
Falconry.
"A puttocke set on pearch, fast by a falcons side,
Will quickly shew it selfe a kight, as time hath often tried.”
237
Du Bartas, in his poem on the Creation (p. 66), trans-
lated by Sylvester, mentions—
“The ravening kite, whose train doth well supply
A rudders place."
Drayton has the same idea :-
"The kite his train him guiding in the air,
Prescribes the helm, instructing how to steer."
(The Owl.)
Falconry.
In the time of Elizabeth no amusement was more
universally popular than falconry. Every
class could partake of it; and as the quarry
pursued included almost all the wild birds, herons, wild
duck, partridges, blackbirds, as well as hares, there was
no difficulty in finding game. In Ben Jonson's Every
Man in his Humour (act i. sc. 1), Master Stephen, a young
man coming from the country to begin his career as a
fashionable town gentleman, inquires immediately at his
cousin's house in London-
A
Uncle, afore I go in, can you tell me, an he have e'er a book of
the sciences of hawking and hunting; I would fain borrow it.
Knowell. Why, I hope you will not a hawking now, will you?
Stephen. No, wusse; but I'll practise against next year, uncle. I
have bought me a hawk, and a hood, and bells, and all; I lack nothing
but a book to keep it by.
Knowell. O, most ridiculous!
Stephen. Nay, look you now, you are angry, uncle :—why, you
know an a man have not skill in the hawking and hunting languages
now-a-days, I'll not give a rush for him: they are more studied than
the Greek, or the Latin.”
Mr. Harting, himself an enthusiastic lover of this
sport, and an advocate for its revival in our own time,
has so fully described the different kinds of falcons and
hawks employed, together with the terms and appliances
238 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
connected with falconry, that there is nothing to be
added so far as Shakspeare himself is concerned. The
writings of most of the poets and dramatists of the time
abound with allusions to this pastime. It is somewhat
curious that the works of Shakspeare's immediate fore-
runners, Peele, Greene, and Marlowe, should furnish
exceptions to this statement. We do not find a single
important allusion to hawks or falcons in their plays.
A highly poetical description of hawking is given by
Massinger. The terms employed, though obscure to us
from their technicality, were at that time perfectly
familiar to the audience :-
“Durazzo. In the afternoon,
For we will have variety of delights,
We'll to the field again; no game shall rise,
But we'll be ready for it: if a hare, my greyhounds
Shall make a course; for the pie or jay, a sparhawk
Flies from the fist; the crow so near pursued,
Shall be compelled to seek protection under
Our horses' bellies; a hern put from her siege,
And a pistol shot in her breech, shall mount
So high that, to your view, she'll seem to soar
Above the middle region of the air :
A cast of haggard falcons, by me mann'd
Eying the prey at first, appear as if
They did turn tail; but with their labouring wings
Getting above her, with a thought their pinions
Cleaving the purer element, make in,
And by turns binds with her; the frightened fowl,
Lying at her defence upon her back,
With her dreadful beak awhile defers her death,
But, by degrees forced down, we part the fray,
And feast upon her.
Caldoro. This cannot be, I grant,
But pretty pastime.
Durazzo. Pretty pastime, nephew!
"Tis royal sport. Then for an evening flight,
A tiercel gentle, which I call, my masters,
As he were sent a messenger to the moon,
In such a place flies, as he seems to say,
Technical Terms introduced.
See me, or see me not! The partridge sprung,
He makes his stoop; but wanting breath is forced
To cancelier; then with such speed as if
He carried lightning in his wings, he strikes
The trembling bird, who even in death appears
Proud to be made his quarry."
(The Guardian, i. 1.)
239
To bind with is to seize. A hawk was said to cancelier
when she circled once or twice in the air before she
swooped down on her prey.
In the play by Thomas Heywood, A Woman Killed
with Kindness, 1607, a quarrel during a hawking expe-
dition forms the groundwork of the plot. In the follow-
ing extract we have evidence of the care that was
bestowed on details so minute as the tone of the bells
attached to the falcon's legs :-
"Charles. So, well cast off; aloft, aloft, well flowne:
O now she takes her at the sowse, and strikes her
Downe to the earth, like a swift thunder-clap.
Wendoll. She hath stroke ten angels out of my way.
Francis. A hundred pound from me.
Charles. What, faulc'ner?
Paul. At hand, sir.
Charles. Now she hath seis'd the fowle, and gins to plume her,
Rebecke her not; rather stand still and checke her.
So: seise her gets, her jesses, and her bels:
Away.
Francis. My hawke kill'd too.
Char. I, but 'twas at the querre,
Not at the mount, like mine.
Fran. Judgement, my masters.
Cran. Yours mist her at the ferre.
Wend. I, but our merlin first had plum'd the fowle,
And twice renew'd her from the river too;
Her bels, Sir Francis, had not both one waight,
Nor was one semi-tune above the other:
Mee thinkes these millaine bels do sound too full,
And spoile the mounting of your hawke.
Char. 'Tis lost.
Fran. I grant it not. Mine likewise seised a fowle
240
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Within her talents; and you saw her pawes
Full of the feathers: both her petty singles,
And her long singles, grip'd her more than other;
The terrials of her legges were stain'd with blood:
Not of the fowle onely she did discomfite
Some of her feathers, but she brake away.
Come, come, your hawke is but a rifler.
Char. How?"
The dispute waxes warm, and ends in a fight between the
rival sportsmen and their retainers, in which Sir Francis
is slain.
Any bells were thought good enough for sparrow-
hawks, but for goshawks those made at Milan were most
highly prized. They were made partly of silver, and
hence were sufficiently expensive.
Shakspeare notices these musical appendages to the
falcon :-
"Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells,
With trembling fear, as fowl hears falcon's bells."
(Lucrece, line 510.)
And in a similar passage, Du Bartas writes:-
"Even as a duck, that nigh some crystal brook
Hath twice or thrice by the same hawk been strook,
Hearing aloft her gingling silver bels,
Quivers for fear, and looks for nothing else
But when the falcon, stooping thunder-like,
With sudden souse her to the ground shall strike ;
And with the stroak, make on the senseless ground
The gutless quar, once, twice, or thrice, rebound."
(Page 170.)
To return to the extract from Heywood. An explana-
tion of some of the technical terms there used may be
found in Gervase Markham's edition of The Book of St.
Albans, 1595. The writer describes the finding of the
quarry in a river or pit, and says:-
"If shee [the hawk] nyme, or take, the further side of the river or pit,
from you, then she slaieth the foule at fere juttie: but if she kill it on
1
Terms explained.
241
that side that you are yourselfe, as many times it chanceth, then you
shall say shee killed the foule at the jutty ferry, if your hawke nyme
the foule aloft, you shall say she tooke it at the mount. If you see
store of mallards separate from the river and feeding in the fielde, if
your hawke flee covertly under hedges, or close by the ground, by
which means she nymeth one of them before they can rise, you shall
say, that foule was killed at the querre."
Guillim, in his work on heraldry, gives some of the
phrases employed by falconers. This list, as the terms
so constantly recur in Shakspeare and elsewhere, it may
be well to quote :-
"A hawk is said to bate, when she striveth to fly from the fist.
She is said to rebate, when by the motion of the bearer's hand she re-
covereth the fist.
"You must say, ' Feed your hawk,' and not 'Give her meat.'
"A hawk is said, after she hath fed she smiteth or sweepeth her
beak, and not wipeth her beak or bill.
"By the beak of an hawk is understood the upper part which is
hooked; the neather part of the beak is called the hawk's clap. The
holes in the hawk's beak are called her nares. The yellow between
the beak and the eyes is called the sere. Hawks of long, small beak-
feathers like hairs about the sere, are properly called crinites.
"You must say your hawk jouketh, and not sleepeth. She man-
tleth, (and not stretcheth), when she extendeth one of her wings along
her legs, and so the other. After she hath thus mantled herself, she
crosseth her wings together over her back, which action you shall term
the warbling of her wings, and say, she warbleth her wings.
"You shall cast your hawk to the perch, and not set your hawk
upon the perch.” (Display of Heraldry, p. 218, 6th ed., 1724.)
Marco Polo, a traveller passionately fond of hawking,
loses no opportunity of mentioning the falcons and hawks
of the countries he explores. According to him the
Tartars were most enthusiastic sportsmen, and carried on
this amusement with true Eastern magnificence. In one
portion of his work he describes the Khan of Tartary
setting out on a hunting expedition, attended by—
"full ten thousand followers, who carry with them a vast number of
gerfalcons, peregrine falcons, and sakers, as well as many vultures, in
R
242
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
:
order to pursue the game along the banks of the river. It must be
understood that he does not keep all this body of men together in one
place, but divides them into several parties of one or two hundred or
more, who follow the sport in various directions, and the greater part
of what they take is brought to his majesty." (Travels, p. 342, ed.
Marsden, 1817.)
The falconers were provided with calls and hoods, in
orthodox fashion, and each hawk belonging to his Majesty,
or to his nobles, had a silver label attached to its leg, by
which, if lost, it could be readily identified-a refinement
only occasionally adopted in Europe. Supposing the
author was not exaggerating, we can easily imagine that,
conducted on such a grand scale, hawking in Chinese Tar-
tary was "unrivalled by any other amusement in the
whole world."
In such honour was falconry held in old times, that in
Wales the Master of the Hawks was the fourth officer in
rank and dignity, and sat in the fourth place from his
sovereign at the royal table. This promotion had, how-
ever, one drawback-the falconer was only permitted to
drink three times lest he should neglect his birds. When
he was more than usually successful in his sports the
prince was obliged, by law and custom, to rise up to
receive him as he entered the hall, and sometimes to hold
his stirrup as he alighted from his horse.
Robert Burton tells us (Anatomy of Melancholy, vol.
i. p. 528) that at the time in which he writes, about the
year 1617-
•
"the ordinary sports which are used abroad, are hawking, hunting.
Paulus Jovius (Descr. Brit.) doth in some sort tax our English nobility
for it, for living in the country so much, and too frequent use of it, as
if they had no other means but hawking and hunting to approve
themselves gentlemen with. Hawking comes neer to hunting, the one
in the aire, as the other on the earth, a sport as much affected as the
other, by some preferred.. It was never heard of amongst the Romans,
invented some 1200 years since, and first mentioned by Firmicus (lib.
5, cap. 8). The Greek emperours began it, and now nothing so fre-
Definition of a Gentleman.
243
quent he is nobody, that in the season hath not a hawke on his fist:
a great art, and many books written on it. It is a wonder to hear what
is related of the Turkes officers in this behalf, how many thousand men
are employed about it, how many hawks of all sorts, how much is
spent at Adrianople alone every year to that purpose. The Persian
kings hawk after butterflies with sparrows, made to that purpose, and
stares; lesser hawks for lesser games they have, and bigger for the
rest, that they may produce their sport to all seasons. The Musco-
vian emperours reclaime eagles to fly at hindes, foxes, etc., and such a
one was sent for a present to Queen Elizabeth: some reclaime ravens,
castrils, pies, etc., and man them for their pleasure.”
There was, however, a darker side to this amusement,
which is suggested by Gifford, in a note in his edition of
Massinger.
cr
Humanity," he writes, "has seldom obtained a greater triumph
than in the abolition of this most execrable pursuit, compared to which
cock fighting and bull-baiting are innocent amusements: and this not
so much on account of the game killed in the open field, as the
immense number of domestic animals sacrificed to the instruction of
the hawk. The blood runs cold while we peruse the calm instructions
of the brutal falconer, to impale, tie down, fasten by the beak, break
the legs and wings of living pigeons, hens, and sometimes herons, for
the hourly exercise of the hawk, who was thus enabled to pull them
to pieces without resistance." (Note to The Picture, vol. ii.)
Probably, with the increase of consideration for animal
suffering, many of the practices Gifford condemns have
been abandoned by modern falconers.
The excess to which love of hawking was occasionally
carried provoked some opposition from the less extrava-
gant portion of the community. A correspondent in
Notes and Queries (5th series, vol. viii. p. 133) quotes a
passage from a volume of sermons by a nephew of Bishop
Jewell, printed at Oxford in 1633, after the death of the
author:-
te
Hunting, hawking are almost become essential to a gentleman, so
that perhaps he defined not much amisse who said, a gentleman was
a beast riding upon a beast, with a beast on his fist, having beasts
following him, and himselfe following beasts."
244
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Sir Philip Sidney is reported to have said, "Next to
hunting I like hawking worst," and certainly there are
few allusions to the latter sport to be met with in his
poems.
The Rev. R. Lubbock (Fauna of Norfolk, 1845, p. 12)
draws attention to the way in which, in many instances,
the very nature of birds has been affected by the alteration
in the manners and customs of man. This is more
especially the case in the larger birds of prey :--
"The forgotten sport of falconry has left behind it abundant record:
of the immunity which in days of yore clung to every feathered thing
which called itself a hawk; not only were the generous kinds pro-
tected, but kites and buzzards marauded in security, hiding their mis-
deeds under the shadow of the nobler species. In those days might
fairly be seen the nature of the bird as it really was, and that in many
instances appears to have been to cling to man. The wild hawks, we
are told in old treatises, often paused in their flight to observe the
sportsman and his dogs, and gain for themselves some of the booty
which had escaped the trained bird. But amongst ourselves, a hawk
when seen has the air of a convicted felon; he skulks along, conscious
that every man's hand is against him; the nature of the bird is in
some degree changed by the untoward circumstances in which he is
placed."
One result of the indiscriminate slaughter of the hawk
tribe in modern times has been, that diseased birds of the
species pursued by hawks, which would otherwise have
fallen easy victims in the struggle for existence, continue
to exist, and so tend to deteriorate their kind.
The passage in Hamlet, ii. 2, 396, "I am but mad north-
north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk
from a hernshaw," noticed by Mr. Harting (p. 75), is still
further elucidated by Mr. Aldis Wright. He points out
that, as the morning used to be the favourite time for
the sport of hawking, when the wind blew from the north-
west the birds would probably fly so that any person
watching them had the sun in his eyes, and could not
easily distinguish the quarry from its pursuer, but that
Netting Wild Hawks.
245
when the wind was southerly, the birds flew from the sun,
and one could easily "know a hawk from a hernshaw."
An expression in the First Part of Henry VI. (i. 3, 36)
has led to some discussion. Gloucester, indignant at the
opposition of the turbulent prelate, Bishop of Winchester,
exclaims :-
"I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,
If thou proceed in this thy insolence."
According to a writer in the Edinburgh Review,
October, 1872-
canvass was a technical name for the peculiarly constructed net
with which wild hawks were snared by the falconer, in order to be
manned for the fist, the flight, and the lure. At least, it was a term
technically applied to catching wild hawks in this way, and to be can-
vassed in this sense was to be taken, trapped, or netted.
'That restlesse I, much like the hunted hare,
Or as the canvist kite doth fear the snare.'
(Mirror for Magistrates)."
Wild hawks were trapped by means of a net attached
to a bow of iron or wood. Strings fastened to the sides
of the net were held by the falconer:
CC
Now," writes the reviewer," the circular sweep of the cardinal's
hat, with its knotted strings, has a not unapt resemblance to the
hawk-net machinery; and Gloucester, in saying, 'I'll canvass thee in
thy broad cardinal's hat,' expressed his determination to trap and seize
the arrogant Churchman, if he persisted in his violent course.
For much information concerning hawking and hunt-
ing in medieval times, as well as for every subject
connected with Shakspeare, the reader is referred to Dr.
Drake's learned work, Shakspeare and his Times, published
1817, 4to.
Harrison enumerates the various kinds of Varieties of
hawks known in his time:-
Hawks.
"We have also the lanner and the lanneret: the tersell and the
246
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
gosehawk: the musket and the sparhawke: the jack and the hobbie:
and finally some (though very few) marlions. And these are all the
hawkes that I do heare (as yet) to be bred within this iland.”
(Holinshed, vol. i. p. 381.)
1
Derricke, in the Image of Ireland, published 1581
gives the varieties of hawks found in that island:-
Ger-falcon.
"The goshauke, first of all the crewe
Deserves to have the name;
The faucon next for high attemptes,
In glorie, and in fame.
The tarsell then ensueth on,
Good reason 'tis that he,
For flying haukes in Ireland next
The faucon plaste should bee.
The tarsell gentle's course is nexte,
The fourthe peer of the lande,
Combined to the faucon with
A lovers friendly bande.
The pretie marlion is the fifth,
To her the sparhauke nexte,
And then the jacke and musket laste,
By whom the birds are vexte.
These are the haukes which cheefly breed
In fertile Irish grounde;
Whose marche for flight and speedie wyng,
Elsewhere be hardly founde."
:
The peregrine was the largest of the true falcons, or
long-winged hawks, found in Britain. The
Ger-falcon of Iceland and Scandinavia was
occasionally imported, but, owing to its great strength
and fierceness, the time required for training this species
rendered it so expensive that it was usually reserved for
royalty. Hakluyt mentions that among the presents
sent by the Czar Ivan Basiliewitz, by his ambassador,
to Queen Mary, 1556, was "a large and fair white jer-
fawcon, for the wild swan, crane, goose, and other great
fowls."
A
1
The Peregrine.
Of Peregrines, Camden writes:-
247.
"A noble kind of falcons have their airies here [Pembrokeshire] and
breed in the rocks, which King Henry the Second, as the
same Giraldus writeth, was wont to prefer before all Peregrine.
others. For of that kind are those, if the inhabitants
doe not deceive mee, which the skilful faulconers call peregrines; for
they have, that I may use no other wordes than the verses of Augustus
Thuanus Esmerius, that most excellent poet of our age, in that golden
booke entituled Hieracasophioy :-
"Head flat and low, the plume in rewes along
The body laid: legges pale and wan are found.
With sclender clawes and talons there among
And those wide spred: the bill is hooked round." :
Marco Polo mentions peregrines as numerous in
Siberia:
"When the Grand Khan is desirous of having a brood of peregrine
falcons he sends to capture them at this place; and in an island lying
off the coast, gerfalcons are found in such numbers that his majesty
may be supplied with as many of them as he pleases." (Travels,
- 221.)
:
The female peregrine alone was dignified with the name
of falcon, the male being known as the tiercel, or tassel.
The falcon was flown at herons and rooks, and the tiercel
at partridges or magpies. Izaak Walton begins the first
chapter of his Complete Angler by a conference between an
angler, a falconer, and a hunter, each commending his own.
recreation. The falconer, after dwelling on the advan-
tages of hawking as an amusement, proceeds to enumerate
the various species of hawks, which he divides into noble
and ignoble birds. He says:-
▸
"You are to note that they are usually distinguished into two
kinds; namely, the long-winged, and the short-winged hawks: of the
first kind; there be chiefly in use amongst us in this nation—
The gerfalcon and jerkin,
The falcon and tassel gentle,
248
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The laner and laneret,
The bockerel and bockeret,
The saker and sacaret,
The merlin and jack merlin,
The hobby and jack :
There is the stelletto of Spain,
The blood-red rook from Turkey,
The waskite from Virginia :
And there is of short-winged hawks,
The eagle and iron [erne],
These are reckoned
inferior rank-
The goshawk and tercel,
The sparhawk and musket,
The French pye of two sorts:
hawks of note and worth; but we have also of an
The stanyel, the ringtail,
The raven, the buzzard,
The forked kite, the bald buzzard,
The hen-driver, and others that I forbear to name."
Some confusion seems to have prevailed in the names
given to the different kinds of hawks here and elsewhere.
By the ringtail and hen-driver are probably meant the
hen-harrier of modern times. According to Yarrell
(British Birds, vol. i. p. 133)—
"The old male, from his almost uniform ash-grey colour, is often
called provincially the dove-hawk, blue hawk, or miller, and by the
general name of hen-harrier. The female, or ring-tail, is entirely
different. Though it has been previously supposed by many natural-
ists that the hen-harrier were the male and female of the same
species, others held the opinion that they were distinct, and Montagu
seems to have been the first who actually and clearly proved that the
remarkable difference between these two birds was but a sexual
peculiarity."
The same authority informs us that eyas, or nyas, was the
name of the young peregrine taken from the nest, as dis-
tinguished from the peregrine or passage hawk, a young
bird caught during the period of migration; while
haggard was used for a bird caught after the first moult
was completed, and reclaimed. If kept over a moult
The Lanner and Saker.
249
they were then called intermewed hawks. The term
gentil falcon seems to have had a general rather than a
particular meaning. The bird so called by Pennant is
certainly a goshawk, while the lanner of this author is a
young female of the same species. When young the
peregrine bears some resemblance to the lanner, which
probably has never been caught in this country. The
young of the year were called respectively a red falcon,
and a red tiercel, on account of the ruddy tinge of their
plumage. The heroner, a name sometimes met with, was
probably also the peregrine. This hawk is explained by
Francis Thynne, 1559, as-
an especiall hawke of the kyndes of longe winged hawkes, of more
accompte then other hawkes are, because the flighte of the herone is
more dangerous then of other foules.” (Animadversions of Francis
Thynne, p. 39, ed. Furnivall.)
The true Lanner was imported from the continent,
and was trained to fly at the kite. The male
was called the lanneret.
Lanner.
Marco Polo frequently speaks of the lanner and the
saker in his Travels. Of Tartary, he writes:-
"In the mountains there are falcons of the species called saker,
falco sacer, which are excellent birds and of strong flight; as well as
of that called lanner, falco lanarius. There are also goshawks of a
perfect kind, falco astus, or palumbarius, and sparrow-hawks, falco
nisus."
Of these two birds, the lanner and the saker, the Rev.
R. Lubbock writes:-
"Two speeies of falcon, formerly prized, have been involved in
much obscurity; the saker, which in size and courage rivalled or
excelled the gyrfalcon, and the lanner, which came from Sicily, Malta,
and the South and East. Temminck makes no mention of this last
species in the edition of 1815. The name lanner seems to have been
sometimes given to the young of the peregrine falcon, and conse-
quently confusion arose from believing the lanner to be a British bird.
After dividing the peregrine in different plumage into two or three
kinds, the old treatises on hawking always add that the birds are
250
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
alike in feeding, habits, and flight. But the lanner stood alone in its
peculiarities : rather inferior to the peregrine in swiftness and boldness,
it was noted for docility and perseverance; it hung long upon wing
without fatigue, remembered the lessons taught faithfully, would
make repeated flights in the same morning, and was far less nice in its
food than the other; it was the hawk recommended to young and
eager falconers, as being the most difficult to spoil in flight or injure in
feeding." (Fauna of Norfolk, 1845, p. 26.)
The Hobby was very common. It was small but
beautifully shaped, docile, and easily trained.
Hobby. It was flown at quails, snipe, and other
small birds, but chiefly at skylarks. It was also em-
ployed in taking larks alive, by the method called daring
them. If the hobby were thrown up in a field, the larks
rose and thus betrayed their nests. According to Lyly,
it could "o'ermount the lark." He writes, "No bird can
looke against the sunne but those that be bredde of the
eagle, neither any hawks soare so high as the broode of
the hobby."
The "pretie Marlion," or Merlin, was the favourite
falcon of the ladies, and of beginners in the
Merlin. art of hawking. One of the smallest, it was
at the same time one of the handsomest species, and
readily became attached to its owner. It was flown at
quails, snipe, and lark, and in its mode of flight re-
sembled the goshawk, not swooping, but closely following
its prey in the rear, darting along near the surface of the
ground with great rapidity.
The Kestrel, called also Standgale, Stannel, and
Windhover, is not often mentioned. It was
Kestrel. the hawk allotted to persons of inferior rank.
The name is derived by some from coystril, a knave or
peasant, a word which was spelt in a variety of ways.
Drayton informs us that—
"The soaring kite there scantled his large wings,
And to the ark the hovering castril brings."
(Noal's Flood.)
The Kestrel.
251
Another name by which the kestrel was known was
the wind-sucker. Nashe, in his Lenten Stuffe, describing
the expedition of the birds against the fishes, says that
the former chose "the kistrilles or windsuckers, that
filling themselves with winde, fly against the wind ever-
more, for their ful-sailed standerd bearer" (Harleian
Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 170).
The kestrel was easily tamed, and was affectionate in
captivity. It was trained to fly at small birds, though in
its wild state mice were its usual food. It is not impos-
sible that when kept in a farm-yard the kestrel might
strike up an acquaintance with the pigeons that it saw
daily, otherwise Reginald Scot's theory of their alliance
is difficult to accept. Scot writes (Discovery of Witch-
craft, p. 213, ed. 1634):-
"The friendly society betwixt a fox and a serpent is almost in-
credible: how loving the lizzard is to a man, we may read though we
cannot see. Yet some affirm that our newt is not only like to the
lizzard in shape, but also in condition. From the which afection
towards a man, a spaniell doth not much differ, whereof I could cite incre-
dible stories. The amity betwixt a castrell and a pigeon is much noted
among writers; and specially how the castrell defendeth her from her
cncmie the sparrow-hawke; whereof they say the dove is not ignorant."
Slightfalcon.
Another species, the Slightfalcon, is mentioned by
Dr. Giles Fletcher, in his treatise on Russia,
1588, in which he reports that in that country
"they have great store of hawkes; the eagle, the ger-
faulcon, the slightfaulcon, the goshawke, the tassell, the
sparhawke," etc. (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 417).
The Goshawk is the largest of the short-winged
hawks. The male was sometimes called the
tercel. It was flown at quadrupeds more
Goshawk.
frequently than at birds, chiefly hares and rabbits, and in
its wild state it is quite possible that it might attempt
still larger game:—
<<
Ha, sweet Nature! What goshauk would prey upon such a lamb?"
(BEN JONSON, Bartholomew Fair, ii. 1.)
252
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Though equal in size it was inferior in power to the
largest of the falcons. It was not common, and was
probably confounded with the peregrine. Unlike the
last-named species, the goshawk does not swoop down
upon its prey, but glides along the surface of the ground
in pursuit of it; this mode of attack was called raking.
The Sparrow-hawk, now the species most commonly
Sparrow-
hawk.
encountered, was then held in low estimation.
It is one of the most uniformly distributed of
the hawk tribe, and according to Linschoten, an early
traveller, was found in the Azores:-
'The Iles of Acores, or the Flemish Ilands, are seven. They are
called Acores, that is to say, Sparhawks or Hawkes, because that in their
first discovery they found many sparhawks in them, whereof they
hold the name, although at this day there is not any there to be found."
(Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1667.)
This hawk was used for taking land-rails, partridges,
blackbirds, and other small birds.
The Buzzard was considered too ignoble a bird to be
reckoned among the hawks. Not unlike the
Buzzard. owl in its stealthy noiseless flight, not far
from the ground as a rule, it was capable of soaring to
a considerable height, and of prolonged exertion. Sir
Thomas Browne, in his list of Norfolk birds, gives the
grey and bald buzzard.
Osprey.
The Osprey, or Fishing-hawk, was not an uncommon
bird at the mouth and along the banks of
large rivers. Harrison, in his description of
England, tells us that the fishing propensity of the osprey
was often taken advantage of by the country people.
“We have,” he writes, “ospraies which breed with us in parks and
woods, whereby the keepers of the same doo reape in breeding time no
small commoditie; for so soone almost as the yoong are hatched, they
tie them to the but ends or ground ends of sundrie trees, where the
old ones finding them, doo never cease to bring fish unto them which
the keepers take and eat from them, and commonlie is such as is well fed,
The Osprey.
253
not of the worst sort.
It hath not beene my hap hitherto to see
anie of these foules, and partlie through mine owne negligence: but I
heare that it hath one foot like an hawke to catch hold withall, and
another resembling a goose wherewith to swim; but whether it be so,
or not so, I refer the further search and trial thereof to some other."
(Holinshed, vol. i. p. 382.)
The notion alluded to in the last paragraph was a
laudable but unscientific attempt to explain how this
bird performed the difficult feat of holding in a firm
grasp such a slippery object as a live fish. Giraldus
Cambrensis, 1187, is perhaps the first English authority
for this assertion that one foot of the osprey is spread
open and armed with talons, while the other is close,
harmless, and only fit for swimming. The worthy
ecclesiastic, who never loses an opportunity of improving
the occasion, and can "make a moral of the devil him-
self," utilizes thus ingeniously the osprey's mode of
fishing:-
“In like manner, the old enemy of mankind fixes his keen eyes on
us, however we may try to conceal ourselves in the troublesome waves
of this present world; and ingratiating himself with us by temporal
prosperity, which may be compared to the peaceable foot, the cruel
spoiler then puts forth his ravenous claws to clutch miserable souls
and drag them to perdition." (Topography of Ireland, p. 38, ed.
Wright, 1863.)
"Amongst the thickest of these several fowl
With open eyes still sat the broad fac'd Owl.”
Owl.
(DRAYTON, Noah's Flood.)
If to "give a dog a bad name and you may as well
hang him" were literally true, the poor owl would have
long ago ceased to exist, for never was any bird so
maligned.
Mr. Harting has given many illustrations from
Shakspeare, and has written fully of the various traditions
which refer to the owl; little, therefore, is left to add.
In the beautiful lament of Eglamour for his lost Earine,
254 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
the lover bewails, in his "deep hurt phant'sie," that there
was-
"Not a voice or sound to ring her bell,
But of that dismal pair, the scritching owl
And buzzing hornet! hark! hark! hark! the foul
Bird! how she flutters with her wicker wings!
Peace! you shall hear her scritch.”
(BEN JONSON, The Sad Shepherd, i. 1.)
The expression "wicker wings" probably refers to the
straw colour of the owl's feathers. Daniel alludes to the
rough reception which the little birds accord to their
enemy if he makes his appearance in the daytime:-
"Look how the day-hater, Minerva's bird,
Whilst privileg'd with darkness and the night,
Doth live secure t' himself of others fear'd:
If but by chance discover'd in the light,
How doth each little fowl, with envy stirr'd,
Call him to justice, urge him with despite;
Summon the feathered flocks of all the wood,
To come and scorn the tyrant of their blood."
(Hist. of the Civil Wars, book ii.)
No distinction appears to have been made between the
different varieties of owls. However, a passage bearing
upon this point occurs in Dr. Giles Fletcher's account of
Russia. He reports that in that country they have “an
owle of very great bignesse, more ugly even then the
owles of this countrey, with a broad face, and eares much
like unto a man" (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 417).
Wading Birds.
255
CHAPTER XI.
"The Raile, which seldom comes but upon rich men's spits"-
(DRAYTON, Polyolbion, song xxv.)
this was probably the Water Rail, which is still a
common bird. Sir Thomas Browne, writing
in the seventeenth century, mentions among
Rail.
the land birds of Norfolk, the ralla, or rail, which he
counts a dainty dish; and Leigh, somewhat later, de-
scribing the birds of Lancashire, says :-
"The rale is a bird about the bigness of a partridge and is common
in these parts, it hides it self in the grass, and is discovered by the
snarling noise that it continually makes; it is very excellent food
and doubtless of extraordinary nutriment.” (Nat. Hist. of Lancashire,
p. 126.)
This latter bird is the land-rail or corncrake, whose
familiar cry is heard in corn lands and rich meadows,
in most parts of the country.
Of the various Water Fowl frequenting the Lincoln-
shire fens, Drayton writes:-
"The gossander with them, my goodly fens do show
His head as ebon black, the rest as white as snow,
With whom the widgeon goes, the golden-eye, the smeath,
And in odd scatterd pits, the flags and reeds beneath;
The coot, bald, else clean black, that whiteness it doth bear
Upon her forehead star'd, the water-hen doth wear
Upon her little tail, in one small feather set.
256
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
*
The water-woosell next, all over black as jet,
With various colours, black, green, blue, red, russet, white,
Do yield the gazing eyes as variable delight,
As do those sundry fowls, whose several plumes they be."
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
Leigh (p. 149) tells us that "the water-hen is common
in ponds and meers, but not much regarded, because
esteemed unpleasant food." The last bird on Drayton's
list must not be mistaken for the dipper, or water-ouzel.
This is a small bird allied to the thrush, that frequents
the banks of streams, but is not found in marshy districts.
By the water-woosell, or black bird, the little moor-hen
may be meant.
Of waders, Drayton writes:-
“ And under them again (that water never take,
But by some ditches side, or little shallow lake
Lie dabbling night and day) the pallat-pleasing snite,
The bidcock, and like them the redshank, that delight
Together still to be, in some small reedy bed,
In which these little fowls in summer's time were bred."
Snipe.
Thomas Muffett (Healths Improvement,
p. 96) mentions the Snipe, or Snite—
a kind of wood-snite in Devonshire, greater then the commen snite,
which never comes into shallows nor springs of water: and in Holland
I remember snites never living out of springs, as great almost as our
woodcocks, called heeren-schneffs, because they are in comparison the
lords or chief of snites, or that they are onely fit for lords tables."
The habits of the Woodcock are somewhat eccentric.
These birds may be found in great plenty
Wood cock. one day and the next not one can be seen.
This peculiarity is noticed in an article in the Harleian
Miscellany (vol. ii. p. 583):-
"In woodcocks especially it is remarkable that upon a change of the
wind to the east, about Alhallows-tide, they will seem to have come
Preference for Marsh Birds.
257
I speak of the west of
all in a night; for though the former day none are to be found, yet
the next morning they will be in every bush.
England, where they are most plentiful."
Though not valued now as an article of food, the name
of the Redshank appears in the early lists of
provisions. Sir Thomas Browne says this
Redshank.
bird was plentiful in his day in the marshes, and “of
common food, but no dainty dish." At the end of the
seventeenth century redshanks were reported to be
common in Lancashire, but the depredations committed
on their nests during the breeding season have greatly
diminished their numbers.
"The long neck'd hern, there watching by the brim,
And in a gutter near again to him
The bidling snite, the plover on the moor,
The curlew, scratching in the ouse and ore."
(DRAYTON, The Man in the Moon.)
Our ancestors seem to have been chiefly indebted for
the delicacies of the table to the various species of fowl
supplied by the marshy parts of this island, which were
then of much greater extent than they are to-day. In
the L'Estrange Accounts we find curlews ranking first
in importance. Pheasants and partridges were apparently
less prized, as they were probably more easily procured.
The Rev. R. Lubbock (Fauna of Norfolk) points out that
from the position Norfolk occupies, jutting out as it does
as a refuge from storms for the weary flights of passage
birds, and also from the variety of soil which that
county presents, it must have literally swarmed with
different species of water fowl. He notices also the
curious omission of any account of this district amongst
older writers on natural history. Sir Thomas Browne's
careful list of the birds found there was not written until
the middle of the seventeenth century.
ra
ន
F
258 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Curlew.
Leigh, in his Natural History of Lancashire, 1700,
speaks of two sorts of Curlews, "the curlew
and the curlew-hilp, these are the larger, and
not very unlike the woodcock; they frequent the sea-coasts,
and are very good meat."
Shakspeare has no mention of the curlew, but, as he
was a dweller in a midland county, this omission is easily
explained.
Any peculiarity of bird or animal was sure to lead to
the investment of its possessor with some supernatural
qualities, and the curlew was no exception to this rule.
Sir J. Emerson Tennent remarks that—
"the prayer for protection against 'witches and warlocks, and lang-
nebbed things,' is familiar amongst the peasantry of Scotland, by
whom it has also been implanted in the folk-lore of Ulster. The word
whaap, which is the popular name of the curlew, a bird notorious for
the length of its bill, is also the term used to signify a hobgoblin ;
which, as Jamieson says in his Scottish Dictionary, is believed to have
a long beak, and to haunt the eaves of houses after nightfall. Wright,
in his History of Caricature and Grotesque, has given numerous
examples from the 16th to the 18th century, in which the artists have
always combined a prolonged beak with the other attributes of
demons." (Notes and Queries, 3rd series, vol. vii. p. 334.)
Another correspondent in this periodical, quoting Waring,
mentions a different mode by which the curlew inspired
dread among the benighted peasantry :-
"Mr. William Weston Young describes the nocturnal cry of a
flight of curlews as not unlike the cry of hounds and huntsmen in full
chase. This sound, heard at night, and in desolate places, might well
cause terror. The cwn wybr, dogs of the sky, otherwise called cwn
annwn, dogs of hell, are imaginary spirits of the same family as the
diabolical sky hunts of German demonology." (Page 404.)
"The whistler shrill that whoso hears doth die,"
referred to by Spenser, may be either the curlew, or the
green or golden plover, whose shrill cry sounds more like
a human note than that of a bird, and may well startle
the belated traveller.
1
Oxen and Kine:
259
In the early works on diet and housekeeping, a bird
called a brew, or brewe, frequently appears,
generally in close proximity to the curlew.
Whimbrel.
The word Brew has by some writers been explained to
mean the Whimbrel, a bird sometimes called, from its
resemblance to the last-named species, the Half-curlew or
Jack-curlew.
According to Mr. Stevenson (Birds of Norfolk), the
word spowe, which frequently occurs in the early lists
of birds for the table, was also a name given to the
whimbrel. In the L'Estrange Accounts spowes are
nearly always mentioned in connexion with other shore
birds, such as knots, ring-dotterels, and redshanks. By
Bishop Stanley the word spowe is considered to mean
sparrow.
*
The name given to the whimbrel in the Shetland
Islands is the tang-whaap, or small curlew.
Ruff and
Reeve.
The Ruff and Reeve were sometimes called Oxen and
Kine. The male is during the spring months
adorned with a handsome ruff of feathers
round its neck, which it can erect or depress at pleasure.
Sir Thomas Browne notices another peculiarity of this
bird, which is that no two specimens are taken exactly
similar in colour:-
CC
Ruffe, a marsh bird of the greatest variety of colour; every one
therein somewhat varying from other. The female is called a reeve,
without any ruff about the neck, lesser than the other, and hardly to
be got. They abound mostly in Marshland." (Vol. iv. p. 319.)
The Knot, Gnat-snap, or Canute's bird, was esteemed a
great delicacy. It was found in large numbers
at the mouth of tidal rivers. Sir Thomas
Browne writes:-
Knot.
The gnat, or knot, a small bird, which, taken with nets,
grow excessively fat, being mewed and fed with corn. A candle
See page 201.
260
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
lighted in the room, they feed night and day, and when they are at
their height of fatness they begin to grow lame, and are then killed, as
at their prime and apt to decline." (Vol. iv. p. 140).
The knot is mentioned by Drayton :-
"The knot, that called was Canutus' bird of old,
Of that great king of Danes, his name that still doth hold,
His appetite to please, that far and near was sought,
For him, as some have said, from Denmark hither brought."
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
Du Bartas (p. 45) speaks of—
"The little gnat-snap, worthy princes' boords."
And his commentator adds, "This is the fig-pecker, which
the Latines call ficedula, and scalis, very delicious
(Learned Summary on Du Bartas, p. 235).
Godwit.
"The puet, Godwit, stint, the palate that allure
The miser, and do make the wasteful epicure."
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
Sir Thomas Browne accounts the godwit the daintiest
bird taken in England, and, for its size, the
biggest price. According to this author the
stint was found plentifully in Marshland, in Norfolk; also
the shurr, or purre, a bird "somewhat larger than stints,
and taken among them. The purre, or perr, was
another name for the dunlin, the commonest of the shore-
frequenting sandpipers.
In the palmy days of water-loving birds, and those
species that delighted in heathy open country,
Plover.
Plovers must have been found in great abun-
dance. Drayton tells us that in the marshy lands about.
Axholme, in Lincolnshire, plovers were plentiful:
"For neare this batning isle in me is to be seen
More than on any earth, the plover, gray, and green."
(Polyolbion, song XXV.)
A Delicacy.
261
Spenser introduces this bird as denoting loneliness and
desolation :—
"Where my high steeples whilom used to stand,
On which the lordly falcon wont to towre,
There now is but a heap of lyme and sand
For the scriche-owle to build her baleful bowre:
And where the nightingale wont forth to powre
Her restless plaints to comfort wakeful lovers,
There now haunt yelling mewes and whining plovers."
(The Ruines of Time, 1. 127.)
Harrison mentions "plovers of both sorts, lapwings and
pewets;" but Skelton classes these last two varieties to-
gether"
"with puwytt the lapwing." Sir Thomas Browne
distinguishes between the plover and the lapwing or
vanellus; the former, he says, are plentiful in Norfolk,
both the green and grey varieties, but "they do not breed
in that county but in some parts of Scotland and plen-
tifully in Iceland." Mr. Stevenson (Birds of Norfolk,
vol. ii. p. 70) considers that by Iceland Ireland is here
intended, but gives no reason for this supposition.
The ringed plover, mentioned by Sir Thomas Browne
under the name of ringlestone, was
66 common about
Yarmouth sands, laying its eggs, about June, in the sand
and shingle" (vol. iv. p. 319). The name Sea-dotterel was
also applied to this plover, and occurs in two instances in
the Hunstanton Accounts. The white plover which is
also mentioned in these Accounts was probably the grey
plover in its winter plumage.
The proverb quoted by Muffett, in his Healths
Improvement, as applied to a discontented person, “ A gray
plover cannot please him," shows that this bird was held
in high estimation as an article of food.
"There is also," writes Sir Thomas Browne, "a handsome, tall
bird, remarkable eyed, and with a bill not above two inches long,
commonly called a stone curlew, breeds about Thetford, about the
stone and shingle of the rivers."
262 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Other names for this bird are the Norfolk plover or thick-
kneed bustard.
The green plover, lapwing, tyrwhit, or peewit is often
referred to, chiefly on account of its peculiar appearance,
monotonous wail, and from its habit of attempting to
divert the attention of passers-by from its nest by plain-
tive cries. Mr. Harting has given several quotations
illustrating this peculiarity, to which may be added an
extract from Chester:
"The lapwing hath a piteous mournefull cry,
And sings a sorrowfull and heavy song,
But yet shee's full of craft and subtility,
And weepeth most being farthest from her yong:
In elder age she serv'd for soothsayers,
And was a prophetesse to the augurers.”
(Love's Martyr, p. 119.)
Olaus Magnus writes an account of this plover, to
which he also gives the name of the whonp:-
<<
Lapwings, when at a set-time they come to the northern countries
from other parts, they fore-shew the nearnesse of the spring coming on..
It is a bird that is full of crying and lamenting to preserve her eggs, or
young. By importunate crying she shews that foxes lye hid in the
grasse; and so she cries out in all places, to drive away dogs, and other
beasts. Made tame, she will cleanse a house of flyes, and catch mice-
She foreshows rain when she cries." (Page 205.)
As a delicacy for the table, the peewit seems to have
been highly prized, and its name often occurs in the
household accounts of this period.
The note of every variety of plover is a shrill, human-
like whistle. In his English Folk-lore, 1878 (p. 95), Mr.
Dyer informs us that-
"there is a Lancashire superstition which identifies the plover with the
transmuted soul of a Jew. When seven of them are seen together,
they are called the 'seven whistlers,' and their sound, it is said, foretells
misfortune to those who hear it. A correspondent of Notes and Queries
thus alludes to this odd piece of superstition: One evening a few years
An Imitative Bird.
263
ago, when crossing one of our Lancashire moors, in company with an
intelligent old man, we were suddenly startled by the whistling over-
head of a covey of plovers. My companion remarked that, when a boy,
the old people considered such a circumstance a bad omen,
person who heard the wandering Jews," as he called the plovers, "was
sure to be overtaken with some ill-luck.”””
as the
Closely allied to the plover is "the Dotterell, that
foolish peck" (Skelton, Boke of Philip Dotterel.
Sparow):-
"which being a kind of bird as it were of an apish kind, ready to
imitate what they see done, are caught according to foulers ges-
ture: if he put forth an arme, they also stretch out a wing: sets he
forward his legge, or holdeth up his head, they likewise doe theirs; in
briefe, whatever the fouler doth, the same also doth this foolish bird
untill it be hidden within the net." (Camden, on Lincolnshire.)
There is a passage in Drayton's Polyolbion, so similar
to the above as to suggest plagiarism on the part of one
author:-
"The dotterel, which we think a very dainty dish,
Whose taking makes such sport, as man no more can wish;
For as you creep, or cowr, or lie, or stoop, or go,
So marking you with care the apish bird doth go,
And acting everything, doth never mark the net,
Till he be in the snare, which men for him have set.”
Ben Jonson writes:-
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
"Bid him put off his hopes of straw, and leave
To spread his nets in view thus. Though they take
Master Fitzdottrel, I am no such foul,
Nor, fair one, tell him, will be had with stalking."
(The Devil is an Ass, ii. 1.)
The Oyster-catcher, or Sea-pye, was apparently an
abundant species. Leigh, in his Natural
History of Lancashire, writes: "The sea-
Oyster-
catcher.
pyes are very common, they are birds of the colour and
about the size of a magpie, and are a very agreeable
food" (p. 163). That this was the prevailing opinion is
264 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
evident from sea-pyes being included in the bill of fare
on state occasions. An entry occurs in the Northumber-
land Household Book, "Item, see-pyes for my lorde at
princypall feastes and none other tyme."
Mr. Stevenson considers the name oyster-catcher a
misnomer for this bird, as it chiefly lives on limpets,
mussels, and whelks, which it strikes off the rock with its
"blunt-pointed, flat-sided beak, hammer and chisel in one"
(Birds of Norfolk, 1866, vol. ii. p. 124). William Browne
gives a quaint description of the mode in which a shore
bird obtains its prey. He does not mention any name,
but his description can hardly apply to any other species
than the oyster-catcher :-
"On the sand she spyes,
A busie bird, that to and fro still flyes,
Till pitching where a hatefull oyster lay,
Opening his close jawes, closer none than they
Unlesse the griping fist, or cherry lips
Of happy lovers in their melting sips.
Since the decreasing waves had left him there,
He gapes for thirst, yet meetes with nought but ayre,
And that so hote, ere the returning tyde
He in his shell is likely to be fride;
The wary bird, a prittie pibble takes,
And claps it 'twixt the two pearle-hiding flakes
Of the broad-yawning oyster, and she then
Securely pickes the fish out, as some men
A tricke of policie thrust 'tweene two friends,
Sever their powres, and his intention ends."
(Britannia's Pastorals, book ii. song iii.)
"The big-bon'd Bustard then, whose body bears that size,
That he against the wind must run, e'er he can rise"
(DRAYTON, Polyolbion, song xxv.),
Bustard.
must have been the most conspicuous inhabitant of corn
and pasture lands. As late as Sir Thomas
Browne's time (1660), it was “not unfrequent
in the champian and fieldy part of the country."
The large dimensions of the bustard, its habit of
The Bustard.
265
making a nest in young corn, and the small number
of the eggs, the hen only laying two at a time, all contri-
buted to its extinction. Its protection lay chiefly in the
choice which it made for its abode of open country. As
long as the crossbow was the principal weapon of the
sportsman, the wide expanse of country over which this
bird could look must have enabled it to see and escape
danger; but the practice of making small plantations at
intervals as screens against the force of the wind, which
was adopted for many years in Norfolk, afforded oppor-
tunities for approach by the hunter, which no amount of
watchfulness on the part of the unfortunate bird could
contend against. Mr. Stevenson, in his Birds of Norfolk
(1866), has an interesting chapter on the bustard, and the
gradual process of its extermination.
Shakspeare has no mention of this bird. Coming from
a part of the country so well wooded as Warwickshire, he
probably had no opportunity of seeing it in his early days.
Thomas Muffett tells us that bustards were called by
the Scots gusestards, that is to say, "slow geese; "that they
fed upon flesh and young lambs out of sowing time, and in
harvest time on the ripe corn. He says he has seen as
many as six lying in a wheat-field in the summer
(Healths Improvement, p. 91, ed. 1655).
The Crane, now only an occasional visitor to our coasts,
was once indigenous, frequenting the fens of
Lancashire and Cambridgeshire in large
Crane.
flocks. Drayton, describing the marshes of the former
county, writes:--
"There stalks the stately crane, as though he merch'd in war."
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
By an Act of Parliament (25 Henry VIII., 1533), a fine of
twenty pence was imposed on every person who should
"withdraw, purloin, take, destroy, or convey," any egg of
this species.
266
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
In Sir Thomas Browne's time, cranes seem to have
grown scarce. He says:
"Cranes are often seen here in hard winters, especially about the
champian and fieldy parts, but it seems they have been more plentiful,
for in a bill of fare, when the mayor entertained the Duke of Norfolk
I meet with cranes in a dish." (Vol. iv. p. 314.)
The crane was a customary dish at great entertainments
in the reign of Henry VIII., though it is not improbable
that cranes were often confounded in the records with
herons.
The crowned African crane was first brought into
Europe by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. It
is a native of Africa, particularly of the coast of Guinea,
the Gold Coast, and as far as Cape Verd.
Marco Polo, one of the earliest travellers, whose works
were much read in the Middle Ages, writing of Tartary
at the close of the thirteenth century, describes some birds
of gorgeous hues, that he calls cranes:-
"The first sort are entirely black as crows, and have long wings.
The second sort have wings still longer than the first, but are white and
the feathers of the wings are full of eyes, round like those of the
peacock, but of a gold colour and very bright; the head is red and black
and well-formed, the neck is black and white, and the general appear-
ance of the bird is extremely handsome. The third sort are of the size
of ours in Italy, the fourth are small cranes, having the feathers prettily
streaked with red and azure. The fifth are of a grey colour, with the
head red and black, and are of a large size." (Travels, p. 248, ed.
Marsden.)
The Portuguese Friar, whose travels in Africa in 1586
are recorded in Purchas's Collection, probably describes
the crowned crane in the following passage:-
They have one kinde of fowles, called curvanes, as bigge as cranes,
but more beautiful, the back like black sattin, exceeding white on the
belly and breast: the neck two spannes and a halfe long, covered with
fine white feathers like silke, which are excellent for plumes: upon the
head it hath a cap of black feathers, very faire (as our gold finches
have red), and in the midst thereof a crest or plume almost a span long,
Flight of Cranes.
267
of white, fine, straight feathers, equall on the top, and there spreading
themselves into a round forme, like a very white mushroom with a white
stalke, and resembling a sombrero de sol (or Indian canopie) to keepe off
the sunne.
The Cafars call this the king of birds, because their kings
have such a sombreiro, and for the greatnesse and beauty of them."
(Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1545.)
There was a notion, derived from antiquity, that cranes
during their migrations carried stones in their beaks to
keep them quiet. According to Pliny, the stone acted as
ballast and maintained the steadiness of their flight.
Lyly alludes to this notion: "Having alwayes the stone
in their mouths which the cranes use when they flye
over mountaines least they make a noise (Euphues,
p. 416).
99
Du Bartas gives a description of the passage of a herd
of cranes, more remarkable for its minuteness than for its
poetry:-
"I hear the crane, if I mistake not, cry
Who in the clouds forming the forked Y,
By the brave orders practiz'd under her,
Instructeth souldiers in the art of war.
For when her troops of wandring cranes forsake
Frost-firmed Strymon, and (in autumn) take
Truce with the northern dwarfs, to seek adventure
In southern climates for a milder winter;
A front each band a forward captain flies,
Whose pointed bill cuts passage through the skies ;
Two skilful sergeants keep the ranks aright,
And with their voyce hasten their tardy flight;
And when the honey of care-charming sleep
Sweetly begins through all their veines to creep
One keeps the watch, and ever carefull-most,
Walks many a round about the sleeping hoast,
Still holding in his claw a stony clod,
Whose fall may wake him if he hap to nod.
Another doth as much, a third, a fourth,
Untill, by turns the night be turned forth."
Shakspeare has no mention of the crane.
(Page 46.)
268
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
?
Heron.
Mr. Harting gives a long and animated description,
from Freeman and Salvin's work on falconry,
of the sport of Heron-hawking. It is some-
what curious that Shakspeare, notwithstanding his evident
love of hawking, and his intimate knowledge of the terms
employed in this sport, should not once make mention of
the heron by name, except in the disputed "handsaw "
passage.
"
Bearing somewhat the same relation to the recreation
of the nobles of the Tudor period as the fox does to the
hunting squires of our own times, "the heron so gaunt
was of course carefully preserved, and with about the same
amount of consideration for its personal feelings. A law
was passed forbidding the capture of herons except by
means of hawking, or with the long bow.
There is much variety in the spelling of the name of
this bird-harnsey, heronsewe, hornseu, hernshaw, hern,
and heyronsewe, all being met with.
The heron was esteemed a great delicacy, and stood at
the head of the game course at every state banquet.
The price of an egret, or dwarf heron, in the time of
Edward I., was eighteen pence, the very highest as-
sessed price of water fowl in those days.
In the accounts of the great feasts of the Tudor period
the word egret or egritte sometimes appears, and in the
time of Henry IV. it is said that a thousand egrets were
served up at a single entertainment. It has been sug-
gested that lapwings were here intended, this name being
given to them from the aigrette, or tuft of feathers
forming the crest, which this bird possesses. This is
possible as far as this particular entry is considered, but
in John Russell's Boke of Nurture, 1450, among the
instructions as to how various dishes are served and
seasoned, we find:-
"Sauce gamelyn to heyron-sewe, egret, crane and plover,
Also brewe, curlew, sugre and salt, with watere of the ryvere,
Gamelyn Sauce.
Also for bustard, betowre and shovelere, gamelyn is in sesoun;
Wodcok, lapewynk, mertenet, larke and venysoun,
Sparows, thrusches, all these seven with salt and synamon.”
(Babees Book, p. 36, ed. Furnivall, 1868.)
269
Gamelyn, or cameline, we are told, was a dainty Italian
sauce, composed of nuts, bread-crumbs, ginger, cinnamon.
and vinegar. From the egret being placed between heron
and crane a large bird is evidently meant, and as mention
of plover and lapwing occurs later on, the name cannot be
used in mistake for the name of one of these. In a work
on carving the different joints, printed by Wynkyn de
Worde, 1413, the egret has its place after the heron and
bittern.
Muffett, in his Healths Improvement, p. 93, speaks of
four kinds of herons or heronshaws-the black, white, criel-
heronshaw, and the mire-dromble. Sir John Hawkins, in
his account of the fowls frequenting the waters of Florida,
mentions-
“an egript, which is 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."
(Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 616.)
Ben Jonson gives the heron as an attendant upon the
goddess of wisdom, on the authority of Homer :-
'Minerva's hernshaw, and her owl,
Do both proclaim thou shalt control
The course of things."
(The Masque of Augurs.)
Vows were often made on the heron, as well as upon
the peacock, swan, and pheasant.
Another favourite quarry in hawking was the Bitter,
Bittour, Betowre, or Bittern, then abundant,
but now only occasionally seen. Sir Thomas
Bittern.
Browne states that it was common in his time. It was
esteemed a choicer dish than the heron. The booming
270
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
cry which the bittern gives out was imagined to be due to
the bird burying its beak in the mud, or inserting it in a
hollow reed; but modern observers have borne witness to
the fact that the bittern, when it utters its note, raises its
bill perpendicularly.
Drayton describes how-
"The buzzing bitter sits, which through his hollow bill
A sudden bellowing sends, which many times doth fill
The neighbouring marsh with noise, as though a bull did roar.
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
Shoveler.
"The Shovelar with his brode beck."
(SKELTON, Philip Sparow.)
""
"The shouler, which so shakes the air with saily wings,
That ever as he flies, you still would think he sings."
(DRAYTON, Polyolbion, song xxv.)
The word shovellewre, or shovelar, has been interpreted
by some authors as designating a variety of duck, and by
others as denoting the white spoonbill, a bird now only
an occasional visitor to our shores. Sir Thomas Browne,
in his account of the birds of Norfolk, mentions-
"the platea, or shovelard, which build upon the tops of high trees.
They formerly built in the hernery at Clayton and Reedham, now at
Trimley, in Suffolk. They come in March, and are shot by fowlers,
not for their meat, but for the handsomeness of the same; remarkable
in their white colour, copped crown, and spoon or spatule-like bill.”
(Vol. iv.)
Olaus Magnus, in his work on Norway and Sweden
(p. 200), writes:-
"There is a bird called a shevelar that is in the Northern waters,
that is a cruel enemy to birds that dive in the sea to catch fish:
wherefore she lyes in wait for them thus: she flyes upon them, and
bites their heads, and rends them till she hath got the prey for herself;
and they, thus tormented, soon let it go."
As he does not describe the bird, it is impossible to
identify the species. The work was originally written in
A Crowded Aviary.
271
Latin, and the name here given to it may have been
invented by the translator.
The name of the shovelard, variously spelt, appears
frequently in the lists of birds served up at banquets. It
has often been observed that our ancestors seem to have
eaten with relish many birds that in our time would be
considered as tough and worthless. It may be that their
outdoor life gave an edge to their teeth as well as to
their appetite. In Wynkyn de Worde's Boke of Kervynge,
1413, the following instructions are given :-"Pecocke,
storke, bustarde, and shovyllarde, unlace them as a
crane, and let the feet be on styll" (Babees Book, p. 159,
ed. Furnivall, 1868).
Robert Laneham, writing of the preparations made
for the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth,
describes with some exactness a couple of aviaries, which,
if they held all the varieties named, must have been
rather crowded.
CC
He says:
Upon the first pair of posts [of the bridge] were set two comely
square wire cages, three feet long and two feet wide, and high in them
live bitterns, curlews, shovelers, hernshaws, godwits, and such like
dainty birds of the presents of Sylvanus the god of fowl.”
The White Stork, never at any time a resident in this
country, was an occasional visitant, and was
probably driven to our shores by stress of
Stork.
weather. From the earliest times the stork has been
regarded with respect as the emblem of temperance,
fidelity, and filial affection. The ancient Egyptians
reverenced the stork on account of the great services
it performed in acting as scavenger, and among the
Hebrews also it received respect. Drayton writes:—
"The careful stork, since Adam wondered at
For thankfulness to those where he doth breed,
That his ag'd parents naturally doth feed,
In filial duty as instructing man."
(Noah's Flood.)
ག
3
272 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
འ་ལན་ལ
The Dutch held the belief that the stork, in leaving a
house where she had been encouraged to build, left one
of her young ones behind for the owner.
If this were
the case, the mother made but a poor return for her
offspring's affection. The kindness with which the bird
is treated in Holland is repaid by confidence and fami-
liarity—a pair of birds returning year after year to the
same nest.
Spenser makes the curious mistake of giving the
stork a voice :-
"Let not the skriech-owle nor the storke be heard,
Nor the night-raven, that still deadly yells."
(Epithalamion, 1. 435.)
The only sound it utters is the sharp snap of its beak, a
noise not unlike the rattle of a pair of castanets.
:
Wild Geese.
273
CHAPTER XII.
Goose.
WILD Geese were very abundant in several counties,
and, according to Camden, were the source
of much profit to the native population. In
his description of the country near Haddington, in Scot-
land, Camden exclaims :—
"What a multitude of sea foules, and especially of those geese
which they call scoutes and soland geese flocke hither at their times,
for, by report, their number is such, that in a cleere day they take
away the sunnes light; what a sort of fishes they bring, for, as the
speech goeth, a hundred garison souldiours that here lay for the
defense of the place féd upon no other meat but the fresh fish that
they brought in; what a quantity of little twigges they get together
for the building of their nests, so that by their means the inhabitants
are abundantly provided of fewell for their fire; what a mighty gaine
groweth by their fethers and oyle: the report thereof is so incredible,
that no man scarcely would beleeve it, but he that had seene it."
The same authority relates the strange effect which
certain portions of ground had on these birds, more
especially in the neighbourhood of the Abbey of St.
Hilda, near Whitby, in Yorkshire. To the influence of
the abbess, he writes-
66
they ascribe, that those wilde geese, which in wintertime flie by
flockes unto pooles and rivers that are not frozen over, in the south
partes; whiles they flie over certaine fields neere adjoyning, soudainely
fall downe to the ground, to the exceeding great admiration of all men:
a thing that I would not have related, had I not heard it from very
T
274
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
many persons of right good credit. But such as are not given to
superstitious credulity, attribute this unto a secret property of the
ground, and to a hidden dissent betweene this soile and those geese,
such as is betweene wolves and squilla root."
Drayton gives a similar report, in verse, as to the
multitude of geese which frequented the fens of Lincoln-
shire :-
"And with my wondrous flocks of wildgeese come I then,
Which look as though alone they peopled all the fen,
Which here in winter time, when all is overflow'd
And want of solid sward inforceth them abroad,
Th' abundance then is seen, that my full fens do yield,
That almost through the isle, do pester every field.
The barnacles with them, which wheresoe'er they breed,
On trees, or rotten ships, yet to my fens for feed
Continually they come, and chief abode do make,
And very hardly forc'd my plenty to forsake."
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
John Taylor, "the Water Poet," in his Penniless
Pilgrimage, or account of a tour through Scotland, makes
mention of the Solan goose, a variety which still breeds
in great numbers on the Bass Rock, in the Frith of
Forth:
"It is very good flesh, but it is eaten in the form as we eat oysters,
standing at a sideboard, a little before dinner, unsanctified without
grace; and after it is eaten, it must be well liquored with two or three
good rouses of sherry or canary sack. The lord or owner of the Bass
Rock doth profit at the least two hundred pounds yearly by those
geese; the Bass itself being of a great height and near three quarters
of a mile in compass, all fully replenished with wild fowl, having but
one small entrance into it, with a house, a garden, and a chapel
in it; and on the top of it a well of pure water." (Works, p. 60,
ed. Hindley, 1872.)
The tame goose was considered to act as a guard
against thieves, being a light sleeper and very clamorous
if disturbed.
The origin of the custom of having goose for dinner
1
The Barnacle Goose.
275
on Michaelmas Day is still involved in obscurity, not-
withstanding much learned discussion on the subject. It
certainly dates as far back in English history as the reign
of Edward IV. The tradition which assigns the choice of
this dish on the 29th of September to the delight of
Queen Elizabeth on hearing the news of the destruction
of the Spanish Armada is still pertinaciously believed,
despite the well-known fact that the date of the victory
was the 21st of July. It is more likely that the habit of
eating goose on Michaelmas Day arose from the fact that
the 29th of September was a great festival. Geese were
then plentiful and in full season, and would therefore be
chosen as the chief article of diet.
Barnacle.
Mr. Harting has referred at some length to the strange
notion, so often alluded to by writers of this
period, that the Barnacle Goose was produced,
according to some authors, from trees, according to others
from rotten wood. Camden, it would appear, was too
enlightened to adopt either of these theories, though he
was not quite prepared with a satisfactory solution of the
curious resemblance between the bird and the marine
production. In his work on Britain he writes :—
"C
Concerning these claike geese, which some with much admira-
tion have believed to grow out of trees, both upon this shore and else
where, and when they be ripe to fall downe into the sea, it is scarce
worth the labour to mention them. That there be little birds engen-
dered of old and rotten keeles of ships, they can beare witnesse who saw
that ship wherein Francis Drake sailed about the world, standing in a
docke neere the Tavish, to the outside of the keele whereof a number of
such little birds without life and fethers sticke close. Yet would I
gladly thinke that the generation of these birds was not out of those
logges of wood; but from the very ocean, which the poets termed the
father of all things."
The barnacle or brent goose was often seen in great
numbers in the north of England and Scotland, but its
breeding-place was unknown. Gerat de Veer, in the
description of a voyage to Cathay and China, 1596, takes
276
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
credit to himself for giving the first account of its haunts.
Speaking of the barnacles, he writes:-
"Those geese were of a perfit red colour, such as come into Holland
about Weiringen, and every yeere are there taken in abundance, but till
this time it was never knowne where they hatcht their egges, so that
some men have taken upon them to write, that they sit upon trees in
Scotland that hang over the water, and such egges as fall from them
downe into the water become young geese, and swim there out of the
water; but those that fall upon the land burst asunder and are lost :
but this is now found to be contrary, and it is not to be wondered at,
that no man could tell where they breed their egges, for that no man
that ever wee knew, had ever beene under 80 degrees: nor that land
under 80 degrees was never set downe in any card, much lesse the
red geese that breed therein." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 484.)
The pains that Harrison took to fathom the great
barnacle mystery entitles him to be quoted, at the
risk of exhausting the reader's patience. He writes,
in his description of England prefixed to Holinshed's
Chronicles :—
"For my part I have been verie desirous to understand the utter-
most of the breeding of barnacles, and questioned with divers persons
about the same. I have read also whatsoever is written by forren
authors touching the generation of that foule, and sought out some
places where I have beene assured to see great numbers of them: but
in vaine. Wherefore I utterlie despaired to obteine my purpose, till
this present yeare of grace 1584, and moneth of Maie, wherein going
to the Court at Greenewich from London by bote, I saw sundrie
ships lieng in the Thames newlie come home, either from Barbarie or
the Canarie Iles (for I doo not well remember now from which of these
places) on whose sides I perceived an infinit sort of shells to hang so
thicke as could be one by another. Drawing neere also, I tooke off ten
or twelve of the greatest of them, and afterward having opened them, I
saw the proportion of a foule in one of them more perfectlie than in all
the rest, saving that the head was not yet formed, bicause the fresh
water had killed them all (as I take it) and thereby hindered their
perfection. Certeinlie the feathers of the taile hoong out of the shell at
least two inches, the wings almost perfect touching forme were garded
with two shels or sheeldes proportioned like the selfe wings, and like-
wise the brestbone had hir coverture also of like shellie substance, and.
altogither resembling the figure which Lobell and Pena doo give foorth
Metamorphosis of the Barnacle.
277
in their description of this foule: so that I am now fullie persuaded
that it is either the barnacle that is ingendred after one maner in these
shels, or some other sea-foule to us as yet unknowen. For by the
feathers appearing and forme so apparent, it cannot be denied, but that
some bird or other must proceed of this substance, which by falling
from the sides of the ships in long voiages, may come to some perfection."
(Holinshed, vol. i. p. 67.)
Du Bartas puts into verse the theory of the various
transformations of this bird :—
"So, slowe Boôtes underneath him sees,
In th' ycie iles, those goslings hatcht of trees;
Whose fruitfull leaves, falling into the water,
Are turn'd (they say) to living fowls soon after.
So, rotten sides of broken ships do change
To barnacles; O transformation strange!
"Twas first a green tree, then a gallant hull,
Lately a mushroom, now a flying gull.”
(Page 58.)
Before we find fault with our ancestors for their
credulity in regard to matters now clearly understood by
us, it will be well to consider if we ourselves are not daily
making mistakes almost as ridiculous, mistakes which
the enlightenment of after ages will have to correct.
Mr. Harting inquires, "When men of education are so
credulous, how can we wonder at the superstitions of the
illiterate?" Surely the resemblance of a barnacle to a
young bird was strong enough to justify the idea, in the
absence of any other suggestion, that there was some
connexion between them. Nor must we forget that only
within quite recent times have our men of science made
the discovery that the infant cirripedia are very different
in appearance from their parents. Instead of being
affixed to rocks or ships, they possess and use organs for
locomotion, and move rapidly through the water.
strange similarity caused our ancestors to confuse the
barnacle with the bird; a curious difference has till
recently prevented our contemporaries from recognizing
A
.
278 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
the relationship between the barnacle and its young. One
error is hardly worse than the other.
Booby.
An early mention of the Booby, a bird closely allied
to the Gannet or Solan goose, occurs in Sir
Thomas Herbert's Travels, 1626 (p. 9). The
author, who was at that time cruising off the south coast
of Africa, mentions that some boobies perched upon the
yardarm of his ship, and suffered his men to capture
them. He adds that the simplicity of this bird has
become a proverb, and this statement proves that the
booby was known to previous travellers.
There was a strong tendency among early writers to
give a generic name to all animals of a somewhat similar
nature. Thus many large-horned beasts were called
oxen, and many small close-furred animals, mice. The
ichneumon was Pharaoh's mouse; the beaver was the
Pontic dog; the ostrich was called by classical writers the
Libyan sparrow. In the following passage from Oviedo's
account of the West Indies, the name sparrow is given to
a bird which was in all probability the booby :-
"There are other fowles called passere sempie—that is, simple
sparrowes: these are somewhat lesse then seamewes, and have their
feet like unto great malards, and stand in the water sometimes, and
when the ships saile fiftie or a hundred leagues about the ilands, these
fowles beholding the ships coming toward them, breake their flight and
fall down upon the saile yards, masts, and cables thereof, and are so
simple and foolish, that they tarrie untill they may easily bee taken
with mens hands, and were therefore called simple sparrows: they are
blacke, and have upon their head and shoulders feathers of a darke
russet colour, they are not good to bee eaten, although the mariners
have sometimes been forced to eate them." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 980.)
Swans were, from all accounts, most abundant at this
period. Paul Hentzner, in his account of a
journey to England in 1598, writes of the
Swan.
Thames:
1
1
"This river abounds in swans swimming in flocks, the sight of
Swan-hopping.
279
them and their noise is vastly agreeable to the fleets that meet them
in their course." (Dodsley's Fugitive Pieces, vol. ii. p. 244.)
The swan was called a royal bird, and any stray swan
was appropriated by the sovereign wherever it might be
found, unless its owner could establish a prior claim by
means of certain marks. The frequent enforcement of
the royal prerogative gave rise to a system of marking all
swans on the beak. The ceremony of "upping," or taking
up the swans once a year for the purpose of marking them,
was conducted according to the strictest regulations. The
various marks assigned to the owners of swans in the
different rivers or waters were duly registered in a roll, or
standard book. The chief inspector or master was called
the gamester, and seems to have had a somewhat onerous
post. The penalty for stealing a swan's egg from the
nest was imprisonment for a year and a day, with a fine at
the will of the king.
The cock bird was called the cobbe, and the hen the
penne. A full account of the customs connected with
swan-marking, or, as it is now called, "swan-hopping," is
given in Yarrell's British Birds, 1837 (vol. iii.).
The Dyers' and Vintners' Companies of the City of
London obtained the consent of the Crown to keep swans
on the Thames at any part of the river between London
and Windsor.
The wild swan was not uncommon in England at this
time, though probably only as a visitor.
a visitor.
describing the Lincolnshire fens, writes:-
Drayton,
"But wherefore should I stand upon such toys as these,
That have so goodly fowls, the wandering eye to please?
Here in my vaster pools, as white as snow or milk,
In water black as Stix, swims the wild swan, the ilke,
Of Hollanders so termed, no niggard of his breath
(As poets say of swans who only sing in death),
But as other birds, is heard his tunes to roat,
Which like a trumpet comes, from his long arched throat."
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
280
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
!
Sir Thomas Browne also mentions the "elk, a kind of
wild swan," as plentiful in Norfolk in his time.
Aldrovandus, who wrote about the year 1580, was the
first to observe the singular bendings of the windpipe in
the wild swan. He was, however, not aware of the differ-
ence between the wild and the tame varieties of swan,
and regarded this structure as a confirmation of the old
opinion that the swan possessed a melodious voice, with
which, on the approach of death, it sounded its own
funeral dirge. This fabulous power of singing before
death, so often noticed by poets, has been dwelt on at
some length by Mr. Harting. He says (Ornithology, p.
202)," Although the swan has no song, properly so called,
it has a soft and rather plaintive note, monotonous, but
not disagreeable."
Allusions are sometimes made to a black variety.
"Hee is gone to seeke a hayre in a hennes nest, a needle
in a bottle of haye, which is as sildome seene as a
blacke swan" (The Two Angrie Women of Abington). “It
is as rare to see a rich surety, as a black swan" (Lyly,
Euphues, p. 229). Little did these writers imagine that
this proverbial rarity would one day be found in as
great abundance as the common wild swan upon the
lakes of Europe. "Such," writes Mr. Bennett, "has
been one of the many results of the discovery of the
continent of New Holland" (Gardens of the Zoological
Society).
Wild Ducks, or Mallards, were so common that no
description of them is met with. They
Duck. were evidently, as one author expresses it,
"ordained for the purpose" of hawking. Of Lincolnshire,
Drayton writes:-
66
My various fleets for fowl, O who is he can tell
The species that in me for multitudes excel?
The duck and mallard first, the falconer's only sport,
Of river-flights the chief, so that all other sort,
The Sheldrake.
They only green-fowl term, in every mere abound,
That you would think they sate upon the very ground,
Their numbers being so great, the waters covering quite,
That rais'd, the spacious air is darken'd with their flight;
Yet still the dangerous dykes, from shot do them secure,
Where they from flash to flash, like the full epicure
Waft, as they love to change their diet every meal.
And near to them you see the lesser dibbling teale
In bunches, with the first that fly from mere to mere,
As they above the rest were lords of earth and air.”
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
281
The Teal does not appear to have been valued as
an article of food. In the regulations of
the Northumberland Household Book, 1512,
Teal.
teals are ordered to be brought only when no other
wild fowl can be procured.
Sheldrake.
The Sheldrake, or Shieldrake, included by Harrison in
his list of English birds, was common in many
parts of England. This handsome bird was
called also the Burrow Duck, from its habit of breeding
in rabbit burrows, in sandy soil in the neighbourhood of
the sea.
Sir Thomas Browne speaks of the "Bargander,
a noble-coloured fowl, which herd in coney-burrows."
This name, suggests Mr. Wilkins, may be a corruption of
burrow-gander or burrow-duck. Drayton writes:-
"The greedy sea-maw, fishing for the fry;
The hungry shell-fowl, from whose rape doth fly
Th' unnumber'd sholes; the mallard there did feed;
The teale and morecoot raking in the weed."
(The Man in the Moon.)
The Loon is described by Sir Thomas
Browne, as-
Loon.
a handsome and specious fowl, cristated, and with divided fin feet
placed very backward, and after the manner of all such which the
Dutch call arsvoote. They come about April, and breed in the broad
waters; so making their nest on the water, that their eggs are seldom
dry while they are set on." (Vol. iv. p. 314.)
Ja
282 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
!
The great crested grebe is probably here meant by the
loon. When Macbeth exclaims to the terrified soldier-
"The Devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
39
(Act v. 3, 11),
ne probably used the word as a synonym for a coward,
but the epithet" cream-faced" was well chosen, as the white
cheeks of the grebe form a noticeable contrast to the
darker portions of its head.
It is probable that the larger kinds of birds frequent-
ing the rocks of the sea-coast were vaguely
Gull. classed as Gulls without any attempt to
discriminate between the different varieties. The word
gull was frequently employed to denote a dupe or a
simpleton, and Sir John Davis well defines the meaning
of the name as used by old writers in its metaphorical
sense:-
'Oft in my laughing rimes I name a gull,
But this new terme will many questions breede,
Therefore at first I will express at full
Who is a true and perfect gull indeede :
A gull is he which fears a velvet gowne,
And when a wench is brave, dares not speak to her:
A gull is he which traverses the towne,
And is for marriage known a common wooer.
A gull is he which while he proudly weares
A silver hilted rapier by his side,
Indures the lyes, and knocks about the eares,
While in his sheath his sleeping sword doth bide:
A gull is he which weares good hansome cloathes,
And stands in presence stroaking up his hayre,
And fills up his imperfect speech with oathes,
But speaks not one wise word throughout the yeare,
But, to define a gull in termes precise,
A gull is he which seems, and is not, wise."
(Epigrams, ii.)
The word gull was also used for a nestling, or un-
fledged bird of any kind. So Worcester speaks of "that
The Sea-gull.
283
ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird" (1 Henry IV., v. 1, 59),
and the Athenian senator thus prognosticates Timon's
downfall :-
"I do fear,
When every feather sticks in his own wing,
Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,
Which flashes now a phoenix.”
(Timon of Athens, ii. 1, 29.)
Mr. Harting is, for once, somewhat misleading when
he writes:
"It is amid such scenes [of the sea-coast] that we naturally look for
and find the next of Shakespeare's birds, the gull, or, as he sometimes
calls it, the sea-mell." (Ornithology, p. 266.)
With the single exception of" scamells from the rock,"
dainties that Caliban offers to procure for his patrons,
this most beautiful frequenter of our coasts is not once.
mentioned by name by Shakspeare. Even in the
description of the cliff in Lear, where we might
naturally expect to find it, the more familiar choughs
and crows rise to his mind. This is but one indication
among many that Shakspeare was an inland naturalist.
There is scarcely an allusion throughout his plays to
those species of birds or to those various phenomena of
the sea which, in a month's voyage or a week's sojourn
on the coast, would have attracted his attention.
For the word scamell, Mr. Harting reads sea-mell, or
young sea-gull. Doubtless Caliban was well acquainted
with the haunts of every bird that frequented his rocky isle;
Miranda loved to rear the downy fledglings, brought to
her from the nests: to the strange men, therefore, they
might be an acceptable present. A less poetical explana-
tion of the word is that scamell is a common name
for the limpet, both in Cornwall and Ireland.
Thomas Muffett (Healths Improvement, p. 108)
mentions "white gulls, gray-gulls, and black-gulls (com-
monly termed by the name of plungers and water-crows.)”
284
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The Stormy Petrel, or Mother Cary's Chicken, is
mentioned by one of Purchas's pilgrims
under the appropriate name of sea-stamper.
Petrel.
We read:
“The calcamar are as bigge as turtle-doves, or pigeons; the men
of the countrie say, that they lay their egges in the sea, and there
they hatch, and breed their young; they flie not, but with their wings
and feet they swimme very swiftly, and they foreshow great calmes
and showres, and in calme weather they are so many along the
shippes that the mariners cannot tell what to doe, they are even
the very spite it selfe, and melancholy." (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1317.)
This bird, so dreaded by superstitious sailors, flies close
to the surface of the waves, and assists itself in its progress
by means of its webbed feet. This manner of skimming
along gives it the appearance of treading on the water,
whence the bird has obtained the name of petrel, in
allusion to Saint Peter.
The Cormorant was found in the fens, as well as on
the coast of Britain, if we may credit Drayton,
who mentions it in that part of his work
which relates to Lincolnshire:-
Cormorant.
“The cormorant then comes, by his devouring kind,
Which flying o'er the fen, immediately doth find
The fleet best stor❜d of fish, when from his wings at full,
As though he shot himself into the thicken'd skull,
He under water goes, and so the shoal pursues,
Which into creeks do fly, when quickly he doth chose
The fin that likes him best, and rising, flying feeds."
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
This bird was often trained to catch fish to afford
amusement, and Mr. Harting has given full particulars of
the fondness of James I. for this sport.
Olaus Magnus gives an account, in his work on Scan-
dinavia (p. 199), of sea-crows or cormorants:
"There is a kind of water-crows, or called eel-rooks. These birds
are extreme black, except their breasts and bellies; for they are all ash-
The Pelican.
285
coloured, and they will eat exceedingly. They hunt for fishes, they fly
slowly, and they stay long under water when they dive, their bills are
made tooth-ways, as mower's sickles, and with those they hold fast
slippery fish, chiefly eels."
Shakspeare's references to the cormorant are only as
an emblem of insatiable appetite.
Pelican.
The Pelican might almost be ranked among the fabu-
lous birds, so strange and unnatural were the
qualities attributed to it by the older writers.
The principal myth concerning the pelican was that the
parent bird, if unable to procure food for her offspring,
pierced her flesh, and thus provided an impromptu repast
for the little ones. This bird was therefore chosen by
artists as an emblem of charity, and a pelican, “in her
piety," was a favourite heraldic emblazonment. There are
several modern explanations of this theory; unlike most
myths, the fable is not derived from classical authority,
but in all probability owes its origin to the passages
referring to the pelican in the Scriptures, and to the notes
of the commentators thereon. Chester quotes one of
these learned authorities in his account of the bird :—
"The pellican, the wonder of our age,
As Jerome saith, revives her tender yong,
And with her purest blood she doth asswage
Her yong ones thirst, with poisonous adder stung.
And those that were supposed three dayes dead,
She gives them life once more being nourished.”
(Love's Martyr, p. 122.)
Shakspeare has been accused of maligning the cha-
racter of the juvenile members of the pelican family,
when he calls Regan and Goneril "pelican daughters." If
it be true that the parent bird, when provisions ran short,
supplied temporary nourishment by giving herself, Portia-
like, a voluntary wound, it would be hard to blame the
young birds for accepting the sacrifice. The more usual
286 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
form of the fable was that the "kind, life-rendering
pelican" adopted this means of feeding the young ones
when urged by necessity; but still a notion seems to have
been current that the young birds in some cases acted as
aggressors, instead of being grateful recipients of their
parent's bounty. Shakspeare evidently has this idea in
his mind in Richard II. Gaunt retorts :—
"O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
For that I was his father Edward's son ;
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly caroused."
(Richard II., ii. 1, 124.)
In the Mirror for Magistrates we read that a like
bitter complaint was made by Henry II. against the ill-
treatment and ingratitude he had received from his
sons:-
"Whereof to leave a long memoriall
In minde of man evermore to rest,
A picture hee made and hung it in his hall
Of a pellicane sitting on his nest,
With four yong byrdes, three pecking at his brest,
With bloudy beakes, and furder did devise,
The youngest byrde to pecke the father's eyes."
(Vol. ii. p. 132, ed. Haslewood, 1815.)
The amiable qualities of the pelican could not, however,
compensate, in the eyes of Sir John Hawkins, for her want
of personal attraction. In the account of his second
voyage made to the coast of Guinea, 1564, he tells us:-
"Of the sea-fowle above all other not common in England, I noted the
pellicane, which is fained to be the lovingst bird that is; but for all
this lovingnesse she is very deformed to beholde; for she is of colour
russet; notwithstanding in Guinea I have seene of them as white as a
swan, having legs like the same, and a body like a hearne, with a long
necke, and a thick long beake, from the nether jaw whereof downe to
the breast passeth a skinne of such a bignesse, as is able to receive a
fish as big as one's thigh, and this her big throat and long bill both
make her seem so ougly!" (Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 616.)
!A Centenarian Bird.
287
Other travellers mention the pelican, though not
always by that name. The pelican was generally found
in company with the flamingo, and there could have
hardly been a more striking spectacle than flocks of these
two species of birds, the snowy white of the one con-
trasting with the brilliant red of the other, and attract-
ing and riveting attention even in those lands where
strange and beautiful sights abounded. Francois Pyrard
de Laval, who gives an account of a journey to the East,
writes:
"When I was on the Maldives, there was found a bird which landed in
an iland, of prodigious shape and greatnesse. It was three foot high,
the body exceeding greate, more than a man could fathom: the
feathers all white as a swan, the feet broad like fowles that swim, the
necke halfe a fathom long, the beake halfe an ell; on the upper part at
the end a kinde of crooked claw, underneath larger then above, whence
hung a very great and capable bagge of a yellow-gilded colour resem-
bling parchment. The king was much astonished whence this
creature should come, and what was the nature of it: and enquiring of
all men which came from other regions, at the last hee happened on
certaine strangers, who told him that this creature was particular to
China, and that it was bred no where else, and the Chinois use them to
take fish.” (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1653.)
Gonzalo Ferdinando de Oviedo, again, in his report of
the Indies, addressed to Charles V., the Emperor of Ger-
many, writes:
"In these regions there are likewise found certaine fowles or birds,
which the Indians call alcatraz: these are much bigger than geese, the
greatest part of their feathers are of russet colour, and in some parts
yellow, their bils or beakes are of two spannes in length, and very
large neere to the head, and growing small toward the point, they have
great and large throates, and are much like to a fowle which I saw in
Flanders, in Brussels, in your majesties palace, which the Flemmings
call haina: and I remember that when your majestie dined one day in
your great hall, there was brought to your majesties presence a caldron
of water, with certain fishes alive, which the said fowle did eat up
whole, and I think verily that that fowle was a fowle of the sea,
because she had feet like fowles of the water, as have also these alca-
trazi, which are likewise fowles of the sea, and of such greatnesse, that
288
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
I have seene a whole coate of a man put into the throate of one of them
in Panama, in the yeere 1521. (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 979.)
The court favourite referred to by Gonzalo was pro-
bably identical with the bird noticed thirty years later by
Roger Ascham, in a letter to Mr. Edward Raven, Fellow
of St. John's College, Cambridge, 1551. He writes:-
"At Mechlin we saw a strange bird. The emperor doth allow it 8d.
a day. It is milk-white, greater than a swan, with a bill some-
what like a shovel, and having a throat well able to swallow, without
touch of crest, a white penny loaf of England, except your bread be
bigger than your bread-master of St. Johns is wont willingly to make
it. The eyes are as red as fire, and as they say, it is an hundred years
old. It was wont in Maximilian's days to fly with him whithersoever
he went." (Ascham's Works, p. 854, ed. 1815.)
Mr. Harting tells us (Ornithology, p. 288) that Mr.
Bartlett, the superintendent of the Zoological Gardens,
whose practical knowledge of animals is almost unrivalled,
is of opinion that the word pelican in the English transla-
tion of the Bible should be flamingo, as this latter bird
could exist in desert places, where the pelican, a lover of
fish, would starve. Mr. Bartlett also asserts, from per-
sonal observation, that the flamingo has the power of
secreting a red fluid, which it mixes with the food for its
young, in the same way that the pigeon does, and that
this may have given rise to the idea of the bird feeding
her young with her own blood. That some confusion
existed as to the name of this bird is evident from a
passage in a narrative included in Purchas's collection of
Travels. An Englishman was taken prisoner by the
Portuguese and sent to Angola, in Africa, where he lived
for nearly eighteen years. Describing that part of the
country, he writes:-
"Here is a kind of fowle that lives in the land bigger then a swan
and they are like a heron, with long legges, and long neckes, and it is
white and blacke, and hath in her breast a bare place without feathers,
where she striketh with her bill. This is the right pelican, and not
The Pelican's Bath.
289
those sea-birds which the Portugalls call pelicans, which are white,
and as bigge as geese, and those abound in this country also."
(Purchas, vol. ii. p. 983.)
In the second voyage to the West Indies made by
Mr., afterwards Sir, John Hawkins, 1564, mention is made
of the flamingo:-
"For the fowle of the fresh rivers [in Florida] these two I noted to be
the chiefe: whereof the flemengo is one, having all red feathers, and
long red legs like a herne, a necke according to the bill, red, whereof
the upper neb hangeth an inch over the nether." (Hakluyt, vol. iii.
p. 617.)
As an instance of how long the fabulous element in
natural history lingers, in a treatise on animals, published
so lately as the end of the last century, this extraordinary
statement deserves notice:
"Wild animals come to the pelican's nest to drink the water
which the parent bird brings in a sufficient quantity to last for many
days. She carries the water in her pouch, and pours it into the nest to
refresh her young ones, and to teach them to swim.”
The name alcatrazi, sometimes given by the Spaniards
to the pelican, is bestowed by Sir Richard Hawkins, in his
account of a voyage to the South Seas in 1593, on an
allied species, the tropic bird. He writes:-
"The alcatrace is a sea-fowle, different to all that I have seene, either
on the land, or in the sea. His head like unto the head of a gull, but
his bill like unto a snites bill, somewhat shorter, and in all places
alike. He is almost like to a heronshaw, his legs a good spanne long,
his wings very long, and sharpe towards the points, with a long taile
like to a pheasant, but with three or foure feathers onely, and these
narrower. He is all blacke, of the colour of a crow, and of little flesh;
for hee is almost all skinne and bones, hee soareth the highest of any
fowle that I have seene, and I have not heard of any, that have seene
them rest in the sea." (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1376.)
The tropic bird, well known to travellers, is about the
size of the common gull. The long tail feathers, here
noticed, equal in length the rest of the bird. It is
U
290 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
unrivalled for strength of wing, and for power of endu-
rance; it is called by sailors the boatswain, from its
peculiar cry, which is shrill, harsh, and perpetually
repeated, night and day. Captain John Smith, 1622,
notes:
"The tropike bird hath his name of the places where he is most
seene. Another bird of her cry is called pemblico, seldome seene by
day, an unwelcome prophet of tempests by her clamorous crying."
(Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1801.)
Penguin.
seas.
Penguins, from their abundance and the ease with
which they were captured, must have been of
great value to the early explorers in distant
After the privations of a long voyage and a com-
pulsory fish diet, sailors would not be disposed to be
critical, but from all accounts the flesh of the penguin
would under other circumstances scarcely be appreciated.
Anthonie Parkhurst, in a letter dated 1578, and addressed
to Richard Hakluyt of the Middle Temple, gives a report
of the commodities of Newfoundland. After describing
some novelties, he writes :—
"There are sea-guls, murres, duckes, wild geese, and many other
kind of birdes store, too long to write, especially at one island named
Penguin, where we may drive them on a planke into our ship as many
as shall lade her. These birds are also called penguins, and cannot
flie, there is more meate in one of these then in a goose: the French-
men that fish neare the Grand Baie, doe bring small store of flesh with
them, but victuall themselves alwayes with these birdes." (Hakluyt,
vol. iii. p. 123.)
Either Mr. Parkhurst confused the penguin with the
puffin, or the wholesale slaughter led to the extinction of
the species in northern latitudes. The penguin is now
almost entirely confined to the southern seas. John
Jane, "a man of good observation," describes the appear-
ance of this bird in an account of a voyage to South
America:
"This penguin hath the shape of a bird, but hath no wings, only
Welsh Explorers.
291
two stumps in the place of wings, by which he swimmeth under
water with as great swiftnes as any fish. They live upon smelts,
whereof there is great abundance upon this coast: in eating they be
neither fish nor flesh: they lay great eges, and the birde is of a reasonable
bignes, very neere twise so big as a ducke. .. We stayed in this
harbor [Penguin Isle, in the Straits of Magellan] until the 22 of
December, in which time we had dried 200,000 penguins.” (Hakluyt,
wol. iv. p. 370.)
Sir Thomas Herbert, describing a different part of the
world, writes, in 1626:-
"We dropt our anchor 14 leagues short of Souldania Bay afore a
small isle call'd Coney Isle through corruption of speech: the proper
name of that isle being Cain-yne in Welch. The isle is three miles
about, in which we saw abundance of pen-gwins, in Welch white-
heads, agreeable to their colour; a bird that of all other goes most
erect in motion, the wings or fins hanging down like sleeves, covered
with down instead of feathers, their legs serving them better than their
wings; they feed on fish at sea and grass ashore, and have holes to
live in like conies; a degenerate duck, for using both sea and shore,
it feeds in the one, breeds in the other; is very fat and oily, and
some adventure to eat them; for curiosity may invite." (Travels,
p. 12.)
Souldania Bay, we are informed, is on the south-east
coast of Africa, twelve leagues from the Cape of Good
Hope. The worthy knight loses no opportunity of
proving by etymology his favourite theory, that Welsh-
men were the earliest explorers, both in South Africa and
in America. In this opinion he is supported both by
Purchas and Hakluyt, and also by the lawyer and states-
man, John Selden. In a note on Drayton's ninth book
of the Polyolbion, Selden confirms an assertion of that poet
in the following words :
"About the year 1170, Madoc, brother to David ap Owen, Prince
of Wales, made this sea voyage; and by probability, those names of
Capo de Briton in Norumbeg, and Pengwin in part of Northern
America, for a white rock, and a white headed bird, according to the
British, were relicks of this discovery, so that the Welsh may challenge
priority of finding that new world, before the Spaniards, Genoese, and
3
292
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
all other mentioned in Lopez, Maninæus, Cortez, and the rest of that
kind." (Works, vol. iii. part 2, p. 1802, ed. 1725.)
Another traveller, Sir Thomas Roe, 1613, also de-
scribes the islands in Souldania Bay :-
"Soldania is," he writes, "as I suppose, an iland, in the south end
whereof is the Cape of Good Hope, divided from the maine land by a
deepe bay on the south-east side, and due east by a river, which wee
discerne upon the table. There is on the iland, buls, cowes, antelops,
baboones, moules of great bignesse, feasants, passerflannugos, and many
others. On Pengwin [Island] there is a fowle so called, that goes.
upright, his wings without feathers, hanging down like sleeves faced
with white: they fly not, but walke in pathes and keep their divisions.
and quarters orderly; they are a strange fowle, or rather a miscella-
neous creature of beast, bird, and fish, but most of bird, confuting that
definition to be animal bipes implume, which is nearer to a description
of this creature." (Purchas, vol. i. p. 536.)
The great auk, now extinct, was probably abundant.
Pennant, in his Zoology, says that the great auk is a bird
observed by seamen never to wander beyond soundings;
and according to its appearance they direct their mea-
sures, being then assured that land is not very remote.
Describing the wonders of the East Riding of Yorkshire,
Drayton writes:-
“The mullet, and the awke (my fowlers there do find,)
Of all Great Britain brood, birds of the strangest kind,
That building in the rocks, being taken with the hand,
And cast beyond the cliff, that pointeth to the land,
Fall instantly to ground, as though it were a stone,
But put out to the sea, they instantly are gone,
As only by that air they on their wings were borne,
And fly a league or two before they do return.”
Dabchick.
(Polyolbion, song xxviii.)
The Dabchick, or Little Grebe, has acquired a variety
of names from the peculiarity of its move-
ments. Shakspeare applies to it the appro-
priate name of dive-dapper :-
The Dive-dapper.
"Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave,
Who, being look'd on, ducks as quickly in."
(Venus and Adonis, 1. 86.)
293
Drayton uses the same name, with a difference of one
letter:
"And in a creek where waters least did stir,
Set from the rest the nimble divedopper,
That comes and goes so quickly and so oft,
As seems at once both under and aloft."
(The Man in the Moon.)
Drayton elsewhere gives this little bird another title:-
“The diving dob-chick, here amongst the rest you see,
Now up, now down again, that hard it is to prove,
Whether under water most it liveth, or above."
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
In his allegorical poem, The Boke of Philip Sparow,
Skelton has a different name again :
"The divendop to cleep,
The water hen to weep."
Du Bartas writes (p. 46):-
"But (gentle muse) tell me what fowls are those
That but even-now from flaggy fenns arose?
"Tis th' hungry hern, the greedy cormorant,
The coot and curlew, which the moors doe haunt,
The nimble teale, the mallard strong in flight,
The di-dapper, the plover and the snight."
The common shore bird, "the Puffin that is halfe fish,
halfe flesh (a John Indifferent, and an ambo-
dexter betwixt either)" (Nashe, Lenten Stuffe),
Puffin.
is mentioned by Carew in company with the burranet :—
"The puffin hatcheth in holes of the cliff, whose young ones are
thence ferretted out, being exceeding fat, kept salted, and reputed for
fish, as coming nearest thereto in their taste. The burranet hath like
294
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
breeding, and after her young ones are hatched, she leadeth them some-
times over-land, the space of a mile or better into the haven, where
such as have leisure to take their pastime, chace them one by one with
a boat and stones, to often diving, until through weariness, they are
taken up at the boat's side by hand, carried home, and kept tame
with ducks. The eggs of divers of these fowls are good to be eaten.”
(Survey of Cornwall, 1602, p. 109.)
The Ostrich was considered by the
Ostrich.
ancients to be
partly bird and partly beast. As a compro-
mise they gave it the name of camel-bird. Its
range extends over the whole of Africa and even as far as
the deserts of Arabia. John Leo, the African traveller,
after a correct description of the ostrich, relates that—
"this fowle liveth in drie desarts and layeth to the number of ten
or twelve egges in the sands, which being about the bignesse of great
bullets weigh fifteen pounds a piece; but the ostrich is of so weak a
memorie, that she presently forgetteth the place where her egges were
laid, and afterwards the same or some other ostrich hen finding the
said eggs by chance hatched and fostereth them as if they were
certainely her owne. The chickens are no sooner crept out of the shell
but they prowle up and downe the desarts for their food, and before
theyr feathers be growne they are so swift that a man shall hardly
overtake them. The ostrich is a silly and deafe creature, feeding upon
any thing which it findeth, be it as hard and indigestable as yron.”
(Purchas, vol. ii. p. 849.)
Jack Cade thus threatens Iden: "I'll make thee eat
iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great
pin, ere thou and I part" (2 Henry VI., iv. 10, 30). This
fondness for metals has obtained for the bird the name of
the “iron eating-ostrich." Lyly tells us that "the estrich
digesteth hard yron to preserve his health" (Euphues, p.
110). The statements as to the fancied property of the
bird of digesting iron, assigned to it by popular credulity,
Sir Thomas elaborately refutes, in his work on popular
errors. He mentions the arrival of two ostriches, brought
from Tangier, and says, "I sawe one in the latter end of
King James his dayes, at Greenwich, when I was a school-
boy."
The Iron-eating Ostrich.
295
The female ostrich was supposed by some to hatch her
eggs by the steadfast gaze of maternal affection. In con-
sequence of this imaginary exploit the ostrich has been
employed as an emblem of faith.
Shakspeare has several references to the ostrich.
Harry Hotspur asks, Where are—
"The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales
And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside
And bid it pass?"
He is answered :—
"All furnish'd, all in arms;
All plumed, like estridges that with the wind,
Baited like eagles having lately bathed."
(1 Henry IV., iv. 1, 97.)
This is the reading of the Globe edition. Mr. Harting
reads:-
"All plum'd like estridges that with the wind
Bated; like eagles having lately bath'd."
In reference to this passage, Mr. Douce says it is by no
means certain that the ostrich is meant. This critic
considers that a line is probably lost from the passage,
which, if supplied, would only the more clearly show that
the falcon was here intended; "estrich," in the old books
on falconry, denoted that bird, or rather, the goshawk.
It is clear that in this latter sense the word estrich is used
in the lines in Antony and Cleopatra :—
"To be furious
Is to be frighted out of fear; and in that mood
The dove will peck the estridge."
(Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 13, 195.)
Mr. Dyce, on the other hand, explains estridge to mean
ostrich. In support of this reading, a passage from
Drayton's Polyolbion may be quoted :
“Prince Edward all in gold, as he great Jove had been:
The Mountfords all in plumes, like estriges were seen,
296
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
To beard him to his teeth, to th' work of death they go;
The crowds like to a sea seem'd waving to and fro.”
(Song xxii.)
The near relatives of the ostrich, the Cassawary, and
the Emeu, are described by various travellers.
In an account of the first voyage of the Dutch
to the East Indies, the narrator informs us that—
(C
Cassawary.
on the third day of December they came to Tuban and Cydaia
[Java], where they bought nutmegs and cloves, and the Sabander gave
them a great fowle called eme, about foure foot in height, somewhat
like an ostrich, saving that the foote were not cloven." (Purchas,
vol. i. p. 708.)
In the same collection of travels a Portuguese traveller
describes the coast of Zanzibar, and writes:—
"From Magadoxo to Sacotora one hundred and fiftie leagues is a
desart coast, and dishabited without rivers. In which desarts breed
the great birds, called emas, which breed on the sands, and have but
two young ones, as pigeons. Their stomacks will consume iron and
stones, and they flye not but touch the ground with their feet, running
with their wings spread, as lightly as other birds flye. They are
white, ash-coloured; their egges white, holding almost three pints."
(Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1556.)
In an account of Sumatra written by John Nieuhoff, a
Dutch traveller, published in Harris's collection of travels,
the writer asserts that "the bird is called emeu, or eme,
by the natives, and casuaris by the Duch." After a very
correct description of the emeu, the narrator evidently
considers himself entitled to draw on his imagination
as a relief, and informs us that it is exceeding greedy,
"devouring everything it meets with, even to iron and
burning coals.”
The first emeu was seen in Europe in 1597, when the
Dutch travellers brought one home on their return from
their first voyage to the East Indies. This specimen was
given them as a great curiosity by one of the Javanese
princes, as a token of friendship.
៥
21
Reptiles.
CHAPTER XIII.
OF English Reptiles, Harrison writes, in his description
of Britain, prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicle:-
Reptiles.
First of all we have the adder, in our old Saxon toong called an,
atter, which some men doo not rashlie take to be the viper. We have
also efts, both of the land and water, and likewise the noisome swifts,
whereof to saie anie more it should be but losse of time, sith they are
well knowne and no region to my knowledge found to be void of them."
(Holinshed, vol. i. p. 383.)
Harrison has no further mention of the snake than in the
following passage: "And as we have great store of todes
where adders commonlie are found, so doo frogs abound
where snakes doo keepe their residence."
Drayton describes the gathering of representatives of
the reptile clans at Noah's bidding. From the commen-
dation bestowed on the considerate conduct of the asp
and little slow-worm, it is probable that the writer had
some idea that the tooth of a venomous snake could be
rendered innocuous at will:—
"The salamander to the ark retires,
To fly the floods it doth forsake the fires;
The strange camelion comes to augment the crew,
Yet in the ark doth never change her hue;
*
*
The watchful dragon comes the ark to keep,
But lull'd with murmur, gently falls to sleep:
297
298
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The cruel scorpion comes to climb the pile,
And meeting with the greedy crocodile,
Into the ark together meekly go,
And like kind mates themselves they there bestow:
The dart and dipsas, to th' ark coming in,
Infold each other as they were a twin;
The cockatrice there kills not with his sight,
But in his object joys, and in the light
The deadly killing aspick when he seeth
This world of creatures sheaths his poyson'd teeth,
And with the adder and the speckled snake,
Them to a corner harmlessly betake;
The lizard shuts up his sharp-sighted cyes,
Among these serpents, and there sadly lies;
The small-eyed slow-worm held of many blind,
Yet this great ark it quickly out could find,
And as the ark it was about to climb,
Out of its teeth shoots the invenom'd slime.
*
All these base, grovelling, and ground-licking sute,
From the large boas, to the little newte;
As well as birds, or the four footed beasts,
Came to the ark their hostry as Noah's guests."
(Noah's Flood.)
The statement made by Giraldus Cambrensis, that
Ireland possessed an immunity from every kind of
poisonous creature, has been repeated by almost all sub-
sequent writers on that country. This notion can be
traced back as early as the "venerable Bede," who writes,
in his Ecclesiastical History (book i., c. i.) :—
"No reptile is found there; no serpent can live there; for, though
often carried thither out of Britain, as soon as the ship draws near the
land, and the scent of the air from off the shore reaches them, they
die. On the contrary almost all things produced in the island have
virtues against poison.”
Cambrensis, who quotes this passage, confirms the
statement, and declares that, though some authors have
Snakes in Ireland.
299
attributed this absence of noxious creatures to St. Patrick
and other saints-
"history asserts, with more probability, that from the earliest ages,
and long before the island was favoured with the light of revealed
truth, this was one of the things which never existed here, from some
natural deficiency in the produce of the island.” (Typography of
Ireland, 1187, p. 48, ed. Wright, 1863.)
To the notion that nothing venomous could exist in
Ireland, England is, according to Cambrensis, indebted
for the possession of the Isle of Man. This island is
situate midway between Britain and Ireland :-
"Which country it rightly belonged to was a matter of great doubt
among the ancients: but the controversy was settled in this way;
since the island allowed venomous reptiles, brought over for the sake
of experiment, to exist in it, it was agreed by common consent that it
belonged to Britain." (Page 70.)
Much time and bloodshed might have been saved if
such a delightfully simple method of proving the right of
possession had been elsewhere adopted.
Even the soil of Ireland was supposed to be antago-
nistic to snakes. Andrew Boorde, in his Introduction of
Knowledge, written 1542, tells us that "marchauntes of
England do fetch of the erth of Irlonde to caste in
their gardens, to kepe out and to kyll venimous wormes
(p. 133, Early English Text Society, 1870). More recently
this antipathy of serpents to everything Irish was turned
to good account; Paul Hentzner, in his account of a
journey to England, 1598, describes a visit to the Houses
of Parliament at Westminster, and records:-
"In the chamber where the Parliament is usually held, the seats and
wainscot are made of wood, the growth of Ireland; said to have had
that occult quality, that all poisonous animals are driven away by it:
and it is affirmed for certain, that in Ireland there are neither serpents,
toads, nor any other venomous creature to be found." (Dodsley's Fugi-
tive Pieces, vol. ii. p. 244.)
Allusions to this expulsion of reptiles from Ireland
300
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
abound in the writings of the Elizabethan era.
Shak-
speare only echoes the popular sentiment when he makes
Richard II. speak so uncivilly of the Irish kerns-
"Which live like venom where no venom else
But only they have privilege to live.”
(Richard II., ii. 1, 156.)
John Trundle, the narrator of some exploits of a Sussex
dragon, writes, in 1614:-
"The Irish ground is most happie, and it seemeth lesse sinfull, since
it is free from contagion of these venomous creatures: but, non omnis
fert omnia tellus, 'every ground brings not forth all kind of fruites.'
This land were happie if it were less fertile in these contagious kinds
of serpents, which I ascribe not to the nature of the earth, but to the
sinfull nature of men." (Harleian Miscellany, vol. iii. p. 109.)
The herb origanum, or marjoram, appears to have
been esteemed the cure for all diseases. In Euphues
(p. 61), Lyly writes: "The torteyse having tasted the
viper sucketh origanum and is quickly revived." Mon-
taigne, in his Essays, has an expression so similar, that
had not these two works been published in the same year,
one of the authors would have been accused of plagiarism.
They were probably both equally indebted to Pliny for
their information. The learned seigneur inquires:
CC
Why should we say, that it is only for man by knowledge improv'd
by art and meditation, to distinguish the things commodious for his
being, and proper for the cure of diseases, to know the virtues of rhu-
barb, and polypody: and when we see the goats of Candie, wounded
with an arrow, amongst a million of plants, choose out dittanie for
their cure; and the tortoise, when she has eaten of a viper, immedi-
ately go to look out for origanum to purge her, the dragon to rub, and
clear his eyes with fennel,—why do we not say the same, that this is
knowledge and prudence?"
Drayton, describing the universal stampede of living
Tortoise.
creatures towards the ark, classes the snail-
paced Tortoise with the lively little hedge-
hog, as if their movements were similar :
Tortoise and Cockroach.
"The tortoise and the hedgehog both so slow,
As in their motion scarce designed to go,
Good footmen grown, contrary to their kind,
Lest from the rest they should be left behind."
(Noah's Flood.)
301
Small
In our own time we adopt Drayton's arrangement, but
with a difference. We give the tortoise credit for equal
speed with the hedgehog. Quite recently a considerable
traffic has been carried on in the London streets.
African tortoises have been taken about on barrows, and
passers-by have been beguiled into becoming purchasers
of these little reptiles, by the assurance that one of them
will soon clear a kitchen of black beetles. The wish is,
no doubt, father to the thought, and any information as
to the purely vegetable diet of the new purchase, volun-
teered by a presumptuous naturalist, is slighted. We
smile at the absurd notions of our forefathers in matters
of natural history, but anything more comic than the
picture presented to the imagination by a tortoise in wild
pursuit of a cockroach would be difficult to find.
A traveller in Eastern Tartary tells of "tortoises as
big as an oven" (Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 163). This simile is
rivalled in exactness by one made use of by a farmer who
appeared as a witness in a court of law. In reply to a
question of counsel as to the size of some article, he said
it was "about as big as a bit of chalk." The tortoises
referred to were, no doubt, turtles. An early mention of
the turtle, or sea tortoise, occurs in an account of Sir John
Hawkins's second voyage to the West Indies. The writer,
one of the ship's company, chronicles as follows:-
The 5th of July [1565] we had sight of certain islands of sand,
called the Tortugas, which is low land [in the Gulf of Mexico] where
the captain went in, with his pinnace; and found such a number of
birds that, in half an hour, he laded her with them; and, if there had
been ten boats more, they might have done the like. These islands
bear the name of Tortles, because of the number of them which there
do breed: whose nature is to live both in the water and also upon land,
302
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
but breed only upon the shore, by making a great pit, wherein they lay
eggs, to the number of three or four hundred, and covering them with
sand, they are hatched by the heat of the sun; and by this means,
cometh the great increase. Of these, we took very great ones, which
have both back and belly all of bone of the thickness of an inch; the
fish whereof we proved, eating much like veal: and finding a number
of eggs in them tasted also of them, but they did eat very sweetly."
(Hakluyt, Arber's English Garner, vol. v. p. 121.)
Another notice of these reptiles may be quoted,
chiefly interesting as showing how opinions may vary in
the matter of articles of food. Sir Thomas Herbert
writes, in the year 1626:-
"Suffer me (whiles in memory) to tell you of a fish or two which, in
these seas [round Madagascar] were obvious. The sea tortoise is one,
a fish not differing from those at land, her shell only being something
flatter; by overturning they are easily taken; some we took, for pas-
time more than food, and upon trial found that they taste waterish;
they have neither tongue nor teeth, superabound in eggs, in those we
took some having near 2000, pale and round, and not easily made
hard though extreamly boiled: they cover their eggs with sand, and
are hatched by the heat of the sun, as some affirm; such as have strong
appetites eat them and the flesh (or fish as you please to call it), but by
the Levitical law it was forbidden; and though our religion consists not
in ceremonies (ending in the prototype) yet except famine or noveltie
invite, with such cates my pallat craves not to be refreshed." (Travels,
p. 26, ed. 1677.)
The bad taste manifested in this long-winded sentence
may be due to the want of culinary skill on the part of
the ship's cook; we must remember also that the worthy
knight was a most fastidious traveller, and seldom ex-
pressed approval of any novelty. The city magnates
had perhaps learned in the time of Muffett, about 1646,
that the turtle by judicious manipulation might be ren-
dered palatable, for in that author's work we read that—
"tortoises are likewise no usuall meat amongst us: yet I see no
reason but that riot may bring them in, and make them as familiar
unto us as turkies are; their flesh nourishes plentifully, and recovers
men out of consumption." (Healths Improvement, p. 190.)
The Crocodile.
Lepidus. What manner o' thing is your Crocodile?
Antony. It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as
303
Crocodile.
broad as it hath breadth: it is just so high as it is, and moves with its
own organs: it lives by that which nourisheth it; and the elements
once out of it, it transmigrates.
Lep. What colour is it of?
Ant. Of its own colour too.
Lep. 'Tis a strange serpent.
Ant. "Tis so.
And the tears of it are wet.'
(Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 7, 46.)
Little more explicit are some of the descriptions of the
crocodile by early writers. As a rule no distinction seems
to have been made between the crocodile and the alligator,
but Romeo's mention of—
"An alligator stuff'd, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes",
(Romeo and Juliet, v. 1, 42),
shows that the name alligator was in use at least, though
the word crocodile would here probably be more correct.
The amphibious habits of these animals seem to have
puzzled our ancestors how to classify them; sometimes,
as by Lepidus, it is called a serpent. Chester writes:-
"The crocadile a saffron coloured snake,
Sometimes upon the earth is conversant,
And other times lives in a filthy lake,
Being oppressed with foule needy want:
The skinn upon his backe as hard as stone,
Resisteth violent strokes of steele or iron.”
(Love's Martyr, p. 116.)
Marlowe had a somewhat exaggerated idea of its power of
resistance to attacks from without:-
"Lie slumbering on the flowery banks of Nile,
As crocodiles that unaffrighted rest,
While thundering cannons rattle on their skins."
(1 Tamburlaine, iv. 1.)
The crocodile, "Nile's fell rover," is sometimes ranked as
304
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
a fish. It is strange that, as this reptile was an inhabitant
of a country so well known as Egypt, its manners and
customs are not more correctly described. Probably the
terror it inspired, added to the difficulty which the
natives must have had in its destruction, may have given
rise to the fanciful accounts that have been handed down
from antiquity. The explorers of Elizabeth's time, how-
ever, brought back more accurate descriptions and probably
several specimens. Job Hortop, a sailor in the crew of
Sir John Hawkins, 1591, thus describes the capture and
attempted preservation of a legarto, or alligator :-.
"He was twenty three feet by the rule, headed like a hog, in body
like a serpent, full of scales as broad as a saucer, his tail long and full
of knots as big as a 'falcon shot.' He had four legs; his feet had long
nails like unto a dragon; we opened him, flayed him, dried his skin,
and stuffed it with straw, meaning to have brought it home, had not the
ship been cast away." (Hakluyt's Voyages.)
But for the mischance of the wreck this specimen might
have graced the shop of some needy apothecary in Fleet
Street.
A Portuguese traveller, in his account of the southern
coast of Africa, says:-
"The crocodile is five and twentie spans long, and thicker then a
man; they are cowardly on land, cruell in the water, greene with darke
yellow spots, and gray, and blacke; they have many rowes of teeth,
no tongue. The Caffres call them goma." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1547.)
·
Marco Polo's description of the crocodile is too grotesque
to be omitted. In his travels in the East, towards the
end of the thirteenth century, he tells us :—
“Here are seen huge serpents, ten paces in length, and ten spans in
the girt of the body. At the fore-part, near the head they have two
short legs, having three claws like those of a tiger, with eyes larger
than a fourpenny loaf, and very glaring. The jaws are wide enough to
swallow a man, the teeth are large and sharp, and their whole appear-
ance is so formidable, that neither man, nor any kind of animal, can
approach them without terror."
An Indigestible Meal.
305
The impression left on the mind of the reader is, that the
crocodile has no hind legs at all. Perhaps the illustrious
traveller's courage did not hold out long enough to enable
him to wait till the animal had emerged sufficiently out
of the water to ascertain the proper number of its limbs.
The American crocodile, or alligator, is mentioned by
Sir Walter Raleigh, in his account of Guiana, under its
native name, el lagarto, the big lizard :—
"Upon this river [the Great Aman] there were great store of fowl,
and of many sorts: we saw in it divers sorts of strange fishes, and of
marvellous bigness; but for lagartos it exceeded; for there were
thousands of those ugly serpents, and the people call it for the abun-
dance of them the river of Lagartos, in their language. I had a negro,
a very proper young fellow, that, leaping out of the galley to swim in
the mouth of this river, was in all our sights taken and devoured with
one of these legartos." (Sir W. Raleigh's Works, vol. viii. p. 42.)
Lopes, a Portuguese traveller, in Africa, gives the
crocodile another name: "In this river Jaire (in Congo),
there are divers kinds of creatures, and namely, mightie
great crocodiles, which the country people there call
caiman" (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 990). Andrew Battell, a
traveller in Angola, records an astonishing feat of
rapacity, and its consequence:-
"One crocodile was so huge and greedy, that he devoured an
alibamba, that is, a chained company of eight or nine slaves: but the
indigestible iron paid him his wage, and murthered the murtherer,
found after in his belly." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 985.)
Tom Coryat, the celebrated pedestrian traveller, gives
an account of a visit paid by him to the church and
monastery of some rich Benedictine monks at Padua,
about the year 1608. He describes the monastery as very
extensive, occupying, with its gardens, the space of a mile
in compass. His account of the dispensary attached to
the building recalls the humbler dwelling of the poor
Mantuan vendor of drugs :-
"Also I saw two goodly faire rooms within the monastery
X
306
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
abundantly furnished with passing variety of pleasant fine waters and
apothecary drugges that serve onely for the monkes. In the first of
these roomes I saw the skin of a great crocodile hanged up at the roofe,
and another skinne of a crocodile in the inner roome. This crocodile
is a beast of a most terrible shape, fashioned like a dragon, with
wonderfull hard scales upon his backe; I observed that he hath no
tongue at all; his eyes are very little, and his teeth long and sharp."
(Coryat's Crudities, vol. i. p. 181, ed. 1776.)
Reference is often made to the notion, handed down
from antiquity, that the crocodile attracted its victims
by-affected weeping. Spenser writes:
"As when a wearie traveller, that strayes
By muddy shore of broad seven-mouthed Nile,
Unweeting of the perilous wandring wayes,
Doth meete a cruell craftie crocodile,
Which, in false griefe hyding his harmefull guile,
Doth weepe full sore, and sheddeth tender teares;
The foolish man, that pities all this while
His mournfull plight, is swallowed up unwares ;
Forgetfull of his owne, that mindes another's cares."
(Faerie Queene, I. v. 18.)
Othello exclaims, when Desdemona weeps:-
"O devil, devil!
If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.”
(Othello, iv. 1, 256.)
Dr. Andrew Wilson has recently explained the belief
in crocodile's tears as originating from the loud and
singularly plaintive cries the creature emits, not unlike
the mournful howling of a dog:
"The earlier travellers would very naturally associate tears with
these cries, and once begun, the supposition would be readily pro-
pagated, for error and myth are ever plants of quick growth.
The
belief in the movement of the upper jaw rests on an apparent basis of
fact. The lower jaw is joined to the skull very far back on the latter,
and the mouth-opening thus comes to be singularly wide; whilst, when
the mouth opens, the skull and upper jaw are apparently observed to
move. This is not the case, however; the apparent movement arising
*
The Trochilus.
307
from the manner in which the lower jaw and the skull are joined
together. The belief in the absence of the tongue is even more
readily explained. When the mouth is widely opened, no tongue is to
be seen.
This organ is not only present, but is, moreover, of large size;
it is, however, firmly attached to the floor of the mouth, and it is
specially adapted, from its peculiar form and structure, to assist these
animals in the capture and swallowing of their prey." (Leisure Time
Studies, p. 75, 1879.)
The tongue of the crocodile acts as a flood-gate to prevent
water passing down the throat when the jaws are opened.
John Leo, an African traveller, tells the story of the
crocodile's feathered attendant, that has been for a long
time considered a myth. His version differs from the
account given by Herodotus, and repeated by Aristotle,
of this strange partnership, only in the termination. In
the ancient tale the crocodile moves its neck as a signal
that it is about to shut its mouth, so as to warn the
trochilus to avoid the danger. Leo says:-
"As we sayled further we saw great numbers of crocodiles upon the
bankes of the ilands in the midst of Nilus lye baking them in the
sunne with their jawes wide open, whereinto certaine little birds about
the bignesse of a thrush entering, came flying forth againe presently
after. The occasion whereof was told me to be this: the crocodiles by
reason of their continuall devouring beasts and fishes have certaine
pieces of flesh sticking fast betweene their forked teeth, which flesh
being putrified breedeth a kind of worme, wherewith they are cruelly
tormented; wherefor the said birds flying about and seeing the wormes
enter into the crocodiles jaws to satisfie their hunger thereon, but the
crocodile perceiving himselfe freed from the wormes of his teeth offereth
to shut his mouth, and to devour the little bird that did him so good a
turne, but being hindred from his ungratefull attempt by a pricke
which groweth upon the birds head, hee is constrayned to open his
jawes and to let her depart." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 847.)
Webster makes use of this story as an illustration, and
follows it so closely, except in the size of the bird, that it
is not unlikely he had the passage before him at the time
of writing :-
"Flamineo. Stay, my Lord; I'll tell you a tale. The crocodile which
308
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
lives in the river Nilus, hath a worm breeds i' th' teeth of it, which puts
it to extream anguish: a little bird, no bigger than a wren, is barber
surgeon to this crocodile; flies into the jaws of it, pieks out the worm,
and brings present remedy. The fish, glad of ease, but ungrateful to
her that did it, that the bird may not talk largely abroad of her for non-
payment, closeth her chaps, intending to swallow her, and so put her
to perpetual silence. But nature, loathing such ingratitude, hath
arm'd this bird with a quill or prick on the head top, which wound the
crocodile i' th' mouth, forceth her to open her bloody prison, and away
flies the pretty took-picker from her cruel patient." (Vittoria
Corombona, act iv. ed. Dyce.)
""
This bird, which was called the trochilus by the
ancients, is referred to by Lyly: "The birde trochilus
liveth by the mouth of the crocodile and is not spoyled
(Euphues, p. 45). In modern times this little bird, which
in any case must have had a somewhat precarious exist--
ence, has been identified by M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, as a
species of plover, which enters the crocodile's mouth in
search of gnats. By the prick on its head, mentioned by
Leo, the slender crest peculiar to this species of bird is
probably meant.
The crocodile, secured by his armour against violence,
was not proof against cunning, and Du Bartas, in his poem.
on the Creation, describes the joint attack of the ichneu-
mon and this same little bird upon the unwieldy
reptile:-
"Thou mak'st th' ichneumon whom the Memphs adore
To rid of poysons Nile's manured shore;
Although indeed he doth not conquer them
So much by strength as subtle stratagem.
*
*
*
So Pharoahs rat, yer he begin the fray
'Gainst the blinde aspick, with a cleaving clay
Upon his coat he wraps an earthen cake,
Which, afterward, the sun's hot beams doe bake:
Arm'd with this plaister, th' aspick he approcheth,
And in his throat his crooketh tooth he brocheth;
While th' other boot-less strives to pierce and prick
Through the hard temper of his armour thick:
*
Dread of Saffron.
Yet, knowing himself too-weak, for all his wile,
Alone to match the scaly crocodile;
Hee, with the wren, his ruine doth conspire.
The wren, who seeing, prest with sleeps desire
Nile's poys'ny pirate press the slimy shore,
Suddenly comes, and hopping him before,
Into his mouth he skips; his teeth he pickles,'
Cleanseth his palate, and his throat so tickles,
That, charm'd with pleasure, the dull serpent gapes
Wider and wider with his ugly chaps :
Then, like a shaft, th' ichneumon instantly
Into the tyrants greedy gorge doth flie,
And feeds upon that glutton, for whose riot
All Nile's fat margents scarce could furnish diet.”
(Divine Weekes, p. 51.)
309
Lyly gives the crocodile credit for an elasticity which,
to judge by some of the old pictures, was possessed by St.
George's Dragon, but assuredly by no other animal:-
"The crocodile, who, when one approcheth neere unto him, gather-
eth up himselfe into the roundnesse of a ball, but running from him, .
stretcheth him-self into the length of a tree." (Euphues, p. 364.)
Thomas Fuller adds poison to the crocodile's other
weapons of destruction :—
"The sovereign power of genuine saffron is plainly proved by the
antipathy of the crocodile thereunto: for the crocodile's tears are never
true, save when he is forced where saffron groweth (whence he hath his
name of xpoxó-deλos, or the saffron-fearer, knowing himself to be all
poison, and it all antidote." (Worthies of England, vol. i. p. 336.)
Tom Coryat also notices the dread which the crocodile
was supposed to have of saffron :-
'For which cause those amongst the ancient Egyptians that had the
charge to looke to their bees in their gardens, were wont to smear their
bee hives with saffron, which as soone as the crocodile perceived, he
would presently run away." (Crudities, p. 182.)
Unless crocodiles were armed with scales internally as
well as externally, a hive full of bees must have been even
more trying a meal than cold iron.
•
•
310
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
We read, in the early travels, that the Moors antici-
pated the recent fashion of having purses made of croco-
dile skin, and no doubt they turned the scaly coat of
the destructive reptile to good account in many ways.
In a pageant on the occasion of Lord Mayor Garway's
procession, about 1600, a crocodile made what was prob-
ably its first appearance in public, and formed a part of
the show, heralded by a black man, who represented the
river Nile. We have no record as to whether this
particular crocodile was alive or stuffed.
Lizard.
“The Lizard is a kind of loving creature,`
Especially to man he is a friend:
This property is given him by nature,
From dangerous beasts poore man he doth defend :
For being sleepy he all sence forsaketh,
The lizard bites him till the man awaketh."
(CHESTER, Love's Martyr, p. 114.)
This friendly relation between the lizard and man has
been noticed by Reginald Scot.*
In Henry VI. we find two references to the venomous
properties of the poor little lizard, but as the play is
doubtful they cannot be quoted as proving Shakspeare's
ignorance on this point. The lizard is, however, in
other places classed with noxious creatures. Thersites
exclaims :-
"To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a
puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Mene-
laus! I would conspire against destiny:" (Troilus and Cressida, v. 1,67.)
Chameleon.
It is somewhat curious that an animal of such retiring
habits, and living in regions so remote, as
the Chameleon, should have had so much
attention bestowed upon it. Accounts of the chameleon
are in the main fabulous, and derived in great measure
from Pliny. Du Bartas (p. 50) declares that—
*. See page 251.
The Chameleon.
"Th' eye of Heav'n beholdeth nought more strange
Then the chameleon, who with various change
Receives the colour that each object gives,
And food-less else of th' aire alonely lives."
311
Drayton has a similar passage, and Shakspeare refers
several times to this creature's atmospheric diet. Hamlet
replies to inquiries as to his health, "Excellent well, i'
faith; of the cameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise
crammed: you cannot feed capons so" (Hamlet, iii. 2, 98).
The power of changing colour which this animal
possessed was well known :-
"I can add colours to the cameleon.”
(3 Henry VI., iii. 2, 191.)
"A true cameleon, I can colour for it."
(BEN JONSON, The Staple of News, iii. 1.)
But the cause of the alteration was not clearly under-
stood. The change of hue is explained by modern
naturalists as due to the contraction and dilatation of
elastic colour-bags in the animal's skin. Sir Francis Bacon
says that
“the chameleon feedeth not only upon air, though that be his principal
substance, for sometimes he taketh flies as was said, yet some that have
kept chameleons whole years together, could never perceive that they
fed upon anything else but air.”
He gives a fairly accurate description of the creature
itself. George Sandys, in his Relations of Africa, 1610,
does not confirm the stories of this extreme abstemious-
ness, though he alludes to them. This traveller describes
the chameleon as-
66
a creature about the bignesse of an ordinary lizard; his head unpro-
portionably bigge, his eyes great and moving without the writhing of
his necke, which is inflexible; his backe crooked, his skinne spotted
with little tumors, his tayle slender and long, on each foot he hath five
fingers, three on the outside, and two on the inside, slow of pace, but
swiftly expanding his tongue of a manner marvellous for the proportion
7
•
312
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
A
of his body, wherewith he preyes upon flyes, the top thereof being
hollowed by nature for that purpose, so that deceived they be who
thinke that they eate nothing but live upon aire; though surely aire is
their principal sustenance." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 904.)
Another traveller writes:-
"There [Malay Archipelago] are store of lizards, and chamelions,
which agree to Plinies description; onely it is airie, that they live of
aire without other meat; for having kept one aboord but a day, we
might perceive him to hunt for flies, in a very strange manner. Hav-
ing espied her setting, he suddenly shootes a thing forth of his mouth,
perhaps his tongue, lothsome to behold, the fashion almost like a bird-
bolt, wherewith he takes and eates them, with such speed, that a man
can scarsly discern what he doth; even in the twinkling of an eie."
(Purchas, vol. i. p. 417.)
A still earlier description of the chameleon is given
by Sir John Mandeville, 1356, in an account of a visit to
some islands off the coast of China.
"Ther ben also in that contree manye camles, that is a lytille best
as a goot, that is wylde, and he lyvethe by the eyr, and etethe nought
ne drynkethe nought at no tyme. And he chaungethe his colour often
tyme: for men seen him often scithes, now in a colour and now in
another colour: and he may chaunge him in to alle maner of coloures
that him list, saf only in to red and white." (Travels, p. 289, ed. Halli-
well, 1839.)
The "gray-headed error," to use Sir Thomas
Browne's expression, of the venomous qualities
Blind-worm. possessed by the harmless little Blind-worm,
or Slow-worm, still lingers in country districts, and has
caused the death of many an innocent victim. In his
account of English reptiles, Harrison tells us :—
"We have also the sloworme, which is blacke and graiesh of colour,
and somewhat shorter than an adder. I was at the killing once of one
of them, and thereby perceived that she was not so called of anie want
of nimble motion, but rather of the contrarie. Neverthelesse we have
a blind worme to be found under logs in woods, and timber that hath
lien long in a place, which some also doo call (and upon better ground)
The Blind-worm's Sting.
313
by the name of slow-worms, and they are known by their more or
lesse varietie of striped colours, drawen long waies from their heads,
their whole bodies little exceeding a foot in length, and yet is their
venem deadlie."
Timon appeals to the earth to yield him out of her
vast storehouse simple sustenance. He adjures the com-
mon mother-
"Whose self-same mettle,
Engenders the black toad and adder blue,
The gilded newt and eyeless venom'd worm,
With all the abhorred births below crisp heaven
Whereon Hyperion's quickening fire doth shine;
Yield him, who all thy human sons doth hate,
From thy plenteous bosom, one poor root!"
(Timon of Athens, i. 2, 179.)
Among night's black agents employed by the witches are
the-
"Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting."
(Macbeth, iv. 1, 16.)
Captain Dampier, one of the early travellers, bestows
the classical name of Amphisbena on what Amphisbena.
was probably the worm-like reptile found in
South America. He writes of Brazil:--
They have here also the amphisbæna, or two-headed snake, of a grey
colour, with black streaks, its bite is reckoned incurable: the best is,
that it seldom wounds. Having two specks in the head, instead of
eyes, some say it is altogether blind, and lives underground like a mole.
Its length is about fourteen inches, with an head at each end; whence
the Portuguese call it cobra de dos cabusees, i.e. the snake with two
heads; but I never saw one of these." (Harris's Voyages, p. 116.)
Lyly mentions "the serpent amphisbena, which, hav
ing at each ende a sting, hurteth both ways" (Euphues
p. 286). Sir Thomas Browne, in his Inquiry into Vulgar
Errors, doubts the possibility of such a creature. Modern
science has retained the name amphisbæna for a species.
of footless lizard.
ཝཱ
314
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
In the oak woods of Warwickshire Shakspeare may
often have found that-
Adder.
"It is the bright day that brings forth the Adder
And that craves wary walking."
(Julius Cæsar, ii. 1, 14.)
Shakspeare uses both the names adder and viper, but
applies the latter word chiefly in a metaphorical, and the
former in a literal sense.
The popular notion of the adder's deafness was de-
rived from a passage in the Bible; and in a sermon by
Dr. Montague, 1602, the worthy preacher ingeniously
improves on his original, and describes the process by
which the reptile contrived to escape:-
The Scripture telleth us that of all beasts the serpent is the most
subtill, and his subtility is observed in three points: first, when those
nations in Syria and other hott countries found themselves often en-
dangered by the stinging of venomous beasts, amongst other remedies
they invented charming, which the serpent percevinge, to avoyd their
cunning and effect his malice, he would stop both his eares, the one by
laying it close to the earth, the other by stopping it with his tayle."
(Diary of John Manningham, 1602, p. 26, Camden Soc. Rep.)
In this extract the adder is supposed to possess the
sense of hearing, but from natural depravity to refuse to
listen to the voice of the charmer. The more generally
received opinion was that the adder was in reality deaf.
The absence of external ears probably led to this idea.
The question whether or not the old adder swallows
her young, to protect them from danger, is hardly decided
even at the present time. At the period of which we
write, this maternal device was generally believed to be
resorted to when occasion required. Ben Jonson says:-
"Or, till we speak, must all run in, to one,
Like the young adders to the old one's mouth.”
(The Devil is an Ass, prologue.)
Our forefathers had rather hazy notions as to the exact
The Adder's Fork.
315
position of this little reptile's weapon of defence.
Richard II. conjures his native earth to defend his king-
dom from the usurper's tread :—
"And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies."
Webster writes:-
CC
(Richard II., iii. 1, 29.)
Repentance then will follow like the sting
Placed in the adder's tail."
(Vittoria Corombona, act 2.)
Another dramatist, John Kirke, says :-
"So thinks the adder when his sting is gone,
His hissing has the power to venom too."
(The Seven Champions of Christendom, iii. 1.)
Andrew Boorde, in his Dyetary, 1542, probably refers
to some larger species of snake than the adder, if indeed
any meaning at all can be attached to the following
passage. Jews, he says-
"lovyth not porke nor swynes flesshe, but doth vituperat and abhorre
it; yet for all this they wyll eate adders, which is a kynd of serpentes,
as well as any other Crysten man dwellyng in Rome, and other hyghe
countries; for adders flesshe there is called 'fysshe of the mountayn.”
This notwithstandynge, physycke doth approbat adders flesshe good to
be eaten, sayinge it doth make an olde man yonge, as it apperyth, by a
harte eatyng an adder, maketh hym yonge agayne." (Early English
Text Society, 1870.)
"The Aspis is a kind of deadly snake.
He hurts most perillous with venom'd sting
And in pursute doth neare his foe forsake,
But slaies a man with poysonous venoming:
Betweene the male and female is such love,
As is betwixt the most kind turtle dove.
Asp.
316
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
"This is the snake that Cleopatra used,
The Egyptian queene belov'd of Anthony,
That with her breasts deare bloud was nourished,
Making her die (faire soule) most patiently,
Rather than Cæsar's great victorious hand,
Should triumph ore the queene of such a land.”
(CHESTER, Love's Martyr, p. 114.)
"The pretty worm of Nilus," the supposed cause of
Cleopatra's death, is thought by modern writers to have
been the horned snake (Vipera cerastes). This serpent,
according to Dr. Wright, was well known to the ancients,
and is found abundantly in Egypt.
Shakspeare is not inclined to trust the harmlessness
Snake.
of the common English Snake. Perhaps in
some passages he may have the credit of re-
ferring to a foreign species. Macbeth exclaims :-
"We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it:
She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.”
(Macbeth, iii. 2, 13.)
The expression often used, "a tame snake," meant a
mean-spirited creature, from whom no danger was to be
apprehended.
A circumstantial account of a serpent nine feet long,
found in a wood called St. Leonard's Forest, near Hor-
sham, in Sussex, written by John Trundle, 1614, is
recorded in that repertory of curiosities, the Harleian
Miscellany (vol. iii. p. 109). Unfortunately the writer's
caution did not allow him to approach near enough to
ascertain the exact size of the creature, or to describe its
anatomy with scientific accuracy.
"This serpent," he writes, "or dragon, as some call it, is reputed to
be nine feete, or rather more, in length, and shaped almost in the forme
of an axletree of a cart; a quantitie of thickness in the middest, and
somewhat smaller at both endes. The former part, which he shoots
forth as a necke, is supposed to be an elle long; with a white ring, as
A Dangerous Serpent.
317
it were, of scales about it. The scales along his backe seem to be
blackish, and so much as is discovered under his bellie, appeareth to
be red; for I speak of no nearer description than of a reasonable ocular
distance, for coming too neare it, hath already beene too dearely payd
for, as you shall heare hereafter. It is likewise discovered to have
large feete, but the eye may be there deceived; for some suppose that
serpents have no feete, but glide upon certain ribbes and scales.
•
He is of countenance very proud, and at the sight or hearing of men or
cattel will raise his necke upright, and seem to listen and looke about,
with great arrogancy. There are likewise on either side of him dis-
covered two great bunches so big as a large footeball, and as some
thinke will in time grow to wings; but God, I hope, will so defend the
poor people in the neighbourhood that he shall be destroyed before he
grow so fledge.
"He will cast his venome about four rodde from him, as by woefull
experience it was proved on the bodies of a man and a woman coming
that way, who afterwards were found dead, being poysoned and very
much swelled, but not prayed upon. Likewise a man going to chase
it, and as he imagined, to destroy it with two mastive dogs, as yet not
knowing the great danger of it, his dogs were both killed, and he him-
selfe glad to returne with hast to preserve his own life. Yet this is to
be noted, that the dogs were not prayed upon, but slaine and left
whole: for his food is thought to be, for the most part, in a conie-
warren, which he much frequents; and it is found much scanted and
impaired in the encrease it had woont to afford. Three persons, whose
names are hereunder printed, have seene this serpent, beside divers
others, as the carrier of Horsam, who lieth at the White Horse in
Southwarke, and who can certifie the truth of all that has been here
related.
“JOHN STEELE,
“CHRISTOPHER HOLDER;
“And a widow woman dwelling nere Faygate."
The names snake, serpent, adder, and worm were
used indiscriminately, and little attempt was made to
identify the various species. Batman includes as worms,
adders, serpents, all creeping beasts that pass from place
to place by stretching of the body and drawing together
again. He uses the word adder as the generic name for
all kinds of serpents. Quoting Pliny, he states that in
India "be so great adders that they swallow up both
318 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
F
harts and bulls all whole" (Batman upon Bartholome,
1582).
Don John Bermudez, ambassador from Presbyter
John, sovereign of the northern parts of India, to John
III. of Portugal, in the year 1565, describes several
snakes under their native names. One of these seems to
correspond to the cobra di capello, a species found in
abundance in India and the neighbouring countries.
"There be other," he writes, "which they call, Of the shadow, or
Canopie, because it hath a skinne on the head, wherewith it covereth a
very precious stone, which they say it hath in her head." (Purchas,
vol. ii. p. 1169.)
Among the adventures of Antoine Knivet, who
accompanied Thomas Candish in his second voyage to
the South Seas, in 1591, an encounter with a sorocucu, a
species of snake, is related:-
"The serpent that I killed was thirteene span long, it had foure
and twentie teeth,' as sharpe as any naile, about the necke it has
greater shels then the other parts of her body; the shels were blacke
and russet like a coller, and on her body they were russet and darke
greene; under her belly all speckled with black and white. It had
foure sharpe feet, no longer than a mans finger, it had a tongue likę a
harping iron, her taile was like a straight bull horne, all black and
white, listed. (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1230.)
•
Champlain, in his account of a voyage to the West
Indies and Mexico in the years 1599-1602, mentions the
rattlesnake. He, however, confuses this species with the
horned snake, and makes an obvious mistake as to the
venomous property of the creature's tail. He writes:-
tr
Throughout New Spain, there is a kind of snake, which is of the
length of a pike, and as thick as the arm; the head as large as a hen's
egg, on which they have two plumes; at the end of the tail they have
a rattle, which makes a noise as they glide along. They are very
dangerous with their teeth, and with their tail; nevertheless the
Indians eat them, after having taken away the two extremities."
(Page 3, ed. Hakluyt Soc., 1859.)
The Salamander.
319
Modern works on natural history tell us that the
rattlesnake is only found in America. We find it men-
tioned as occurring in Congo, in Africa, by one of Pur-
chas's pilgrims, Lopes, a Portuguese :—
“Other serpents there are that are venemous, that carrie upon the
tippe of their tayle, a certaine little roundell like a bell, which ringeth
as they goe, so as it may be heard." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1003.)
A description of the Boa Constrictor occurs in the
natural history notes of the Portuguese resi-
dent in Brazil, so frequently quoted in this
volume:
Boa.
"The giboya is a snake of the greatest that are in this countrie,
and there are some found of twentie foot in length. They are very faire,
but more wonderfull they are in swallowing a whole deere; they have
no poison, neither are their teeth great according to the bodie. To take
their prey whereon they feed, they use this sleight. It layeth it selfe
along by the highwayes, and when the prey passeth it leapeth upon it,
and windes it selfe in such order, and crusheth it so that it breaketh
all his bones, and afterward licketh it, and his licking hath such vertues
that it bruiseth or suppleth it all, and then it swallowes it up whole.”
(Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1303.)
The Salamander was supposed, by reason of the
intense cold of its body, to be able to exist
in the hottest flames, and even to put out the
fire. Sir Thomas Herbert writes, in 1626:-
•
Salamander.
"Salamanders here [Madagascar] be also, a sort of lizard extreme
cold by nature, whence (like ice) for some time they endure the fire,
yea (if little) extinguish it as Aristotle affirms; yet by tryal we find
that they will quickly be burnt if the fire be powerful. Commonly
they obscure themselves in moist and umbragious places, so as when
they appear they are sure presages of a storm approaching; their teeth
and tongues are venemous, but the other parts may be eaten without
danger." (Travels, p. 23.)
A modern author, Mr. Frank Buckland, considers it
possible that the power possessed by these reptiles of
320 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
exuding a fluid has given rise to the fable of their incom-
bustibility.
Falstaff, after many uncomplimentary remarks on
Bardolph's personal appearance, exclaims, "I have main-
tained that salamander of yours with fire any time
this two and thirty years; God reward me for it!"
(1 Henry IV., iii. 3, 52).
A lizard in the midst of flames was adopted by
Francis I. as his badge, with the legend, Nutrisco et
extinguo, “I nourish and extinguish."
Newt.
"You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong;
Come not near our fairy queen."
(Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 2, 9.)
"All things that breede in the mudde are not evets,"
writes Lyly, either quoting or originating a
proverb; but it was quite sufficient that the
harmless Newt or Eft was found in damp, cold places
that it should have gained the reputation of being
spiteful and poisonous. Timon of Athens classes "the
gilded newt" with "all the abhorred births below crisp
heaven" (iv. 2, 182). "The wall-newt and the water
formed part of Poor Tom's unsavoury diet.
'Frog.
"
Frogs as well as toads were banished from Ireland,
though upon what pretext it is hard to say.
Giraldus Cambrensis reports that a solitary
frog was found in his time in a meadow, near Waterford,
and brought as a curiosity to court. It was pronounced.
by the best authorities to be an omen of an invasion of
the English. As it was quite impossible that this frog
could have been born and bred on Irish soil, the learned
writer accounts for its appearance by the suggestion that
it must have been wafted across the channel on a cloud; or
a ship might have brought it over from some neighbouring
Frogs imported into Ireland.
321
port. Dr. Perceval Wright, in his recent work, Animal
Life (p. 410), tells us that the introduction of frogs into
Ireland is due to Dr. Gwythers, physician, and a Fellow
of Trinity College, Dublin, who imported a supply of these
creatures from England, in the year 1700, and turned
them out into the ditches of the college park. Their
surroundings were apparently uncongenial, and in a short
time they all perished. Not discouraged by his failure,
the doctor sent for a fresh supply, not of frogs, but of
frog-spawn, which he threw into the same ditches. The
second experiment was more successful, and in the course
of some years the frog family had increased sufficiently
to spread itself over the whole island.
Both frogs and toads were supposed to have this
natural property, that when they sit erect they hold their
heads steady and without motion. This stately action
Spenser, in his Shepherd's Calendar, calls the "lording
of frogs.
""
Topsell quotes from Albertus Magnus the statement
that the mouth of the frog closes about the end of August
and remains shut throughout the winter. This remark-
able assertion is repeated and confirmed by Izaak Walton.
The frog as an article of diet seems never to have
found favour in England, but it was early appreciated by
our continental neighbours. Andrew Boorde tells us that—
“in Flaunders, and Braban, and other provinces anexed to the same
the people wil eate the hynder loynes of frogges, and wyll eate
todstooles.” (Introduction of Knowledge, 1542, ed. Early English Text
Society, 1870.)
Edgar, in his assumed madness, replies to Gloucester's
query as to his name," Poor Tom, that eats the swim-
ming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt and
the water" (King Lear, iii. 4, 134). The connexion
between frogs and tadpoles was noticed, though probably
not rightly understood. Du Bartas refers to the common
Y
322 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
ի
notion that frogs came down in showers of rain. He
writes
"Earths green bed
"With stinking frogs is sometimes covered:
Eyther because the floating cloud doth fold
Within it self both moist, dry, hot, and cold,
Whence all things heer are made: or else for that
The active windes, sweeping this dusty flat,
Sometimes in th' aire som fruitfull dust doo heap:
Whence these new-formed ugly creatures leap:
As on the edges of some standing lake
Which neighbour mountains with their gutters make,
The foamy slime, it selfe transformeth oft
To green half-tadpoles, playing there aloft,
Half-made, half-unmade; round about the flood
Half-dead, half-living; half a frog, half-mud."
And again:
(Page 13.)
"Why! Think ye (fond) those people fell from heav'n
All-ready-made; as in a summer ev'n
After a sweltring day, som sultry showr
Doth in the marshes heaps of tadpals pour,
Which in the ditches (chapt with parching weather)
Lie crusht and croaking in the mud together?”
(Page 130.)
Topsell gives a somewhat confused account of the
transformations of the young frog, but leans also to the
theory that some kinds of frog are bred from slime. He
refers to the plague of frogs in Egypt in support of the
popular belief in frog showers.
"Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the Toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."
(As You Like It, ii. 1, 12.)
"The foule Toad has a faire stone in his heade,"
Toad.
writes Lyly (Euphues, p. 53); and again, "The
fayrer the stone is in the toades head the
Singing Toads.
323
more pestilent the poyson is in hir bowelles" (p. 326).
Many quotations might be given from early writers setting
forth the medicinal qualities of the toad-stone. When
set in a ring, it was a sure preservative of the wearer
against poison. Fenton, writing in 1569, says, "There is
to be found in the heads of old and great toads a stone
they call borax or stelon, which being used as rings gives
forwarning against venom." In these "good old times
the study of chemistry seems to have been chiefly pursued
with the object of gaining possession of the deadliest
weapon in nature's armory.
That this knowledge was
practical as well as theoretical, we gather from the pre-
cautions against poison that were universally adopted, and
from the anxiety that was felt to secure some unfailing
antidote.
The toad so common in English gardens is not found
in Ireland, but a species of toad, called the Natter Jack,
is met with in that country. Gonzalo Ferdinando de
Oviedo, in his history of the West Indies, mentions some
species of South American toads possessed of considerable
vocal powers. These toads, he says—
"sing after three or foure sort, for some of them sing pleasantly,
other like ours of Spaine, some also whistle, and other some make
another manner of noise: they are likewise of divers colours, as some
greene, some russet or gray, and some almost blacke, but of all sorts
they are great and filthie, and noious by reason of their great multitude,
yet are they not venemous, as I have said." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 976.)
In his quaint treatise on gardening, published 1593,
Thomas Hyll recommends, on the authority of the Greek
writer Apuleius, that when the earth is dug preparatory
to seed sowing, a speckled toad should be first drawn
round the garden, then put into an earthen pot, buried in
the centre of the bed and left there until sowing time.
The toad is then to be dug up and cast a great way off,
lest the plants growing in the neighbourhood should
acquire a bitter taste; after this precaution no creeping
324
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
thing will presume to disquiet or grieve the owner (Art
of Gardening, 1593, p. 22).
Lyly explains the origin of the toadstool, a fungus that
springs up in what are called fairy rings:-
"I am of this minde with Homer, that as the snayle that crept out
of hir shell was turned eftsoones into a toad, and therby was forced to
make a stoole to sit on, disdaining her own house: so the travailler
that stragleth from his own countrey, is in short tyme transformed
into so monstrous a shape, that hee is faine to alter his mansion with
his manners, and to live where he canne, not where he would."
(Euphues, p. 240.)
Fish as an Article of Food.
325
CHAPTER XIV.
Fish.
THE large Catholic population, and the great strictness with
which fast-days were observed in medieval
England, rendered a constant supply of fish
most important. Even after the Reformation, abstinence
was still enjoined on all Fridays and Saturdays, as
well as on other days denominated fish-days. Queen
Elizabeth, it is said, who continued to enforce this change
of diet, expressly stated that her object in thus adopting
a Catholic custom was to encourage "fishermen, the
chiefest nurse for mariners," and to diminish the con-
sumption of mutton. This was a measure of protection,
not of religious observance, but at the same time it was
politic on the queen's part to maintain a ceremonial
abstinence which was harmless and had certain advantages.
In the fifth year of her Majesty's reign it was ordained
that a penalty of £3 should be inflicted on any one eating
flesh on fish-days, or the alternative of three months'
imprisonment. This punishment was considered excessive,
and on the 10th of March, 1594, an order of Privy Council
reduced the penalty to £1. This order is given in full
in Mr. Arber's English Garner, 1877 (vol. i. p. 299). In
this document it is estimated that the number of oxen
killed weekly in the city of London amounted to 67,000;
the fish-days in the year, including Lent, amounted to
153.
น
·
326 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Thomas Fuller not only urges the necessity of con-
tinuing fast-days for the maintenance of fishermen, but
he points out the appropriateness of the days originally
selected :—
"Our English fishermen, in Kent, Sussex, Hantshire, &c. set forth
on Monday and catch their fish, which on Tuesday they send up to
London, where on Wednesday it is sold and eaten. Such therefore,
who have lately propounded to antidate fish-eating, and to remove it
from Wednesday to Tuesday, must thereby occasion the encroaching
the Lord's day to furnish the markets with that commodity."
(Worthies of England, vol. i. p. 24.)
Harrison, in his description of England, gives a toler-
ably complete list of the fresh and salt water fish used as
articles of commerce in his time :-
"Besides the salmon therefore, we have the trout, barbell, graile,
powt, chevin, pike, goodgeon, smelt, perch, menan, shrimpes, creveses,
lampreies, and such like, whose preservation is provided for by verie
sharpe lawes, not onelie in our rivers, but also in plashes or lakes, and
ponds, which otherwise would bring small profit to the owners. In
December and Januarie we commonlie abound in herring and red fish,
as rochet and gurnard. In Februarie and March we feed on plaice,
trowts, turbut, muskles, &c. In Aprill and Maie, with makrell, and
cockles. In June and Julie, with conger. In August and September,
with haddocke and herring: and the two moneths insuing with the
same, as also thornbacke and reigh of all sorts; all which are the most
usuall, and wherewith our common sort are best of all refreshed. Of
fishes therefore as I find five sorts, the flat, the round, the long, the
legged, and shelled: so the flat are divided into the smooth, scaled, and
tailed. Of the first are the plaice, the but, the turbut, birt, floke or
sea flounder, dorreie, dab, &c. Of the second the soles, &c. Of the
third are chaits, maidens, kingsons, flath and thornebacke, whereof the
greater be for the most part either dried and carried into other coun-
tries, or sodden, sowsed, and eaten here at home, whilest the lesser be
fried or buttered. Under the round kinds are commonlie compre-
hended lumps, an ugly fish to sight, and yet verie delicat in eating, if
it be kindlie dressed: the whiting, an old waiter or servitor in the
Court, the rochet, sea breame, pirle, hake, sea trowt, gurnard, had-
docke, cod, herring, pilchard, sprat, and such like. And these are they
whereof I have best knowledge, and be commonlie to be had in their
times upon our coasts. Under this kind also are all the great fish con-
Species of Fish.
327
teined as the seale, the dolphin, the porpoise, the thirlepoole, whale,
and whatsoever is round of bodie be it never so great and huge. Of
the long sort are congers, eeles, garefish, and such other of that forme.
Finallie, of the legged kind we have not manie, neither have I seene
anie more of this sort than the polypus called in English the lobstar,
crayfish, or crevis, and the crab. . . . We have in like sort no small
store of great whelkes, scalops and perewinkles, and each of them are
brought farre into the land from the sea coast in their several seasons."
(Holinshed, vol. i. p. 377.)
The word polypus is here used according to its literal
significance of “many feet.”
Du Bartas (p. 40) quaintly notices the difference
in structure of various species of what he chooses to call
fish:
“Some have their heads groveling betwixt their feet,
As th' inky cuttles, and the many-feet:
Some in their breast (as crabs), some head-less are,
Foot-less, and finnless (as the banefull hare,
And heatfull oyster), in a heap confus'd,
Their parts unparted, in themselves diffus'd."
Richard Carew gives the following short list of fish
taken in the havens of Cornwall:-
"They may be divided into three kinds, shell, flat, and round fish.
Of shell fish, there are winkles, limpets, cockles, muscles, shrimps,
crabs, lobsters, and oysters.
"Of flat fish, rays, thornbacks, soles, flowks, dabs, plaice.
"Of round fish, brit, sprat, barn, smelts, whiting, scad, chad,
sharks, cuddles, eels, conger, basse, millet, whirlpool, and porpoise.
"Of eels there are two sorts: the one valsen, of best taste, coming
from the fresh rivers, when the great rain floods after September do
break their beds, and carry them into the sea: the other, bred in the
salt water, and called a conger eel, which afterwards, as his bigness in-
creaseth, ventureth out into the main ocean, and is enfranchised a
burgess of that vast commonwealth."
Of the different species found on the coast he writes:
"The coast is plentifully stored, both with those fore-remembered,
enlarged to a bigger size, and divers other, as, namely, of shell-fish,
sea-hedgehogs, scallops and sheath-fish: or flat, brets, turbots, dories,
328
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
holybut: round, pilcherd, herring, pollock, mackrell, gurnard, illek,
tub, bream, old-wife, hake, dog-fish, lounp, cunner, rockling, cod,
wrothe, becket, haddock, gilt-head, rough-hound, squar-scad, seal,
tunny, and many other.
"The sheath, or razor-fish, resembleth in length and bigness a man's
finger, and in taste the lobster, but reputed of greater restorative.
The sea-hedgehog, of like or more goodness, is enclosed in a round
shell, fashioned as a loaf of bread, handsomely wrought and pincked,
and guarded by an outer skin full of prickles, as the land urchin."
(Survey of Cornwall, 1602, p. 97, ed. Tonkin, 1811.)
We may form some idea of the variety of fish con-
sidered appropriate for the table from the contributions
which were sent as presents to the Judges on the Western
and Oxford Circuits during the years 1596-1601.
"Of the sturgeon, pieces were sent at Taunton, Dorchester, and
Exeter. The salmon was usual in February and in July in all the
western counties. Salmon peale were also general in the west and at
Gloucester. The shewings, or sea-trout, appear at Hereford. The
dolphin appears once at Dorchester in February; a piece of porpoise,
to be roasted or cooked like the sturgeon, once at Launceston; and the
dory at Oakhampton and Taunton. The conger was eaten at Taunton,
Oakhampton, and Exeter. The cod was used fresh, and also salted
and dried, and a cod's head is not unfrequent; whilst the milwell, a
fish allied to the cod, appears in Dorsetshire, Devonshire, and Corn-
wall; turbot were not very frequent, but are mentioned at Taunton,
Dorchester, and Exeter. Braymes were used at Exeter and Glouce-
ster; basse, or sea-perch, at Exeter, Salisbury, and Dorchester, and
also at Reading; mulletts were not unfrequent; and soles, plaice,
haddock, herrings, whiting, the thornback or scate, and sprats were
The other dried fish were the buckthorn, or whiting, split
and dried; the haberdine, or salt cod; ling of various sorts, viz. the
London, Devonshire, Organ, and green salt ling; herrings; and the
dried and salted hake, once called in the account a drie fish called
Poor John,' and most contemptuously treated by Shakspeare. The
shell-fish included oysters of two sorts, one called at Salisbury and
Chard the 'long oyster;' lobsters, crabs, shrimps, cockles, mussels
whelks, the razor-fish once, and craw-fish plentiful. The fresh-water
fish were the Thames trout, at Reading, and trout frequently else-
where; the pike, carp, tench, perch, roach, flounders, barbel, lampreys
in February, eels generally, and Holland eels, at Winchester, and
flounders at Exeter."
common.
:
Dennys on Fish.
329
This extract is taken from an account of the expenses of
the Judges of Assize riding the Western and Oxford Cir-
cuits, in the time of Elizabeth, contributed to the Camden
Miscellany (vol. iv., 1857).
A long poem on the secrets of angling, written by
John Dennys, and published before the year 1613, has
lately been reprinted by Mr. Arber, in his English Garner,
1877 (vol. i. p. 143). This author professes to teach
"the choicest tools, baits, and seasons for the taking of
any fish, in pond or river: practised and familiarly opened
in three books." The whole poem will well repay perusal,
but three verses must serve here for a sample:
"The crocodile that weeps when he doth wrong,
The halibut that hurts the appetite,
The turbot broad, the seal, the sturgeon strong,
The cod and cozze that greedy are to bite,
The hake, the haddock, and conger long,
The yellow ling, the milwell fair and white,
The spreading ray, the thornback thin and flat,
The boisterous base, the hoggish tunny fat.
"These kinds of fish that are so large of size,
And many more that here I leave untold,
Shall go for me, and all the rest likewise
That are the flock of Proteus' wat'ry fold;
For well I think my hooks would not suffice,
Nor slender lines, the least of these to hold.
I leave them therefore to the surging seas:
In that huge depth, to wander at their ease.
"And speak of such as in the fresh are found,
The little roach, the menise biting fast,
The slimy tench, the slender smelt and round,
The umber sweet, the grayling good of taste,
The wholesome ruff, the barbel not so sound,
The perch and pike that all the rest do waste,
The bream, the carp, the chub and chavender,
And many more that in fresh waters are."
Burton, in his Anatomie of Melancholy (vol. i. p. 528),
4
:
330
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
weighs the advantages of the sport of fishing with other
amusements, but he is too cautious to pronounce any
decided opinion on the matter.
•
"Fishing,” he writes, "is a kinde of hunting by water, be it with
nets, weeles, baits, angling or otherwise, and yeelds all out as much
pleasure to some men, as dogs, or hawks. . . James Dubravius, that
Moravian, in his book De Pisc. telleth, how travelling by the highway
side in Silesia, he found a nobleman booted up to the groines, wading
himself, pulling the nets, and labouring as much as any fisherman of
them all and when some belike objected to him the baseness of his
office, he excused himself, 'that if other men might hunt hares, why
should not he hunt carpes?' Many gentlemen in like sort, with us, will
wade up to the arm-holes, upon such occasions, and voluntarily under-
take that to satisfie their pleasure, which a poor man for a good stipend
would scarce be hired to undergo. . . . But he that shall consider the
variety of baits, for all seasons, and pretty devices which our anglers
have invented, peculiar lines, false flies, severall sleights, etc., will say,
that it deserves like commendation, requires as much study and per-
spicacity as the rest, and is to be preferred before many of them: because
hawking and hunting are very laborious, much riding, and many
dangers accompany them: but this is still and quiet: and if so be the
angler catch no fish, yet he hath a wholesome walk to the brook side,
pleasant shade, by the sweet silver streams; he hath good aire and
sweet smels of fine fresh meadow flowers; he hears the melodious har-
mony of birds; he sees the swans, herns, ducks, water-hens, cootes and
many other fowle, with their brood, which he thinketh better than the
noise of hounds, or blast of hornes, and all the sport that they can
make."
With regard to the wholesomeness of fish as an article
of diet, Burton writes:-
"Gomesius doth immoderately extol sea-fish, which others as much
vilifie, and, above the rest, dryed, sowced, indurate fish, as ling, fuma-
dos, red-herrings, sprats, stock-fish, aberdine, poor-john, all shell-fish.
Tim. Bright excepts lobster and crab. Messarius commends salmon,
which Bruerinus contradicts. Magninus rejects congre, sturgeon, turbot,
mackerel, skate." (Vol. i. p. 218.)
Although the number of fish known at this time nearly
equals that of birds and quadrupeds, the habits of the
finny tribes were so little studied that they are rarely
Love of Monstrosities.
331
mentioned by poets. The list of fish mentioned in
Shakspeare's plays is a short one; the references to fresh-
water fish are scanty, and those to salt-water inhabitants
are more suggestive of a fishmonger's counter than of their
natural element. Even Mr. Russel, in his enthusiastic
defence of the "gentle craft," while he claims to find.
angling fondly mentioned by almost every English poet,
has to admit that Shakspeare had apparently little
acquaintance with the sport. The oft-quoted speech of
Ursula tells us that-
"The pleasantest angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait.
(Much Ado, iii. 1, 26.)
This is, Mr. Russel, in his recent work, The Salmon
(p. 26), declares, so far from being "pleasant, not possible,
angling, for if you see the fish, the fish sees you, and that's
an end of it;" but some allowance may be made for the
fact that this was written in an age when British fish were
in a comparatively primitive state of mind.
Shakspeare refers more than once to the avidity with
which English people crowd to see any rarity. Trinculo
exclaims, at the sight of Caliban :—
"A strange fish! were I in England now, as once I was, and had
but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece
of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange beast
there makes a man. (Tempest, ii. 2, 28.)
""
This passion for novelty was abundantly supplied by the
curiosity-mongers of the period. Peacham, in his Com-
plete Gentleman, records the wondrous sights of London
in his time, each to be seen for a penny. Amongst others
we have-
"That horne of Windsor, of an unicorne very likely,
The cave of Merlin, the skirts of old Tom a Lincolne;
*
*
*
Saint James his ginney hens, his cassawarway moreover,
332
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The beaver i' the parke, strange beast as er'e any man saw,
Downe-shearing willowes with teeth as sharpe as a hand-saw,
*
*
*
Drakes ship at Detford, King Richards bed-sted i' Leyster,
The Whitehall whale-bones, the silver bason i' Chester,
The live caught dog-fish, the wolfe and Harry the lyon,
Hunks of the beare-garden, to be feared, if he be nigh on."
In Sir Henry Herbert's Office Book, which contains a
register of all the shows of London from 1623 to 1642,
occurs "a licence to Francis Sherret to show a straunge
fish for a yeare, from the 10th of March, 1635."
In Mayne's City Match (iii. 1) allusion is made to this
custom of exhibiting monsters, though the particular
subject under discussion is an imposture :
"Roseclap.
Some
Say 'tis an o’ergrown porpoise; others say
'Tis the fish caught in Cheshire; one to whom
The rest agree, said 'twas a mermaid.
Plot.
'Slight!
Roseclap shall have a patent of him. The birds,
Brought from Peru, the hairy wench, the camel,
The elephant, dromedaries, or Windsor Castle,
The woman with dead flesh, or she that washes,
Threads needles, writes, dresses her children, plays
O' th' virginals with her feet, could never draw
People like this."
Stickleback.
(Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. xiii. p. 248.)
The tiny Stickleback, Stickle-bag, Hackle, Sharplin,
Bansticle, probably owes its proud position at
the head of the great fish class to the fact that
it is a good representative of the spiny-finned fishes, which
according to modern naturalists form the first order.
It was doubtless as common in early times as it is at
present. It had probably also the same fascination for
juvenile anglers. It was found both in salt and fresh
water. No doubt Izaak Walton first learned to love his
craft by sitting by the pond side with hook fashioned from
The Perch:
333-
a bent pin, and with a bottle by his side ready to receive
the tiny prey. Afterwards, become "his craft's master,"
he writes:
“There is also a little fish called a sticklebag, a fish without scales,
but hath his body fenced with several prickles. I know not where he
dwells in winter ; nor what he is good for in summer, but only to make
sport for boys and women-anglers, and to feed other fish that be fish of
prey." (Part i. ch. 18.)
Perch.
"The Pearch with prickling fins against the pike prepared,
As nature had thereon bestow'd this stronger guard,
His daintiness to keep (each curious palate's proof)
From his vile ravenous foe: next him I name the ruffe,
His very near ally and both for scale and fin,
In taste, and for his bait (indeed) his next of kin."
(DRAYTON, Polyolbion, song xxvi.)
Leland speaks of Perches in great number in a Welsh
lake near Brecknock. The perch was considered a very
wholesome fish, and was recommended for invalids. Perch
in jelly seems to have been a fashionable dish. The
perch was found in all lakes and rivers, with few excep-
tions, throughout England. Sir Thomas Browne includes
among the fishes of Norfolk-
perca or percu, great and small; whereof such as are taken in
Breydon, on this side Yarmouth, in the mixed water, make a dish very
dainty; and I think, scarce to be bettered in England.”
He next mentions its "next of kin," the Ruffe, or Pope—
Ruffe.
“the aspredo perca minor, and probably the cernua of Cardan, com-
monly called a ruff; in great plenty in Norwich river,
and even in the stream of the city; which though
Camden appropriated unto this city yet they are also
found in the rivers of Oxford and Cambridge." (Vol. iv. p. 335.)
The ruffe, or pope, says Cuvier, was first noticed by
Dr. Caius, who sent a drawing of a specimen found by
him in the river Yare, near Norwich, to Gesner, the Swiss
naturalist. The name aspredo, from asper, rough, was
+
:
334
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
bestowed on this fish on account of the harshness of its
scales. The title cernua given by Cardan has been ex-
plained by some to signify the downward position of
its head. Thomas Muffett writes (Healths Improvement,
p. 187):-
"Ruffs or ruggels are not much unlike to perches, for the goodness
of their flesh though their skin be rougher: the best live in sandy
places where they wax exceeding fat and sweet.”
Izaak Walton endorses this opinion of the fine flavour of
this little fish.
Drayton, singing the praises of the German Ocean, thus
enumerates the fish taken on the east coast of England :-
"What fish can any shore, or British sea-town show
That's eatable to us, that it doth not bestow
Abundantly thereon? The herring king of sea,
The faster feeding cod, the mackarel brought by May,
The dainty sole, and plaice, the dab, as of their blood;
The conger finely sous'd, hot summer's coolest food;
The whiting known to all, a general wholesome dish;
The gurnet, rochet, mayd, and mullet, dainty fish;
The haddock, turbet, bert, fish nourishing and strong;
The thornback, and the scate, provocative among;
The weaver, which althoug his prickles venom be;
The fishers cut away, which buyers seldom see:
Yet for the fish he bears, 'tis not accounted bad;
The sea-flounder is here as common as the shad;
The sturgeon cut to keggs, too big to handle whole,
Gives many a dainty bit, out of his lusty jole."
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
The finest Mullets were taken off the coast near
Arundel in Sussex. Of the mullet Mr. Couch
writes:-
Mullet.
"The charge of imbecility brought against this fish by Pliny, as
shown by the fact that it hides its head for concealment, and then acts
as if persuaded that its whole body was concealed, is, as Cuvier has
remarked, the opposite to what we know of the character of these fishes,
of which the vigilance when exposed to observation is very great,
The Gurnet.
335
although this is accompanied with little appearance that would lead us
to suspect its existence." (British Fishes, 1877, vol. iii. p. 8.)
Montaigne (Essay liv.) bears witness to the amiable
character of this little fish.
"Mullets," he writes, "when one of their companions is engaged
cross the line over their back and with a fin they have there indented
like a saw, cut and saw it asunder."
Thomas Muffett (Healths Improvement, p. 158) tells
us that—
'
sea-mullets differ little or nothing in shape from barbels, saving
that they are very little or nothing bearded, and those that have beards,
have them onely on the nether lip."
(6
Gurnets, or Gurnards, according to Muffett (p. 152),
are of two sorts, swart or reddish; either of Gurnet.
them are of a white, firm, dry, and wholesome
substance." By the dark variety the piper is perhaps
meant. It was less common than the red gurnet. When
soused, or pickled, the gurnet was held in low estimation.
Falstaff exclaims, "If I be not ashamed of my soldiers,
I am a soused gurnet" (1 Henry IV., i. 2, 12).
66
Currs," writes Muffett, "are supposed by Dr. Cajus to be all one
with our gurnard; but it somewhat differeth, being of a very firm,
whitish, dry sound and wholesome flesh."
The Miller's Thumb, or Bullhead, is men-
tioned by William Browne in one of his
pastoral poems :—
Miller's
Thumb.
"The trout, the dace, the pike, the breame,
The eele, that loves the troubled streame,
The millers thombe, the hiding loach,
The perch, the ever nibbling roach,
The shoats with whom is Tavie fraught,
The foolish gudgeon, quickly caught,
And last the little minnow-fish,
Whose chiefe delight in gravell is."
(Britannia's Pastorals, book i. song ii.)
336
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Yarrell gives an explanation of the name :-
"The hand of the miller is constantly under the meal-spout, to
ascertain by actual contact the character and qualities of the meal
produced. By a peculiar movement the thumb spreads the sample
over the fingers, and is, therefore, employed with tact, the gauge of the
value of the produce. Hence the proverb, 'An honest miller hath a
golden thumb,' in reference to the amount of profit that is the reward
of his skill. By incessant use in this way, the miller's thumb acquires
a form which is said to resemble exactly the shape of the head of the
little fish so constantly found in the mill-stream." (British Fishes,
vol. i. p. 57.)
Thomas Nashe, in his Lenten Stuffe, alludes to the
voracity of this small creature, which is out of all
proportion to its size:-
“In my exile, and irkesome discontented abandonment, the silliest
miller's thombe, or contemptible stickle-back of my enemies, is as busie
nibbling about my fame, as if I were a dead man throwne amongst
them to feede upon." (Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 146.)
Mackerel.
The Mackerel used to be included in the list of
migratory fishes, but, according to Yarrell,
this was a mistake. It only retires a short
distance from the shore, returning to the shallow waters
to spawn.
Warwickshire now boasts that, although an inland
county, it is the best supplied with fish. But this was
not the case in the Middle Ages, and there may be some
connexion between the condition of the fish which reached
the market town of Stratford-on-Avon, and Shakspeare's
frequent reference to its unsavoury state. He has but one
allusion to mackerel, not of the freshest, and in the case
of this fish the tediousness of transport must have been
peculiarly unfortunate.
The Tunny, a fish of considerable size, was well known
to the ancients, and has in all times been
highly prized. It was eaten both fresh and
Tunny.
An Army of Tunnies.
337
salted, though from Muffett's directions some skill seems
to have been required in this preparation.
"As porpesses must be baked while they are new, so tunny is
never good till it have been long pouldred [pickled] with salt, vinegar,
coriander, and hot spices." (Page 173.)
According to Pliny a vast shoal of tunnies arrayed
themselves against Alexander the Great, and were more
formidable to his army than Tyrians, Indians, or Persians.
Du Bartas refers to this incident, but omits to describe
their mode of warfare:
"Shall I omit the tunnies, that durst meet
Th' Eoan monarchs never daunted fleet,
And beard more bravely his victorious powrs
Than the defendants of the Tyrian towrs;
Or Porus, conquered on the Indian coast;
Or great Darius, that three battels lost?"
(Page 40.)
Montaigne attributes mathematical knowledge to this
fish:
"In the manner of living of the tunnies, we observe a singular
knowledge of the three parts of mathematicks. As to astrology, they
teach it men, for they stay in the place where they are surpriz'd by the
Brumal solstice, and never stir from thence till the next equinox: for
which reason, Aristotle himself attributes to them this science. As to
geometry and arithmetick, they always form their body in the figure of
a cube, every way square, and make up the body of a battalion, solid,
close and environed round with six equal sides, so that swimming in
this square order, as large behind as before; whoever in seeing them
can count one rank, may easily number the whole troop, by reason
that the depth is equal to the breadth, and the breadth to the length.”
(Essay liv.)
The Bonito, or Striped-bellied Tunny, is similar to
the tunny in form, but inferior in size,
being only thirty inches long. Sir Richard
Bonito.
Hawkins, in his description of a voyage to the South Sea,
speaks of three fish which accompany ships in the
Ꮓ
338. The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
tropics; one of these is "the bonito, or Spanish makerill,
altogether like unto a mackerell, but that it is somewhat
more growne; he is reasonable food, but dryer than a
mackerell” (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1375). The name
Spanish mackerel is given by Yarrell to another species
of fish. The name Bonito, according to this author,
belongs properly to a species of tunny, which is very com-
mon in the tropical seas, and which is especially noticed
by sailors for its inveterate pursuit of the flying-fish. In
a second voyage, Sir Richard Hawkins gives an account
of the persecution of the unfortunate flying-fish by its
numerous enemies :-
"There be also of sea-fishes, which we saw coming along the coast
flying, which are of the bignesse of a smelt, the biggest sort whereof
have foure wings, but the other have but two: of these wee sawe com-
ming out of Guinea a hundred in a company, which being chased by
the gilt-heads, otherwise called the bonitos, do to avoid them the
better, take their flight out of the water, but yet are they not able to flie
farre, because of the drying of their wings, which serve them not to flie
but when they are moist, and therefore, when they can flie no further,
they fall into the water, and having wet their wings, take a new flight
againe. These be of bignesse like a carpe, and in colour like a maka-
rell, but it is the swiftest fish in swimming that is, and followeth her
prey very fiercely, not only in the water, but also out of the water, for as
the flying fish taketh her flight, so doth this bonito leape after them,
and taketh them sometimes above the water. There were some of
these bonitos, which being galled by a fisgig, did follow our shippe
comming out of Guinea 500 leagues. There is a sea-fowle also that
chaseth this flying fish as well as the bonito: for as the flying fish
taketh her flight, so doth this fowle pursue to take her, which is a
greater pleasure then hawking, for both the flights are as pleasant, and
also more often then an hundred times: for the fowle can flie no way,
but one or other lighteth in her pawes, the number of them are so
abundant. There is an innumerable yoong frie of these flying fishes,
which commonly keepe about the ship, and are not so big as butter-
flies, and yet by flying do avoid the unsatiablenesse of the bonito."
(Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 616.)
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to point out an error in
the above account. The fish whose existence is thus embit-
The Sword-fish.
339
tered by double persecution, has no power of flight in
the proper sense of the word. According to modern ob-
servers, the length of time which it can remain in the air
is determined by the power of the spring which it makes
on leaving the water. The motion is more that of a
leap than of a flight, and cannot be prolonged after the
original impetus has diminished.
The Sword-fish, or Xiphias of Spenser, is thus de-
scribed by Sir Thomas Browne, from a speci-
men taken in his neighbourhood:-
Sword-fish.
"A sword-fish, entangled in the herring-nets at Yarmouth, agreeable
unto the Icon [picture] in Johnstonus, with a smooth sword, not unlike
the gladius of Rondeletius, about a yard and a half long; no teeth;
eyes very remarkable; enclosed in a hard cartilaginous covercle, about
the bignesse of a good apple." (Vol. iv. p. 326.)
Olaus Magnus, on the contrary, has drawn on his own
imagination, for with the exception of a pointed snout,
the account he gives of this fish is wrong in every par-
ticular. The mouth of the sword-fish is a mere slit, and
the projection of the upper jaw would effectually baffle
any attempt on the part of the inquisitive mariner to look
into it.
“The sword-fish," he writes, "is like no other, but in something it
is like a whale. He hath as ugly a head as an owl: his mouth is
wondrous deep, as a vast pit, whereby he terrifies and drives away
those that look into it. His eyes are horrible, his back wedge-fashion,
or elevated like a sword; his snout is pointed." (Page 228.)
This fish is said to pursue the whale, and to pierce it with
its beak-like weapon, but no motive has been discovered
for this wanton attack. It also dashes against the sides
of ships, probably mistaking them for whales, piercing
the timbers for some inches.
The Yellow Skulpin is one of the most beautiful
little fishes to be seen on our coasts, and not
very uncommon. It is yellow, with delicate
Uranoscopus.
340
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
blue and purple markings, and is called in Sussex the
lizard fish. Modern names for it are yellow gurnard,
gemmeous dragonet, gowdie, and golden skulpin.
"This fish," writes Mr. Couch, "is common in the Mediterranean,
and must therefore have been known to the ancients, but from their
want of precision on subjects of natural history, it is not easy to pro-
nounce whether it be the same with the species known to them by the
name of callionymus, which is the term adopted by Linnæus as the
designation of the genus in which the yellow skulpin is arranged. Some
fish which bore this name is referred to by Aristophanes, as sufficiently
known for popular allusion by the supposed property of possessing a
large abundance of gall. It is also mentioned by Aristotle, and in later
times by Elian. Pliny further tells us that with the Romans, in
addition to the name of callionymus, it was known as the uranoscopus,
or sky-gazer, because its eyes were on the top of the head, with their
vision directed upward. This latter circumstance, in connection with
the former name, which recognises the beauty of its appearance, may
be supposed to point to the yellow skulpin, which answers to both the
particulars." (British Fishes, vol. ii. p. 174.)
Du Bartas, who no doubt drew most of his descrip-
tions from classical sources, makes still clearer the identity
of this fish by taking notice of its lengthened fin; though
if we interpret the word admire, to wonder at, his lines
would apply equally well to the ugly sea-angler.
"O! who can here sufficiently admire
That gaping-fish whose glistening eyes aspire
Still toward heav'n; as if beneath the skies
He found no object worthy of his eyes.
As the woodpecker, his long tongue doth lill
Out of the clov'n pipe of his horny bill,
To catch the emets; when, beguil'd with-all,
The busie swarms about it creep and crawl:
Th' urano-scope, so, hid in mud, doth put
Out of his gullet a long limber gut,
Most like unto a little worm (at sight)
Where-at, eft-soons, many small fishes bite:
Which ther-withall this angler swallows straight,
Alwaies self-armed with hook, line, and bait.”
(Page 41.)
Cod-fishing.
Cod.
341
Muffett calls the Cod a great sea-whiting. This fish
was called, at different stages of its growth, a
whitling, codling, and cod. In the north of
Britain it was called a keeling, in the south a cod, and in
the west a melwell.
Mr. Daniel writes (Rural Sports, vol. ii. p. 29):—
"The greater fisheries of cod were on the coast of Iceland, and of our
western isles, before the discovery of Newfoundland. That discovery
took place by Cabot, about the year 1500; and although the English
began settling there twenty years afterwards, the fishery did not flourish
until 1577, when England had the least share of it. Mr. Anderson, in
his History of Commerce, says the French began to fish there, and it
is somewhere asserted, that their first pretence for fishing for cod in
these seas, was only to supply an English convent with that article.
Notwithstanding this intrusion, about 1625, Devonshire alone employed
one hundred and fifty ships, and 8000 persons at Newfoundland for six
months in the year."
Iago's reference to this fish-
"She that in wisdom never was so frail
To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail”
(Othello, ii. 1, 155),
has been quoted by some writers to prove that the dis-
tance from which the cod was brought rendered it a deli-
cacy superior even to salmon. Mr. Couch, on the con-
trary, interprets the passage to mean that-
"in the reign of Elizabeth, a salmon at table was accounted a matter
of fashion, in which a person of ordinary rank might be tempted to
ape the rich and the great." (British Fishes, vol. iv. p. 194.)
He objects, however, to the incongruity of placing the
reference in the mouth of one to whom the cod could
scarcely have been known. The great abundance of
salmon at this period makes it probable that the former
view is correct. In Queen Elizabeth's Household Book
for the forty-third year of her reign, we find an entry,
"Item, the master cookes have to fee all the salmons'
tailes."
342
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
!
“Here swimmes the pearch, the cuttle and the stocke-fish,
That with a wooden staffe is often beaten."
(CHESTER, Love's Martyr, p. 99.)
Stockfish is here spoken of as a distinct fish, but no such
species is found in the works of modern naturalists. Cot-
grave says it was a small kind of cod, called a melwell,
or keeling, which was dried for winter use, but the name
was not confined to dried cod. Stow, in his Survey of
London (p. 32), quotes from a book of household
accounts, in the time of Edward II.: "For six thousand
eight hundred stockfishes, so called for dried fishes of all
sorts, as lings, habardines, and other, £41 6s. 7d." Stock-
fish was evidently uncommonly tough eating, and had to
be pummelled on a stone before it could be penetrated by
human teeth. Stephano thus threatens Trinculo, who has
irritated Caliban past endurance :—
Trinculo, run into no further danger: interrupt the monster one
word further, and, by this hand, I'll turn my mercy out o' doors, and
make a stockfish of thee." (Tempest, iii. 2, 78.)
Thomas Muffett, in his Healths Improvement (p. 170),
informs us that
"Stockfish whilst it is unbeaten is called buckhorne, because it is
so tough; when it is beaten upon the stock, it is termed stockfish.
Erasmus thinketh it to be called stockfish, because it nourisheth no
more than a dryed stock: wherefore howsoever it be sod, buttered, fried,
or baked, and made both toothsomer and delectable by good and
chargeable cookery; yet a stone will be a stone, and an ape an ape,
howsoever the one be set up for a saint, and the other apparelled like
a judge."
The Latin name given to this commodity, asellus aridus,
also denotes the treatment to which it was subjected.
Stockfish was considered inferior even to salt fish.
An account is given by Mr. C. W. Shepherd, in his work
on The North-West Peninsula of Iceland, 1867 (p. 11),
of the mode in which this uninviting article of diet is
prepared in that island in recent times. A very similar
"
St. Peter's Fish.
343
process was probably adopted by our medieval an-
cestors:
"Dried fish is the most extensively used article of food; and ling
and cod are the most desired sorts. When caught, they are split
open and hung upon lines or exposed on the shore to the cold winds
and the hot sun; this renders them perfectly hard, and they keep
good for years. In this dried state it is pummelled on a stone anvil,
with a sort of sledge hammer, formed by a round stone with a hole
drilled through it for the handle to pass through; but, even after this
severe ordeal, it requires Icelandic teeth and skill to eat it. Butter
and stock-fish form the ordinary Icelandic dinner. After the pummel-
ling, the fish is cut up, or torn into strips of a convenient width to go
into the mouth. The butter is not spread on the fish, but the two are
consumed in alternate mouthfuls.”
The stockfish, or cod, was borne as a charge by the
King of Denmark.
Haddock.
The Haddock, as well as the dory, was dignified with
the title of the Peter-fish, from the legend
that money was found in its mouth by the
saint who left the impress of his finger and thumb on the
fish's sides. It has been pointed out that the choice of
this fish to perpetuate this incident was somewhat unfor-
tunate, as it does not exist in the seas of the country
where the miracle was performed. It is, moreover, a salt-
water inhabitant.
The haddock was plentiful all round the coast of
Britain, and was valuable as an article of food, though
not considered a delicacy. It was dressed with a sauce
compounded of vinegar, powder of cinnamon, and ginger.
Thomas Heywood writes:-
“We'll make the sea their graves, and themselves food
For the sea worme call'd haddock.”
(If You know not Me, You know Nobody.)
The Whiting was served with garlic, or mustard,
vinegar, and pepper. Young whitings were
called whiting mops. Beaumont and Fletcher
Whiting.
write, "They will swim their measure like whiting mops,
344
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
as if their feet were fins" (Love's Cure, ii. 2). The
word mop was used, says Nares, as a diminutive, and
term of endearment, as is shown by the following, from
Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie:
Understanding by this word moppe a litle prety lady, or tender
young thing. For so we call little fishes, that be not come to their
full growth moppes, as whiting moppes, gurnard moppes."
The whiting appears in company with other fish in
some verses uncomplimentary to ladies, included in a
Collection of songs and carols, published about the year
1490:-
“ When whytynges do walke forestes to chase hertys;
And herynges ther hornnys in forestes boldly blow;
And marmsattes [marmosets] morn in mores and lakys;
And gurnardes schot rokes owt of a crose bow;
And goslynges hunt the wolfe to overthrow;
And sprates ber sperys in armys of defens;
Than put women in trust and confydens."
Hake.
(Ed. Percy Soc., vol. xxiii. p. 67.)
The Hake was a very abundant fish. It was the
cheapest fare that could be procured, and was
valued accordingly. When dried and salted
it was called Poor-John. At the sight of Caliban
crouching in fear on the sands, Trinculo exclaims
"What have we here? a man or a fish? Dead or alive? A fish
he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell; a kind of not
of the newest Poor-John." (Tempest, ii. 2, 26.)
A servant in Massinger's play, The Renegado (i. 1.),
replies to his master's query as to his religion
CC
Troth, to answer truly,
I would not be of one that should command me
To feed upon Poor-John, when I see pheasants
And partridges on the table.”
Another name for this fish was the Sea-pike or
Merluce.
;
The Ling.
345
The hake frequently pursued the shoals of herrings
and drove them away from the coast; hence the proverb,
"What we gain in hake we lose in herring.'
""
The Ling was another very useful fish. In appear-
ance it was not unlike a small cod.
An oil,
says Yarrell, was extracted from the liver of
Ling.
this fish, as well as from the cod, which was used as a
remedy for rheumatism. This oil was used also by poor
people to supply their lamps.
"C
Muffett writes:
Ling perhaps looks for great extolling, being counted the beefe of
the sea, and standing every fish day (as a cold supporter) at my Lord
Maiors table; yet is it nothing but a long cod; whereof the greater
sised is called organe ling, and the other codling, because it is no
longer than a cod, and yet hath the taste of ling: whilst it is new it
is called greenfish, when it is salted it is called ling, perhaps of lyinge,
because the longer it lyeth (being conveniently turned, and the peace-
straw often shifted wherein it lyeth), the better it is, waxing in the
end as yellow as the gold noble, at which time they are worth a noble
a piece. They are taken only in the far Northern Seas, where the
biggest and sweetest live; but codlings are taken in great plenty neer
to Bedwell in Northumberlandshire." (Healths Improvement, p. 155.)
"In the Rutland Papers, printed for the Camden Society, we are
told,” writes Mr. Couch (British Fishes, vol. iii. p. 90), "That on the
visit of the Emperor Charles V. to London, in the reign of Henry
VIII., salted ling was among the principal matters provided for the
entertainment of the guests. . . . Although the taste appears to have
declined in the reign of the first James, the practice seems to have
maintained its ground; for, among the pieces of merriment of this
king, he is said to have professed that if his royal brother of the lower
regions should be pleased to visit him, his dinner should consist of a
pole of ling and mustard, with another equal favourite of his, a pipe of
tobacco for digestion. According to Fuller (Worthies of England),
the extent of the adventure was equal to the value set on the fish.
Referring to the mischief wrought by the civil war, he says, 'We are
sensible of the decay of so many towns on our north-east sea, Hartle-
pool, Whitebay, Bridlington, Scarborough, and generall all from New-
castle to Harewich, which formerly set out yearly, as I am informed,
two hundred ships and upwards, imployed in the fisheries, but chiefly
for the taking of ling, that noble fish.'"
346
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Plaice.
The Plaice was found everywhere in great abundance.
The peculiar countenance of this fish early
attracted notice. "His mouth shrinks side-
ways like a scornful plaice," writes Hall (Satires, b. iv.
sat. i.). Muffett writes, "Plaise (called the sea-sparrows,
because they are brown above and white beneath) are of
good, wholesome, and fine nourishment” (p. 164).
Taste seems to have changed regarding the proper
season for eating this fish. Yarrell says the plaice is con-
sidered to be in finest condition for the table at the end
of May, but Harrison gives as its season February and
March. It was generally served with wine sauce.
The opinion was once held that the plaice was pro-
duced from a small crustacean animal of the shrimp kind.
Modern discoverers, writes Mr. Couch, have explained this
notion, from the fact that the ova is deposited in places
frequented by shrimps; it frequently adheres to the
under portion of these shrimps, at times when the parent
plaice is seeking to devour them.
Flounder.
The Flounder was taken in both salt and fresh water,
and was one of the commonest of the flat
fish. It was called the butt at Yarmouth,
and the flook, or fleuk, in other parts. It was caught all
round the coast, and in the mouth of large rivers, which
it also ascended for some distance.
Drayton, writing of the Severn, says:—
"The flounder smooth and flat, in other rivers caught,
Perhaps in greater store, yet better are not thought."
(Polyolbion, song xxvi.)
Dame Juliana Berners observes that the flounder, like
the plaice, is a ground feeder :-
"The flounder is an holsom fysshe and a free, and a subtyll byter
in his manere: for comynly whan he soukyth his meete he fedyth at
grounde, and therfore ye must angle to hym wyth a grounde lyne
lyenge."
Sad Result of Sneering.
347
Enumerating the commodities of Newfoundland, one
of Purchas's pilgrims writes :—
"As touching the kindes of fish beside cod, there are herring,
salmons, thornebacke, plase, or rather wee should call them flounders,
dog-fish, and another most excellent of taste called of us a cat."
The flounder and the plaice had their odd-shaped
mouths bestowed upon them, according to Nashe (Lenten
Stuffe, Harl. Misc., vol. vi. p. 170), for sneering at the
elevation of the herring to the sovereignty of the finny
tribes:
"None wonne the day in this but the herring; whom al their
clamorous suffrages saluted with Vive le Roy,' God save the King, God
save the King;' save only the playse and the butte, that made wry
mouthes at him, and, for their mocking, have wry mouthes ever since;
and the herring ever since wears a coronet on his head, in token that
hee is, as he is."
Holibut.
The dab, mentioned by Drayton, was distinguished
from the flounder chiefly by the roughness of its skin.
The Holibut, or Halybut, was a fish taken in the
northern seas, chiefly valuable for its large
size. On grand occasions this fish was cooked
whole, and set up as an ornamental dish. As specimens
have been occasionally taken weighing three hundred
pounds, it must have formed a striking feature at a
banquet.
66
"Turbuts, which some call the Sea-pheasant," Muffett informs us
(p. 172), were in old times accounted so good and
<c
delicate that this proverb grew upon them, Nihil ad Turbot.
rhombum; that is to say, what is all this in comparison
of a turbutt. Verily, whilst they be young (at which time they are
called butts), their flesh is moist, tender, white, and pleasant.'
""
"Soles, or Tongue Fishes, are counted the partridges
of the sea, and the fittest meat of all other
for sick folks" (Muffett, p. 168).
Sole.
348
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The Brill was generally known by the names Bert,
Bret, or Burt Fish. It was found in the same
localities as the turbot, but was more common,
Brill.
and consequently not so much esteemed.
The Dory, as well as the haddock, claimed the name
of St. Peter's Fish, and for the same reason.
This is probably the fish referred to by Sir
Thomas Browne, though he does not give the English
Dory.
name :-
:-
"The faber marinus, sometimes found very large, answering the
figure of Rondeletius, which though he mentioneth it as a rare fish, and
to be found in the Atlantic and Gaditane Ocean, yet we often meet with
it in these seas, commonly called a Peter-fish, having one black spot on
either side the body; conceived the perpetual signature, from the
impression of St. Peter's fingers, or to resemble the two pieces of money
which St. Peter took out of this fish; remarkable also from its dispro-
portionable mouth, and many hard prickles about other parts." (Vol.
iv. p. 330.)
The probable derivation of the name of this fish is from
the French dorée, on account of its golden tinge. Harrison
spells it dorreie, and other authors dorray, dorrey, doree,
and dorn. The name John is said to have been bestowed
on this fish by Quin, the actor and epicure, as a mark of
his esteem for its good qualities. We meet with this
name, however, in the sketch of the character of the poor
fiddler, in Bishop Earle's Microcosmography, the first edition
of which was published in 1628: "Hunger is the greatest
pain he takes, except a broken head sometimes, and the
labouring John Dory" (p. 170, ed. Philip Bliss, 1811).
Mr. Bliss explains the name to mean a tune.
Abundance of Salmon.
349
CHAPTER XV.
FLUELLEN speaks "but by guess
"but by guess" when he
volunteers the information that—
Salmon.
there is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at
Monmouth: it is called Wye, at Monmouth; but it is out of my
prains what is the name of the other river; but 'tis all one, 'tis alike as
my fingers is to my fingers, and there is Salmons in both." (Henry V.,
iv. 7, 27.)
Mr. John Booth, speaking of the myth, as he calls it,
of the salmon being at one time so plentiful in our
English rivers that parents stipulated that their children,
when bound apprentices, should not be dieted on this fish
more than twice in the week, asks if the stipulation, if
ever made, may not have been against fish generally, and
not against salmon in particular. Herrings, eels, cod,
plaice, and other kinds of white fish were common enough,
and were much cheaper food than meat, fresh or salt.
Salmon, he contends, always fetched a good price com-
pared with other articles of food (Notes and Queries, vol.
vi., 3rd series, p. 13).
Fynes Moryson, in his European tour, 1591, finds
salmon so plentiful in Hamburg that a stipulation was
there made by the servants that they should not be
expected to eat this fish more than twice a week. Perhaps
the fish may have been dried and imported, or the like
contract may have been made by German servants in
350 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
England. In Sir Thomas Browne's time, at least, the
salmon was no longer common, though" many," he writes,
"are taken in the Ouse; in the Bure or North River; in
the Waveney or South River; in the Norwich River but
seldom " (vol. iv. p. 334). Captain Franck, a Cromwellian
trooper, writing in 1658, states that the price of a salmon
formerly did not exceed the value of sixpence sterling,
and he repeats the tradition regarding apprentices. Defoe
also corroborates the statement that servants declined to
eat this fish oftener than twice a week. These stories, if
true, only indicate the abundance of salmon in particular
localities: the difficulty of transport would necessarily
make this fish cheap when taken in great numbers. Mr.
Alexander Russel, the salmon's biographer, observes, how-
ever, that there is no confirmation for this tradition, so
often repeated, and that the Royal Commissioners of
Inquiry into the Salmon Fisheries of England and
Wales, 1860, endeavoured in vain to obtain a sight of
these indentures of apprentices, though they met with
persons who declared they had seen such documents. He
tells a story of a Highland laird of the last century,
who, going to a London hotel with his gilly, ordered,
from motives of economy, a beef-steak for himself, and
"salmon for the laddie." On reckoning with his host,
he discovered to his annoyance that he had to pay a
shilling for his own dinner, and a guinea for " the laddie's '
(The Salmon, p. 96, 1874).
Thomas Fuller writes that the salmon is-
""
a daintie and wholesome fish, and a double riddle in nature: first,
for its invisible feeding, no man alive ever found any meat in the maw
thereof. Secondly, for its strange leaping (or flying rather), so that
some will have them termed salmons, à saliendo. Being both bow and
arrow, it will shoot it selfe out of the water an incredible heighth and
length." (Worthies of England, vol. i. p. 446.)
Drayton has an account of the method by which the
salmon ascends mountain streams:
•
Names of Salmon.
"When as the salmon seeks a fresher stream to find,
Which from the sea comes yearly by his kind,
As he in season grows, and stems the watry tract,
Where Tivy falling down doth make a cataract,
Forc'd by the rising rocks that there her course oppose,
As though within their bounds they meant her to inclose ;
Here, when the labouring fish doth at the foot arrive,
And finds that by his strength but vainly he doth strive,
His tail takes in his mouth, and bending like a bow,
That's to the compass drawn, aloft himself doth throw;
Then springing at his height, as doth a little wand,
That, bended end to end, and flirted from the hand,
Far off it self doth cast; so doth the salmon vaut,
And if at first he fail, his second summersaut
He instantly assays; and from his nimble ring,
Still yerking, never leaves, until himself he fling
Above the streamful top of the surrounded heap."
(Polyolbion, song iii.)
351
Harrison gives the different names by which the
salmon was known at the successive stages of its exist-
ence: "The first year a gravelin, and commonlie so big
as an herring, the second a salmon peale, the third a
pug, and the fourth a salmon." This fish has received
a variety of names in the different localities in which
it is taken. According to Yarrell (British Fishes, vol. ii.
p. 155)—
"the smolt or young salmon is by the fishermen of some rivers called
a laspring, and various couplets refer to the fish as well as to the time
and circumstances under which the descent is made:-
The last spring floods that happen in May,
Carry the salmon fry down to the sea.'
Under three pounds weight, they are called salmon peal. The laspring
of some rivers is the young of the true salmon, but in others it is only
∙a parr. A grilse is a young salmon that has not spawned.”
In John Dennys's poem on angling, published before
1613, several names of fish occur, some of which are
1
1
352
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
now considered to belong to the salmon at different
ages:
"And with this bait hath often taken bin
The salmon fair, of river fish the best;
The shad that in the springtime cometh in ;
The suant swift, that is not set by least;
The bocher sweet, the pleasant flounder thin;
The peel, the tweat, the botling, and the rest,
With many more, that in the deep doth lie
Of Avon, Usk, of Severn and of Wye."
(ARBER'S English Garner, vol. i. p. 175.)
Of the suant, sewant, or shuin, Muffett writes:-
"Shuins seem unto me a kind of salmon, whereof plenty is taken in
the river running by Cardiffe Castle: but it far surpasseth the salmon
as much in goodness, as it is surpassed by him in length and great-
ness." (Healths Improvement, p. 187.)
୮
The name sewin is given by modern authors to the bull
or grey trout. The bocher, or botcher, is a salmon over a
year old, which has accomplished a journey to the sea.
The botcher is smaller and more delicate in shape than
the salmon, and weighs from three to twelve pounds.
The peel is also a two-year-old salmon. Izaak Walton
writes (part i. ch. 8):—
"I might here, before I take my leave of the salmon, tell you that
there is more than one sort of them, as, namely, a tecon, and another
called in some places a samlet, or by some a skegger; but these, and
others which I forbear to name, may be fish of another kind, and differ
as we know a herring and a pilchard do, which, I think, are as different
as the rivers in which they breed, and must, by me, be left to the
disquisitions of men of more leisure, and of greater abilities than I
profess myself to have."
"The wary Trout that thrives against the stream
was sufficiently common. According to Izaak
Walton-
Trout.
“Gesner says, his name is of German offspring; and he says he is a
fish that feeds clean and purely, in the swiftest streams, and on the
:
Tickling for Trout.
353
hardest gravel; and that he may justly contend with all fresh-water
fish; as the mullett may with all sea-fish, for precedency and dainti-
ness of taste; and that being in right season, the most dainty palates
have allowed precedency to him." (Part 1, ch. 4.)
Drayton also gives the trout the first place among
fish:
"The trout by nature mark'd with many a crimson spot,
As though she curious were in him above the rest,
And of fresh-water fish, did note him for the best.'
(Polyolbion, song xxvi.)
Muffett writes:
“Trouts are so great in Northumberland, that they seem thicker then
salmons, and are therefore called bull-trouts; there are especially two
sorts of them, red trouts resembling little fresh-water salmon, and
therefore termed salmon-trouts; and gray trouts or skurffs, which keep
not in the chanel of bournes or rivers, but lurk like the alderlings
under the roots of great alders." (Page 188.)
Alderlings, this author explains—
are a kind of fish betwixt a trout and a grayling, scaled (as the trout
is not) but not so great scaled as the grailing is; it lyeth ever in a deep
water, under some old and great alder." (Page 175.)
The device of tickling trout was not unknown to
Shakspeare: "Here comes the trout that must be caught
with tickling," cries Maria (Twelfth Night, ii. 5, 24). Also
to Beaumont and Fletcher
"He is mine own, I have him;
I told thee I would tickle him like a trout."
(Rule a Wife and have a Wife, act ii.)
The Char was a very local fish. According to Camden
it was only taken in one of the English Char.
lakes:
<<
For, among these mountaines the greatest standing water in all
England, now called Winander-mere, lieth streatched out for the space
of tenne miles or there about with crooked bankes, and is all paved,
2 A
354
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
f
as it were, with stone in the bottom: in some places of wonderfull
depth, and breeding a peculiar kind of fish found no where else, which
the inhabitants there by call a chare.”
The range of the char is not quite so limited as Camden
imagined. It is found in Scotland and in Wales. The
Welsh charr, or torgoch, was formerly taken in Llanberis
Lake, on Snowdon.
Gwiniad.
The Gwiniad, another local species, was found, ac-
cording to Pennant, in one of the lakes of
Ireland, Lough Neagh, where it was called
the pollen; in Loch Mabon, in Scotland, where it was
known as the vangis. The old British name, gwiniad, or
whiting, was given to it from the whiteness of its scales.
It is sometimes called the fresh-water herring, as like that
fish it dies very soon after being taken from the water,
and will not keep long. On account of the large size of
the scales it was also called the schelly. Camden asserts
that-
the river Dee, in Merionethshire, abounds with salmon, and Pemble
Mere in that county with the gwiniad, yet is the salmon never taken
in the mere, nor the gwiniad in the river."
Grayling.
"The Grayllynge, by another name called Umbre, is a
delycyous fysshe to mannys mouthe," writes
Dame Juliana (Treatise on Fishing, p. 27, ed.
1841). The name Thymallus was bestowed on the gray-
ling, on account of the peculiar odour which it emits
when fresh, similar to that of water thyme. Umbra comes
from its rapid swimming, which causes it to disappear
like a passing shadow. The dusky lines along the body
give it the third name, grayling, and the epithet of
"the flower of fishes," or "flower-fish," was given to it
by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.
Drayton mentions-
"The greyling, whose great spawn is as big as any pease."
(Polyolbion, sung xxvi.)
The Pike.
355
A distinction was sometimes made between the grayling
and the umber, the latter name being generally given to
the fish when advanced in years.
Aldrovandus says," writes Walton (part i. ch. vi.), “ The salmon,
the grayling, and trout, and all fish that live in clear and sharp
streams, are made by their mother Nature of such exact shape, and
pleasant colours, purposely to invite us to a joy and contentedness in
feasting with her. Whether this is true or not, it is not my pur-
pose to dispute: but it is certain, all that write of the umber, declare
him to be very medicinable. And Gesner says that the fat of an
umber, or grayling, being set, with a little honey, a day or two in the
sun, in a little glass, is very excellent against redness, or swarthiness,
or anything that breeds in the eyes.”
66
Of the Smelt, Sir Thomas Browne writes :-
Smelt.
Spirinches, or smelt, in great plenty about Lynn; but where
they have also a small fish, called a priames, answering
in taste and shape a smelt, and perhaps are but the
younger sort thereof." (Vol. iv. p. 330.)
The name smelt was given to it from its having, as some
think, the scent of a cucumber or violet. According to
Muffett the best smelts were taken " by Kew and Brain-
ford, within eight miles of London, and at Westchester."
The sauce recommended for this fish was the juice of
Seville oranges.
Harrison gives the various names be-
stowed on the Pike at the different stages
of growth :-
Pike.
"I might here make report how the pike, carpe, and some other
of our river fishes are sold by inches of cleane fish, from the eies or
gilles to the crotch of the tailes, but it is needlesse: also how the pike
as he ageth, receiveth diverse names, as from a frie to a gilthed, from
a gilthed to a pod, from a pod to a jacke, from a jacke to a pickerell,
from a pickerell to a pike, and last of all to a luce." (Holinshed,
vol. i. p. 376.)
Randle Holme gives the additional name, in one of
the junior stages, of a hurling pick.
!
!
356 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Yarrell says that this fish was so rare in the reign of
Henry VIII., that a large one sold for double the
price of a house-lamb in February; and a pickerel, or
small pike, for more than a fat capon. He does not give
his authority for these instances, but the numerous in-
structions for serving and carving the pike which appear
in books long before this period, make it probable that it
was plentiful, at least in certain districts. Leland speaks
of good pikes in the Welsh lakes, and so far back as the
time of Edward III. Chaucer writes :--
"Full many a fair partrich hadde he in mewe,
And many a breme and many a luce in stewe."
(Prologue to Canterbury Tales.)
The particular fish referred to by Yarrell may have been
of unusual size.
Gesner and other learned authorities endeavour to
account for the sudden, and even in our own day mys-
terious, appearance of the pike in ponds far from other
water, by the theory that they were produced by the
heat of the sun from a weed called, in consequence,
pickerel-weed. Izaak Walton repeats this theory, with
the remark:
"Doubtless divers pikes are bred after this manner, or are brought
into some ponds some such other ways as is past man's finding out; of
which we have daily testimonies." (Part 1, ch. viii.)
In his description of Lincolnshire, Fuller writes :—
"Pikes are found plentifully in this shire, being the fresh-water
wolves, and therefore an old pond pike is a dish of more state than
profit to the owner, seeing a pike's belly is a little fish-pond, where
lesser of all sorts have been contained. Sir Francis Bacon alloweth it
(though tyrants generally be short lived) the surviver of all fresh-
water fish, attaining to forty years. . . The flesh thereof must needs be
fine and wholsome, if it be true what is affirmed, that in some sort it
cheweth the cud; and yet the less and middle size pikes are preferred
for sweetnesse before those that are greater." (Worthies, vol. ii. p. 1.)
An Aged Fish.
357
The pike has been known to attain to a great age.
Gesner records the capture of a monster pike at Heilbron,
in Suabia, in 1497, that bore a ring of brass, on which
was the following inscription: "I am the first fish that
was put into this lake by the hands of the Governor of
the Universe, Frederick the Second, on the 5th of
October, 1232." The weight of this veteran pike is said
to have been 350 lbs.
Lincolnshire pikes were proverbially good:-
"Ancolme ele, and Witham pike,
Search all England and find not the like."
Modern writers on angling endorse Falstaff's assertion,
that "the dace is a good bait for the old pike" (2 Henry
IV., iii. 2). This is the only allusion Shakspeare has to
the pike under this name. The passage in Merry Wives
of Windsor, "The luce is the fresh fish, the salt fish is an
old coat" (i. 1, 22), has given rise to much conjecture.
The generally received opinion is that it has reference to
Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, the supposed original of
Justice Shallow: three silver pikes, or lucies, on a red
field, were, what is called, the canting arms of the Lucy
family. Another explanation is given by Mr. Masey:-
"Amongst the decorations at the coronation of James I., it is very
probable that his arms were impaled with those of his consort, the
daughter of the King of Denmark, or hers associated with his collater-
ally, and so the singular charge of the stock-fish in the Danish arms
would be publicly known. It appears to be likely that the words were
added in reference to the Queen's arms, and, if not before, for the
representation before the king in 1604." (Notes and Queries, 3rd
series, xii. p. 4.)
Mr. Keightley has another suggestion:
"Shallow had asserted that the dozen white luces' was an old
coat, and Sir Hugh had misunderstood him. He here corrects him,
telling him that the luce was an old coat too, alluding, as is supposed,
to the arms of the Fishmongers' Company, 'azure, two sea-luces in
358
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
saltire with coronets over their mouths;' or he may have only re-
iterated his assertion, saying 'The same fish is an old coat,' and the
printer, misled by 'fresh fish,' may have made it 'salt fish."
The Sea Pike, Merluce, or Garefish was a curious-
looking fish which preceded the mackerel
Garefish. in their annual visit to shallow waters.
It
was taken in considerable numbers on the east coast.
Harrison classes it with congers, eels, and other long fish.
Sir Thomas Browne gives a more correct description
of it :-
"The acus major, called by some a garfish, and greenback,
answering the figure of Rondeletius, under the name of acus primas
species, remarkable for its quadrangular figure, and verdigrease-green
backbone.".
Stow describes a pageant on the return of Edward I.,
after his Scotch victory, in which there were "sixe and
fortie armed knightes riding on horses, made like luces
of the sea." Whether the garefish is here intended is
uncertain, and it is somewhat difficult to imagine either
a knight or a horse, for it is not quite clear which is
meant to represent the fish, being "made up" into such
a totally different shape.
The name sea-pike was also given to the hake.
In Marlowe's Edward II., the King inquires of
Lancaster what device he has chosen for the
Flying-fish. forthcoming rejoicings upon the occasion of
Gaveston's return. Lancaster replies:-
"My lord, mine's more obscure than Mortimer's.
Pliny reports there is a flying fish
Which all the other fishes deadly hate,
And therefore, being pursued, it takes the air :
No sooner is it up, but there's a fowl
That seizeth it: this fish, my lord, I bear,
The motto this: undique mors est.”
Edward, indignant at this implied threat, declares his
:
Flying-fish.
359
intention to uphold his favourite against any attacks or
insults:
"Though thou compar'st him to a flying fish,
And threatenest death whether he rise or fall,
'Tis not the hugest monster of the sea,
Nor foulest harpy that shall swallow him." (ii. 2.)
The shoals of Flying-fish are often described by the
early explorers. Joseph Acosta writes:
"There are other small fishes, which they call flying fishes, the
which are found within the tropickes, and in no other place, as I
thinke: they are pursued by the ducades; and to escape them they
leape out of the sea, and goe a good way in the ayre, and for this
reason they are called flying fishes: they have wings as it were of
linnen cloath, or of parchment, which doe support them some space in
the ayre. There did one flye or leape into the ship wherein I went,
the which I did see, and observe the fashion of his wings." (Purchas,
vol. iii. p. 931.)
Sir Thomas Herbert, writing in 1626, says:
"The greatest recreation we had [in the Red Sea] was a view of
such large sholes of flying fishes as by their interposing multitude for
some time darkned the body of the sun; a fish beautiful in its eye, the
body though no larger than a small herring yet big enough for those
complemental fins, which so long as moist serve as wings to fly 200
paces or more, and 40 feet high, helping them to avoid the pursuit
which sharks, dolphins, bonetaes, albicores, and other sea-tyrants make,
and causes them for self-preservation to forsake their proper element.
... The French call it aronder dumer, the swallow of the sea; others
a sea bat, or reremouse of the sea." (Travels, p. 39.)
Carp.
Some uncertainty prevails as to the date when the
Carp was first introduced into England.
Dame Juliana Berners, in her Treatise on
Angling, printed 1496, writes, "The carpe is a deyntous
fysshe: but there ben but fewe in Englonde and ther-
fore I wryte the lasse of hym" (p. 27, ed. 1841). Leonard
Mascall, a Sussex gentleman, has had the credit of im-
360 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
porting the carp into England about the year 1514. This
fish was plentiful in Fuller's time:-
"Now as this county [Sussex] is eminent for both sea and river
fish, namely an Arundel mullet, a Chichester lobster, a Shelsey cockle,
and an Amerly trout; so Sussex aboundeth with more carps than any
other of this nation." (Worthies, vol. iii. p. 240.)
Mention is made, in the Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth
of York, 1502, of a reward paid for the present of a carp.
Harrison refers to the recent introduction of this fish into
England. Noticing the number of fish found in the
Thames, he writes:-
"Onelie in carps it seemeth to be scant, sith it is not long since
that kind of fish was brought over into England, and but of late to
speake of into this streame, by the violent rage of sundrie landflouds,
that brake open the heads and dams of divers gentlemens ponds, by
which means it became somewhat partaker also of this said com-
moditie, whereof earst it had no portion that I could ever heare."
(Holinshed, vol. i. p. 77.)
Robert Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy (vol. i.
p. 218), gives us some learned information respecting the
carp's place in hygiene:—
Carp is a fish, of which I know not what to determine.
Franciscus Bonsuetus accounts it a muddy fish. Hippolytus Salvianus,
in his book De Piscium Naturâ et Præparatione, which was printed
at Rome in folio, 1554, with most elegant pictures, esteems carp no
better than a slimy watery meat. Paulus Jovius, on the other side,
disallowing tench, approves of it; so doth Dubravius in his books of
fishponds. Frietagius extols it for an excellent wholesome meat, and
puts it amongst the fishes of the best rank; and so do most of our
countrey gentlemen, that store their ponds almost with no other fish."
The sturgeon, on account of its want of scales, was to
the Jews a forbidden fish; a caviare, which was prepared
from the roe of the carp, was appreciated by them as a
substitute for the genuine article.
The notion alluded to by Ben Jonson, that "the carp
t
The Carp's Tongue.
361
has no tongue" (Cynthia's Revels, i. 2), was derived from
Aristotle. Gesner follows this classical authority, and
says that this fish has only a piece of flesh-like substance
in its mouth resembling a tongue, but which should be
rather called a palate. Elsewhere Ben Jonson classes the
tongues of carps, dormice, and camel's heels" together
as special dainties (Alchemist, ii. 1); and Muffett, in his
Healths Improvement, recommends the tongue of the carp
as specially wholesome.
(C
Polonius justifies himself to the spies that he sets upon
his son, by the assurance," Your bait of falsehood takes
this carp of truth" (Hamlet, ii. 1, 63). This is Shak-
speare's only mention of the carp.
The Bream was an inhabitant of the lakes in
Cumberland and some of the smaller rivers.
Bream.
It was so plentiful, Leland says, that in a
Welsh lake near Brecknock, through which the river
Lleveney runs, the breams, which appeared in May, came
in such shoals as to break the nets (Itinerary, vol. v. p. 66).
Walton quotes a French proverb to the effect that "he
that hath breams in his pond is able to give his friend
welcome," but this may be more on account of their
quantity than their quality.
It was recorded that the method which the bream, or
brenna, adopted for his defence against the pike was to sink
to the bottom of the stream and by stirring up the mud to
prevent his enemy from observing him. Muffett writes:-
"Breams seem no other than fat carps: yet whiter of flesh, and
finer nourishment. There is a kind of bream called scarus ruminas,
which we call a cudbream, because his lips are ever wagging like a cow
chawing the cud." (Page 175.)
The black sea bream, beetle, or old wife, was one of the
commonest fish. Muffett says:
"Olaffes, or rather old wives (because of their mumping and soure
countenance), are as dainty and wholesome of substance as they are
362
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
large in body; it was my chance to buy one about Putny, as I came
from Mr. Secretary Walsingham his house about ten years since: which
I caused to be boiled with salt, wine, and vinegar, and a little thime,
and I protest that I never did eat a more white, firm, dainty, and
wholesome fish." (Page 184.)
This author must have had a good memory to be able
to recall the flavour of a dish after so many years had
elapsed.
Tench.
The Tench, on the contrary, was considered unwhole-
some, or, as one writer expresses it, “of a
most unclean and damnable nourishment."
It was frequently eaten nevertheless, and was usually
served in jelly.
The tench was sometimes called "the physician of
fishes," and the touch of a tench was even supposed to
have the power of curing the wounds of a human being.
Izaak Walton reports that "the tyrant pike will not be
a wolf to its physician, but forbears to devour him though
he be never so hungry." The cause of this forbearance
is thus explained by Harrison:-
“The pike is freend unto the tench, as to his leach and surgeon.
For when the fishmonger hath opened his side and laid out his rivet
and fat unto the buier, for the better utterance of his ware, and cannot
make him away at that present, he laieth the same againe into the
proper place, and sowing up the wound, he restoreth him to the pond
where tenches are, who never cease to sucke and licke his greeved
place, till they have restored him to health, and made him readie to
come againe to the stall, when his turne shall come about."
Fuller, in his description of Dorsetshire, writes of the
tench:
Plenty hereof are bred in the river Stowre; which is so much the
more observable, because generally this fish loveth ponds better than
rivers, and pits better than either. It is very pleasant in taste, and is
called by some the physician of fishes: though in my opinion he may
better be styled the surgeon; for it is not so much a disease as a
wound that he cureth, nor is it any potion but a playster which he
affordeth; viz. his natural unctuous glutinousness, which quickly con-
The Tench.
363
solidateth any green gash in any fish. But the pike is principally
beholding unto him for cures in that kind; and some have observed
that that tyrant, though never so hungry, forbeareth to eat this fish,
which is his physician; not that pikes are capable (which many men
are not) of gratitude: but that they are indued with a natural policy,
not to destroy that which they know not how soon they may stand in
need of." (Worthies, vol. i. p. 309.)
It has been suggested that this consideration on the part
of the pike is due to the difficulty he finds in catching
the tench, as the latter keeps generally at the bottom of
the water. It was also thought that the tench, unlike
other fishes, enjoyed an immunity from all diseases.
The commentators have worried themselves and their
readers by their vain endeavours to explain the meaning
of the carrier's phrase," Stung like a tench" (1 Henry IV.,
ii. 1, 17). The smooth appearance of the fish affords no
clue to the meaning of the simile. The Carrier would
doubtless have been as much puzzled as any one, if he had
been called on to give a reason for his words, and as this
is the only mention of the tench by Shakspeare, we are
left rather in the dark as to the amount of the poet's
knowledge of its appearance. It may be, however, that
the tench has in process of years lost its spots, as the
following passage from Sir Thomas Herbert's Travels
(p. 384) certainly implies that at one period of its exist-
ence it possessed them. In his description of the pro-
duct of the seas around the Island of Mauritius, this
author writes:
"Give me leave to name what fish we took; dolphins, bonetaes, albi-
cores, cavalloes, porpice, grampasse, which Mr. Sands thinks is the
right dolphin, none else being of that opinion; this some call the sus
marinus, mullet, bream, tench, trout, sole, flounders, tortoise, eels,
pike, shark, crab, lobster, oysters, crafish, cuttle-fish (which though
its blood be as black as ink caused by a high concoction, is nevertheless
meat very delicious), rock-fish, limpits, and a speckl❜d toadfish or poy-
son fish as the seamen from experience named it; which last-named
came first to net and eaten too greedily by the heedless sailors was an
364
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
error cost some no less than their lives, others for some time their senses;
in shape it was not unlike a tench, but more black and deformedly
spotted."
"The Barbell, than which fish a braver doth not swim,
Barbel. Nor greater for the ford within my spacious brim [Trent]
Nor, newly taken, more the curious taste doth please.”
(DRAYTON, Polyolbion, song xxvi.)
The barbel was considered of sufficient value in Eliza-
beth's time to be protected by statute, but modern epi-
cures have nothing to say in support of Drayton's opinion
of its gastronomic merits. "The barbell is an evil fysshe
to take, for he is so strongly enarmyd in the mouth that
there may no weak harnesse hold him," writes Dame
Juliana. When caught he makes a brave resistance,
and, according to Du Bartas (p. 40), strives vigorously to
rid himself of the hook :-
"But timorous barbles will not taste the bit,
Till with their tails they have unhooked it :
And all the baits the fisher can devise
Cannot beguile their wary jealousies.”
Izaak Walton quotes from Plutarch's De Industria
Animalium the statement that the barbel attempts to re-
lease himself by striking off the line with his tail. This
assertion is repeated by a modern authority, Mr. Frank
Buckland, and called in question by Mr. Manley, who
writes:-
I hope I may be pardoned when I say 'I doubt this.' How can
Mr. Buckland tell what the barbel does when he is hooked, unless he
has encased himself in a diver's dress, and lain in barbel swim, or ob-
served this phenomenon through a glass window on a river's bank?”
(Notes on Fish and Fishing, 1877, p. 267.)
According to Chester, this fish was remarkable for
fecundity :--
"The barbell that three times in every yeare,
Her natural young ones to the waves doth beare."
(Love's Martyr, p. 99.)
Chubby-faced.
Drayton mentions:-
365
Roach.
"The Roche, whose common kind to every flood doth fall."
(Polyolbion, song xxvi.)
There was a mistaken notion that the Roach possessed an
immunity for the various maladies that fish is heir to;
whence, according to some, its name. Muffett writes:-
Roches, or Roch fishes (called so of Saint Roch, that legendary
Æsculapius and giver of health) are esteemed and thought incapable
of any disease, according to the old proverb, as sound as a roch."
(Healths Improvement, p. 186.)
The little Dace was also common. Drayton
writes:-
Dace.
"The pretty slender dare, of many called the Dace,
Within my liquid glass, when Phoebus shows his face,
Oft swiftly as he swims, his silver belly shows,
But with such nimble sleight, that ere ye can disclose
His shape, out of your sight like lightning he is shot."
(Polyolbion, song xxvi.)
Shakspeare's only reference to this fish is as a bait for
pike.
"The Chub, whose neater name, which some a
chevin call,
Chub.
Food to the tyrant pike, most being in his power,
Who for their numerous store he most doth them devour."
(Polyolbion, song xxvi.)
1
The chub, chevin, or chavender seems to have been
more popular as a dainty in Shakspeare's time than he is
in these days. Dame Juliana Berners writes of him,
"The chevyn is a stately fysshe: and his heed is a deynty
morsell. There is noo fysshe so strongly enarmyd wyth
scalys on the body." The chub was called skelly in
Cumberland, on account of its large scales, and pollarde
in other places. The chief peculiarity about this fish is
the roundness of the head and the width of the mouth,
366
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
which suggests the idea of plumpness. Randle Holme
says that the name chub comes from the German schupfish.
Chubby has grown to mean a smooth-faced plump
appearance. Marston writes:-
Bleak.
"I never saw a fool lean; the chub-fac❜d fop
Shines sleek with full cramm'd fat of happiness.”
(Antonio's Revenge.)
""
"The Bleke is but a feble fysshe, yet he is holsom,'
writes Dame Juliana. The bleak was called
from its appearance the fresh-water sprat, and
from the rapidity of its movements the water-swallow.
According to Walton, bleaks were packed in salt and
exported by the Italians as anchovies. Another use to
which this fish was put was in the manufacture of artificial
pearls. The glittering scales were rubbed off, and formed
a silvery paste-like substance, which was made up into
balls, or formed the lining of glass beads.
The name of the next fish, the Loach, is derived by
some writers from the French word locher, to
fidget, from its restless movements, especially
during stormy weather.
Loach.
Shakspeare's only mention of the loach has given rise
to some discussion. Mason suggested that the phrase
"breeds fleas like a loach" (1 Henry IV., ii. 1, 23) has
reference to the great fecundity of this fish. Izaak
Walton says that the loach is usually full of spawn, and
breeds three times in the year, as Drayton reports of the
barbel. He says also that Gesner and other learned
physicians recommended this small fish as light and
harmless diet for invalids. Reference has been made by
some critics to a passage in Pliny (Nat. Hist. b. ix.
c. xlvii.), showing that in ancient times fishes were
supposed to be infested with the parasites that so annoyed
the Carrier:
"Last of all some fishes there be which of themselves are given
The Loach.
367
to breed fleas and lice; among which the chalcis, a kind of turgot, is
one."
;
The sense of the Carrier's remark is by no means obscure
it is simply this, that fleas are abundant, and to attempt.
precisely to explain the utterances of such a dull-brained
fellow is as idle as the "famous inquiry into the probable
character of the husband of Juliet's nurse."
"The dainty Gudgeon, loche, the minnow, and the bleake,
Since they but little are, I little need to speak
Of them, nor doth it fit me much of those to reck,
Which every where are found in every little beck."
Gudgeon.
(Polyolbion, song xxvi.)
The facility with which the gudgeon is captured in
certain localities is proverbial; things easily won are apt
to be lightly regarded. It may be on this account that
Gratiano advises Antonio-
"Fish not with this melancholy bait
For this fool gudgeon, this opinion."
(Merchant of Venice, i. 1.)
The gudgeon was considered a wholesome fish, per-
haps owing to the possibility of keeping it alive in fresh
water till it was required. Muffett writes: "Gulls, guffs,
pulches, chevins, and millers thombs are a kind of jolt-
head gudgins, very sweet, tender and wholesome." The
miller's thumb is now placed by naturalists among the
spiny-finned fishes, next to the gurnet.
"And last the little Minnow-fish,
Whose chiefe delight in gravell is.”
Minnow.
(BROWNE, Britannia's Pastorals, book i. song ii.)
The Minnow, Menise, Pink, or Penk, was often used as
bait for taking larger fish. Of this small swimmer,
Muffett writes :—
"Minoes, so called either for their littleness, or (as Dr. Cajus
imagined) because their fins be of so lively a red, as if they were died
::
368
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
with the true cinnabre-lake called minium: they are less than loches,
feeding upon nothing, but licking one another.
delicate and light meat, either fried or sodden."
They are a most
(Page 183.)
In Wynkyn de Worde's Boke of Kervynge, minnowes,
or menewes, are recommended as an adjunct to stewed
porpoise, as we add shrimp sauce to cod.
Coriolanus insolently treats the plebeian senator, the
tribune of the people, the tongue of the common mouth,
who ventures to oppose him, as a giant among pigmies:--
"Shall remain !
Hear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you
His absolute 'shall"?"
(Coriolanus, iii. 1, 87.)
The haughty temper of the consul who would fain have
destroyed at one fell swoop the many-headed multitude,
as a whale annihilates whole shoals of undistinguished
fishes, cannot brook that such small fry should venture to
have rights or opinions of their own.
1
The Pilchard.
369
CHAPTER XVI.
Pilchard.
THE older naturalists had an idea that the Pilchard, like
the herring, was a visitor from distant shores.
This is so little true, that the fact is the
pilchard is never seen in the Northern Ocean, the resort
which they assigned to it, and the few that sometimes
wander through the Straits of Dover or the British
Channel have evidently suffered from passing so far out
of their accustomed limits (Yarrell, vol. ii. p. 97). The
pilchard is found almost exclusively on the western shores
of England and the south of Ireland. Sir Thomas Browne
speaks of some stragglers on the Norfolk coast: "Though
this sea aboundeth not with pilchards, yet they are
commonly taken among herrings; but few esteem thereof,
or eat them" (vol. iv. p. 332). Cornwall has always been
the chief fishing station for the pilchard; and Camden
reports that in his day—
“a most rich revenue and commoditie they have by those little
fishes that they call pilchards, which swarming, as one would say, in
mighty great skuls about the shores from July unto November, are there
taken, garbaged, salted, hanged in the smoke, laied up, pressed, and by
infinite numbers carried over into France, Spain, and Italie, unto which
countreys they be very good chaffer, and right good merchandise, and
are there named fumados."
Chester attributes medical qualities to this fish:—
"The little pilcher,
Whose onely moisture prest by cunning art,
Is good for those troubled with aches smart."
(Love's Martyr, p. 100.)
2 B
370
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Carew
Like the herring, the pilchard will rush through the
water with such force as to cause flashes of light.
tells us (Survey of Cornwall, p. 105) that—
"the pilchards are pursued and devoured by a bigger kind of fish, called
a plusher, being somewhat like the dog-fish, who leapeth now and
then above water, and therethrough bewrayeth them to the balker
[fisherman]. So are they likewise persecuted by the tunny, and he
(though not very often) taken with them damage faisant."
Herring.
“The Herring, king of fish," is thus de-
scribed by Olaus Magnus (p. 226):-
"Of all fish, almost, this onely lives by water. But taken out of the
water he presently dies, and there is no delay between his coming to the
ayr, and dying, as can be perceived, so soon as he is drawn forth of the
water. His eyes shine in the sea by night: and which is more, you
shall perceive as it were lightnings and glitterings over the sea, with
the great motion of this fish, and turning of vast sholes of them,
causing a reflexion; and this is commonly called herring-lightnings."
The sudden motion of a shoal of herrings might on a
moonlight night cause a sparkling effect.
The phos-
phorescent appearance of the open sea, of course, early
attracted the notice of travellers, and was ascribed by
them to a variety of causes.
One of Purchas's pilgrims
asserts" that it proved to be cuttle-fish which made this
fearful show " (Purchas, vol. i. p. 352).
The name herring has been derived by some authors
from the German word heer, an army, signifying their
numbers. The chief biographer of this fish is Nashe,
who in his Lenten Stuffe, or Praise of the Red Herring,
gives it the pre-eminence over all marine inhabitants for
usefulness, which honour it deserves even now. His
enthusiasm is somewhat amusing:-
"For if Cornish pilchards, otherwise called fumados, taken on the
shore of Cornewall, from July to November, bee so saleable as they are
in France, Spain, and Italy, which are but counterfets to the red-
herring, as copper to golde, or ockanie to silver; much more their
King of Fish."
371
elbows itch for joy, when they meete with the true golde, the true
red-herring itselfe. No true flying-fish but he; or if there be, that fish
never flyes but when his wings are wet, and the red-herring flyes best
when his wings are dry; throughout Belgia, High Germanie, Fraunce,
Spaine, and Italy hee flyes; and up into Greece and Africa, south and
southwest, ostrich-like walkes his stations; and the sepulcher palmers
or pilgrims, because he is so portable, fill their scrips with them."
(Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 165.)
Nashe also gives full particulars of the mode of herring-
fishing, and enumerates the towns on the English coast
where this trade was chiefly carried on. Yarmouth then,
as now, stands first on the list. In a pamphlet on
England's Way to win Wealth, 1614, an account is given
of the best fishing stations. The author begins with
Colchester, and will "scarce afford these men of the water
the name of fishermen, for that their chiefest trade is
dragging of oysters." He moreover charges the inhabi-
tants of this town with catching, under the name of
sprats, infinite thousands of young herrings, which are
almost worthless as food, and thus destroying the summer
harvest. Ipswich, according to him, was the best town in
England for the building of busses, or fishing smacks, also
for keeping them during the winter. Great Yarmouth
was the head-quarters of the herring fishery, and boats from
Holland, Picardy, and Normandy came "in hundred and
two hundred sail at a time together" to bring fresh fish to
be turned into red herrings (Harleian Miscellany, vol. iii.
p. 398).
According to the herring's most recent biographer,
Mr. J. M. Mitchell, an idea prevailed in early times that
the herring came from the Arctic Circle, or at least from
a considerable distance northward of Scotland, in large
shoals of some leagues in extent, and divided into lesser
shoals on coming towards the north of Scotland, one body
proceeding to the west coast of Scotland and to Ireland,
and the other to the east coast, each directing its course
372 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
southward. One author actually affirms that the whale
was designed by a kind Providence for the special purpose
of, at certain seasons of the year, frightening the herring
away from its native seas into those regions where it
would be obtainable with greater ease by man; he did
not care to inquire what might be the opinion of the
herring on the subject. Mr. Mitchell refutes this notion
of the shoals migrating from the North, and considers it
more probable that, after the herrings have spawned, they
return to the seas in the neighbourhood—
"where they continue, and where they feed until the spawning-season
again approaches, while the fry, on being vivified, continues near the
spawning-ground until it is of sufficient size to venture further.”
(The Herring, 1864, p. 84.)
""
The title of "king of the sea was probably conferred
on the herring in consequence of the great profit that
some nations derived from the fishery. To account for
the sovereignty of the herring, Nashe relates the follow-
ing fable:-A falcon, which had escaped from confinement
on its passage from Ireland, not finding its ordinary prey,
struck at a fish, and thereby came within reach of a shark,
which swallowed her, bells and all, at a mouthful. All
varieties of birds, hearing of this murder of one of their
aristocracy, determined to revenge the insult, and formed
themselves into a league for the purpose of chastising the
fishes. Information being carried to the fish by the
puffin, they on their side prepared for the danger, and
met in council to choose a king. The stronger fish, such as
the whale and the dolphin, laughed contemptuously at
the idea of peril, so the choice was limited to the weaker
kinds. After much deliberation the selection fell on the
herring, who was saluted with Vive le Roy by all present,
with the exception of the plaice and the butte, who
sneered at the newly chosen king, and for their mocking
have wry mouths ever since. In remembrance of the
Hero and Leander.
373
honour, the herring has since this time worn a coronet on
his head. Nashe does not continue the story, or tell us
the result of the conflict, but only reports that—
"the herring, from that time to this, hath gone about with an army,
and never stirres abroade without it: and when he stirs abroade with
it, he sendes out his scowts or sentinels before him, that oftentimes
are intercepted, and by theyr parti-coloured liveries descried, whom
the mariners, after they have tooke, use in this sort: eight or nine
times they swinge them about the maine mast, and bid them bring
them so many last of herrings, as they have swinged them times; and
that shall be theyr ransome, and so throw them into the sea againe."
(Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi. p. 170.)
The same writer gives, as the mythological origin of
the herring, the story of Hero and Leander, and declares
that after the unfortunate termination of the lovers' last
attempt to cross the Hellespont, the gods, commiserating
the misfortunes of the unhappy pair, transformed Leander
into the fish ling, and gave him as a habitation the coast
of Iceland; Hero they changed into-
:
"the flanting Fabian or Palmerin of England, which is Cadwallader
Herring and as their meeting were but seldome, and not so oft as
welcome, so but seldome should they meete in the heele of the weeker
at the best men's table, upon Fridayes and Saturdayes, the holy time of
Lent exempted; and then they might be at meats and meale for seven
weekes togither." (Page 169.)
Smoked or red herrings seem to have been a common
article of food. It is related that on Maunday Thursday
Cardinal Wolsey washed and kissed the feet of fifty poor
people, gave each person twelve pence, three ells of good
canvas for shirts, a pair of shoes, and a cask of red herrings
(Mitchell, p. 149). Russell, in his Boke of Nurture, 1450,
recommends mustard with salt herrings, and with white or
fresh herrings, white sugar, which does not sound particu-
larly inviting:
“Baken herynge, dressid and disht with white sugure ;
That white herynge by the bak a brode ye splat hym sure,
374
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
་ ་
Bothe roughe and boonus voyded then may youre lorde endure
To ete merily with mustard that tyme to his plesure."
(Babees Book, p. 38, ed. Furnivall, 1876.)
Shakspeare has several references to the herring, and
takes notice of its great resemblance to the pilchard.
Feste tells Viola, "Fools are as like husbands as pilchards
are to herrings; the husband's the bigger" (Twelfth Night,
iii. 1, 38).
Falstaff denounces the cowardice of the Prince and
Poins, and sings his own praises :—
"Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good
manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten
herring." (1 Henry IV., ii. 4, 142.)
"A shotten herring" was a phrase used to denote a
shabby, underfed fellow. Taylor, the Water Poet, has
the same expression:
66
Though they like shotten herrings are to see,
Yet such tall souldiers of their teeth they be,
That two of them, like greedy cormorants,
Devour more than sixe honest Protestants."
(Page 5, ed. Hindley.)
Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his Dictionary, explains the
term "shotten herring" to mean the gutted fish that were
dried for keeping. According to other authorities the
expression meant herrings that had spawned, and that
were consequently in poor condition. Shotten herring
might be cured just the same as full fish, but the name
applied to the fish and not to the method of preparing
them.
Fuller learnedly discourses on the origin of the pro-
verb, "a Yarmouth capon "-
"that is, a red-herring. No news for creatures to be thus disguised
under other names; seeing criticks by a Libyan bear, sub pelle Libystidis
ursæ, understand a lion, no bears being found in the land of Libya.
Interpreters at fault.
375
And I believe few capons (save what have more fins then feathers) are
bred in Yarmouth. But, to countenance this expression, I understand
that the Italian friers (when disposed to eat flesh on Fridays) call a
capon pisce è corte, a fish out of the coop." (Worthies, vol. ii. p. 126.)
Mr. Mitchell gives an account of the excitement
occasioned among the superstitious of all ranks in 1587,
in consequence of marks observed on two herrings caught
on the 10th of November of that year, off the coast of
Norway, which seemed to exhibit words in Gothic.
letters :-
"They were brought to Copenhagen, and seven days after their
capture presented to King Frederick the Second, who was terrified
at their appearance, and thought they predicted his own death. He
consulted the wise men of the age, who read the letters, and said they
were the following very innocent, and at present true, prophecy, ‘You
will not fish herrings in future so well as other nations.' But this
interpretation did not satisfy the king, and he applied to the learned
men of Rostock; but neither the professors there, nor at several of the
Universities of Germany who were consulted, could give a satisfactory
interpretation of the prophetic budget carved out on the backs of the
two ominous fishes; but a learned French mathematician, then at
Copenhagen, published a large volume in elucidation of the supposed
words. This work would be a curiosity if it were found, as we are not
informed what his interpretation was. Another author published his
opinions, to the effect that the' supposed letters announced the sub-
version of all Europe." (The Herring, p. 152.)
There was an old Highland superstition that the
herring quitted the coasts where blood had been shed,
and this theory was revived after the battle of Copen-
hagen, when it was said that they had deserted the
Baltic on account of the noise of the guns.
Sprat.
Early authorities on fish considered that the Sprat was
the young of the herring or the pilchard,
whence it was called garvie herring, or garvie.
The sprat was formerly held in greater estimation than
it is at present. It was thought not unworthy to make
its appearance at the Lord Mayor's banquet, and even
376
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
now this fish is not considered to be in season until after
the 9th of November.
Sir Thomas Browne tells us that among the Norfolk
fishes-
"the herrings departed, sprats, or sarda, not long after succeed in
great plenty, which are taken with smaller nets, and smoked and dried
like herrings, become a sapid bit, and vendible abroad." (Vol. iv.
p. 332.)
Jasper Mayne observes that—
Sardine.
"Since amulets and bracelets,
And love-locks were in use, the price of sprats,
Jerusalem artichokes, and Holland cheese,
Is very much increased."
66
(The City Match, ii. 1.)
Andrew Boorde, in his Introduction of Knowledge,
written in 1542, tells his readers that in Spain
you shall get kyd, and mesell bakyn, and
salt Sardyns, which is a lytle fysshe as bydg as a
pylcherd" (p. 198, ed. Early English Text Society, 1870).
These were in all probability the true sardines, still taken
in large quantities in the Mediterranean, but in most
cases any small fish that could be caught were pickled
and packed in similar fashion.
The Anchovy, another fish chiefly found in the
Mediterranean, has been occasionally taken
Anchovy. on the British coast, and its range extends
even as far north as the coast of Norway. Anthonie
Parkhurst, writing to Richard Hakluyt, in 1578, concern-
ing the commodities of Newfoundland, mentions a fish
“like a smelt, which commeth on shore," which a marginal
note explains to be the fish "called by the Spaniards
anchovas, and by the Portugals capalinas." The descrip-
tion of the fish is too slight to warrant this explanation
(Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 171).
In the paper of accounts purloined from Falstaff's
Anchovies and Sack.
377
pocket by the Prince and Peto, we find that anchovies
were appreciated as a relish by the valiant knight. Peto
reads:
Item, a capon, 2s. 2d.
Item, sauce, 4d.
Item, sack, two gallons, 5s. 8d.
Item, anchovies and sack after supper, 2s. 6d.
Item, bread, ob.
Prince. O monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to this
intolerable deal of sack!'
(1 Henry IV., ii. 4, 584.)
In a discussion between the hostess of an inn and her
servant, in Thomas Heywood's play, The Faire Maid of the
West, this delicacy is again mentioned :-
"Clem. Then for twelve penyworth of anchoves, 18d.
Besse. How can that be?
Clem. Marry, very well mistresse, 12d. anchoves, and 6d. oyle and
vineger."
Muffett writes:-
"Javelings or sea-darts are plentiful in the Venecian Gulf and
all the Adriatique Sea, where having taken the young ones, they
salt them and send them to Constantinople in infinite numbers for
anchovaes; the greater sort they fry and boil at home." (Healths
Improvement, p. 154.)
Eel.
Eels were found everywhere, both in fresh and salt
water, and were much esteemed. They were
generally roasted fresh, but were sometimes.
salted. The conger was also considered a choice dish.
Randle Holme gives the following names for the
eel :-
“An eel, first a fauser, then a grigg, or snigg, then a scaffling, then
a little eel; when it is large, then an eel, and when very large, a
conger."
The city of Ely is said to have been so named from
rents being formerly paid in eels, and Elmore on the
Severn obtained its name from the immense number of
378 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
these fish there taken. Young eels are called elvers in
the neighbourhood of that river (Yarrell, vol. ii. p. 294).
As at this period naturalists were of opinion that eels
were without scales, they were included among the for-
bidden articles of food among the Jews; fortunately for
those who like this fish, this restriction has been removed
by later investigations.
The conger was considered to be only a large-sized
eel, or rather a fresh-water eel that had gone to the sea
and remained there long enough to extend its dimensions,
whereas the two species are now found to be perfectly dis-
tinct. Carew, in his list of fish found on the Cornish
coast, more correctly divides eels into two kinds—
"the one valsen, of best taste, coming from the fresh rivers, when
the great rain floods after September do break their beds, and carry
them into the sea: the other, bred in the salt water, and called
a conger eel, which afterwards, as his bigness increaseth, ventureth out
into the main ocean, and is enfranchised a burgess of that vast common-
wealth." (Survey of Cornwall, p. 97.)
Fuller assigns the palm to Cambridgeshire for the
production of eels-
"which, though they be found in all shires in England, yet are most
properly treated of here, as most, first, and best; the courts of the kings of
England being thence therewith anciently supplied. I will not engage
in the controversy, whether they be bred by generation as other fish;
or equivocally, out of putrefaction; or both ways, which is most prob-
able; seeing some have adventured to know the distinguishing marks
betwixt the one and the other. I know the silver eels are generally
preferred, and I could wish they loved men but as men love them, that
I myself might be comprised within the compass of that desire.”
(Worthies, vol. i. p. 152.)
Instead of the beef and cheese usually ordered to be
provided for the repast at the month's mind, which was
the thirtieth day after a funeral, a testator of the time of
Henry VIII. ordains that eel pies shall be substituted in
the event of his month's mind falling in Lent, or on a
A "Month's Mind.”
379
fast day. The custom of having a grand repast a month
after a person's decease probably arose from the inability
of the relations to give sufficient importance to the obse-
quies in the few days which intervened between the death
and the funeral. Postal arrangements were by no means
rapid, relations and family friends had to be summoned
from a distance, and provisions to the required amount
could not be obtained without due preparation. Vernon,
who wrote in 1561, alludes to the extensive scale on which
these feasts were sometimes provided:-
"I should speake nothing, in the mean season, of the costly feastes
and bankettes that are commonly made unto the priestes (which come
to suche doinges from all partes, as ravens do to a deade carkase), in
their buryinges, moneths mindes, and yeares mindes."
Some idea may be gained of the magnitude of these
feasts from an account of a meal partaken of by the
mourners, on the occasion of the interment of the Duke
of Norfolk, at Framlingham, in Suffolk, in the year
1554. Machyn, citizen and merchant-taylor of London,
in his Diary tells us that on this occasion the following
substantial repast was provided: forty great oxen, a hun-
dred sheep, and sixty calves, besides venison, swans, and
cranes, capons, rabbits, pigeons, pikes, and other pro-
visions, both flesh and fish (p. 70, ed. Camden Soc., 1848).
There was a notion that eels were bred from the slime
of other fish, also that they could be produced by laying
horsehair in water. Shakspeare refers to this theory,
though it would appear from the context that snakes and
not eels were the result of the experiment:
"Much is breeding,
Which like the courser's hair hath yet but life,
And not a serpent's poison."
(Antony and Cleopatra, i. 2, 199.)
Sir Thomas Browne admits that he failed in his
attempt thus to produce living creatures: he writes:—
"Besides horseleaches and periwinkles, in plashes and standing
.
380
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
waters, we have met with vermes setacci, or hard worms; but could
never convert horsehairs into them by laying them in water. (Vol. iv.
p. 335.)
In Pericles we find a reference to the irritability of
eels during a thunderstorm.
The "feast-famous Sturgeon," or Sturio, was an oc-
casional visitor to our shores, and was always
exceedingly welcome :—
Sturgeon.
"The sturgeon cut to keggs, too big to handle whole,
Gives many a dainty bit, out of his lusty jole."
(Polyolbion, song xxv.)
This fish was taken in considerable quantities at the
mouth of the Elbe, but its head-quarters were in Russia.
Dr. Giles Fletcher, in his account of fresh-water fish
caught there, mentions—
"the bellouga, or bellougina, of foure or five elles long, the ositrina,
or sturgeon, the severiga and sterlady, somewhat in fashion and taste
like to the sturgeon, but not so thick or long. These foure kinds of
fish breed in the Volgha, and are catched to great plenty, and served
thence into the whole realme for a great food. Of the roes of these
foure kindes they make very great store of icary or caveary." (Purchas,
vol. iii. p. 417.)
The sturgeon was called a "fish royal," and was
granted by charter to the mayor and burgesses of Boston,
in Lincolnshire. When it came into the Thames it was
claimed by the lord mayor, and was usually presented
by him to the sovereign. Both fresh and salt sturgeon
are mentioned as desirable dishes in Russell's Boke of
Nurture.
"The ravin'd salt sea Shark," the terror of mariners,
is thus described by Sir Richard Hawkins, in
his voyage in the South Seas, in 1593:-
Shark.
"The Sharke or Tiberune, is a fish like unto those which wee call
dog-fishes, but that hee is far greater, I have seene of them eight or
nine foot long; his head is flat and broad, and his mouth in the middle,
Parental Affection.
381
underneath, as that of the scate; and he cannot bite of the baite
before him but by making a halfe turne; and he helpeth himself with
his taile, which serveth him in stead of a rudder; his skinne is rough,
like to the fish which we call a rough hound, and russet, with reddish
spots, saving that under the belly hee is all white: hee is much hated
of sea-faring men, who have a certaine foolish superstition with them, ·
and say that the ship hath seldome good successe, that is much
accompanied with them. It is the most ravenous fishe knowne in
the sea; for he swallowth all that hee findeth." (Purchas, vol. iv.
p. 1330.)
Mr. Couch says that the notion that the shark, while
ferocious in the extreme to every other living creature,
yet exhibited great devotion to its young, and watched
over them with tender solicitude, is derived from the
Greek poet Oppian, who relates that, when danger
threatens, the parent shark opens her mouth and conceals
her young ones in the large concave space provided for
the purpose, much in the same way as the adder is said
to provide for the safety of its offspring. This statement
is repeated and confirmed by Rondeletius, a naturalist of
eminence, whose work on fishes was the chief authority of
this period (British Fishes, vol. i. p. 32).
The largest species of shark, and indeed of all true
fishes, the Basking Shark, or sun-fish, was formerly often
mistaken for the whale, from its habit of floating quietly
and peaceably in the sunshine.
The Hammer-head, or Balance Shark, was only occa-
sionally found :-
"The Italians name them arbalestes, because they have some
resemblance therewith. Others call them hammers, or mallets, for their
head resemble that instrument. They are hideous to behold, haveing
their two eyes in the ends of that their hammered head, their mouth
in the midst, very great, with three rankes of teeth, large and pointed;
their tongue as that of a mans, their backe black with four finnes
and their tayles divided into two parts. Rondolet describeth them,
and sheweth their figure in his 30 booke, chapter ii." (Learned Sum-
mary on Du Bartas, p. 213.)
382 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
..
Pilot-fish.
The shark was often observed by sailors to be accom-
panied by a small fish called the Albacore,
or Pilot-fish. This little attendant was con-
sidered to be a kind of jackal, to provide the prey for his
master, and to share in the spoil. Sir Richard Hawkins,
in his account of a voyage to the South Sea, in 1593,
writes:
"There doth accompany this fish [shark] divers little fishes, which
are called pilats fishes, and are ever upon his finnes, his head, or his
backe, and feed of the scraps and superfluities of his preyes. They
are in forme of a trowte, and streaked like a mackerell, but that the
streakes are white and blacke, and the blacke greater than the white."
(Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1376.)
The pilot-fish was also thought to have a friendship
for man, and to keep close to ships, and to warn them of
danger by forsaking them when they came near the
shore. It was therefore treated as a guide, and protected
from injury by mariners. Mr. Couch suggests that the
reason of the dislike of this fish to the neighbourhood of
land is probably to be assigned to its objection to en-'
counter any fresh water which may come from the mouth
of large rivers.
The Remora, or Sucking-fish, was very common in
the Mediterranean. It possesses a flat adhe-
sive disk on the top of the head-
Remora.
"by means of which," says Yarrell, "it is able to attach itself firmly to
the surface of other fishes, or to the bottom of vessels, but whether
for protection or conveyance or both is a question which has not been
satisfactorily ascertained.” (British Fishes, vol. ii. p. 281.)
Although in reality only a small fish, and not capable
of inconveniencing either fish or vessel to any great ex-
tent, the obstructive powers attributed to the remora were
out of all proportion to its strength, and the word remora
came to be used to signify an impediment or obstacle.
Massinger writes:-
The Remora.
"To swim up to her, and like remoras
Hang upon her keel, to stay her flight."
(The Renegado, ii. 5.)
And Du Bartas is still more imaginative:-
"The remora, fixing her feeble horn
383
Into the tempest-beaten vessels stern,
Stayes her stone-still, while all her stout consorts
Saile thence at pleasure to their wished ports.
Then loose they all the sheets, but to no boot:
For, the charm'd vessell bougeth not a foot:
No more then if three fadome undergrounde,
A score of anchors held her fastly bound."
(Page 42.)
Horace, in the Poetaster of Ben Jonson (iii. 1), when
victimized by a long-winded "Hydra of discourse," ex-
claims :-
Death, I am seized here
By a land remora; I cannot stir,
Nor move but as he pleases."
And in Mayne we find a like comparison :
'No remora that stops your fleet,
Like serjeants gallants in the street.”
(The City Match.)
Montaigne also has a story to tell of this strange
impediment :-
'Many are of opinion that in the great and last naval engagement,
that Anthony lost to Augustus, his admirall gally was stay'd in the
middle of her course, by the little fish the Latins call Remora, by
reason of the property she has of staying all sorts of vessels, to which
she fastens her self. And the Emperor Caligula, sailing with a great
navy upon the coast of Romania, his gally only was suddenly stayed
by the same fish, which he caused to be taken, fastned as it was to
the keel of his ship, very angry that such a little animal could resist
both the sea, the wind, and the force of all his oars, by being only
fastened by the beak to his galley (for it is a shell-fish) and was, more-
over, not without great reason astonished, that being brought to
him in the long-boat, it had no more the strength it had without."
(Essay liv.)
$
384
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The curious power of adhesion that the remora pos-
sesses was attributed by the ancient writers to super-
natural agency, and from these writers also comes the
confusion which often occurs in the descriptions of
travellers between this fish and the lamprey.
"Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you:
Dog-fish. Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or Dogfish,
Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels."
(1 Henry VI., i. 4, 106.)
Thus threatens Talbot, stung to fury, and thirsting to
revenge the dying Salisbury.
The dog-fish, a species of ground-shark, is chiefly
remarkable in modern times for its voracity. It was used
by our forefathers as an article of food, and was rendered.
palatable, or at least eatable, by the addition of a sauce
compounded of garlic or mustard, verjuice, and pepper.
Chaucer thus alludes to the rough scales of this fish,
whence the name Rough-hound:-
"He lullith her, he kissith hir ful ofte;
With thikke bristlis on his berd unsofte,
Lik to the skyn of hound-fisch, scharp as brere,
(For he was schave al newe in his manere,)
He rubbith hir about hir tendre face."
(Marchaundes Tale.)
According to Du Bartas (p. 46), the dog-fish, like the
adder, swallowed its young in time of danger :-
'So, in the deep, the dog-fish for her fry
Lucina's throwes a thousand times doth try,
For, seeing when the suttle fisher followes them,
Again alive into her womb she swallows them;
And when the perill's past, she brings them thence,
As from the cabins of a safe defence;
And (thousand lives to their deer parent owing)
As sound as ever in the seas are rowing."
The theory was often broached, both by classical
The Bishop-fish.
385
writers and by the philosophers of the sixteenth century,
that every creature that has life upon the
earth or in the air, has its counterpart in the
Monk-fish.
water. Du Bartas puts into rhyme this fanciful notion,
which may be found stated in prose by other writers
of his time:-
"Seas have (as well as skies) sun, moon, and stars:
(As well as ayre) swallows, and rooks, and stares:
(As well as earth) vines, roses, nettles, millions [melons],
Pinks, gilliflowers, mushroms, and many millions
Of other plants (more rare and strange than these)
As very fishes living in the seas:
And also rams, calfs, horses, hares, and hogs,
Wolves, lions, urchins, elephants, and dogs,
Yea men and mayds; and (which I more admire)
The mytred bishop, and the cowled fryer :
Whereof, examples (but a few years since)
Were shew'n the Norways, and Polonian prince."
(Page 39.)
The curiosity referred to in the last two lines was
probably the Bishop, or Monk-fish, a species of shark.
A specimen of this fish, according to Rondeletius, was
taken in the year 1531, in Polonia, and brought alive to
the king. After due inspection it was considerately
restored to its own habitation. The monk-fish is a strange
looking creature, with large wing-like fins. It may be
the origin of some of the wonderful stories told by the
old chroniclers of seamen. Stow tells us that a bishop-
fish which was caught was actually taken as a compliment
to the nearest church, where, to the chronicler's astonish-
ment, he "showed no signs of adoration."
"Fair Queen, forbear to angle for the fish
Which, being caught, strikes him that takes it Torpedo.
dead;
I mean that vile Torpedo, Gaveston,
That now I hope floats on the Irish seas."
(MARLOWE, Edward II., i. 4.)
2 c
386
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The power of imparting an electric shock possessed by
the torpedo, or cramp-fish, was known to the ancients.
Oppian, the "Izaak Walton" of classical authors, gives
a full account of the mode by which this fish defends
itself against its enemies. The torpedo, or electric ray,
is found occasionally on the British coasts. Montaigne
illustrates by the action of the torpedo the knowledge
which animals have of their respective faculties, and the
ingenuity which they display in putting these faculties
to the best possible use.
“The cramp-fish," he writes, "has this quality, not only to benumb
all the members that touch her, but even through the nets transmit a
heavy dulness into the hands of those that move and handle them; nay,
it is further said, that if one pour water upon her, he will feel this num-
ness mount up the water to the hand, and stupifie the feeling through
the water. This is a miraculous force; but 'tis not useless to the cramp-
fish; she knows it, and makes use on't, for to catch the prey she
desires, she will bury herself in the mud, that other fishes swimming
over her, struck and benum'd with this coldness of hers, may fall into
her power." (Essay liv.)
The Thornback, mentioned by Harrison in his list of
British fish, was very abundant. It was
Thornback.
much used as an article of food. It was sub-
jected to heavy pressure, salted, and dried for winter
consumption.
The name maid was given to several fish of the ray
species, but was generally applied to young skates. The
name skate, says Couch, is derived from the Saxon word
skitan, to reject, and was probably bestowed on this fish
on account of its being thrown aside as worth less, at least
for the market. The fishermen sometimes reserved it for
their own use. Willoughby records an instance of a
skate weighing two hundred pounds, dressed by the cook
of St. John's College, Cambridge, which proved suffi-
cient to satisfy the appetite of one hundred and twenty
gentlemen.
(C
The Lamprey.
387
Lamprey, a fish of the sea, and of the sweet water, well knowne,
long and sliding; depictured and described at large by
Rondolet in his 3 chapter of his fourteenth booke."
Lamprey.
So writes the learned commentator on Du Bartas.
Fuller, describing Worcestershire, tells us that-
"lampreys, in Latin lampetræ, à lambendo petras, from licking the
rocks, are plentiful in this and the neighbouring counties in the river
Severn. A deformed fish, which for the many holes therein, one would
conceive nature intended it rather for an instrument of music than for
man's food." (Worthies of England, vol. iii. p. 87.)
Drayton writes:-
"The lamprey, and his lesse, in Severn genral be."
(Polyolbion, song xxvi.)
The unwholesomeness of the lamprey grew into a
proverb in consequence of the tradition that Henry I.
owed his death to his partiality for this fish. In the old
works on cookery it is recommended that the lamprey be
stewed with good wine and herbs.
Du Bartas, in his curious jumble of Greek and Hebrew
mythology, writes (p. 42):-
"His sweetest strokes then sad Arion lent
Th' inchanting sinnewes of his instrument:
Wherewith he charm'd the raging ocean so,
That crook-tooth'd lampreys and the congers row
Friendly together, and their native hate
The pike and mullet, for the time, forgate."
It may not be out of place to quote the poet's apology
for this incongruity. In the preface to his chief work, a
long poem on the Creation, Du Bartas announces that
he presents no profession of his faith, but a poem, which
he has adorned "as much as the subjects will permit
with all those most excellent jewels plucked and picked
out of all sciences and professions." Referring to the
then universal practice of introducing heathen deities into
388 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
a religious work, he calls the attention of his readers to
the small use he has made of them
"Poesie hath been so long times seasoned and seized of these fabu-
lous termes that it is impossible to dispossesse her but by little and little
thereof. I have attempted amongst the first to reform her, some other
will come after me that will wholly purge her, and will interdict (as
the civilians speake) these monstrous jests from fire and water."
This passage is not in Sylvester's translation, but in the
translation of the Learned Summary on his Works, by
T. L. D., M.P., 1637.
The following conjectural emendation on a passage
in Pericles has been suggested by Mr. Bell, which has
at least the merit of ingenuity :-
"The air-retaining lamps, the belching whale,
And humming water must o'erwhelm thy corpse,
Lying with simple shells." (iii. 1, 63.)
The word lamps," writes Mr. Bell, "is here put for one of the
lowest, and one of the most loathed species of fish, the lamprey. This
animal, as is well known, has seven spiracula or air-holes on its side.
These, with the Germans, according to a wide-spread and popular
belief, are taken for seven eyes; which, with the two real ones the
animal has, make up the Teutonic tale of nine, to give it the only name
by which it is known of 'neunagen,' or nine eyes. But consequently,
from this view, no orifices remain for respiration; and it follows that,
not being able to emit the air, it must retain it: so that by the change
of a single letter in the line, we have a perfectly consistent epithet, and
a perfect solution. The contrast, too, is forcible, betwixt the lamprey
emitting no air, and the whale spouting it so furiously, and in such
columns." (Notes and Queries, 3rd series, vol. vii. p. 237.)
Dame Juliana Berners, after recommending the min-
now and the worm as proper baits for the trout in the
month of March, adds, " in Aprill take the same baytes:
and also junaba other wyse named vii eyes" (Treatise on
Fyshynge).
+
Definition of Serpent.
389
CHAPTER XVII.
Insects.
THE word insect, from the Latin, in, and seco, to cut,
was given originally to such small creatures
whose bodies appear to be cut in, or almost
divided, or, as Topsell calls them, cut-wasted. Insects are
included by Topsell in his General Treatise of Serpents.
He could not place these many-legged creatures with four-
footed beast, and was therefore compelled thus oddly to
classify them. He thus defines the word serpent:—
((
By serpents we understand in this discourse all venomous beasts,
whether creeping without legs, as adders, and snakes, or with legs, as
crocodiles and lizards, or more neerly compacted bodies, as toads,
spiders, and bees. . Aristotle and Galen define a serpent to be ani-
mal sanguineum pedibus orbatum et oviparum, that is, a bloudy beast
without feet, yet laying egges; and so properly is a serpent to be under-
stood. And thus much for the name in general, which in Holy
Scripture is Englished a creeping thing." (Page 598, ed. 1658.)
The phrase in Leviticus (xi. 20), “ All fowls that creep,
going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you," is
thus explained by Professor Bush, in his notes on this
chapter:
"That insects are here meant is plain from the following verse; and,
therefore, the sense is, 'all those creatures which fly and also creep,
going upon all four,' i.e., creeping along upon their feet in the manner
of quadrupeds, such as flies, wasps, bees, etc., together with all leaping
insects; these are to be avoided as unclean, with the exceptions in the
next two verses."
"
V
390 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Bacon makes use of the word insecta, but gives a
different interpretation; after mentioning several kinds
of insect, such as the weevil and gadfly, he writes, "Note
that the word insecta agreeth not with the matter, but we
use it for brevity's sake, intending by it creatures bred
out of putrefaction.”
Thomas Muffett, or Mouffet, a Frenchman, was phy-
sician to the English Court, in the reign of Elizabeth.
He wrote a learned and elaborate work on insects, but
died before the book was published. This work, The
Theater of Insects, was brought out by Sir Theodore May-
erne, one of the Court physicians, in the year 1634. May-
erne, in his dedicatory epistle to Sir William Paddy, chief
physician to Charles I., looks forward to the time when
powerful microscopes shall reveal the wonders of insect
forms. He writes:
"How wilt thou be pleased to see the small proboscis of butterflies
wreathed alwaies into a spiral line, after they have drawn forth nutri-
ment from flowers, their extended large wings painted by Nature's arti-
ficial pencil, with paints cannot be imitated; to which the very rain-
bow is scarse comparable-
Which right against the sun a thousand colours shewes.
What a pleasant spectacle will this be when the artificial hands care-
fully and curiously guide the most sharp penknife, and very fine
instrument by direction of the sight."
Muffett's work, which is printed with Topsell's History
of Four-footed Beasts, in Rowland's edition, 1658, is the
chief authority of the time on insects. It would have
been far more valuable had the author devoted himself
exclusively to obtaining information from personal obser-
vation and experiment, instead of quoting at length from
Aristotle, Pliny, and other classical authorities, perpetuat-
ing their errors and conjectures, as well as their truths.
The use of Cochineal in dyeing is of great antiquity.
Colour-yielding insects are found on various
plants in the southern and eastern countries
Cochineal.
Cochineal.
391
of Europe. The best cochineal comes from Mexico and
New Spain, and was first imported by the Spaniards from
their Mexican possessions, about the middle of the six-
teenth century. The nature of the coccus was, however,
quite unknown. By most early writers it is called either
the natural fruit of the tree, or an animal product bred of
putrefaction. Beckmann, in his History of Inventions and
Discoveries, writes:-
"As the coccus was gathered at Midsummer [St. John's Day] it was
called St. John's blood; probably because the clergy wished by that
appellation to make this revenue appear as a matter of religion; and
that name is still continued among the country people in Germany.
As the monks and nuns carried on various trades, particularly that
of weaving, they could employ the St. John's blood to very good
purpose."
We read in Hakluyt (vol. ii. p. 675), that on—
"the 9th of October, 1589, there arrived in Tercera fourteene ships
that came from the Spanish Indies, laden with cochinile, hides, golde,
silver, pearles, and other rich wares.'
وو
Du Bartas writes (p. 86):-
"There lives the sea-oak in a little shel;
There grows untill'd the ruddy cochenel :
And there the chermez, which on each side arms
With pointed prickles all his precious arms;
Rich trees, and fruitfull in those worms of price,
Which pressed, yeeld a crimsin-coloured juice,
Whence thousand lambs are died so deep in grain,
That their own mothers know them not again."
On the second line of this passage his commentator has
the following note:-
"This is a graine first of all brought from the East; and I have heard
that certaine caterpillers doe every yeere cast out the same in a certaine
time, as the silk-wormes doe: some likewise hold that it is a part of
their bodies. The grain is like a small pease; and being kept (as wee
see amongst the dyers) resembleth a little graine of dryed currants.
Being grinded, it hath a purple browne colour, and serveth the dyers
392
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
likewise for purple, which is betweene red and tawny; and is much in
use at this day in Europe. The poet surnameth it red, because it is
found that it hath a more high colour, and that which he addeth (that
it groweth without tillage) may be understood according as I have
expounded; except a man will say, that there is another graine of that
name which commeth of it selfe: for I know not, whether the other pro-
ceeding from the bodie of a creature, may take root and fructifie."
(Learned Summary on Du Bartas, p. 86.)
Chermes, or kermes-grain, from the Arabic word kir-
miran, was the name given to the Coccus ilicis, an insect
found on the ilex or evergreen oak, a tree growing in the
south of Europe. Our word crimson is derived from this
obsolete name, kermes.
Cricket.
atomies:
""
Queen Mab was indebted to the insect
tribes for her dainty chariot and "team of
"Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of Cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers."
(Romeo and Juliet, i. 4, 59.)
The cricket was often confused with the cicada of
the ancient Greeks, especially by those writers whose
knowledge of natural history was derived mainly from
classical sources. We should probably be correct in sub-
stituting the word cicada for the grasshopper in the follow-
ing remarkable piece of information. The main value of
the passage, however, is to show the extreme credulity of
the narrator. Giraldus Cambrensis writes:-
"In the districts of Apulia and Calabria there are grasshoppers
with wings, which spring from place to place not by any effort of
The Cricket on the Hearth.
393
their legs, but by the use of their wings, and have orifices under their
throats by which they utter tuneful sounds. It is also reported that
they sing sweetest when their heads are cut off, and when they are
dead better than when they are alive." (Topography of Ireland, 1187,
p. 40.)
This vocal accomplishment was confined to the male
insect, hence the rhyme, handed down from antiquity:-
"Happy the cicadas' lives,
Since they all have voiceless wives."
Ben Jonson credits the cricket also with tuneful
powers: "Walk as if thou hadst borrowed legs of a
spinner and voice of a cricket" (Bartholomew Fair, i. 1).
It was considered a sign of good fortune to have a
cricket chirping by the hearth, and to kill one of these
harmless little creatures was looked on as a breach of
hospitality.
"The cat, with eyne of burning coal,
Now couches fore the mouse's hole;
And crickets sing at the oven's mouth,
E'er the blither for their drouth."
L
(Pericles, act iii., GOWER.)
Shakspeare has several references to this lover of the
fireside, whose monotonous note is so suggestive of cosy
comfort. The boy Mamillius thus begins a tale of gob-
lins by a winter's fire:-
"Mam. There was a man-
Herm. Nay, come, sit down; then on.
Mam. Dwelt by a fchurchyard: I will tell it softly;
Yond crickets shall not hear it."
(Winter's Tale, ii. 1, 28.)
This was for some time considered a scientific blunder on
the part of the poet, but modern naturalists have demon-
strated that the cricket is by no means deficient in the
sense of hearing.
Sir Thomas Browne mentions "the Gryllotalpa, or
394
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Fen Cricket, common in fenny places; but we have met
with them also in dry places, dunghills, and churchyards,
of this city [Norwich]" (vol. iv. p. 336).
The Grasshopper was regarded as the type of careless
improvidence, of light-hearted enjoyment of
the present moment, without thought of the
Grasshopper*
morrow:—
"As long liveth the mery man (they say),
As doth the sory man, and longer by a day:
Yet the grassehopper for all his sommer piping
Sterveth in winter wyth hungrie gripyng."
(Ralph Royster Doyster.)
Muffett, in his Theater of Insects, says that the grass-
hopper is the only insect that is without a mouth. It is
provided, according to this writer, with a long proboscis,
with which it sucks the dew from the grass. This notion
he derives from his classical authorities, and quotes from
Plato the information that the grasshopper was conse-
crated to Apollo, and the Muses bestowed upon it this
boon, that it should only live by singing, not so much as
mentioning the dew. Ben Jonson writes of some care-
less spendthrift:
"Tut, he will live like a grasshopper-on dew,
Or like a bear, with licking his own claws."
(The Staple of News, v. 2.)
Unfortunately for farmers this theory of the grasshopper's
diet is incorrect. It is a vegetable feeder, and in some
districts has been known to cause considerable damage to
the crops.
According to Ben Jonson, the grasshopper's chirp was
more a sound of anger than of pleasure:-
"And though the impudence of flies be great,
Yet this hath so provoked the angry wasps,
Or, as you said, of the next nest, the hornets,
That they fly buzzing, mad, about my nostrils,
Excommunication of Locusts.
And like so many screaming grasshoppers
Held by the wings, fill every ear with noise."
(The Poetaster, act v. apologue.)
395
The poet's knowledge of natural history was not equal to
his skill in classical lore, and he here, as elsewhere, con-
fuses the grasshopper with the cicada of Italy and
Greece.
Among whole-bodied insects Harrison includes "bee-
tles, horseflies, turdbugs, or dorres (called
!
Locust.
in Latine scarabei), and the Locust or grass-
hopper (which to me also seeme to be one thing")
(Holinshed, vol. i. p. 382). The locust proper is, fortu-
nately, not a visitor to the cornfields of Britain, though
the largest species of grasshopper has sometimes received
this name.
Shakspeare's only use of the word locust has refer-
ence, in all probability, to the bean and not to the
insect: “The food that to him now is as luscious as
locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida
(Othello, i. 3, 354).
""
In 1553 the neighbourhood of Arles, in the south of
France, was visited by swarms of these locusts, which
caused great distress by their ravages on the standing
crops. Sir Francis Alvarez, a Portuguese priest, gives
an account of how he excommunicated the locusts in
Ethiopia, in the year 1560.
"The number of these creatures,” he writes, "is as great as it is
incredible, and with their multitude they cover the earth and fill the
ayre in such wise that it is an hard matter to be able to see the sun.
These verimine are as great as a great grasshopper, and have yellow
wings. . ... We assembled the people of the towne, and all the priests,
and taking a consecrated stone and a crosse, all we Portugals sung the
Letanie. I caused them to take up a quantity of locusts, and make of
[over] them a conjuration, which I carried with me in writing, which
I had made the night before, requiring them, charging them, and ex-
communicating them, willing them within three houres space to begin
to depart toward the sea, or toward the land of the Moores, or towards
396
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
the desert mountaines, and to let the Christians alone: and if they
obeyed me not, I called and adjured the fowles of the heaven, the
beasts of the field, and all the tempests, to scatter, destroy, and con-
sume their bodies. And for this purpose I tooke a quantitie of these
locusts, and made this admonition to them which were present, in the
name of themselves, and of those which were absent and so I let
them goe, and gave them libertie. . . . In the meanwhile, arose a great
storm and thunder towards the sea, which lasted three hours, with an
exceeding great shower and tempest, which filled all the rivers, and
when the water ceased, it was a dreadful thing to behold the dead
locusts, which we measured to be above two fathomes high upon the
bankes of the rivers in such wise, that on the next morning there was
not one of them found alive upon the ground.” (Purchas, vol. ii.
p. 1047).
As this ceremony was so successful, the worthy priest
found himself applied to by the neighbouring countries
when their fields were threatened in like manner, but he
was probably too cautious to risk a failure by frequent
repetition of the experiment.
The weird-looking creature, the Praying Mantis, is
mentioned by Muffett in his Theater of In-
Mantis. sects (p. 982). This author seems in all
seriousness disposed to give the insect credit for the
devotion which its eccentric attitude suggests. He
writes, of locusts :-
"I have seen only three kindes very rare, i.e. Italian, Greek, and
Affrican: they are called mantes, foretellers, either because by their
coming (for they first of all appear) they do shew the spring to be at
hand, so Anacreon the poet sang; or else they foretell dearth and
famine, as Cælius the scholiast of Theocritus have observed. Or
lastly, because it alwaies holds up its forefeet like hands praying as it
were, after the manner of their diviners, who in that gesture did pour
out their supplications to their gods. Of this Italian mantis (whose
figure we do here represent), Rondeletius makes mention in his book
De Piscibus, in these words: It hath a long breast, slender, covered
with a hood, the head plain, the eyes bloudy, of a sufficient bignesse,
the cornicle short, it hath six feet like the locust, but the foremost
thicker and longer than the other, the which for the most part she
holds up together (praying-wise), it is commonly called with us
The Pious Mantis.
397
Preque Dieu, the whole body is lean. So divine a creature is this
esteemed, that if a childe aske the way to such a place, she will
stretch out one of her feet, and shew him the right way, and seldome
or never misse. Her tail is two forked, armed with two prickles: and
as she resembleth those diviners in the elevation of her hands, so also
in likeness of motion; for they do not sport themselves as others do,
nor leap, nor play; but walking softly, she retains her modesty, and
shewes forth a kinde of mature gravity."
"We are oft to blame in this,—
'Tis too much proved-that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself."
(Hamlet, iii. 1, 44.)
The so-called pious action of the mantis denotes in reality
patient watchfulness for prey, as the cat crouches in
silence before the mouse's hole. This insect is specially
remarkable for savage ferocity, and will often destroy
others of its own species, if they chance to come within
range of its sabre-like legs.
An early mention of the singular Leaf Insect occurs
in an account given by Antonio Pigafetta of the voyage
of Ferdinand Magellan. Magellan sailed from Seville
1519, proceeded along the coast of South America,
through the straits which bear his name, among the
numerous islands of the South Sea, across the Great
Pacific Ocean, and after many adventures arrived at the
Ladrone Islands, where the gallant commander was un-
fortunately slain in a combat with the natives. Though
he did not live to see the return of his expedition,
Magellan is almost entitled to the claim of the first cir-
cumnavigator, as the Victoria, one of the three ships that
formed the expedition, completed the circuit of the globe,
and reached Seville in safety in the year 1522. Pigafetta,
who kept a record of the events of this wonderful voyage,
writes:-
“Leaving Borneo they came to the Isle Cimbubon, which lies in
8° 7' of north latitude; here they stayed forty days calking their ships,
398
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
י
!
and taking in fresh water and fuel. In the woods of this isle they
found a tree, the leaves of which, as soon as they fall on the ground
move from place to place, as if they were alive. They resemble
mulberry-leaves, and on the sides of them there are certain fibres pro-
duced, that seem like little eggs. If they are cut or broken, there is
nothing like blood comes forth; but if they are touched they suddenly
spring away."
Dr. John Harris, F.R.S., who includes this narrative
in his collection of voyages, informs us that Pigafetta
kept one of these leaf animals in a dish for eight days.
The learned compiler considers it advisable to add as a
note:-
"This account is not only improbable, but incredible; yet I have
retained it, because, on the credit of Pigafetta, it has been taken into
several treatises of natural history." (Harris's Travels, vol. i.
p. 116, ed. 1764.)
Cockroach.
The beetle, only too well known in modern kitchens
by the name of Cockroach, is an importation
from the West Indies. Captain John Smith,
in his history of the Bermudas, or Summer Islands, 1622,
mentions this insect under its native name:
“The musketas or flies are very busie, with a certaine Indian bugge
called by the Spaniards, a cacaroatch, which creeping into chests by
their ill sented dung defile all, besides their eating." (Purchas, vol. iv.
p. 1801.)
The word bug, it is scarcely necessary to note, was in
older times, as it still is in America, the name given to
beetles of all kinds. Harrison calls the dor-beetle a
turd-bug, and Topsell speaks of humble-bees or shorn-
bugs.
Beetles.
Muffett mentions several species of Beetle: the great
stag beetle; the long-horned beetle or goat-
chafer; the dung beetle or sharn-bugg, which
he describes as a round cat-faced beetle; the oil beetle;
the great water beetle; the tree beetle or dorr, and
The Cockchafer.
399
others. Of this last, by which he evidently means the
common cockchafer, he writes:—
"The tree beetle is very common, and every where to be met with
especially in the moneths of July and August, after sun-set: for then it
flyeth giddily in mens faces with a great humming and loud noise, and
vexeth cattel. These beetles spoil the leaves of trees, which they do
not so much eat as tear in pieces out of an inbred malice; for they feed
upon gnats. We call them dorrs in English; the Dutchmen, baum-
kafer,loubkaefer; Agricola, l. de subterr. anim. seukaefer; the French,
hannetons. The sheaths of their wings are of a light red colour, and
covered as it were with a very fine flower, otherwise they shine but a
little; their legs, feet, and prickly tail are of the same colour: its other
parts are all over brown: only that the circle about their eyes, and
their little horns are yellowish, and of the same colour are they a little
above the beginning of their tail, the joynts of their bellies are whitish.
In Normandy they are much more numerous every third year, and
therefore they call it l'an des hannetons. It is recorded in our Chron-
icles, that in the year of our Lord 1574, on the 24 of February there
fell such a multitude of them into the river Severn, that they stopt and
clog'd the wheels of the water-mils: and indeed, unless together with
the industry of men, the hens, ducks, goat-milkers, castrels, bats, and
other birds of prey (which seem to make these their dainties) had
afforded their help, the mills had even to this day been choaked and
stood still." (Theater of Insects, p. 1014.)
Ben Jonson has many references to the desultory
uncertain flight of the chafer or dor, and to the blind
way in which it frequently dashes itself against the face
of a pedestrian or any other obstacle. He uses the verb
to dor in the sense of to mock, to outwit:
"Abroad with Thomas! Oh, that villian dors me,
He hath discovered all unto my wife."
(Every Man in His Humour, iv. 6.)
"What should I care what every dor doth buz."
(Cynthia's Revels, iii. 2.)
Shakspeare's allusion to "the shard-borne beetle with
his drowsy hums" (Macbeth, iii. 2, 42) has provoked some
controversy. Robert Patterson, in his Natural History of
Insects mentioned in Shakspeare's Plays, 1842, inclines to
:
400 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
the opinion that the adjective shard-borne here refers to
the hard outer coverings of the wings, and that the
peculiarity of the insect's flight would be more likely
to attract the poet's attention than would its place of
nurture.
"These shards or wing cases," he writes, "are raised and expanded
when the beetle flies, and by their concavity act like two parachutes
in supporting him in the air. Hence the propriety and correctness
of Shakspeare's description, 'the shard-borne beetle,' a description em-
bodied in a single epithet."
Mr. Patterson refers any reader interested in this question
to a long and interesting note published in the Zoological
Journal, No. xviii. p. 147.
Bellarius warns the aspiring princes, Guiderius and
Aviragus, that security may best be found under a humble
roof:-
"And often to our comfort, shall we find
The sharded beetle in a safer hold
Than is the full winged eagle."
(Cymbeline, iii. 3, 19.)
A contrast is here drawn between the case-wings of the
beetle, which, while they seem to impede its flight,
protect it from harm, and the soft full-fledged pinions
of the eagle, which too often carry the bird into
danger.
Enobarbus, commenting on the love expressed by
Lepidus for Cæsar and Antony, insinuates that this
pretended devotion is but assumed as a means of self-
aggrandizement. This "slight unmeritable man" seeks
to rise by the aid of the superior strength of his
colleagues :-
"They are his shards, and he their beetle.”
(Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 2, 19.)
Other critics consider the word shard to refer to the
Fear of Death.
401
material usually selected by the parent beetle as a
habitation for its offspring. Lyly uses the word in this
sense, and writes: "The quaile that forsaketh the mallowes
to eat hemlock, or the fly that shunneth the rose to light
on a cow-shard” (Euphues, p. 240). This reading of the
word is supported by Kirby and Spence in their Ento-
mology (p. 221, 7th edition).
Ben Jonson notices these sheath-like cases :-
"The scaly beetles with their habergeons,
That make a humming murmur as they fly."
(The Sad Shepherd, ii. 2.)
Isabella's appeal to her brother's courage and honour
has been frequently quoted as indicating Shakspeare's
opinion as to the sensibility of insects. That the dramatist
was too large-hearted and tender to be indifferent to pain,
even if suffered by so small a creature as a worm, is
certain, but the Rev. Mr. Bird has pointed out that in
these lines Shakspeare's purpose was to show how little
man feels in dying:-
"Darest thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.'
(Measure for Measure, iii. 1, 76.)
The sting of death lies in the foreknowledge of it, not
in the act :-
"Even a beetle, which feels so little, feels as much as a giant does.
The less, therefore, the beetle is supposed to feel, the more force we give
to the sentiment of Shakspeare." (Patterson, p. 79.)
66
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs, Glow-worm.
And light them at the fiery Glow-worm's eyes."
(Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 1, 171.)
2 D
402
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
A
The mistake of placing the light in the glow-worm's
eyes, instead of its tail, has been commented on by Dr.
Johnson, and defended by Monck Mason, who writes:-
"Surely a poet is justified in calling the luminous part of the glow-
worm the eye: it is a liberty we take in plain prose; for the point of
greatest brightness in a furnace is commonly called the eye of it.”
It may be observed that as the furnace has no real
eyes to begin with, no confusion is likely to ensue from
such an expression. Another very excusable error, as to
the sex of the insect, occurs in the speech of the Ghost in
Hamlet:
"The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.”
(Hamlet, i. 5, 89.)
Spirits cannot be expected to trouble themselves about
minute entomological details; besides, the relationship of
the male winged beetle to the crawling luminous female
was not commonly recognized. Bacon mentions the lucioli
of Italy and hot countries, which, he says, may be the
flying glow-worm. He thinks it probable that the lumi-
nous insect of cold countries has not ripened far enough
to be winged. He leans also to the doctrine of the gene-
ration of this insect from putrefaction (Nat. Hist.,
century viii.). Muffett (p. 975) gives the names by which
the glow-worm is known in a variety of languages. It is
called in English—
“Glow-worm, shine-worm, glass-worm, i.e., a glistering or shining
worm, for here as also in Gasconia, the male or flying glow-worm
shines not, but the females which are meer worms. On the other side
in Italy, and in the county of Heidelberg, the females shine not at all,
and the males do. I leave the reason to be discussed by philosophers."
Lyly makes frequent and poetical use of this little
insect: "Dost thou not know that a perfect friend should
:
1
Fire-flies.
403
be like the glaze-worme, which shineth most bright in
the darke?” (Euphues, p. 91).
Again:-
"And yet, as bright as glow-worms in the night,
With which the morning decks her lovers hayre."
(The Woman in the Moon.)
Lyly also gives us a curious piece of information :-
"Where the rainbow toucheth the tree no caterpillar will hang on
the leaves; where the gloworme creepeth in the night no adder will
goe in the day." (Epilogue to Campaspe.)
Webster writes:—
"Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,
But look'd too near have neither heat nor light."
(Vittoria Corombona, act v.)
Fire-flies of various sizes are described by the early
explorers. The lantern-fly, found in the West
Indies, the Malay Archipelago, and in China,
Fire-fly.
is mentioned by Champlain, in his account of a voyage
to the West Indies and Mexico in the year 1599. He
writes:-
"There is a kind of little animal of the size of prawnes, which fly
by night, and make such light in the air that one would say that they
were so many little candles. If a man had three or four of these little
creatures, which are not larger than a filbert, he could read as well at
night as with a wax light." (Reprint Hakluyt Soc., 1859, p. 35.)
Du Bartas (p. 45) classes this insect among the birds
of the New World:-
"New-Spain's cucuio, in his forehead brings
Two burning lamps, two underneath his wings:
Whose shining rayes serve oft, in darkest night,
Th' imbroderer's hand in royall works to light:
Th' ingenious turner, with a wakefull eye,
To polish fair his purest ivory:
The usurer to count his glistring treasures:
The learned scribe to limn his golden measures."
404
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
On this passage his commentator remarks :-
"Oviedo in the 15 booke of the history of the Indies ch. 8. maketh
mention of this little bird, which he found in the ile of Hispaniola and
in other neighbouring places. He is very little, as of the thicknesse of
a mans thumbe, or thereabouts; he hath two wings very strong and
hard under which he hath two other little wings very thin which
appeare not, but when he extendeth his other to fly; then are they
seene (besides his two eyes shining like two burning candles) yeelding
so great light that all about is enlightened. He flyeth not but by
night. The Indians make use of them for candles both in time of warre,
and of peace, and they yeeld them a farre greater light than our glow-
wormes doe. . . . In a word the cucuye is the king of creatures which
shine by night." (A Learned Summary on Du Bartas.)
Oviedo also informs us that the Indians managed to
obtain a phosphorescent paste from the bodies of these
flies, with which they smeared their faces. He admits
that this statement is somewhat incredible, as the light
vanishes with the creature's life. He relates that when
Sir Thomas Cavendish and Sir Robert Dudley, son of the
Earl of Leicester, first landed in the West Indies, by
night, they saw to their astonishment a number of moving
candles and torches among the trees. Thinking these
lights were caused by an attacking body of Spaniards, they
retreated with great haste to their ships, and only by
degrees found out their mistake.
Ladybird.
CC
They shall be of the lady-cow,
The dainty shell upon her back,
Of crimson strewed with spots of black."
(DRAYTON, The Muses Elysium.)
The pretty spotted Ladybird, the favourite of country
children, has received a great variety of names. It was
called cush-cow lady, dowdy-cow, and May-bug or golden-
bug. In Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia (p. 130),
notice is taken of the strange name sometimes given to this
insect, Bishop Barnaby :
"It is sometimes called Bishop Benebee, sometimes Bishop Benetree,
The Ant's Foresight.
405
of which it seems not possible to make anything. The name has most
probably been derived from the barn-bishop; whether in scorn of that
silly and profane mockery, or in pious commemoration of it, must
depend on the time of its adoption, before or after the Reformation ; and
it is not worth inquiring. The two words are transposed, and bee
annexed as being perhaps thought more seemly in such a connection
than fly-bug or beetle. The dignified ecclesiastics in ancient times
wore brilliant mixtures of colours in their habits. Bishops had scarlet
and black, as this insect has on its wing covers."
Tusser includes "the bishop that burneth" in his ten
unwelcome guests in the dairy. The name barnaby has
been derived by some authors from the low Dutch barn-bie,
fire-fly, in allusion to the fiery colour of the wings.
Shakspeare has but two references to the
Ant. Glendower worries the impatient Hot-
spur-
Ant.
“With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies."
(1 Henry IV., iii. 1, 149.)
The Fool in Lear tells Kent, "We'll set thee to school
to an ant, to teach thee there's no labouring i' the winter"
(Lear, ii. 4, 67). Mr. Patterson, from this passage, draws
the inference that Shakspeare, unlike his contemporaries,
was aware that in this country ants lie dormant during the
cold winter months, and consequently do not require food.
The ant has been held up as a model of industry, wisdom,
and foresight, mainly on the authority of Solomon, who
bids the sluggard—
66
go to the ant, consider her ways and be wise: which having no
guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and
gathereth her food in the harvest." (Proverbs vi. 6.)
Chester writes:
“ The ant, or emote is a labouring thing,
And have amongst them all a public weale,
In sommer time their meat they are providing,
And secrets mongst themselves they do conceale :
406
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The monstrous huge big beare being sickly,
Eating of these is cured presently."
(Love's Martyr, p. 115.)
Montaigne illustrates his proposition, that man shares
with other inhabitants of the globe every passion he
possesses, by reference to the storing propensities of the
ant:-
"As to thrift, they surpass us not only in the foresight and laying
up, and saving for the time to come, but they have moreover a great
deal of the science necessary thereto. The ants bring abroad into the
sun their grain and seed to air, refresh, and dry them, when they per-
ceive them to mould and grow musty, lest they should decay and rot;
but the caution and prevention they use in gnawing their grains of wheat,
surpass all imagination of human prudence: for by reason that the
wheat does not always continue sound and dry, but grows soft, thaws
and dissolves, as if it were steept in milk, whilst hasting to germina-
tion, for fear lest it should shoot, and lose the nature and property of a
magazine for their subsistence, they nibble off the end by which it
should shoot and sprout. War," he continues," which is the greatest
and most magnificent of human actions," is exemplified in the encounters
of such small creatures as bees and ants. Some trifling quarrel, some
petty jealousy, may cause a leader to sacrifice the lives of many
thousands of men. “This furious monster with so many heads and
arms, is yet man, feeble, calamitous and miserable man.
"Tis but an
ant-hill of ants disturb'd and provok'd by a spurn." (Essay liv.)
Huber, who studied with immense patience ant habits
and customs, and published the result of his observations
at the beginning of the present century, demolished for a
time the claim of these little creatures to the virtues
ascribed to them by earlier writers. The grains of corn,
he contended, which they were supposed to hoard were in
reality the young ants in the pupa stage of development.
If we break open an ant-hill in the summer months we
shall see that after the first moment of surprise and con-
sternation the chief concern of the ants is for the safety
of these small, white, grain-like forms, which they seize
and carry off to a place of safety. Corn, he declared,
An Omission in Shakspeare.
407
would be perfectly useless to them, as they feed on soft,
generally animal, substances. But more recent investi-
gations have reinstated the ant in its former position of
instructor. It is true that in cold countries ants do not
collect grain; but in the East, whence these stories had
their origin, the warmth of the winter renders hyber-
nation impossible, and a supply of food consequently
necessary. Further, though the grains of corn or rice
are too hard for the ants' mandibles, they become
softened by being kept in the moist underground
granaries.
Mr. Patterson considers it strange that the ant is
not oftener noticed by Shakspeare, when other insects.
not more attractive are so frequently introduced. It
may be that the qualities which, rightly or wrongly,
have been attributed to this insect were not those on
which Shakspeare cared to dwell. Mr. H. Green, in his
Shakspeare and the Emblem Writers, 1870 (p. 147), con-
siders that the dramatist has been guilty of a great
omission in neglecting to point out the value of sustained
persevering work. He remarks:-
"Industry, diligence, with their attendant advantages,--negligence,
idleness, with their disadvantages,—are scarcely alluded to, and but in-
cidentally praised or blamed. . . . The idea is in some degree approached
in the Chorus of Henry V. (act i.), and the triumph of industry may
also be inferred from the marriage blessing which Ceres pronounces in
the Tempest (iv. 1. 110), yet for labour, industry, diligence, or by
whatever name the virtue of steady exertion may be known, there is
scarcely a word of praise in Shakspeare's abundant vocabulary, and of
its effects no clear description."
Bee.
"The Bee,” writes Batman, "is called apis, and is a little short
incecti, with many feete, and among all flyes with round
bodyes and so shapen he beareth the price [prize] in
manye things, hugenesee of wit rewardeth him in littlenesse of body,
and though he might be accounted among flyeing flyes, yet for he useth
feete, and goeth upon them, he may rightfully be accounted among
beastes that goe on grounde." (Uppon Bartholome, 1582.)
408
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
:
If Shakspeare has little to say in praise of the ant,
he makes up for this want of appreciation by his
numerous references to the bee. The possibility of
obtaining benefit from apparently adverse circumstances
is compared by Henry V. to the labours of this insect:-
"There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out:
Thus may we gather honey from the weed.”
(Henry V., iv. 1, 4.)
The poetical description of the economy of a bee-hive
in the same play (act i. sc. 2) is not necessarily drawn
from personal observation. There is a very similar
account of these small creatures in the Euphues of Lyly.
Lyly was in his turn apparently indebted to Virgil, and
other classical writers, for his information. Fidus thus
addressed Euphues and his friend Philautus:-
Gentlemen, I have for ye space of this twenty yeares dwelt in
this place, taking no delight in any thing but only in keeping my
bees, and marking them, and this I finde, which had I not seene, I
should hardly have beleeved. That they use as great wit by indution,
and arte by workmanship, as ever man hath, or can, using betweene
themselves no lesse justice than wisdome, and yet not so much
wisdome as majestie: insomuch as thou wouldest thinke, that they
were a kinde of people, a common wealth for Plato. . . . They call a
Parliament, wher-in they consult, for lawes, statutes, penalties, chusing
officers, and creating their king, not by affection but reason, not by
the greater part, but ye better. . . . Every one hath his office, some
trimming the honny, some working the wax, one framing hives,
an other the combes, and that so artificially, that Dedalus could not
with greater arte or excellencie, better dispose the orders, measures,
proportions, distinctions, joynts and circles. Divers hew, others polish,
all are carefull to doe their worke so strongly as they may resist the
craft of such drones, as seek to live by their labours, which maketh
them to keepe watch and warde, as lyving in a campe to others, and as
in a court to themselves. When they go forth to work, they marke
the wind, the clouds, and whatsoever doth threaten either their ruine,
or raign, and having gathered out of every flower honny they return
loden in their mouthes, thighs, wings, and all the bodye, whome they
A Bee-hive.
409
that tarried at home receyve readily, as easing their backes of so great
burthens." (Page 262.)
Virgil's fanciful description of the bees' labours was
possibly the authority from which both Lyly and Shak-
speare quoted:-
66
**
They only have a common progeny,
The mansions of a city shared of all,
And under noble statutes pass their life;
And they alone a native country know,
And settled household gods; and mindful of
The coming winter, in the summer time
Engage in toil, and for the common stock
Store up their gains. For some watch o'er the food,
And by a covenant agreed upon
Are in the fields employed; others, within
Th' enclosures of their homes, the tear
Of daffodil, and clammy from the bark,
A gum, the first foundations of the combs,
Lay down; then hang they up th' adhesive wax;
Others the nation's hope, the full-grown young
Lead forth; others all virgin honeys pack,
And with the crystal nectar stretch the cells.
There are to whom hath fallen out by lot
The sentry at the gates; and in their turn
They watch the waters and the clouds of heaven ;
Or they the burdens of those coming in
Receive, or in battalion formed, the drones,
A lazy cattle, from the cribs fend off:
Work glows, and th' odorous honeys smell of thyme.
Unto the aged are the towns a charge,
*
To wall the combs, and mould their artful roofs:
But, jaded, late at night betake them home
The younger, loaded on their legs with thyme.
And browse they upon arbutes everywhere,
And blue-grey willows, and the cassia,
And blushing crocus, and the gummy lime,
And rust-hued martagons. With all is one
The rest from work, with all is one the toil.”
(Georgics, book iv., Singleton's trans.)
410
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
The comparison of a well-governed State to the
monarchy of the bees, observes M. Paul Stapfer in his
recent work, Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity (p. 88),
"is met with in Plato's Republic,' as well as in a frag-
ment preserved by Augustine of Cicero's long lost
treatise, De Republica."" In the reign of Elizabeth
there was no translation of Plato, with the exception of
a single dialogue by Spenser. M. Stapfer comments on
the wonderful power possessed by Shakspeare of grasping
an idea, and, from the slightest suggestion of an author's
thought, of reproducing it almost in its original shape.
It must be remembered," he writes, "that the comparison of a
well-ordered government to a concert in which every instrument plays
its part, or to a bee-hive, has long since become a commonplace in
literature. Ever since it was set in circulation by Plato and Cicero in
their respective treatises on the 'Republic,' there has probably been
no ancient philosopher or poet from whose writings some analogous
simile could not be quoted. ... Lyly, the author of Euphues, borrowed
the name of his hero from Plato's Republic,' and his romance teems
with comparisons between human governments and those presented to
us in nature, especially in the case of bees. The tedious length of his
exemplification places it far below the poetry of Shakespeare's passage,
and makes it infinitely less worthy to be compared to the antique
model, but it is precisely in such cases as this that we catch a glimpse
of genius at work in one of its most marvellous operations, by virtue
of which, diving through all the prolixity and exaggeration that a
whole host of imitators have lost themselves in, it re-discovers an
ancient conception, and makes it live again in all its first freshness and
truth for there is a brotherhood among all great minds, and Shake-
speare happening to meet with the enfeebled expression of what had
once been a thought of Plato's, was able to re-think it, almost back to
its original form."
To return to the insects. Thomas Hyll, in 1593,
published a treatise on the right ordering of bees, with
instructions for keeping them, and for preparing the wax.
His information is gathered almost entirely from the
works of Aristotle, Pliny, Varro, and other classical
authors. Topsell also perpetuates much ancient lore
Massacre of Drones.
411
respecting the habits and nature of the bee. It is
remarkable how long writers on natural history were
content to repeat at second hand, without caring to verify
by experience, the conjectures of their predecessors.
The idea of a king bee instead of a queen prevailed at
a time much later than that of Shakspeare. The function
of the drone bees was not clearly understood. Shakspeare
calls them "lazy yawning drones," treats them as inter-
lopers and even robbers:
'Drones suck not eagles' blood but rob bee-hives."
(2 Henry VI., iv. 1, 109.)
The yearly slaughter of these helpless members of the
community may well have perplexed early naturalists.
This "cruel, not unnatural," proceeding is thus explained
by Dr. Ludwig Buchner (Mind in Animals, 1880, p. 214).
The drones, according to this author-
represent a hereditary peerage, which lets itself be served and fed by
an industrious working class without directly contributing anything
to the good of the community; from May to August they lead an
easy life, devoted to amusement, untouched by care or toil. If, indeed,
they could foresee the woful fate which awaits them at the end of this
period, their bliss would be less untroubled. Their great number,
which far exceeds real necessity, would be a thoroughly incomprehen-
sible and puzzling fact in the otherwise well-ordered bee State, if it
were not to be regarded as a legacy from the formerly wild and
uncultivated condition of the bees, in which each bee colony lived
independently, and partly because of this, partly because of the many
dangers threatening the drones on their flight, a very great number of
these was requisite for the secure attainment of the object of their
existence; to-day, when as a rule many hives stand close together,
and the care and providence of men ward off dangers, so large a
number of drones no longer seems necessary."
This mistake of nature, however, is corrected by the
workers, and on the approach of autumn-
“the famous massacre of the drones takes place, in which the male
aristocracy of the State is offered up for the common good, without
regard to close family ties between them and the workers."
412 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Before the discovery of spermaceti, wax procured
from the hive of the bee was a most important article of
commerce. Jack Cade refers to its use in sealing letters
and documents :-
CC
"They say the bee stings, but a say 'tis the bees' wax; for I
did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since."
(2 Henry VI., iv. 2, 88.)
Imogen makes fond delay over a letter from Leonatus :—
"Good wax, thy leave. Blest be
You bees that make these locks of counsel.
And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike:
Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet
You clasp young Cupid's tables.”
Lovers
(Cymbeline, iii. 2, 35.)
The number of candles required for the various
religious services must have been considerable. Wax
must have therefore been in great demand, though tallow
candles were probably generally used for household pur-
poses. According to Marlowe, wax was put to another use.
Describing how Hero held aloft a flaming torch to guide
her lover in his perilous passage, he writes:-
"Sweet torch, true glass of our society!
What man does good, but he consumes thereby?
But thou wert loved for good, held high, given show;
Poor virtue loathed for good, obscured, held low:
Do good, be pined, be deedless good, disgraced;
Unless we feed on men, we let them fast.
Yet Hero with these thoughts her torch did spend :
When bees make wax, nature doth not intend
It should be made a torch; but we, that know
The proper virtue of it, make it so,
And when 'tis made, we light it."
(Hero and Leander, 6th sestiad.)
Shakspeare illustrates by the same comparison the idea
that virtue is wasted that is not diffused :-
"Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
+
The Humble-bee.
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd
But to fine issues."
(Measure for Measure, i. 1, 33.)
413
Honey was used in England in the manufacture of ale,
and by the Scandinavians in the production of mead,
their favourite beverage. It is said that the word honey-
moon had its origin in the northern custom of drinking
honey-wine, hydromel, for thirty days after marriage.
The humble-bee is noticed more than once by Shak-
speare. Titania bids her fairy train be kind and courteous
to her hairy love :—
"Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs."
(Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 1, 168.)
Bottom accordingly sends one of his attendant sprites on
the following errand :-
“ Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your weapons in your
hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle;
and good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too
much in the action, mounsieur; and, good mounsieur, have a care the
honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a
honey-bag, signior." (iv. 1, 10.)
John Day wrote an allegorical masque, The Parliament
of Bees, which was printed about the year 1607. Mr.
A. H. Bullen, who, in 1881, edited the works of Day, is
enthusiastic in his admiration of this composition.
"The Parliament of Bees," he writes, "assuredly deserved to have
been acted; for a daintier sample of exquisite workmanship in this
form of writing could hardly be found. . . . But hear Charles Lamb,
the truest and subtlest of all critics :-
• The doings,
The births, the wars, the wooings,
of these pretty little winged creatures are with continued liveliness
portrayed throughout the whole of this curious old drama, in words
414
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
F
which bees would talk with, could they talk; the very air seems
replete with humming and buzzing melodies while we read them.
Surely bees were never so be-rhymed before."" (Day's Works, part i.
introduction, p. 28.)
In this work Day brings a serious charge against the
humble-bee:-
"A bill preferd against a publique wrong,
The surly humble bee, who hath too long
Liv'd like an out-law and will neither pay
Money nor waxe, do service nor obey;
But like a fellon, coucht under a weed,
Watches advantage to make boot and feed
Upon the top-branch blossomes, and by stealth
Makes dangerous inroads on your common-wealth;
Robs the day-labourer of his golden prize
Wasp.
And sends him weeping home with emptie thighes.
Thus, like a theefe, he flies ore hill and downe
And out-law-like doth challenge as his owne
Your highnes due; nay, pyratick detaines
The waxen fleet sailing upon your plaines.”
The Wasp is next arraigned :-
Speaker. A bill preferd against the waspe; a flie
Who merchant-like under pretence to buy
Makes bold to borrow, and paies too.
Prorex.
But when?
Speaker. Why, ad kalendas Græcas; never then."
"The wasp," writes Topsell, "is a kinde of insect, that is swift,
living in routs and companies together, having somewhat a long body
encircled, with four membranous wings (whereof the two former are
the greatest), without bloud, stinged inwardly, having also six feet,
and a yellow colour, somewhat glistering like gold, garnished with
divers black spots all over the body in form of a triangle."
Topsell seems to have made an exception in favour of
the wasp, and to have endeavoured to test by personal
observation the truth of the information he imparts :—
r
"I think that all the whole pack of them have stings in general,
although I am not ignorant that some authors hold the contrary,
affirming that the breeding female wasps do want them: but thus
Enemies of the Bee.
415
much I can say of my own knowledge, that on a time finding a wasps
nest, and killing them every one by pouring hot scalding liquor into
their holes, because I would bolt out the truth, I plainly perceived by
long viewing of their bodies, that there was not one of them all but
had a sting, either thrust out evidently, or closely and secretly kept
and covered."
Shakspeare has several references to the irritable
temper of this insect. Brutus refuses to crouch under the
testy humour of Cassius, and declares :-
"I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspish."
(Julius Cæsar, iv. 3, 48.)
Wasps as well as bees like honey, and as they do not
collect it for themselves, they are under the painful
necessity of robbing their more industrious connexions,
and frequently commit "flat burglary" in order to obtain
this delicacy. Julia, having torn to shreds her lover's
letter, thus chides herself for her o'erhasty action:-
"O hateful hands, to tear such loving words!
Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey
And kill the bees that yield it, with your stings!
I'll kiss each several paper for amends."
(Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. 2, 105.)
Shakspeare has no mention of the Hornet, another
marauder on the treasure-house of the poor
bees. Of this formidable intruder, Day writes:
"There's the strange hornet, who doth ever weare
A scalie armor and a double speare
Coucht in his front: rifles the merchants packs
Upon the Rhode; your honey and your waxe
Hornet.
He doth by stealth transport to some strange shoare,
Makes rich their hives and keeps your own groves poor."
(Parliament of Bees.)
There was a notion, derived from antiquity, that bees
were bred from the carcase of a bull, and wasps and
hornets from that of a horse.
For much etymological
•
416
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
and antiquarian information respecting all these insects
the reader curious in such matters is referred to Topsell's
History of Serpents.
Muffett, in his Theater of Insects, mentions, and gives
illustrations of, the following varieties of Fly:
Fly. the Flesh-fly, or Blue-bottle, a frequenter of
butchers' stalls; the Dog-fly; the Oxe-fly, or Tabanus ;
the Horse-fly, or Brees, called in Latin asilum; the
Whane, Burrel-fly, or Wringle-tail, a fly like a bee, but
with a longer body; Hair-tails, or Bristle-tails, which
feed on smaller flies and caterpillars (ichneumons);
Adders, Boults, Dragon-flies, or Water-butterflies; the
Water-fly, whereof the caddis, or cados-worme; and the
Tipula, or Crane-fly.
We find several of these kinds alluded to by Shak-
speare. Ferdinand protests that but for the love of
Miranda, he would—
"No more endure
This wooden slavery than to suffer
The flesh-fly blow my mouth.”
(Tempest, iii. 1, 61.)
Doll Tearsheet applies the epithet "blue-bottle rogue" to
the beadle, probably in allusion to the colour of his
uniform.
The Horse-fly of Muffett was probably the gad-fly, so
called from the Saxon word gad, a sharp point or goad.
This winged torment was, according to the classical
myth, the instrument chosen by Juno to revenge herself
upon
her rival Ino. We read in the Georgics of Virgil :—
“Alburnus, an abundant winged thing,
Of which Asilus is the Latin name;
Greeks have it Astros rendered in their tongue;
Fierce, buzzing, shrill; at which all panic-struck
Throughout the woods in all directions fly
The herds storms gather, with their roars convulsed,
And dry Tanager's forests and his banks.
•
The Gad-fly.
With this dire creature erst her frightful wrath
Did Juno wreak, when she designed a plague
For the Inachian heifer."
(Book iii. 1. 202, Singleton's trans.)
417
Nestor says truly that in the ray and brightness of
summer-
"The herd hath more annoyance by the breese
Than by the tiger."
(Troilus and Cressida, i. 3, 48.)
When Scarus describes the sea-fight between Antony
and Cæsar, he compares the rash and precipitate flight
of Cleopatra to the frenzied rush of some terror-stricken
herd:
“ Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt,—
Whom leprosy o'ertake!-i' the midst o' the fight,
When vantage like a pair of twins appear'd,
Both as the same, or rather ours the elder,
The breese upon her, like a cow in June
Hoists sail and flies."
·
(Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 10, 10.)
Ben Jonson writes:-
"Gods, you do know it, I can hold no longer,
This brize has pricked my patience."
(Poetaster, iii. 1.)
Bacon writes, "The fly called the gad-fly breedeth of
somewhat that swimmeth at the top of the water, and
is most about ponds" (Natural History, century vii.).
Guillim informs us that-
"this fly maketh a great humming noise when he flieth, and of some
is called the gad-bee, and of others the dun-fly, brimesey, or horse-
fly, which in the summer times do grievously vex cattle, having, (as
Ælianus saith) a sting both great and stiff." (Display of Heraldry,
p. 236.)
Topsell recommends, as a remedy for the stings of
flies, the fat of a lion dissolved and clarified. This must
2 E
418. The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
have been a somewhat expensive cure; it is, moreover, a
great indignity that the king of beasts should be boiled
down to make an ointment for the stings of flies.
It is evident by the illustration he gives, that by the
hair-tail or bristle-tail Muffett means the Ichneumon fly.
Though he would probably have been puzzled to give
a complete life history of this insect, this author is quite
correct in stating that it feeds on smaller flies and cater-
pillars. A curious instance of how easily an insufficient
observation of natural phenomena may lead to a conclu-
sion exactly opposed to the true state of things, occurs in
Leigh's Natural History of Lancashire (p. 149). The
writer here imagines the small ichneumon grubs to be
the young of the caterpillar. He says:-
"The caterpillar deposites her eggs in cotton, in the clefts of trees,
which are enliven'd by the influence of the sun, at a proper season of
the year;
I do think she is destroy'd by her young ones, which creep
within her to suck, for I have sometimes found them creeping upon
cabbages, with twenty young ones within them, and sometimes dead
with these within their bodies; they enter them at little orifices like
nipples, on either side of the belly, and sometimes creep so far as to be
scarce discernible, but most commonly one half of them hangs out,
The possum in the West Indies is said after the same manner to
convey and nourish its young ones, so various are the methods
which different creatures have for the preservation of their species.”
After this remarkable conclusion the author sagely
observes :-
"Thus we croud our heads with unnecessary and false ideas of
things, and neglect the most useful part of learning, which is a true
knowledge of the properties of bodies, so far as we can attain to it by
experimental learning." (Page 169.)
Those who have reared butterflies and moths know to
their cost that caterpillars are frequently destroyed by
ichneumon grubs; but these objectionable parasites must
in common justice be acquitted of "a wrong something
unfilial."
The Caddis-fly.
419
The Water-fly is alluded to by Shakspeare as denoting
light-hearted, empty-headed vanity. Hamlet, on Osric's
entrance, asks of Horatio, "Dost know this water-fly?"
Muffett writes of the Caddis-fly, the frequenter of
pools and streams :-
Phryganide comes from the little worm phryganium (which in
English is called cados worm), living in the waters, and in the month
of August ascending to the top or superficies of the waters; it hath
four wings of a brown colour, the body somewhat long, having two
short horns, the tail forked, or rather bristles coming out of the tail.
The form or figure of this fly is various, in regard of the great variety
of those little cados worms whereof they come." (Page 943.)
Izaak Walton mentions several kinds of caddis, or
case-worms, but is ignorant of what sort of flies they turn
into. His only interest in them, as in almost every other
living organism, is whether or not they can be used "to
bait fish withal.”
The tipula, called in English the Crane-fly, is thus
described by Muffett :-
"Of these flies are four sorts. The first species hath long shanks
like a wood spider, the body almost ovall of a whitish ash colour, silver
wings, black eyes sticking out, with two very short horns, the tail
pointed or piked. It flies (much like the ostrich) hopping with the
feet, sometimes it flies in the air but not far nor long. So greedy after
the light, that it oftentimes is burnt in the candle. In autumn it is
frequently seen in pastures and meadowes. This of the male kinde.
The female is almost alike, but somewhat more black, the end of the
tail as it were bitten off; these are called in English shepherds, in
Latin opiliones, because they are most often seen where sheep use to
feed. The second sort of tipula hath a great head, eyes standing out,
four small horns, the body pleasantly various with the colours yellow
and black interchangeably mixt. The third is almost like unto this,
saving that the body being all yellow, is better set out with six or seven
black spots; both the male and female have a three forked tail. The
fourth species is very rare and curious, the head and especially the
mouth forked, the shoulders swelling, the feet shorter, the body twice
as thick as the rest; the back black, the belly and sides yellow, the
tail black and picked." (Page 943.)
420 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
While Titania sleeps, her attendant fairies warn off
from her elfin bower all hurtful intruders:-
"Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence you, long-legg'd spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail, do no offence."
(Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 2, 21.)
Mercutio thus describes Queen Mab's equipage :-
"Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web."
(Romeo and Juliet, i. 4, 59.)
The word spinner is generally explained by annotators
to mean spider, but it seems probable that in both these
instances the crane-fly or daddy-long-legs is referred to.
There is a want of imagination in repeating, even under
another name, the same creature in the very next line.
Ben Jonson writes, "Walk as if thou hadst borrowed
legs of a spinner and voice of a cricket" (Bartholomew
Fair, i. 1). And again, in the same scene: "Quar. Good
faith, he looks, methinks, and you mark him, like one
that were made to catch flies, with his Sir Cranion-legs."
Drayton, however, gives this appellation to a fly :-
"Four nimble gnats the horses were,
Their harnesses of gossamere,
Fly Cranion, her charioteer
Upon the coach-box getting."
(Nymphidia.)
Mr. Patterson notices, but does not explain, the curious
comparison in Henry V. (v. 2, 434):-
Maids, well summered and warm kept, are like flies at Bar-
tholomew-tide, blind, though they have their eyes; and then they will
endure handling, which before would not abide looking on."
He imagines this allusion to have reference to some for-
gotten legend, some ancient superstition. By the end of
The Musquito.
421
August, especially if the season be wet, flies seek the
shelter of houses in great numbers, and become drowsy
and semi-torpid, or, as children call them, tame.
"The small grey-coated Gnat" is often mentioned by
Shakspeare. He refers to its habit of dancing,
as it were, in the sunbeams :
"When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport,
But creep in crannies when he hides his beams."
Gnat.
(Comedy of Errors, ii. 2, 30.)
"The common people swarm like summer flies;
And whither fly the gnats but to the sun?"
(3 Henry VI., ii. 6, 8.)
This troublesome little insect was evidently common
in England, and precautions were taken against its
attacks. We find in an inventory of the goods of the
abbey of Sawtre, taken in 1537, among other articles of
furniture of the "new chamber-the bedstedd with a net
for knattes" (Archæologia, xliii. p. 240). This abbey was
founded by Simon, Earl of Northampton, in 1146, and was
dismantled by Henry VIII.
Muffett quotes from Stow, the chronicler, a strange
account of a battle between two giant armies of gnats,
observed between the monasteries of Sion and Shene in
England; such multitudes of these insects gathered to
the fray, that the light of the sun was darkened.
The larger and more venomous gnat, known as the
Musquito, is mentioned by Henry Hawks, in a description
of New Spain, in the year 1572 :
:—
"This towne [Vera Cruz] is inclined to many kinde of diseases, by
reason of the great heat, and a certaine gnat or flie which they call a
musquito, which biteth both men and women in their sleepe; and as
soone as they are bitten, incontinently the flesh swelleth as though
they had bene bitten with some venimous worme.
And this musquito
or gnat doth most follow such as are newly come into the countrey.
Many there are that die of this annoyance." (Hakluyt, vol. iii.
p. 549.)
422
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Miles Philips, another explorer, relates his adventures on
a voyage to the West Indies, in 1568. He writes:-
"We were also, oftentimes, greatly annoyed with a kind of fly
which in the Indian tongue is called tequani, and the Spaniards call
them musketas. There are also in the said country, a number of other
flies, but none so noisome as these tequanies be. You shall hardly see
them they be so small; for they are scarce so big as a gnat. They
will suck one's blood marvellously, and if you kill them while they
are sucking, they are so venomous that the place will swell extremely
even as one that is stung with a wasp or bee: but if you let them suck
their fill and go away of themselves, they do you no other hurt, but
leave behind them a red spot somewhat bigger than a flea-biting."
(Hakluyt's Voyages, rep. Arber's English Garner, vol. v. p. 276.)
The writer of this account met with adversaries more
cruel and bloodthirsty than the dreaded mosquito. He
and his companions were put ashore by Sir John Hawkins,
on account of the failure of provisions. A short time
after they landed they were seized by Spaniards, taken
to Mexico, and handed over to the mercy of the In-
quisition. After about fifteen years of misery and servi-
tude, Philips contrived to make his escape and to return
to England.
“There is a differency between a grub and a Butterfly; yet your
butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown from man
Butterfly. to dragon: he has wings; he's more than a creeping
thing." (Coriolanus, v. 4, 10.)
The transformations of the butterfly were imperfectly
understood. Topsell describes several species of cater-
pillars, in language so quaint as well to repay perusal,
but a short extract must here suffice. He writes:
"If I should goe about to describe and set downe all the differences
and varieties of caterpillers, I might perhaps undertake an endlesse and
tedious labour. I thinke it therefore fittest to bend my slender skill,
and to imploy my best forces, in speaking of such as are more notable
and common with us in this country. For some of them in touching
are rough, hard, and stiffe; and other-some againe, are soft, smooth,
and very tender. Some are horned, either in the head or in the tayle,
A
The Butterfly.
423
and againe, others have no hornes at all, some have many feetc, and
some fewer, and none at all have above sixteen feete. Most of them
have a bending swift pace, and like unto waves, and others againe
keepe on their way very plainely, softly, by little and little, and with-
out any great haste. Some change their skinnes yeerely, others againe
there be that neither change nor cast their old dry skinnes, but keepe
them still. Some of them, ceasing altogether from any motion, and
giving over to eate any thing at all, are transformed very strangely
into a kind of vermin or worms, who beeing covered with a hard crust
or shell, lye as it were dead all the winter; and from these come in the
beginning of hot weather, our usuall butter-flyes." (Book 3, p. 104.)
The opinions held by Bacon on the subject of insect
transformations were somewhat vague. He writes :
"The caterpillar is one of the most general of wormes, and breedeth
of dew and leaves: for we see infinite number of caterpillars which
breed upon trees and hedges by which the leaves of the trees or
hedges are in great part consumed, as well by their breeding out of
the leaf as by their feeding upon the leaf. .. Greatest cater-
pillars breed on cabbages which have a fat leaf, and are apt to
putrefy. The caterpillar towards the end of summer waxeth
volatile and turneth to a butterfly or perhaps some other fly." (Nat.
Hist., century viii.)
The entomologist will find some amusing reading
concerning caterpillars and their ways in Izaak Walton's
Complete Angler (part i. ch. 5).
Shakspeare uses this guest of summer as a most
appropriate comparison to "translate the stubbornness of
fortune:
""
"What the declined is
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer."
(Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3, 76.)
Valeria tries to console Virgilia for her husband's
absence by speaking in flattering terms of young
Marcius:
"O' my word, the father's son: I'll swear, 'tis a very pretty boy.
O' my troth, I looked upon him o' Wednesday half an hour together:
424
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
has such a confirmed countenance. I saw him run after a gilded
butterfly; and when he caught it, he let it go again; and after it
again; and over and over he comes, and up again; catched it again;
or whether his fall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his
teeth and tear it; O, I warrant, how he mammocked it!
Volumnia. One on 's father's moods." (Coriolanus, i. 3, 62.)
Truly, "his father's son!" At the close of the play
this childish episode is enacted on a larger scale.
Coriolanus hotly pursues a painted glory; checked in
his career and enraged by his fall, he would tear to
pieces, in like ruthless fashion, the city he had professed
to love.
Muffett divides butterflies into day-butterflies and
night-butterflies, or phalens. He gives illustrations and
descriptions of several kinds, and is evidently at a loss to
find words in which to paint their varied hues. He
notices the occurrence of one of those blood showers that
are frequently mentioned by medieval writers, and which
were always held to foretell misfortune.
"In the year 1553,” he writes, " as Sleidanus reports, a little before
the death of Mauritius, the duke of Saxony, an infinite army of
butterflies flew through great part of Germany, and did infect the
grasse, herbs, houses and garments of men with bloudy drops, as
though it had rained bloud." (Page 974.)
The word Moth generally implies some very small
insect, and was probably not given to the
larger species of night-butterflies. Muffett
Moth.
writes :-
"Moreover there are found in houses a certain sort of little silver
coloured phalens marked with black spots, which fly to the candles
called mothes in English, which eat linnen and woollen clothes, and
lay eggs, of which come moths, and of the moths again these phalens ;
they are said to come first of all from rose leaves and other herbs
putrefying." (Page 966.)
Shakspeare gives the name Moth to one of the little
fairies attendant on Titania, and to the young page of
Canker or Grub.
425
Armado. The destructive propensities of these small
insects are referred to by Valeria:-
"You would be another Penelope : yet, they say, all the yarn she
spun in Ulysses, absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths." (Coriolanus,
i. 3, 92.)
Ben Jonson writes:-
“But greatness hath his cankers. Worms and moths
Breed out of too much humour, in the things
Which after they consume, transferring quite
The substance of their makers into themselves."
(Sejanus, iii. 3.)
By medieval writers the words caterpillar, worm, and
canker were used synonymously, as denoting the grub
stage of any insect. Viola relates in a few pathetic words.
the history of many a lovelorn damsel :-
"She never told her love
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek."
(Twelfth Night, ii. 4, 114.)
Proteus makes use of a similar comparison :-
"Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud
The eating canker dwells, so eating love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all.”
Valentine thus adroitly turns this image against the
speaker :--
"And writers say, as the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes.”
Chester writes:
(Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. 1.)
"Of wormes are divers sorts and divers names,
Some feeding on hard timber, some on trees,
426
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Some in the earth a secret cabbine frames,
Some live on tops of ashes, some on olives;
Some of a red watrish colour, some of green,
And some within the night like fire are seen.”
(Love's Martyr, p. 116.)
"It was formerly a very prevalent idea," writes Mr. Thistelton
Dyer," and one, too, not confined to our own country-that tooth-
ache was caused by a little worm, having the form of an eel, which
gradually gnawed a hole in the tooth. This notion is still to be met
with in Germany, and is mentioned by Thorpe in his Northern
Mythology (vol. iii. p. 167). Shakspeare, in Much Ado about Nothing
(ii. 2), speaks of this curious belief:—
"D. Pedro. What! sigh for the toothache?
Leon. Where is but a humour or a worm.
(English Folk-Lore, 1878, p. 155.)
In this passage Mr. Dyer implies that this super-
stition has died out in England; but only recently a lady
who read his work remarked, "It is quite true that
toothache does come sometimes from a worm: if you
make a person who has this pain inhale boiling water
you may see the little worms drop out. I should have
thought," she concluded," that a clever man like Mr.
Dyer would have known better.
We come next to-
Silkworm.
"The Silkeworme by whose webbe our silkes are made,
For she doth dayly labour with her weaving,
A worme that's rich and precious in her trade,
That whilst poore soule she toyleth in her spinning
Leaves nothing in her belly but empty aire,
And toyling too much falleth to despaire."
(CHESTER, Love's Martyr, p. 116.)
The fabric manufactured from the produce of the
silkworm was introduced into Europe from China as
early as the sixth century. Silk, interwoven with threads
of gold or silver, was known as baudekyn, or cloth of
Baldeck or Babylon, from whence it was supposed to
come. The religious persecutions in France, during the
Introduction of Silkworms.
427
reigns of Elizabeth and James, induced many silk-
weavers to leave that country and to bring their families
and their trade to England. In the Harleian Miscellany
(vol. ii. p. 218), there is a reprint of some instructions,
published in 1609, for planting mulberry-trees in all the
English counties, together with a letter from King
James I. to the lord lieutenants of the various shires,
commanding each of them to buy and distribute ten
thousand mulberry plants, at the rate of three farthings
the plant, or six shillings the hundred. For those who
found the process of planting inconvenient, a good
quantity of mulberry seeds were to be distributed, also
at a cheap rate, with complete instructions as to breeding
and rearing the silkworms. This appears to have been
the first attempt on an extensive scale to introduce this
manufacture into England, but some few private in-
dividuals had already imported both trees and insects.
Shakspeare has many references to the use of silk in
costume. He is guilty of a slight anachronism in
mentioning this fabric as worn by the ancient Britons at
the time of Augustus Cæsar :-
"O, this life
Is nobler than attending for a check,
Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk.”
(Cymbeline, iii. 3, 21.)
When Othello demands from Desdemona the handkerchief,
his first gift of love, he declares that it is endowed with
supernatural virtues :-
""Tis true: there's magic in the web of it:
A sibyl, that had number'd in the world
The sun to course two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;
The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk;
And it was dyed in mummy which the skilful
Conserved of maidens' hearts."
(Othello, iii. 4, 69.)
428
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Du Bartas (p. 46) falls into the error of transforming
the silkworm into a fly :-
"Yet may I not that little worm pass by,
Of fly turn'd worm, and of a worm a fly:
Two births, 2 deaths, heer nature hath assign'd her,
Leaving a post-hume (dead-live) seed behind her,
Which soon transforms the fresh and tender leaves
Of Thisbes pale tree, to those slender sheaves
(On ovall clews) of soft, smooth, silken flakes,
Which more for us, than for her self, she makes.
O precious fleece! which onely did adorn
The sacred loyns of princes heretoforn:
But our proud age, with prodigall abuse,
Hath so profan'd th' old honourable use,
That shifters now, who scarce have bread to eat,
Disdain plain silk, unless it be beset
With one of those deer metals, whose desire
Burns greedy soules with an immortall fire."
"The Spider," says Guillim prettily, "is born free of
the weaver's company." Batman writes:-
Spider.
"The spinner is a little creeping beast with many
feet and hath alwaye feet even, and not odde, and among beasts of
rounde bodyes the spinner hath best feeling of touch."
Quoting Aristotle, he says that spiders are of many
kinds, some small and of divers colours, sharp and swift
of moving, some black in colour, whose hind legs are
longer than the rest. He here refers to the hunting
species. After his discourse on spiders, drawn entirely
from classical sources, he concludes his remarks with a
most uncomplimentary suggestion:-
"Besides this large discourse of spiders, it hath beene reported,
that in Ireland be many spiders, and some verye great, and that being
eaten of the Irishmen, have not performed any shewe of venime: it
may be that the greater poyson subdueth the lesse." (Batman uppon
Bartholome, 1582, p. 347.)
Some foreign species of spiders are mentioned by
travellers. In an account of the West Indies written to
Charles V. of Spain, 1525, Oviedo remarks :—
The Tarantula.
429
"There are also spiders of marveilous bignesse, and I have seene
some with bodies and legges bigger than a mans hand extended every
way, and I once saw one of such bignesse, that onely her body was as
bigge as a sparrow, and full of that laune whereof they make their
webbes: this was of a darke russet colour, with eyes greater then the
eyes of a sparrow, they are venemous, and of terrible shape to behold.”
(Purchas, vol. ii. p. 970.)
Shakspeare speaks of the spider as poisonous :
“But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way."
(Richard II., iii. 2, 14.)
In Edward III. (iii. 1), a play either written by Shak-
speare or by some most successful imitator, we find the
same idea:-
"Dare he already crop the flower-de-luce?
I hope, the honey being gather'd thence,
He, with the spider, afterward approach'd,
Shall suck forth deadly venom from the leaves."
5
In the following passage it would seem that the
injury inflicted by the spider was more imaginary than
real:-
"There may be in the cup
A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,
And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge
Is not infected: but if one present
The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider."
(Winter's Tale, ii. 1, 39.)
The belief in the spider's venomous properties was at
this time universal. At the trial of the Countess of
Essex for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury it came
out, in course of the examination, that the lady had
procured from one of the witnesses seven large spiders,
as the strongest poison that could be obtained..
We find in early writings many references to a
strange disease called tarantismus. People infected with
430 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
this malady were supposed to have been bitten by a
venomous spider, which was found chiefly in the vicinity
of the city of Taranto in Apulia. Topsell writes:-
•
"If the speckled phalangie of Apulia, which is usually known by
the name of tarantula, do bite any one, there will follow divers and
contrary accidents and symptomes, according to the various constitu-
tions, different complexion, and disposition of the party wounded.
For after they are hurt by the tarantula, you shall see some of them
laugh, others contrariwise to weep, some will clatter out of measure,
so that you shall never get them to hold their tongues, and othersome
again you shall observe to be as mute as fishes: this man sleepeth
continually, and another cannot be brought to rest at all, but runneth
up and down, raging and raving like a mad man. With others
again you shall have nothing but sadnesse, and heavinesse of minde,
brown-studies, unaptnesse to do any thing, as if one were astonyed.
... But let them be affected either with this or that passion, yet this
is common to them all, as well to one as to another, that they are
generally delighted with musical instruments, and at their sound or
noise will so trip it on the toes dancer-like, applying both their
mindes and bodies to dancing and frisking up and down, that during
the time of any musical harmony, they will never leave moving their
members and limbs, like a jackanapes that cannot stand still." (Page
772, ed. 1658.)
The dances and songs composed as a remedy for this
malady were called tarantella. According to Muffett,
this poisonous spider was of a light brown colour, with
dark spots, with short thick, hairy, legs.
Muffett has much to say on behalf of the "tame or
house spider," and draws many a moral from its in-
dustrious ways and parental affection :-
"Aristotle the greatest diver into Nature, saith that this is the
most magnificent, and wisest of all insects. And Solomon himself, at
whose wisdome all the world admired, amongst those four animals
that exceed philosophers for their knowledge, reckons up the spider,
dwelling as he saith in kings palaces, and weaving webs that man
cannot do the like. . . . I know not whether I were best commend
the spider for the gifts of her minde, as wisdom, justice, valour,
temperance, humanity, love of poverty, love of works, sufficiency,
cunning, cleanlinesse, and her other vertues; or else her admirable art
and skill in weaving her webs." (Theater of Insects, p. 1065.)
A Cure for Ague.
431
According to Lyly, the bee was impervious to the
attacks of the spider, and might enter its web with
impunity; "though the spider poyson the fly, shee cannot
infect the bee" (Euphues, p. 35). The belief that ague
could be cured by wearing a spider hung round the neck
in a nutshell has been called an "old wives' fable,"
but Robert Burton, while he admits that he was in-
debted to his mother for his knowledge of this remedy,
yet, in apparent seriousness, endorses her belief in its
efficacy himself, and supports it by quotations from other
learned authors:-
"I first observed this amulet of a spider in a nut-shell lapped in
silke, &c., so applied for an ague by my mother: whom although I
knew to have excellent skill in chirurgery, sore eyes, aches, &c., and
such experimental medicines, as all the country where she dwelt can
witness, to have done many famous and good cures upon divers poor
folks, that were destitute of help-yet, among all other experiments,
this methought was most absurd and ridiculous: I could see no
warrant for it. Quid araneæ cum febre? For what antipathy? Till
at length, dabbling amongst authors, as often I do, I found this very
medicine in Dioscorides, approved by Matthiolus, repeated by Aldro-
vandus, cap. de aranœ, lib. de insectis. I began to have a better
opinion of it, and to give credit to amulets when I saw it in some
parties answer to experiments." (Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. ii.
p. 134.)
""
Well may Mr. Harting ask, "When such men are so
credulous, how can we wonder at the superstitions of the
illiterate ? Spiders were recommended by medieval
physicians for various diseases; among others, for the
gout:-
"Also that knotty whip of God, and mock of all physicians, the
gowt, which learned men say can be cured by no remedy, findes help
and cure by a spider layd on, if it be taken at that time when neither
sun nor moon shineth, and the hinder legs pulled off, and put into a
deers skin, and bound to the pained foot, and left on for some time."
So writes Thomas Muffett, "a notable ornament to the
company of physicians, a man of the most polite and
432 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
+
""
solid learning, and well experienced in most sciences
(Theater of Insects, p. 1073). The medicinal virtues of
the spider's web are also referred to by Bottom the weaver:
"I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good master
Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you
(Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 1, 184).
"
Another use of these little creatures was to provide a
dainty repast for the small monkeys or marmosets, the
favourite pets of this period. In Ben Jonson's Staple of
News (ii. 1), Almanack says of old Penny Boy, as a skit
upon his penuriousness, that he-
CC
'Sweeps down no cobwebs here,
But sells them for cut fingers; and the spiders,
As creatures reared of dust, and cost him nothing,
To fat old ladies' monkeys."
Mr. Patterson points that though Shakspeare has
twice mentioned the silvery threads of gossamer, it is
not in connexion with the little being from whom it
originates, and with which he was probably unacquainted:
"A lover may bestride the gossamer,
That idles in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall: so light is vanity."
(Romeo and Juliet, ii. 6, 18.)
The "lash of film," wielded by Queen Mab's coach-
man, was in all probability composed of this delicate
material.
Sir Thomas Herbert, in the account of his travels,
begun in the year 1626, gives a description
Scorpion. of the Scorpions in Cashan, a city in Persia :-
"But which rages there in no less violence is scorpio; not that in the
Zodiak, but real scorpions which in numbers engender here. A little
serpent of a finger long, which makes me marvel at Cedrenus, who
says there are scorpions 2 cubits long in the Brachmans countrey, i.e.
India, like but less than our cray-fish; and is the onely creature that
stings with his tail, some flyes excepted. Of great terrour is the
sting; and so inflaming as with their invenomed arrow some die, few
The Scorpion.
5.
433
avoid madness, at least for a whole day; the sting proving most
dangerous when the season is hottest, which is when the Dog-star
rages; the execration is, May a scorpion of Cashan sting thee.
But which is more remarkable, and agreeable to what Pliny in his
Natural History reports of the scorpions in Mesopotamia; they say,
and we found it true; some of them creeping into our rugs as we
slept, they seldom or never hurt a stranger." (Travels, p. 222.)
Ben Jonson is also indebted to Pliny for his know-
ledge of the existence of an antidote to this creature's
sting:-
“Tiberius.
I have heard that aconite,
Being timely taken, hath a healing might
Against the scorpion's stroke; the proof we'll give :
That, while two poisons wrestle, we may live."
(Sejanus, iii. 3.)
Chester has also some information to impart, drawn
from a classical source:-
"The scorpion hath a deadly stinging taile,
Bewitching some with his faire smiling face,
But presently with force he doth assaile
His captive praie, and brings him to disgrace:
Wherefore 'tis cald of some the flattering worme,
That subtilly his foe doth overturne.
"Orion made his boast the earth should bring
Or yeeld no serpent forth but he would kill it
Where presently the scorpion up did spring,
For so the onely powers above did will it:
Where in the people's presence they did see,
Orion stung to death most cruelly."
(Love's Martyr, p. 116.)
The scorpion, used metaphorically, meant the most
virulent poison:—
"Macbeth. O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
Thou know'st that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives."
(Macbeth, iii. 2, 36.)
2 F
434
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
=
CHAPTER XVIII.
"OF the legged kind of fishes," writes Harrison, “ we have not manie,
neither have I seene anie more of this sort than the
polypus, called in English the Lobstar, crafish, or crevis,
Lobster.
and the crab."
Harrison here uses the word polypus in its literal signifi-
cation of many-feet.
Nares, in his Glossary, takes notice of the strange
word that Sylvester coins in his translation of Du Bartas,
and adds that, though an explanation is wisely given,
the omission of this peculiar verb would have been still
better:
tt
“Thou makest rivers the most deafly-deep
To lobstarize (back to their source to creep).”
(Divine Weekes and Workes, p. 184.)
Pliny observes that lobsters-
so long as they are secure of any fear and danger, go directly
straight, letting down their horns at length along their sides; ... but
if they be in any fear, up go their hornes straight, and then they
creep byas and go sidelong." (Nat. Hist., book ix. ch. 30.)
Du Bartas (p. 43) writes:-
"And lobsters floated fearless all the while
Among the polyps prone to theft and guile."
Shakspeare has no mention of the lobster.
Crayfish.
435
Crayfish.
Crayfish, according to Harrison, were found plenti-
fully in streams and small rivers. Thomas
Hyll, in his Art of Gardening, 1593, quotes
from Democritus a strange use for these little creatures:
ten sea or river crevises are to be put into a covered
vessel full of water, which is to be set out in the sun for
ten days, the seeds of plants are to be soaked in this
mixture for eight days, and afterwards sown; and—
"after the yong plants of those seeds be sprung up, they will not
onely drive cattle and other small beasts from the eating of them, but
all other creeping things from the gnawing of them." (Page 23.)
Describing the river Severn and its produce, Drayton
writes:-
"The dainty gudgeon, loche, the minnow, and the bleake,
Since they but little are, I little need to speak
Of them, nor doth it fit me much of those to reck,
Which every where are found in every little beck;
Nor of the crayfish here, which creeps along my stones,
From all the rest alone, whose shell is all his bones."
(Polyolbion, song xxvi.)
The crevis, or cray-fish, was a favourite dish. It was
generally minced fine, and served cold with vinegar,
cinnamon, and ginger. Randle Holme gives, as the
various names under which the crayfish was known, "a
crevice, first a spron frey, then a shrimp, then a sprawn,
and when it is large then called a crevice."
rr
.
Shrimp.
Shrimps," writes Muffett, "are of two sorts; the one crook-
backed, the other strait-backed: the first sort is called
of Frenchmen caramots de la sante, healthful shrimps;
because they recover sick and consumed persons; of all
other they are most nimble, witty, and skipping, and of best juice.
There is a great kind of shrimps, which are called prawnes in English,
and crangones by Rondeletius, highly prized in hectick fevers and
consumptions; but the crookbackt shrimp far surpasseth them for that
purpose." (Healths Improvement, p. 168.)
Shakspeare uses the word shrimp to denote some-
436
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
thing small and insignificant. The pedant Holofernes, in
his assumed character of Judas, thus announces his atten-
dant, Moth, who plays the part of Hercules :-
"Great Hercules is presented by this imp,
Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canis;
And when he was a babe, a child, a shrimp,
Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus."
(Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2, 592.)
The Countess of Auvergne expresses her astonishment
at the diminutive stature of Talbot, the scourge of
France :-
"Is this the Talbot, so much fear'd abroad
That with his name the mothers still their babes?
I see report is fabulous and false:
I thought I should have seen some Hercules,
A second Hector, for his grim aspect,
And large proportion of his strong-knit limbs.
Alas, this is a child, a silly dwarf!
It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp
Should strike such terror to his enemies."
(1 Henry VI., ii. 3, 16.)
"Crab.-A fish in the sea that hath his head upon his brest, whereof
Gesner discourseth amply in the fourth booke of his
history of fishes, having gathered together in one body,
all that which the ancients and modernes have said.”
Crab.
So writes the learned commentator on Du Bartas (Learned
Summary, p. 211).
"Crabs of the sea," writes Muffett, "be of divers sorts; some
smooth-crusted, and some rough-casted as it were and full of prickles,
called Echinometræ: the first sort hath the two formost clawes very
big and long, the other wanteth them. Wherefore as they go side
wise, so these move not themselves but round about like a spiral line.”
(Healths Improvement, p. 150.)
Lyly informs us that "the sea crab swimmeth alwayes
against the streame;" also that "the filthy sow when
she is sicke, eateth the sea crab, and is immediately
The Crab.
437
recured” (Euphues, p. 61). He does not tell how the
sow contrives to catch the crab.
The eccentric motion of the crab is humorously
alluded to by Webster :-
"Like the irregular crab,
Which, though't goes backward, thinks that it goes right,
Because it goes its own way."
(Duchess of Malfi, i. 2.)
And Hamlet mockingly tells Polonius, "Yourself, sir,
should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go back-
ward" (Hamlet, ii. 2, 205). The method of locomotion
adopted by the crab is more correctly described by
Oviedo, in an account of a soft-bodied species, found in
South America :—
“There are also a strange kinde of crabbes, which come forth of
certaine holes of the earth, that they themselves make: the head
and bodie of these make one round thing, much like to the hood of a
falcon, having foure feete comming out of the one side, and as manie
out of the other; they have also two mouthes, like unto a paire of
small pincers, the one bigger then the other; wherewith they bite, but
doe no great hurt, because they are not venemous: their skin and bodie
is smooth, and thinne, as is the skinne of a man, saving that it is
somewhat harder; their colour is russet, or white, or blew, and walke
sidelong; they are verie good to be eaten, in so much that the Chris-
tians travailing by the Firme Land, have beene greatly nourished by
them, because they are found in manner everie where: in shape and
forme they are much like unto the crabbe which we paint for the
signe Cancer, and like unto those which are found in Spaine and Anda-
lusia in the river Guadalchiber, where it entreth into the sea, and in
the sea coasts there they are sometimes hurtfull, so that they that eate
of them dye, but this chanceth onely when they have eaten any vene-
mous thing, or of the venemous apples wherewith the caniball archers
poison their arrowes, whereof I will speak hereafter, and for this cause
the Christians take heede how they eate of these crabbes, if they finde
them neere unto the said apple trees." (Purchas, vol. iii. p. 979.)
In Purchas's collection also there is an account of a
voyage undertaken by George, Earl of Cumberland, in
the year 1594, to the Southern Seas. The earl's chap-
lain and attendant, Dr. Layfield, who writes a description
438
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
of the expedition, tells us that the wild dogs of Porto
Rico live on crabs. He is careful to guard against any
confusion between the crustacean and the apple:-
"I meane not fruits of trees, but an animal, a living and sensible
creature, in feeding whereupon, even men finde a delight, not onely a
contentednesse. These woods are full of these crabs, in quantitie
bigger than ever I saw any sea-crabs in England, and in such multi-
tudes that they have berries [burrows] like conies in English warrens.
They are in shape not different from sea-crabs, for ought I could per-
ceive. For I speake not this out of report, but of my owne sensible
experience, I have seene multitudes of them both here, and at Dominica.
The whitest whereof (for some are ugly black) some of our men did
catch, and eate with good liking, and without any harme, that ever I
heard complaint of." (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1172.)
In John Russell's Boke of Nurture, written about the
year 1450, the following quaintly minute instructions are
given how to dress and carve the crab when served at
table:-
"Crabbe is a slutt to kerve and a wrawd [froward] wight;
Breke every clawe a sondur, for that is his ryght:
In the brode shelle putt youre stuff, but first have a sight
That it be clene from skyn and senow [sinew] or ye begyn to dight.
And what [when] ye have piked the stuff owt of every shelle
With the poynt of youre knyfe, loke ye temper it welle,
Put vinegre thereto, verdjus, or ayselle,
Cast thereon powdur, the better it wille smelle.
Send the crabbe to the kychyn there for to hete,
Agayn hit facche [fetch it] to thy soverayne sittynge at mete;
Breke the clawes of the crabbe, the smalle and the grete,
In a disch them ye lay if hit like your soverayne to ete."
(The Babees Book, ed. F. J. Furnivall, 1868, p. 42.)
This delicacy, so carefully prepared, must not be mis-
taken for the favourite supper dish, referred to by
Puck:-
"And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale."
(Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 1, 47.)
The Hermit Crab.
439
"To turne a crab," writes Dr. Drake, "is to roast a wilding or wild
apple in the fire for the purpose of being thrown hissing hot into a
bowl of nut-brown ale, into which had been previously put a toast
with some spice and sugar." (Shakspeare and his Times, 1817, vol. i.
p. 105.)
In the well-known drinking song which prefaces the
second act of the old comedy, Gammer Gurton's Needle,
first printed in 1551, we read :—
"I love no rost, but a nut brown toste,
And a crab layde in the fyre;
A lytle bread shall do me stead,
Much bread I not desyre."
The ingenious device employed by the hermit crab in
order to gain a habitation, is described by Du Bartas
(p. 42):-
"There would I cease save that this hum'rous song
The hermit-fish compels me to prolong.
A man of might that builds him a defence
'Gainst weathers rigour and warr's insolence,
First dearly buyes (for, what good is good-cheap?)
Both the rich matter and rare workmanship:
But, without buying timber, lime, and stone,
Or hiring men to build his mansion,
Or borrowing house, or paying rent therefore,
He lodgeth safe: for, finding on the shoare
Some handsom shell, whose native lord, of late
Was dispossessed by the doom of fate :
Therein he enters, and he takes possession
Of th' empty harbour by the free concession
Of natures law; who, goods that owner want
Alwaies allots to the first occupant.
In this new cace, or in this cradle (rather)
He spends his youth: then, growing both together
In age and wit, he gets a wider cell
Wherein at sea his later daies to dwell."
Olaus Magnus gives a quaint account of the Polypus,
an early name for what is now known as the
octopus :-
Polypus.
"On the coasts of Norway there is a polypus, or creature with
440
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
many feet, which hath a pipe on his back, whereby he puts to sea, and
he moves that sometimes to the right side, sometimes to the left.
Moreover, with his legs as if it were by hollow places, dispersed here
and there, and by his toothed nippers, he fastneth on every living
creature that come near to him, that wants blood. Whatever he eats
he heaps up in the holes wherein he resides: then he casts out the
skins, having eaten the flesh, and hunts after fishes that swim to
tliem: also he casts out the shels, and hard out-sides of crabs that
remain. He changeth his colour by the colour of the stone he sticks
unto, especially when he is frighted at the sight of his enemy, the
conger. He hath four great middle feet, and in all eight; a little
body, which the great feet make amends for. He hath also some small
feet that are shadowed, and can scarce be perceived. By these he
sustains, moves, and defends himself, and takes hold of what is from
him; and he lies on his back upon the stones." (Page 232.)
Montaigne (Essay liv.) distinguishes between the
power possessed by the polypus of changing its hue, and
the similar faculty of the chameleon :-
"The cameleon takes her colour from the place upon which it is
laid; but the polypus gives himself what colour he pleases, according
to occasion, either to conceal himself from what he fears, or from that
he has a design to seize in the cameleon 'tis a passive, but in the
polypus 'tis an active change."
Nautilus.
Thomas Stevens, the first Englishman who was known
to have reached India by way of the Cape of
Good Hope, describes in a letter written from
Goa, in the year 1579, an animal that seems to corre-
spond to the Nautilus. Stevens writes:-
66
Along all that coast we oftentimes saw a thing swimming upon
the water like a cock's comb (which they call a Ship of Guinea), but
the colour much fairer, which comb standeth upon a thing almost like
the swimmer [bladder] of a fish in colour and bigness, and beareth
under the water, strings, which saveth it from turning over. This
thing is so poisonous that a man cannot touch it without great peril."
(ARBER'S English Garner, vol. i. p. 131.)
The Cuttle-fish is noticed by Du Bartas:-
Cuttle-fish.
'Even so, almost, the many spotted cuttle
Well-neer insnared yet escapeth suttle;
·
:
Cuttle-fish wholesome.
For, when she sees her selfe within the net,
And no way left, but one from thence to get,
She suddenly a certaine ink doth spew,
Which dyes the waters of a sable hew;
That, dazling so the fishers greedy sight,
She through the clouds of the black waters night
Might scape with honour the black streams of Styx,
Whereof already, almost lost, she licks."
(Page 41.)
441
It is hardly necessary to point out the glaring absur-
dities of which this author is guilty throughout his poem
on the Creation. He delights to describe the various
stratagems by which the different creatures escape from
snares spread for them by another creature not yet called
into existence.
Bacon observes:-
"It is somewhat strange that the blood of all beasts and birds and
fishes should be of a red colour, and only the blood of the cuttle should
be as black as ink. The cuttle," he adds, "is accounted a delicate
meat, and is much in request."
The Calamary, or Squid, often called the Sea-arrow,
or Flying-squid, was, and still is, extensively used as a
bait by the fishermen of Newfoundland. The body of
the common squid is not unlike an old-fashioned ink-
horn, whence the name calamar. Two long, slender
tentacles suggest the idea of pens, and ink is supplied by
the creature.
Of the cuttle-fish, Muffett says:
"They are called also sleeves for their shape, and scribes for their
incky humour wherewith they are replenished, and are commended by
Galen for great nourishers; their skins be as smooth as any womans,
but their flesh is brawny as any ploughmans; therefore I fear me
Galen rather commended them upon hear-say then upon any just
cause or true experience.”
Sir Thomas Browne writes:-
"The loligo sleve, or calamar, found often upon the shore, from
head to tail sometimes about an ell long, remarkable for its parrot-like
442
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
bill, the gladiolus or celanus along the back, and the notable crystal-
line of the eye, which equalleth if not exceedeth, the lustre of oriental
pearl." (Vol. iv. p. 332.)
Drayton enumerates some of the delicacies
Scallop. of the sea:-
"These nymphs tricked up in tyers, the sea-god to delight
Of coral of each kind, the black, the red, the white;
With many sundry shells, the Scallop large and fair;
The cockle small and round, the periwinkle spare;
The oyster, wherein of the pearl is found to breed;
The mussel, which retains that dainty orient seed.”
(Polyolbion, song xx.)
Of the mollusks here mentioned, the scallop was
chiefly valued in early times on account of its form.
Pilgrims to Palestine considered themselves sufficiently
equipped for their long journey if they possessed a
staff, a wallet, or bag, and scallop or escallop shell.
This last article served them as cup, dish, and spoon.
The scallop was the special emblem of St. James the
Great, of Compostella, the tutelary saint of Spain, and
the patron. of pilgrims, and was adopted as a badge by
these religious travellers. Ophelia sings:
"How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.”
(Hamlet, iv. 5, 23.)
This beautiful shell was borne as a charge by many.
families in memory of the real or imaginary exploits of
their ancestors in-
CC
Streaming the ensign of the Christian Cross
Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens."
"Canst tell how an Oyster makes his shell?" asks
the Fool of his royal master, and Lear cannot
answer the question.
Oyster.
Colchester Oysters.
443
The town of Colchester owed much of its importance
and wealth to its valuable oyster fisheries. Mr. Thomas
Cromwell, in his History and Description of Colchester,
states that
"Richard I. granted to the burgesses the fishery of the river Colne,
and the grant was very amply assured and confirmed to them by sub-
sequent charters, especially by that of Edward IV." (Page 290.)
Attempts were repeatedly made by landed proprietors in
the neighbourhood to deprive the burghers of Colchester
of their ancient rights. The first landowner who endea-
voured to gain for himself the privilege bestowed on the
town was Lionel De Bradenham, Lord of the Manor of
Langinhoe, who, in the reign of Edward III., enclosed
parts of the river, and appropriated them to his own use.
At a later period John, Earl of Oxford, procured a grant
from Henry VI. of this royalty; but the Corporation,
rather than surrender their claim, entered into a contest
with the earl, and, after some opposition, succeeded in
obtaining from the king a confirmation of their rights.
Colchester oysters have been celebrated from the earliest
period, and have been deemed a valuable present. We
find them on several occasions sent both to Leicester and
Walsingham in the reign of Elizabeth.
The praises of the Colchester oysters are sounded by
Thomas Fuller :—
"The best in England, fat, salt, green-finn'd, are bred near Col-
chester, where they have an excellent art to feed them in pits made
for the purpose. King James was wont to say, 'he was a very valiant
man who first adventured on eating of oysters;' most probably meer
hunger put men first on that trial." (Worthies of England, vol. i.
p. 336.)
We learn, also, from Norden that—
"Some part of the sea shore of Essex yealdeth the beste oysters in
England, which are called Walflete oysters: so called of a place in the
sea; but in what place of the sea it is, hath ben some disputation. . .
444
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
.
Ther is greate difference between these oysters and others which lie
upon other shores, for this oyster, that in London and ells wher carieth
the name of Walflete, is a little full oyster with a verie greene fynn.
And like unto these in quantitie and qualitie are none in this land,
thowgh farr bigger, and for some mens diettes better." (Description
of Essex, 1594, p. 11.)
Tom Coryat, the celebrated pedestrian traveller, relates
with great gusto, that, during his stay in Venice, he
tasted some oysters that even exceeded in flavour those
of Colchester:-
"Here did I eate the best oysters that ever I did in all my life.
They were indeede but little, something lesse then our Wainflete
oysters about London, but as green as a leeke, and gratissimi saporis
& succi." (Crudities, vol. ii. p. 18.)
Coryat, otherwise known as "the Odcombian leg-
stretcher," or "the Peregrine of Odcome," published his
Crudities in 1611. This book was the result of obser-
vations made in five months' travel, mostly on foot, from
his native place of Odcome, in Somersetshire, through a
great part of Europe. He set out in May, 1608, and
returned the same year. He was much ridiculed by
some of his contemporaries, and commended by others.
His chief fault is his intense vanity, and his constant
reference to himself; but his descriptions of the various
towns he visited are minute, and tell of careful obser-
vation.
Tarlton, the Court jester of Elizabeth's time, passed
an unfavourable opinion upon oysters :-
"Certaine noblemen and ladies of the Court, being eating of oysters,
one of them, seeing Tarlton, called him, and asked him if he loved
oysters. No, quoth Tarlton, for they be ungodly meate, unchari-
table meate, and unprofitable meate. Why, quoth the courtiers?
They are ungodly, sayes Tarlton, because they are eaten without
grace; uncharitable, because they leave nought but the shells; and
unprofitable, because they must swim in wine." (Shakspeare's Jest
Book, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, vol. ii. p. 192.)
Pearls, the product of the oyster, have ever been
Pearls.
445
highly prized and held in great estimation. Margarite,
from the Latin word, margarita, was a name sometimes
given to the pearl. Drummond of Hawthornden plays on
this word in an epitaph on a lady named Margaret :-
"In shells and gold, pearles are not kept alone,
A Margaret here lies beneath a stone;
A Margaret that did excell in worth
All those rich gems the Indics both send forth."
Antonio de Herrera, of Spain, in his description of
the West Indies, gives some account of the pearl
fisheries:-
66
"There are in the Indian Ocean, an infinite number of fishes, the
kindes and properties whereof the Creator onely can declare. Now that
we intreate of the great riches that comes from the Indies, it were no
reason to forget the pearle, which the ancients called marguerites, and
at the first were in so great estimation, as none but royall persons were
suffered to weare them: but at this day there is such abundance as the
Negres themselves doe weare chaines thereof; they grow in shels of
oystres, in eating whereof I have found pearles in the middest of them.
These oysters within are of the colour of heaven, very lively. In some
places they make spoones, the which they call mother of pearle. The
pearles doe differ much in forme, in bignesse, figure, colour and polish-
ing; so likewise in their price they differ much. Some they call Ave
Mariaes, being like the small grains of beades: others are called Pater
Nosters, being bigger. Seldome shall you finde two of one greatnesse,
forme, and colour. For this reason the Romans (as Plinie writeth)
called them unions. When they doe finde two that are alike in all
points, they raise the price much, especially for eare-rings." (Purchas,
vol. iii. p. 952.)
Before Hamlet attempts to win the wager that his uncle
has laid upon his skill in fencing, Claudius orders some
stoups of wine to be set on the table, and declares that at
the first successful hit-
"The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;
And in the cup an union shall he throw,
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark's crown have worn.
*
*
*
*
*
་
1
446
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
t
Here's to thy health.”
(Hamlet, v. 2, 282.)
Shakspeare has many references to this beautiful and
valuable ornament. Antony sends to his Egyptian queen
a precious gift: Alexas, who bears the offering, reports:
"Last thing he did, dear queen,
He kiss'd, the last of many doubled kisses,—
This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.
Cleo. Mine ear must pluck it thence.
Alex.
'Good friend,' quoth he,
'Say, The firm Roman to great Egypt sends
This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,
To mend the petty present, I will piece
Her opulent throne with kingdoms; all the East,
Say thou, shall call her mistress.""
(Antony and Cleopatra, i. 5, 39.)
Luke, in Massinger's City Madam, for years a poor
dependant in his brother's household, suddenly becomes.
possessed of boundless wealth: he describes in glowing
language his newly acquired treasures. Gold and silver
lay in glittering heaps about the room, and dazzled his
sight by their splendour; diamonds shot forth their beams
from the caskets that contained them,-
"And made the place
Heaven's abstract, or epitome !-rubies, sapphires,
And ropes of orient pearl, these seen, I could not
But look on with contempt."
(City Madam, iii. 3.)
The history of the oyster, as told by our forefathers, is
enlivened by a touch of the marvellous. One William
Finch, a merchant, in his description of the coast of Sierra
Leone, in the year 1607, gravely informs us that the
oyster is the fruit of a tree :-
"There grow likewise within the bayes great store of oysters on
trees, resembling willowes in forme, but the leafe broad and of thick-
Oysters on Trees.
447
nesse like leather, wearing small knops like those of the cypresse.
From this tree hang downe many branches, each about the bignesse of a
good walking sticke into the water, smooth, lithe, pithy within, over-
flowne with the tide, and hanging as thicke of oysters as they can
sticke together, being the only fruit the tree beareth, begotten thereof,
as it seemeth, by the salt water." (Purchas, vol. i. p. 416.)
We often read of these oyster-bearing trees in the nar-
rations of the Elizabethan travellers. Pigafetta mentions
the close relation of the shell to the tree, although he
does not, like the last writer, call it the fruit:-
"In that part of this island, which is toward the maine land
[Loanda, off Congo], in certaine low places there grow certaine trees
which (when the water of the occan ebbeth) discover themselves, and
at the feet thereof you shall find certaine shel-fishes cleaving as fast to
the trees as may bee, having within them a great fish as bigge as a mans
hand, and very good meate. The people of the countrey know them
very well, and call them ambiziamatare, that is to say, the fish of the
rocke. The shells of these fishes they use to burne, and they make
very good lime to build withall. And being like the corke or barke of
the tree, which is called manghi, they dresse their oxehides withall,
to make their shooe soles the stronger." (Purchas, vol. ii. p. 990.)
Mussel.
The Mussel, spelt muscle and muskle, was sometimes
called the Conche, or Echeola. Mussels were
found in most of the large rivers and ponds in
England. The pearl-producing property of these shells
was well known. Antonie Parkhurst, in a letter to Richard
Hakluyt, mentions, among other commodities of New-
foundland-
"oisters and muskles, in which I have found pearles, above 40 in
one muskle, and generally all have some, great or small. I heard of
a Portugall that found one worth 300 duckets." (Hakluyt, vol. iii.
p. 171.)
According to classical writers, pearls were formed by
drops of rain falling into the shells of oysters or mussels;
this notion long remained uncontradicted. Lawrens
Andrews, in his Noble Lyfe, writes:—
"Echeola is a muskle in whose fysshe is a precious stone, and be
448
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
:
night they flete to the water syde and there they receyve the hevenly
dewe, where-throughe there groweth in them a costly margaret or orient
perle, and they flete a great many togeder and he that knoweth the
water best gothe before and ledeth the other, and whan he is taken,
all the other scater a brode, and geteth them away." (Babees Book,
p. 16.)
Muffett has little to say in praise of the English
mussel as an article of diet, but recommends the "lily-
white mussel" found on the coast of Holland.
Snail.
"Fool. I can tell why a Snail has a house.
Lear. Why?
Fool. Why, to put his head in; not to give it away to his
daughters, and leave his horns without a case."
(Lear, i. 5, 29.)
Shakspeare has many references to the timid garden
snail:-
"Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails."
(Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 3, 337.)
"Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,
Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain,
And there, all smother'd up, in shade doth sit,
Long after fearing to creep forth again."
(Venus and Adonis, 1. 1033.)
Menenius compares the enemy of Rome to this cautious
but destructive intruder :-
«"Tis Aufidius,
Who, hearing of our Marcius' banishment,
Thrusts forth his horns again into the world;
Which were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome,
And durst not once peep out."
Ben Jonson writes:-
(Coriolanus, iv. 6, 43.),
"We have no shift of faces, no cleft tongues,
No soft and glutinous bodies, that can stick
Like snails on painted walls; or, on our breasts,
Creep up, to fall from that proud height to which
We did by slavery, not by service climb."
(Sejanus, i. 1.)
:
Snails eaten Abroad.
According to Bacon—
449
"the creatures that cast their skin are the snake, the viper, the grass-
hopper, the lizard, the silk-worm, &c. Those that cast their shell are
the lobster, the crab, the craw-fish, the hodmandod, or dodman, the
tortoise, &c." (Nat. Hist., century vii.)
This word hodmandod has been explained by some writers.
to mean the shelled snail.
Sir John Mandeville tells of some enormous foreign
species:
"There ben also in that contree [Siam] a kynde of snayles, that
ben so grete that many persones may loggen him in here scelles as
men wolde done in a litylle hous. And other snayles there ben, that
ben fully grete, but not so huge as the other." (Travels, p. 193.)
Garden snails were used in medicine as a remedy for
an inward bruise. They also formed the foundation of a
highly recommended "soothing syrup." They do not
seem to have found favour in England as a delicacy for
the table, but, according to Muffett, they were eaten in
other countries.
"Snailes," he writes, "are little esteemed of us in England, but in
Barbarie, Spaine, and Italy they are eaten as a most dainty, whole-
some, nourishing and restoring meat." (Healths Improvement, p. 190.)
"Pistol. Let us to France; like horse-leeches,
my boys:
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck.”
Leech.
(Henry V., ii. 3, 58.)
The use of the Leech in surgery dates back to a very
early period. The life of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syra-
cuse, is reported to have been prolonged by means of this
remedy.
The soft-bodied marine animal, the sea-anemone, so
well known to visitors to the sea-side, may be the creature
referred to by Du Bartas (p. 42) in the following lines:-
"And so the sponge-spye warily awakes
The sponges dull sense, when repast it takes."
2 G
450
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
His commentator has a long and involved note on this
passage, but does not succeed in making it quite clear
what sort of creature is meant. He writes:
"This is a little fish (as Plutarch saith in his treatise of the
industry of living creatures) like unto a spider of the sea. He guardeth
and governeth the spunge (called properly the hollow animal plant)
which is not wholly without soule neither without blood and sence:
but (as divers other sea-animals) cleaveth to the rocks, and hath a
proper motion to restraine her selfe outwardly; but to effect this, shee
hath neede of the advertisement and friendship of another, because
that (being rare, lither, and soft, by reason of her small vents, and
empty for want of bloud, or rather want of sence, which is very dull)
shee feeleth not when any good substance fit to be eaten, entreth into
these holes, and void spaces, which the spunge there makes her feele,
and incontinently she closeth her selfe, and devoureth it." (Learned
Summary, p. 224.)
"Coral of each kind, the black, the red, the white"
(Drayton, Polyolbion, song xx.), was well
Coral. known, though its substance was a sore
puzzle to naturalists. The animal nature of coral was
only discovered about a hundred and fifty years ago.
Bacon says it is a submarine plant:-
"It hath no leaves, it brancheth only when it is under water; it
is soft and green of colour; but being brought into the air it becomes
hard and shining red as we see. It is said also to have a white berry,
but we find it not brought over with the coral." (Nat. Hist.,
cent. viii.)
Elsewhere he notes, "Coral is in use as an help to the
teeth of children." This use of coral is referred to in a
poem by G. Fletcher, called "A Canto upon the Death
of Eliza." An ocean nymph appeals to the rocks around
her to join in lamentations for Britain's queen :-
"Tell me, ye blushing currols that bunch out,
To cloath with beuteous red your ragged fire,
So let the sea-greene mosse curle round about,
With soft embrace (as creeping vines doe wyre
Their loved elmes) your sides in rosie tyre,
Coral and Bells.
So let the ruddie vermeyle of your cheeke
Make stain'd carnations fresher liveries seeke,
451
So let your braunched arms grow crooked, smooth, and sleeke.
"So from your growth late be you rent away,
And hung with silver bels and whistles shrill;
Unto those children be you given to play,
Where blest Eliza raign'd; so never ill
Betide your canes, nor them with breaking spill,
Tell me, if some uncivill hand should teare
Your branches hence, and place them otherwhere;
Could you still grow, and such fresh crimson ensignes beare?”
(NICHOLS, Progresses of James I., vol. i. p. 17.)
Coral was brought back by travellers from warm
countries. One of Purchas's pilgrims, wandering through
Brazil, reports that on the shores of that country they-
"find great store of white stone corrall under water; it groweth like
small trees all in leaves, and canes, as the red corrall of India, and if
this also were so, there would be great riches in this countrie, for the
great abundance there is of it; it is very white, it is gotten with
difficulty, they make lime of it also." (Purchas, vol. iv. p. 1316.)
And Sir Richard Hawkins, whose travels in the South
Seas (1593) are recorded in the same collection, informs
us that "the corrall in the sea is soft, but comming
into the ayre, becommeth a stone" (vol. iv. p. 1377).
Shakspeare poetically introduces this beautiful material
into Ariel's song:-
"Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.
Ding-dong.
Hark! Now I hear them,-ding-dong bell."
(Tempest, i. 2, 396.)
452
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
CHAPTER XIX.
Ir may perhaps be thought unnecessary to take any
notice of creatures that had only an imaginary existence;
but while the unicorn supports the arms of England, the
dragon of St. George is stamped upon the coin of the
realm, and a griffin rampant guards the entry to the City
of London, these mythical animals may surely claim a
brief mention.
Unicorn.
“Alon. Give us kind keepers, heavens. What
were these?
Seb. A living drollery. Now I will believe
That there are Unicorns."
(Tempest, iii. 3, 20.)
Of all fabulous animals the unicorn is the most con-
spicuous, from the position it holds in the English arms.
The unicorn was first adopted as a supporter by James IV.
of Scotland, and made its appearance as a supporter of
the royal shield of England on the accession of James VI.
to the English throne, as a token of the alliance between
the two countries.
The unicorn of the Greeks and Romans was probably
founded upon some exaggerated description of the one--
horned rhinoceros; but the unicorn of the Bible, according
to Mr. Houghton, had reference to a species of bull. The
Hebrew word reem, which denotes a two-horned animal,.
was the wild bull of the Assyrian monuments, an animal
common at one time both in Palestine and Syria, and the
The Unicorn.
453
Assyrian name for which was rimu (Natural History of the
Ancients, 1879, p. 170).
The heraldic unicorn has gained his horn, according
to some authors, from the spike anciently fixed to the
head-piece of a war-horse; but as this does not account
for the cloven hoofs and slender tufted tail, Mr. Lower
(Curiosities of Heraldry, p. 101) reverses the inference,
and derives the appendage of the charger from the
popular notion of the unicorn. Guillim, whose work on
heraldry, published about 1600, is at the same time a
cyclopædia of natural or unnatural history, gives the
following account of this animal:-
"The unicorn hath his name of his one horn on his forehead.
There is another beast of a huge strength and greatnesse, which hath
but one horn, but that is growing on his snout, whence he is called
rinoceros, and both are named monoceros, or one-horned. It hath
been much questioned among naturalists, which it is that is properly
called the unicorn: and some have made doubt whether there be any
such beast as this or no. But the great esteem of his horn in many
places to be seen may take away that needless scruple. . . . His
vertue is no less famous than his strength, in that his horn is sup-
posed to be the most powerful antidote against poison: insomuch as
the general conceit is, that the wild beasts of the wilderness use not
to drink of the pools, for fear of venomous serpents there breeding,
before the unicorn hath stirred it with his horn. It seemeth by
a question moved by Farnesius, that the unicorn is never taken alive;
and the reason being demanded, it is answered, that the greatness of
his mind is such, that he chuseth rather to die than to be taken
alive." (Display of Heraldry, p. 163, ed. 1724.)
All sorts of myths grew up around this creature's
history; it was supposed to live in solitude in the woods,
and to be of indomitable courage. No man could succeed
in approaching it, but if a pure maiden came near its.
haunts it would lose its fierceness, lie down at her feet,
and suffer itself to be captured. It is to be hoped, how-
ever, that few maidens consented so basely to betray the
confidence reposed in them. Some say that a young
man, dressed in female attire, served equally well for the
454
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
purpose of alluring the unicorn, but this statement gives
the animal little credit for shrewdness. Topsell writes:-
"These beasts are very swift, and their legges have not articles.
They keep for the most part in the desarts, and live solitary in the
tops of the mountaines. There was nothing more horible then the
voice or braying of it, for the voice is straind above measure. It
fighteth both with the mouth and with the 'heeles, with the mouth
biting like a lyon, and with the heeles kicking like a horse."
(Page 719.)
Sir Thomas Browne, writing half a century later,
doubts the existence of such an animal, in spite of this
precise account; but he mentions five kinds of one-
horned animals-the Indian ass, the Indian ox, the
rhinoceros, the oryx, and the monoceros or unicornis,
which last may have been the narwhal.
Thomas Fuller dwells at some length on the vexed
question of the unicorn's existence, but adds little of
value to the controversy. That such a creature lived at
one time he considers clearly proved by the mention of
it in Scripture, and as the belief then was that no species
could be wholly lost, it was clear to Fuller that the
unicorn was to be met with somewhere. With regard to
the horn, he writes:-
Some are plain, as that in St. Mark's in Venice; others wreathed
about, as that at Dyonis near Paris, with anfractuous spires, and
cocleary turnings about it, which probably is the effect of age, those
wreaths being but the wrinkles of most vivacious unicorns. The
same may be said of the colour, white, when newly taken from his
head; yellow, like that lately in the Tower, of some hundred years
seniority; but whether or no it will ever turn black, as that of
Plinie's description, let others decide." (Worthies, vol. ii. p. 54.)
The Rev. Edward Topsell visits with true ecclesiastical
scorn those sceptical mortals who refuse to accept the
traditional accounts of the unicorn, and even dare to
doubt its existence. After enumerating the different
3.
Sceptics refuted.
455
kinds of animals which are described as having a single
horn, he adds:-
"Now our discourse of the unicorne is of none of these beasts, for
there is not any vertue attributed to their hornes, and therefore the
vulgar sort of infidell people which scarcely beleeve any hearbe but
such as they see in their owne gardens, or any beast but such as is in
their own flocks, or any knowledge but such as is bred in their owne
braines, or any birds which are not hatched in their owne nests, have
never made question of these, but of the true unicorne, whereof there
were more proofes in the world, because of the noblenesse of his horn,
they have ever bin in doubt: by which distraction, it appeareth unto
me that there is some secret enemy in the inward degenerate nature
of man, which continually blindeth the eies of God his people from
beholding and beleeving the greatnesse of God his workes. But to the
purpose that there is such a beast, the Scripture it selfe witnesseth,
for David thus speaketh in the 92. Psalme: Et erigetur cornu
meum tanquam monocerotis. That is, My horne shall bee lifted up
like the horne of a unicorn; whereupon all divines that ever wrote
have not onely collected that there is a unicorne, that as the horne of
the unicorne is wholesome to all beasts and creatures so should the
kingdome of David be in the generation of Christ; and do we think
that David would compare the vertue of his kingdom, and the power-
ful redemption of the world unto a thing that is not, or is uncertain
or fantastical, God forbid that ever any man should so despight the
Holy Ghost." (Page 712.)
The Rev. Mr. Topsell is here so angry that he is
rather incoherent. The following minute description of
the unicorn by an eye-witness may serve to justify this
author's indignation:-
"On the other part of the temple [of Mecha] are parkes or places
inclosed, where are seene two unicornes, named of the Greekes
monocerotœ, and are there shewed to the people for a miracle, and not
without good reason, for the seldomeness and strange nature. The
one of them, which is much hygher then the other, yet not much
unlike to a coolte of thyrtye moneths of age, in the forehead groweth
only one horne, in maner ryght foorth of the length of three cubites;
the other is much younger, of the age of one yeere, and lyke a young
colte; the horne of this, is of the length of foure handfuls. This beast
is of the coloure of a horse of weesell coloure, and hath the head lyke
an hart, but no long necke, a thynne mane hangyng onlye on the one
456
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
syde: theyr legges are thyn and slender, lyke a fawne or hynde: the
hoofes of the fore feete are divided in two, much like the foot of a
goat, the outwarde part of the hynder feete is very full of heare.
This beast doubtlesse seemeth wylde and fierce, yet tempereth that
fiercenesse with a certain comelinesse. These unicornes one gave to the
Soltan of Mecha, as a most precious and rare gyfte. They were sent
hym out of Ethiope by a kyng of that countrey, who desired by that
present to gratifie the Soltan of Macha." (Hakluyt, vol. iv. p. 5 62.)
This account occurs in a narrative of the travels of
Lewes Vertomannus, "Gentelman of the Citie of Rome,
in the yeere of our Lorde 1503. Translated out of
Latine into Englyshe, by Richarde Eden, 1576."
"The horne of Windsor," referred to by previous
writers, is mentioned also by Shakspearean dramatists as
one of the stock curiosities of the time. Paul Hentzner,
in his account of a visit to England, in 1598, writes of
Windsor Castle.
"We were shewn here among other things, the horn of a unicorn,
of above eight spans and an half in length, valued at above 10,0007."
(Dodsley's Fugitive Pieces, vol. ii. p. 244.)
Topsell gives a minute description of this most
precious article, which was, in all probability, the horn
or tusk of a narwhal.
"I doe also know," he writes, "that [horn] the King of England
possesseth to be wreathed in spires, even as that is accounted in the
Church of S. Dennis, then which they suppose none greater in the
world, and I never saw any thing in any creature more worthy praise
then this horn. . . . It is of so great a length that the tallest man can
scarcely touch the top thereof, for it doth fully equal seven great feet.
It weigheth thirteen pounds, with their assize, being only weighed
by the gesse of the hands it seemeth much heavier. The figure doth
plainely signifie a wax candle, being folded and wreathed with it selfe,
being farre more thicker from one part, and making it selfe by little
and little lesse towards the point, the thickest part thereof cannot be
shut within one hand, it is the compasse of five fingers, by the circum-
ference, if it bee measured with a thred, it is three fingers and a span.
... That part which is next unto the heade hath not sharpenesse, the
other are of a polished smoothnes. The splents of the spire are
Lion and Unicorn.
457
smooth and not deep, being for the most part like unto the wreathing
turnings of snailes, or the revolutions or windings of wood-bine about
any wood. But they proceed from the right hande toward the left,
from the beginning of the horne, even unto the very ende. The
colour is not altogether white, being a long time somewhat obscured.
But by the weight it is an easie thinge of conjecture, that this beast
which can beare so great burden in his head, in the quantity of his
body can be little less then a great oxe." (Page 717.)
Specimens of this curiosity, which are in reality tusks
of the narwhal, can be seen in many museums, and two
are at the present time exhibited at Gardner's, in Oxford
Street.
Spenser not only takes it for granted that the unicorn
exists, but describes the mode of warfare adopted by its
time-honoured antagonist, the lion:-
"Like as the lyon, whose imperial powre
A proud rebellious unicorn defyes,
T' avoide the rash assault and wrathfull stowre
Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes,
And when him ronning in full course he spyes,
He slips aside; the whiles that furious beast
His precious horne, sought of his enimyes,
Strikes in the stroke, ne thence can be released,
But to the victor yields a bounteous feast."
(Faerie Queene, ii. v. 10.)
Shakspeare refers to this method of defeating the
unicorn, which was adopted by his human antagonists, as
well as by the lion: in his tirade against Apemantus,
Timon of Athens exclaims:-
"Wert thou the unicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee,
and make thine own self the conquest of thy fury." (Timon of
Athens, iv. 3, 337.)
And again, Decius declares that Cæsar-
"Loves to hear
That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils and men with flatterers."
(Julius Caesar, ii. 1, 303.)
458 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Webster mentions the horn, and in reference to its
supposed virtues, he tells how men-
"Make of the powder a preservative circle,
And in it put a spider."
(Vittoria Corombona, act ii.)
Out of compliment to his Welsh ancestry, Henry of
Richmond adopted the device of the Red
Dragon. Dragon, when he advanced against Richard
III. on Bosworth Field. After his coronation he placed
the victorious animal as one of the supporters of the
English arms. The dragon maintained this position
through the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, but
was superseded on the accession of James I. by the
Scotch unicorn. One of the pursuivants in the College
of Arms at the present day is called "Rouge Dragon,"
in commemoration of the Lancastrian victory.
Figures of the heraldic dragon vary considerably,
according to the fancy of the draughtsman. The chief
characteristics are the head of a wolf, the body of a
serpent, four eagle's feet, bat-like wings, and barbed
tongue and tail. The dragon's attributes were animation
and ferocity.
Lyly was evidently untroubled by any doubt of the
existence of this imaginary animal. In support of his
assertion that wise counsel is to be regarded, though the
speaker may not be virtuous, he points to the "Precious
gemme dacromtes [draconites] that is ever taken out of
the heade of the poysoned dragon" (Euphues, p. 124).
Shakspeare often mentions the dragon, but generally
in an allegorical sense. Among the ingredients of the
witches' cauldron, however, are included "scale of
dragon, tooth of wolf."
"I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk," exclaims
Richard (3 Henry VI., ii. 2, 187). And Drayton
writes:
Basilisk.
Compound Animals.
"The basilisk so poisons with the eye,
To call for aid, and then to lie in wait."
(England's Heroical Epistles.)
459
The fatal effect of the glance of the basilisk could only
be averted by holding in front of the creature a polished
mirror. The terror of its own image caused its instant
death.
The basilisk combined the head and body of a cock
with the tail of a serpent. A minute description of this
creature and other fabulous animals may be found in any
good work on heraldry.
The Cockatrice added to the charms of the basilisk a
dragon's tail, armed with a sting. It shared
with the basilisk the power of destroying by
Cockatrice.
its glance. Sir Toby Belch says of the intending duel-
lists, "This will so fright them both that they will kill
one another by the look, like cockatrices" (Twelfth Night,
iii. 4, 214).
Juliet, distracted by her nurse, plays thus nicely with
her words:--
"What devil are thou, that dost torment me thus?
This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'I,'
And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice :
I am not I, if there be such an I.”
(Romeo and Juliet, iii. 2, 43.)
In art the cockatrice was an emblem of sin generally,
and the special attribute of St. Vitus.
The Wyvern was a more bird-like form of the dragon,
having only two legs, an eagle's head, and a Wyvern.
scorpion's tail.
The Fire-drake, or Fire-dragon, was a shining serpent
that was supposed to guard hidden treasures. Fire-drake.
The name was also given to the luminous
appearance known as "will o' the wisp."
460
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
Ben Jonson writes:-
"The shrieks of luckless owls
We hear, and croaking night-crows in the air!
Green bellied snakes, and fire-drakes in the sky."
(The Sad Shepherd, ii. 2.)
In Henry VIII. (v. 4, 41) this name is given to a man
with an overflorid complexion :-
"There is a fellow somewhat near the door, he should be a brazier
by his face, for, o' my conscience, twenty of the dog-days now reign
in 's nose; all that stand about him are under the line, they need no
other penance: That fire-drake did I hit three times on the head."
The Griffin, or Gryphon, was a compound animal
whose delineation reflects some credit on its
Griffin. inventor. It was supposed to combine the
qualities of the king of beasts and the king of birds. Its
head, fore legs, and wings were those of an eagle, while
the rest of the body resembled that of a lion. It
denoted watchfulness and courage, and was often borne as
a charge, or more frequently as a supporter. The
griffin's wings, unlike those of the dragon, were plumed.
In his prologue to Sappho and Phæon, Lyly writes:
“The gryffin never spreadeth her wings in the sunne,
when she hath any sicke feathers."
Du Bartas has transmitted some legendary lore con-
cerning the griffin's love of gold. To a list of ravenous
birds (p. 45) he adds: :
"The Indian griffin with the glistring eyes,
Beak eagle-like, back sable, sanguin brest,
White (swan-like) wings, fierce talons alwaies prest [ready]
For bloody battails; for, with these he tears
Boars, lions, horses, tigres, bulls and bears:
With these our grandams fruitful panch he puls,
Whence many an ingot of pure gold he culls,
To floor his proud nest, builded strong and steep
On a high rock, better his thefts to keep:
The Griffin.
With these he guards against an army bold
The hollow mines where first he findeth gold;
As wroth, that men upon his right should rove,
Or thievish hands usurp his tresor-trove."
461
This is not the griffin of heraldry, but the gigantic bird
known in Eastern fable as the roc, or rukh, to whom
Sinbad the Sailor was indebted for his discovery of the
"valley of diamonds." Burton writes:-
"As I go by Madagascar I would see that great bird rucke that
can carry a man and horse or an elephant, with that Arabian phoenix
described by Adrichomius; see the pellicanes of Egypt, those Scythian
gryphes in Asia." (Anatomy of Melancholy, vol. i. p. 489.)
Drayton mentions the roc as coming with its feathered
comrades to seek the shelter of the ark :
:
"All feather'd things yet ever known to men,
From the huge ruck, unto the little wren.
(Noah's Flood.)
In England a large kind of eagle was sometimes called
the gripe, or griffin; in this sense Shakspeare evidently
uses the word in 1 Henry IV. (iii. 1, 152). Hotspur,
when reproved by Mortimer for thwarting Owen Glen-
dower, exclaims impetuously—
"I cannot chose: sometimes he angers me
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,
And of a dragon and a finless fish,
A clip-winged griffin and a moulten raven,
A couching lion and a ramping cat,
And such a deal of skimble skamble stuff
As put me from my faith."
In the passage in Lucrece (line 541) the powerful
fabulous bird described by Du Bartas is probably
meant :-
:-
"While she, the picture of pure piety,
Like a white hind under the gripe's sharp claws,
Pleads, in a wilderness where are no laws,
462
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,
Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite."
Chester writes (p. 119):-
Sphinx.
"The griffon is a bird rich feathered,
His head is like a lion, and his flight
Is like the eagles, much for to be feared,
For why, he kills men in the ugly night :
Some say he keeps the smaragd and the jasper,
And in pursute of man is monstrous eager."
The Sphinx is too well known to need
description. It is only once referred to by
Shakspeare :—
«For valour, is not love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as sphinx; as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.”
(Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 3, 340.)
"Lord Bacon's original resolution of this fable," writes Dr. E. C.
Brewer, "is a fair specimen of what some persons call 'spiritualising
the incidents and parables of Scripture.' He says that the whole re-
presents' science,' which is regarded by the ignorant as a monster.'
As the figure of the sphinx is heterogeneous, so the subjects of science
' are very various.' The female face denotes volubility of speech;'
her wings show that knowledge like light is rapidly diffused;' her
hooked talons remind us of the arguments of science which enter the
mind and lay hold of it.' She is placed on a crag overlooking the city,
for 'all science is placed on an eminence which is hard to climb.' If
the riddles of the sphinx brought disaster, so the riddles of science
'perplex and harass the mind.'" (Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,
p. 844.)
Unfortunately Dr. Brewer does not condescend to give
any reference for his quotation.
Harpy.
The Harpies were imaginary beings of Grecian
mythology. According to some writers they
were three in number, Ocypete, Aello, and
Celeno. They were the personifications of winds and
storms. They were depicted with the head and body of
The Harpy.
463
a woman and the wings and feet of a vulture or eagle,
and symbolized deceit and cruelty. Spenser introduces
one of them into the Faerie Queene (II. vii. 23):—
"While sad Celeno, sitting on a cliffe,
A song of bale and bitter sorrow sings."
Again he writes (II. xii. 36):-
"The whistler shrill, that whoso heares shall dy;
The hellish harpyes, prophets of sad destiny."
By Prospero's command the delicate Ariel assumes the
form of one of these savage monsters; the stage directions
(Tempest, iii. 3) are, “Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel
like a harpy; claps his wings upon the table; and, with
a quaint device, the banquet vanishes. . . . Alonso,
Sebastian, &c., draw their swords: "
"Ariel. You fools! I and my fellows
Are ministers of fate: the elements,
Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
One dowle that's in my plume. [He vanishes in thunder.
Prospero. Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou
Perform❜d, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring."
We find this monster again in Pericles (iv. 3, 46):—
“Cleon. Thou art like a harpy,
Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel's face,
Seize with thy eagle's talons."
The Minotaur was a fabulous monster of antiquity,
half man and half bull. It guarded the
labyrinth of Minos, and was destroyed by
Minotaur.
Theseus, with the assistance of Ariadne, the king's
daughter.
(C
Suffolk. O, wert thou for thyself! but Suffolk stay ;
Thou mayst not wander in that labyrinth;
There minotaurs and ugly treasons lurk."
(1 Henry VI., v. 3, 187.)
464
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
÷.
Ben Jonson writes:-
"I am neither your minotaur, nor your centaur, nor your satyr, nor
your hyæna, nor your babion, but your mere traveller, believe me."
(Cynthia's Revels, i. 1.)
The Centaur was another classical monster, half man
and half horse. The battle of the Centaurs
Centaur. with the Lapitha has been told by Ovid
and other authors, as well as by Theseus:-
"Theseus [reads]. The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'
We'll none of that: that have I told my love,
In glory of my kinsman Hercules."
(Midsummer Night's Dream, v. 1, 44.)
Chester writes (p. 112):—
"The Onocentaur is a monstrous beast;
Supposed halfe a man, and halfe an asse,
That never shuts his eyes in quiet rest,
Till he his foes deare life hath round encompast,
Such were the Centaures in their tyrannie,
That liv'd by humane flesh and villanie."
Hamlet
Satyrs were sylvan demigods, half men, half goats,
who attended the revels of Bacchus.
compares his father with his uncle:-
Satyr.
"So excellent a king; that was to this,
Hyperion to a satyr.”
(Hamlet, i. 2, 139.)
The Chimæra, a mythological monstrosity frequently
introduced into medieval architecture, was a
Chimæra. creature with a goat's body and three heads,
one like a lion, one like a goat, and the third like a dragon.
In Christian art it symbolized deliberate cunning or
fanciful illusion. The word chimerical in modern usage
signifies an idle dream, a castle in the air, a project
that can have no existence but in the imagination.
A correspondent in Notes and Queries (3rd series, vol.
Immortal Animals.
465
viii. p. 66) gave the name of some brutes, endowed with
immortality, that are sometimes referred to in medieval
literature:-
"Mahomet allows that into paradise will be admitted Abraham's
calf, Jonah's whale, Solomon's ant, Ishmael's ram, and Moses's ox, to
these will be added Mahomet's dove, the Queen of Sheba's ass, the
Prophet Salech's camel, and Belkis' cuckoo.”
The writer asked for some particulars of these highly
favoured beasts, but did not receive much information.
One gentlemen wrote:-
"By Ishmael's ram is meant ‘a noble victim,' (Koran, surat
xxxvii. p. 369, Sale,) the same which Abel sacrificed, and which was
sent to Abraham out of paradise when he offered his son. I can find
nothing on the subject of Moses's ox, nor of the Queen of Sheba's
(Balkis's) ass. Neither can I find anything of her cuckoo; although
the lapwing conveyed messages between her and Solomon." (Page
115.)
To this list of immortal beasts the dog of the Seven
Sleepers may be added.
In the play by Wilkins, The Miseries of Inforced
Marriage, published 1607, we find money-
lenders compared to "Mantichoras, monstrous
Mantichor.
beasts, enemies to mankind, that have double rows of teeth
in their mouths. They are usurers, they come yawning
for money."
Topsell obligingly favours us with a description and a
drawing of this formidable creature. Unfortunately this
author does not give his authority for the portraits he
introduces into his work of the various animals. His
picture of the mantichor certainly does such credit to the
imaginative powers of the artist that it is a pity his name
is withheld. A facsimile reprint of this drawing forms
the frontispiece of the present volume. The description
runs as follows:
"This beast, or rather monster, as Ctesias writeth, is bred among
the Indians, having a treble rowe of teeth beneath and above, whose
2 H
466
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
greatnesse, roughnesse, and feete are like a lyons, his face and eares
like unto a mans [even to the carefully trimmed moustachios] his eies
gray, of colour red, his tail like a scorpion of the earth, armed with
a sting, casting forth sharp pointed quils, his voice like the voice of a
small trumpet or pipe, being in course as swift as a hart. . . . Al-
though India be full of divers ravening beastes, yet none of them
are stiled with the title andropophagi, that is to say, men eaters;
except onely this mantichora." (Page 442.)
Topsell sets this remarkable beast down as a kind of
hyena, which however it does not resemble in one single
particular. If Othello had any adventures to tell of
encounters with such anthropophagi as these mantichors
no wonder that Desdemona preferred listening to his
traveller's tales to attending to her domestic duties.
Phoenix.
"Sebastian.
Now I will believe
That there are unicorns, that in Arabia
There is one tree, the Phoenix' throne, one phoenix
At this hour reigning there.”
(Tempest, iii. 3, 20.)
Ancient writers appear to have quite exhausted their
imagination in depicting the splendid appearance and
attributes of the phoenix. This remarkable bird is thus
described by Pliny :
"By report he is as big as an eagle, in colour yellow, and bright as
gold, namely all about the neck, the rest of the bodie a deepe red
purple; the taile azure blue, intermingled with feathers among of rose
carnation colour: and the head bravely adorned with a crest and
pennache finely wrought, having a tuft and plume thereupon right
faire and goodly to be seene." (Holland's Plinie, book x. c. 2.)
Du Bartas simply paraphrases this passage when he
tells us that—
“The heav'nly phoenix first began to frame
The earthly phoenix, and adorn'd the same
With such a plume, that Phoebus, circuiting
From Fez to Cairo, sees no fairer thing
Such form, such feathers, and such fate he gave her,
That fruitfull nature breedeth nothing braver:
The Phoenix.
Two sparkling eyes: upon her crown, a crest
Of starrie sprigs (more splendid than the rest)
A golden doun about her dainty neck,
Her brest deep purple, and a scarlet back,
Her wings and train of feathers (mixed fine)
Of orient azure and incarnadine."
(Page 44.)
467
The origin of the phoenix fiction has been traced by
some writers to Herodotus, but that author in his turn
acknowledges that he knows nothing of the bird, but
only writes from report or from pictures. An ingenious.
explanation has been given of the myth of the revival of
the expiring bird from the burning ashes. In Eastern
countries sacrifices were frequently offered in the open
air, and cremation was also practised. Vultures and
other birds of prey, too impatient to wait for the fire to
subside, may occasionally have flown off with pieces of
smoking flesh, and have either perished on the funeral
pile or have set fire to their own nests.
There may
have been some connexion between the supposed ascen-
sion of the purified spirit from the flames and the forms
of the birds which hovered round the corpse, albeit
the motive of the latter in their attentions was purely
carnal.
Lyly informs us that "feathers appeare not on the
phoenix under seven months" (Prologue to Campaspe).
But as time appears to have been of little value to this
bird, perhaps the delay thus occasioned in its path to
perfection was not of much consequence.
We learn from Fynes Moryson's History of Ireland
(book i. part 2, ch. i.) that in the sixteenth century the
pope supported the Earl of Tyrone, who was then engaged
in conflict with the English, and by way of encourage-
ment presented him with a crown of phoenix feathers,
"perhaps in imitation of Pope Urban the Third, who sent
John, the sonne of King Henry the Second, then made
Lord of Ireland, a little crowne woven of peacocks
г
:
:
468 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
feathers." We have no information, unfortunately, as to
how this curiosity was obtained.
The phoenix was the badge of Jane Seymour. It was
also a favourite name for Queen Elizabeth. The verse-
makers who supplied the dedications of authors to her
most gracious Majesty, and the rhymers "who stuck and
spangled her with flatteries" whenever she honoured
any of her subjects by a royal progress, repeatedly made
use of the phoenix in their lines. King James also was
universally greeted on his accession as the bird sprung
from the ashes of his illustrious predecessor. The author
of Henry VIII. gives us an example of this "title blown
from adulation:
"Nor shall this peace sleep with her: but as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her ashes new create another heir,
As great in admiration as herself,
So shall she leave her blessedness to one."
(Henry VIII., v. 5, 39.)
Many examples of this fashion of comparing Eliza-
beth to the phoenix are given by Dr. Grosart, in the
introduction to his edition of Chester's curious poem,
Love's Martyr, published by the New Shakspere Society,
1878. In this work, Chester describes some other
fabulous birds:
"The snow-like colour'd bird, Caladrius,
Caladrius. Hath this inestimable natural propertie,
If any man in sicknesse dangerous,
Hopes of his health to have recoverie,
This bird will alwayes looke with chearefull glance,
If otherwise, sad in his countenance."
"The gentle birds called the faire Hircinie,
Hircinie.
(Page 117.)
Taking the name of that place where they breed,
Within the night they shine so gloriously,
That mans astonied senses they do feed;
The Liver.
For in the darke being cast within the way
Gives light unto the man that goes astray."
“The birds of Ægypt or Memnonides,
Of Memnon that was slaine in rescuing Troy,
Are said to flie away in companies,
To Priames pallace, and there twice a day
They fight about the turrets of the dead,
(Page 119.)
469
Memnonides.
And the third day in battell are confounded."
(Page 120.)
The Liver was a bird of obscure, heraldic origin. The
name of the city of Liverpool has been Liver.
derived from this ornithological curiosity,
which in shape is said to have resembled a heron.
According to a writer in Notes and Queries (4th series,
vol. 8, p. 536), "there is an insurance office near Black-
friars Bridge, over the porch of which is a bird as the
crest, called the liver."
In his work, Demonology and Devil-lore (vol. i. p. 319),
Mr. Conway observes that, while a belief in such creatures
as were-wolves and sea-serpents has arisen from an exag-
gerated conception of forms that have at one time existed,
the invention of nondescript compound animals is trace-
able to a more poetic and artistic idea. The portrayal of
such creatures as the sphinx and the griffin are—
a kind of crude effort at allgemeinheit, at realisation of the types of
evil-the claw principle, fang principle in the universe, the physi-
ognomies of venom and pain detached from forms to which they are
accidental."
66
Sea-serpent.
The adventurous men who faced "the tyrannoùs
breathings of the North," and penetrated the
regions of thick-ribbed ice," may well be
excused if, amid the novelty of the scenes around them,
and the hardships they often had to endure, they were
sometimes led to exaggerate the wonders of those
unvisited seas. One of the marvels described by them
2 H 3
470
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time.
has not ceased to be a mystery, even in our own time.
Various accounts of the Sea-serpent are given by writers;
and, according to the imagination of the narrator, this
monster varied in length from one to six hundred feet.
One of the most detailed accounts is given by Olaus
Magnus, who also draws an augury from its appearance:-
CC
They who in works of navigation, on the coast of Norway,
employ themselves in fishing or merchandise, do all agree in this
strange story, that there is a serpent there which is of a vast magni-
tude, namely 200 foot long, and moreover 20 foot thick; and is wont
to live in rocks and caves toward the sea-coast about Berge: which
will go alone from his holes in a clear night, in summer, and devour
calves, lambs, and hogs, or else he goes into the sea to feed on
polypus, locusts, and all sorts of sea-crabs. He hath commonly hair
hanging from his neck a cubit long, and sharp scales, and is black,
and he hath flaming shining eyes. This snake disquiets the shippers,
and he puts up his head on high like a pillar, and catcheth away men,
and he devours them; and this hapneth not, but it signifies some
wonderful change of the kingdom near at hand; namely, that the
princes shall die, or be banished; or some tumultuous wars shall
presently follow. There is also another serpent of an incredible
maguitude in a town, called Moos, of the diocess of Hammer; which,
as a comet portends a charge in all the world, so that portends a
change in the kingdom of Norway, as it was seen, anno 1522; this
serpent was thought to be fifty cubits long by conjecture, by sight
afar off there followed this the banishment of King Christiernus, and
a great persecution of the bishops; and it shew'd also the destruction
of the countrey." (Page 235.)
"Experience, O, thou disprovest report!
The imperious seas breed monsters."
(Cymbeline, iv. 2, 34.)
INDEX.
Adder, 314
Agouti, 156
Ai, or sloth, 163
Aiochtochth, an animal, 166
Albacore, or pilot-fish, 382
Alcatrazi, or pelican, 288
Amphisbena, 313
Anchovy, 376
Ant, 405
Ant-eater, 167
Antelope, 136
Archangel, or titmouse, 182
Ardluk, or ork, 99
Armadillo, 166
Asp, 315
Ass, 111
Astanapa, or giraffe, 131
Auk, 292
Aurochs, or bison, 132
Badger, 77
Ban-dog, 59
Banks and his horse, 109
Barbel, 364
Baremoe, or ant-eater, 167
Barnacles, 275
Basilisk, 458
Bat, 11
Bawson, or badger, 78
Beagle, 48
Bear, 81, 185
Bear's grease for the hair, 85
Beaver, 151
Bee, 407
Beetle, 398
Beech-marten, 67
Biarataca, or skunk, 80
Biche, a fur, 74
Bird-fowling, 172
Bird of Paradise, 189
Birds, lists of, 171, 174
Bishop or monk-fish, 385
Bison, 132
Bittern, 269
Blackbird, 178
Bloodhound, 45
Bleak, 366
Blindworm, 312
Boa Constrictor, 319
Boar, 115
Bocher, a young salmon, 352
Bonassus, or bison, 132
Bonito, 337
Booby, 278
Boorde (Andrew), notice of, 129
Bovy, a wild ox, 134
Bream, 361
Breese, or gad-fly, 417
Brew, or whimbrel, 259
Brill, 348
Brock, or badger, 77
Buffalo, or buffe, 133
Bugle, a wild ox, 134
Bulldog, 59
Burge, or bogy, a fur, 74
Bustard, 264
Butterfly, 422
Buzzard, 252
Caddis-fly, 419
Caius on dogs, 44
Calabar, or calabrere, a fur, 74
Caladrius, 468
Camel, 117
Canary, 195
Capercaillie, 219
Carp, 359
Cassawary, 296
472
Index.
Cat, 26
Cattle, English, 134
Centaur, 464
Chameleon, 310
Chamois, 138
Char, 353
Cheetah, or hunting leopard, 24
Chermes, 392
Chimæra, 464
Chimpanzee, or engeco, 9
Chisamus, a fur, 75
Chough, 188
Chub, 365
Churchia, or opossum, 168
Cicada, 392
Civet, 32
Coati, or coati-mundi, 80
Cobra, 318
Cochineal, 390
Cock, 225
Cockatoo, 214
Cockchafer, 400
Cod, 341
Cockroach, 398
Coiumero, or manatee, 101
Comforter, a dog, 56
Condor, 231
Coral, 450
Cormorant, 284
Coryat, notice of, 444
Cosset, a house lamb, 142
Cotswold games, 53
Coursing-matches, 51
Crab, 436
Crane, 265
Crane-fly, 419
Crayfish, 435
Cricket, 392
Crocodile, 303
Crossbill, 196
Crow, 183
Cry of hounds, 48
Cuckoo, 205
Cure for ague, 431
Cure for blindness, 30
Cure for gout, 431
Cure for stings of flies, 417
Curlew, 257
Cuttle-fish, 441
Dabchick, 292
Dace, 365
Dachshund, or badger-dog, 50, 80
Dant, a species of antelope, 137
Destrier, a war-horse, 108
Dodo, 218
Dog, 40
Dog-fish, 384
Dogs, Huxley on, 41
Dolphin, 95
Dory, 348
Dossus, a fur, 75
Dotterel, 263
Dozado, or dolphin, 96
Dragon, 458
Dromedary, 118
Dugong, 100
Dugong in Palestine, 79
Eagle, 232
East India Company founded, 145
Eel, 377
Egg-hatching in Egypt, 226
Elephant, 146
Elk, 121
Emeu, 296
English love of novelty, 60
Ermine, 64
Fallow deer, 125
Falconry, 237
Ferret, 71
Fewterer, a, 52
Finch, 193
Fire-drake, 459
Fire-fly, 403
Fir-martin, 67
Fish as an article of food, 325
Fish, Harrison's definition of, 87
Fish, lists of, 326
Fishing, Burton on, 330
Fisting-hound, 56
Fitchet, or fitchew, 71
Flamingo, 288
Flounder, 346
Fly, 416
Flying-fish, 338, 358
Foines, or beech-martens, 67
Foulmartin, or foumart, 71
Fox, 62
Friendships of animals, 251
Frog, 320
Fur out of fashion, 69
Gad-fly, 417
Garefish, 358
Gayns, or martens, 67
Galloway horses, 107
Gazehound, 50
Gelert, the dog, 50
Index.
t
473
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Gennet, a Spanish horse, 107
'Ger-falcon, 246
Gerfauntz, or giraffe, 130
Giraffe, 130
Glow-worm, 402
Glutton, 75
Gnat, 421
Gnat-snap, or knot, 260
Goat, 145
209
Goat-sucker,
Godolphin, or sea-eagle, 235
'Godwit, 260
'Goose, 273
Gorilla, or pongo, 9
Goshawk, 251
Gossamer, 432
Grampus, or ork, 99
Grasshopper, 394
Gray, or badger, 78
Grayling, 354
Greyhound, 51
Grice, a cub, 78
Griffin, 460
Grouse, 219
Grymbart, name of badger, 80
Guanaco, 120
Gudgeon, 367
'Guinea-fowl, 228
Guinea-pig, 157
Gull, 282
Gurnet, 335
Gwiniad, 354
Hackney horses, 107
Haddock, 343
Hake, 344
Hare, 157
Harpy, 463
Harrier, 47
Hecco, or woodpecker, 203
Havoc! a coursing phrase, 51
Hawking, technical terms of, 7,
238, 248
Hedgehog, 12
Hen-harrier, 248
Herbert, Sir Thomas, notice of, 12
Hermelin, or ermine, 65
Heron, 268
Herring, 370
Hippopotamus, 114
Hircinie, 468
Hobby, 250
Hobby, an Irish horse, 106
Holibut, 347
Hoopoe, 209
Horn, value of, 135
Hornet, 415
Horse, 104
Horsehair laid in water, 379
Humble-bee, 413
Humming-bird, 210
Hunt, a cockney, 48
Hunting, technical terms of, 7, 127
Hyæna, 32
Iceland dog, 60
Ichneumon, 32, 308
Ichneumon fly, 418
Immortal animals, 465
Insect, definition of, 388'
Insects, sensibility of, 401
Ireland free from venom, 298
Jaccatray, or hyæna, 33
Jackal, 38
Jackdaw, 188
Jaguar, called the tiger, 21
Jews indifferent to animals, 27
Jews indifferent to natural beauty,
28
Kestrel, 250
Kingfisher, 207
Kinship of man and animals, 1
Kite, 236
Knot, 259
Koumiss, mare's milk, 108
Ladybird, 404
Lamprey, 387
Land-rail, 255
Lanner, 249
Lant, species of antelope, 137
Lark, 198
Laws respecting dress, 63, 66, 74
Lawyers to wear fox or lamb skin,
63
Leaf insect, 397
Lear's allusion to dogs, 57
Leech, 449
Lekat, or ermine, 65
Lemming, 65, 151
Leopard, 22
Lettice, a fur, 66, 69
Ling, 345
Linnet, 196
Lion, 17
Lion, heraldic, 23
Lions hanged as scarecrows, 37
Lituite, a fur, 75
;
474
Index.
Liver, 469
Lizard, 310
Llama, 119
Loach, 366
Lobster, 434
Lobster, or stoat, 65
Locust, 395
Loon, 281
Losh, or buffe, 133
Lycanthropy, 34
Lynx, 30
Macaw, 215
Machlis, or elk, 122
Magpie, 183
Mallard, 280
Maltese dog, 61
Mamuques, or Birds of Paradise, 189
Manatee, 100
Mantichor, 465
Mantis, 396
Marine animals, 87
Marmoset, 10
Marmot, 154
Marocco, a performing horse, 109
Marten, or Martron, 67
Martin, 192
Mastiff, 58
Mavis, or thrush, 176
Memnonides, 469
Menageries, 5
Merle, or blackbird, 178
Merlin, 250
Mermaid, 97
Mermaid tavern, 103
Migration of birds, 173
Miller's Thumb, 335
Miniver, 73
Minnow, 367
Minotaur, 463
Missel-thrush, 177
Mole, 14
ona, the jackdaw, 188
Monkey, 8
Monsters, English love of, 331
Month's mind, a, 378
Moose, or elk, 121
Morse, or walrus, 88
Moryson (F.), notice of, 125
Moth, 424
Mouse, 150
Mousehunt, meaning of, 72
Mullet, 334
Musk deer, 129
Musquito, 421
Mussel, 447
Mythology in poetry, 387
Myths, growth of, 4
Narwhal, 97
Nautilus, 440
Neat, term for oxen, 136
Newt, 320
Night-crow, or night-raven, 188
Nightingale, 178
Nightjar, 209
Northumberland Household Book,
175
Norway rat, 65
Olaus Magnus, notice of, 124
Opossum, 168
Orafle, or giraffe, 130
Ordegale, the beaver's wife, 72
Oriole, 182
Ork, or orca, 99
Ortolan, 197
Oryx, or bison, 132
Osprey, 252
Ostrich, 294
Otter, 76
Ounce, 25
Ouzel, or blackbird, 178
Owl, 253
Oyster, 442
Oyster-catcher, 263
Paca, 157
Paco, or llama, 120
Panther, breath of, 23
Paris Garden, 82
Parrot, 212
Partridge, 220
Peacock, 220
Pearls, 445
Peel, a young salmon, 352
Pelican, 285
Penguin, 289
Perch, 333
Peregrine, 247
i
Performing animals, 111, 161
Performing birds, 195
Performing dogs, 61
Petit gris, a fur, 75, 77
Petrel, 284
Pheasant, 223
Philo, or elephant, 131
Phoenix, 466
Pigeon, 216
Pike, 355
Pilchard, 369
Pilot-fish, 381
Plaice, 346
Plover, 260
Poaching dog, a, 54
Polecat, 71
Polypus, or octopus, 439
Poor-John, 344
Popinjay, meaning
of, 213
Porcupine, 155
Porpoise, 98
Prister, or physeter, 94
Puffin, 293
Puma, 24
Purchas, notice of, 8
Puttock, or kite, 236
Quail, 220
Rabbit, 161
Racing in England, 109
Rattlesnake, 318
Rat, 149
Raven, 185
Red deer, 124
Redshank, 257
Redwing, 177
Reindeer, 122
Remora, 382
Reptile, 297
Rhinoceros, 112
Roach, 365
Robin, 179
Index.
Scolopendra, 95
Scorpion, 432
Sea-anemone, 450
Sea-calf, or seal, 90
Seal, 90
Seal in Palestine, 79
Sea-monster of Lear, 100
Sea-pye, or oyster-catcher, 263
Sea-serpent, 470
Sea-unicorn, or narwhal, 97
Selsey, famous for seals, 90
Serpent, definition of, 388
Setter, 55
Shark, 380
Sheldrake, 281
Sheep, 139
Sheep-dog, 60
Shoveller, 270
Shrew, 15
Shrimp, 435
Siskin, 194
Silkworm, 426
Sismusilis, a fur, 75
Skunk, 80
Slightfalcon, 251
Snail, 448
Roc, or griffin, 461
Rondes, or sable, 69
Rook, 184
Rosetel, or ermine, 65
Rosmarine, or walrus, 89
Ruff, 259
Ruffe, or pope, 333
Rukenawe, the she ape, 72
Russian furs, 64
Sable, 68
Sables, Hamlet's suit of, 70
St. Anthony's pigs, 116
St. Martin's bird, 187
Saker, 249
Salamander, 319
Salmon, 349
Sardine, 376
Satyr, 464
Scallop, 442
Scamell, or sea-gull, 283
Scented dogs, 56
Smelt, 355
Snake, 316
Snipe, 256
Sole, 347
Sorocucu, a snake, 318
Spaniel, 54
Sparrow, 200
Sparrow-hawk, 252
Species, distribution of, 102
Species, variation of, 21
Spenser's list of monsters, 95
Sphinx, 462
Spider, 428
Spinke, or chaffinch, 194
Sports on Cotswold, 53
Spowe, or sparrow, 201
Spowe, or whimbrel, 201, 259
Sprat, 375
Squid, 441
Squirrel, 152
Starling, 197
Stickleback, 332
Stockfish, 342
Stork, 271
Stot, a young ox, 136
Sturgeon, 380
Suant, or bull trout, 352
Surnapa, or giraffe, 131
Swallow, 191
475
476
Index.
Swan, 278
Sword-fish, 339
Talbot, 46
Tamandua, or ant-eater, 167
Tarantula, 429
Tatus, or armadillo, 166
Teal, 281
Technical terms, 7
Tench, 362
Terrier, 49
Thornback, 386
Thresher, or ork, 99
Thrush, 176
Tie-dog, 59
Tiger, 20
Titmouse, 182
Toad, 322
Timber of furs, a, 69
Toothache caused by a worm, 426
Torpedo, 386
Tortoise, 300
Toucan, 204
Trials of animals, 36
Trochilus and crocodile, 307
Tropic bird, 288
Trout, 352
Tumbler, 53
Tunny, 336
Turbot, 347
Turkey, 227
Turtle, 301
Unicorn, 452
Uranoscopus, 339
Vair, a fur, 74
Vicuna, 120
Viscacha, 154
Vows on birds, 223
Vulture, 230
Walrus, 87, 95
Wasp, 414
Water birds, abundance of, 170
Weasel, 73
Welsh explorers, 291
Were-wolf myth, 34
Whale, 91
Wheat-ear, 180
Whie, a heifer, 136
Whimbrel, 259
Whirlpool, 94
Whistler, a bird of ill omen, 258,.
262
Whiting, 343
Wise men of Gotham, 207
Wolf, 33
Wolf-dog, Irish, 50
Woodcock, 256
Woodlark, 199
Woodpecker, 203
Woodwele, or oriole, 183
Woollen trade, 144
Woolverine, or wood dog, 75
Woozel, or blackbird, 178
Wren, 181
Wyvern, 459
Xaco, or llama, 121
Yellow-hammer, 201
Zebel, or sable, 68
Zebra, 112
Zebu, 134
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, London and bECCLES.
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