WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL.
To the general reader these terms may appear synonymous, but to the
sportsman and naturalist they have a very different signification. Under
the head of “wild-fowl” may be placed the various species of wild geese,
swans, and ducks, which, though often found at sea, evince a partiality
for fresh water, rear their young in the neighbourhood of fresh water,
and, as an article of food, are especially sought after by the amateur
for sport, and by the professional gunner for profit; while the group of
“sea-fowl” may be said to include the gulls, terns, guillemots, auks,
cormorants, and various other birds, which, making the sea their home,
rear their young upon its shelving beach or frowning cliffs, and, except
on an emergency, are seldom cooked and eaten.
[Sidenote: A FLIGHT OF FOWL.]
Shakespeare has given us a peep at both. At one time we see--
“Strange fowl light upon neighbouring ponds.”
_Cymbeline_, Act i. Sc. 4;
at another--
“A flight of fowl
Scatter’d by winds and high tempestuous gusts.”
_Titus Andronicus_, Act v. Sc. 3.
Anon the scene changes, and leaving the green fields of which Falstaff
“babbled,” and the “great pool” with its “swan’s nest” (_Cymbeline_, Act
iii. Sc. 4), we are led to--
“That pale, that whitefaced shore,
Whose foot spurns back the ocean’s roaring tides.”
_King John_, Act ii. Sc. 1;
there to contemplate “the sea-mells” on the rock (_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc.
2), or watch the movements of the “insatiate cormorant” (_Richard II._
Act ii. Sc. 1).
Nor are we left entirely to our own reflections in these situations.
Some trait or other is noticed in the habits of the bird alluded to,
some curious instinct pointed out. We pause insensibly to admire the
appropriate haunts in which the poet has discovered the fowl, and carry
out with him, in thought, the crafty device of the fowler to which a
passing allusion is made.
Naturalists have frequently observed that when any of the diving-ducks
are winged or injured, they generally make for the open water, and
endeavour to escape by diving or swimming away, while those which do not
excel in diving, usually make for the shore when wounded, and, as
Shakespeare tells us, “creep into sedges.”
[Sidenote: DUCK-HUNTING.]
“Alas! poor hurt fowl, now will he creep into sedges.”
_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act ii. Sc. 1.
“Duck-hunting,” _i.e._, hunting a tame duck in the water with spaniels,
was a favourite amusement in Shakespeare’s day. “Besides the clear
streams that ran into the Thames, old London boasted of innumerable
wells, now lost, sullied, or bricked up. There was Holy-well,
Clement’s-well, Clerken-well, Skinners-well, Fay-well, Fede-well,
Leden-well, and Shad-well. West Smithfield had its horse-pond, its pool
of Dame Annis le Cleare, and the Perilous Pond. The duck-hunting in
these pools, and at Islington, was a favourite amusement with the
citizens.”[132]
“And ‘hold-fast’ is the only dog, my duck.”
_Henry V._ Act ii. Sc. 3.
The sense of smell and hearing is possessed by most wild-fowl in an
extraordinary degree, and, except under favourable circumstances--
favourable that is to the shooter--they display what Falstaff would
call “a want of valour,” and, as soon as they become aware of the
approach of the enemy, ignominiously take to flight:--
“_Falstaff._ There is no more valour in that Poins than in a wild
duck.”--_Henry IV._ Part I. Act ii. Sc. 2.
But, if the better part of valour be discretion, Poins, like the wild
duck, displays the better part:--
“Claps on his sea wing, and like a doting mallard,
Leaving the fight in height, flies after it.”
_Antony and Cleopatra_, Act iii. Sc. 10.
To swim like a duck is proverbial--
“_Stephano._ Here; swear then how thou escapest.
_Trinculo._ Swam ashore, man, like a duck; I can swim like a duck,
I’ll be sworn.”--_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
[Sidenote: THE STALKING-HORSE.]
An ancient device for getting within shot of wild-fowl was “the
stalking-horse.” Hence the allusion--
“Stalk on, stalk on, the fowl sits.”
_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
And again--
“He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation
of that he shoots his wit.”--_As You Like It_, Act v. Sc. 4.
Gervase Markham tells us[133] that “sometime it so happeneth that the
fowl are so shie there is no getting a shoot at them without ‘a
stalking-horse,’ which must be some old jade trained up for that
purpose, who will gently, and as you will have him, walk up and down in
the water which way you please, plodding and eating on the grass that
grows therein. You must shelter yourself and gun behind his
fore-shoulder, bending your body down low by his side, and keeping his
body still full between you and the fowl. Being within shot, take your
level from before the fore part of the horse, shooting as it were
between the horse’s neck and the water.... Now to supply the want of a
stalking-horse, which will take up a great deal of time to instruct and
make fit for this exercise, you may make one of any piece of old
canvass, which you must shape into the form of an horse, with the head
bending downwards, as if he grazed. You may stuff it with any light
matter; and do not forget to paint it of the color of an horse, of which
the brown is the best.... It must be made so portable that you may bear
it with ease in one hand, moving it so as it may seem to graze as you
go.”
Sometimes the stalking-horse was made in shape of an ox; sometimes in
the form of a stag; and sometimes to represent a tree, shrub, or bush.
In every case it had a spike at the bottom, to stick into the ground
while the fowler took his aim.
In the “Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII.” are various entries
referring to stalking-horses, all of which appear to refer to the live
animal; and there is one entry relating to a stalking-ox.
[Sidenote: THE CALIVER.]
The gun used on these occasions was either the “birding-piece” already
described,[134] or the “caliver.” Shakespeare has appropriately
mentioned the latter in connection with wild ducks, in the first part of
his _Henry IV._, where Falstaff speaks of cowards “such as fear the
report of a ‘caliver’ worse than a struck fowl or a hurt
wild-duck.”--_Henry IV._ Part I. Act iv. Sc. 2.
The derivation of the word “caliver” is not quite clear, unless it be
the same weapon as the “culverin,” in which case it may be derived from
the French _couleuvrin_, adder-like. In Cotgrave’s French and English
Dictionary, 1660, the word is spelled “calœver,” and translated
“harquebuse.” In Bailey’s “Dictionarium Britannicum,” 1736, the caliver
is described as “a small gun used at sea.” In Worcester’s “Dictionary of
the English Language,” 1859, “caliver” is said to be corrupted from
_caliber_, and described as--1. a hand-gun or large pistol, an
arquebuse; 2. a kind of light matchlock. In Scheler’s “Dictionnaire
d’Etymologie Française,” 1862, we find--“couleuvre du L. _colubra_; It.
_colubro_; Prov. _colobre_; du L. masc. _coluber_, _bri_; D.
_couleuvreau_, _couleuvrine_, ou _coulevrine_, pièce d’artillerie; cp.
les termes _serpentin_, et All. _feldschlange_.”
From these various explanations, as well as from that given by
Archdeacon Nares in his “Glossary,” it would seem to have been a
military rather than a sporting weapon. The best description which we
have met with is that given by Sir S. D. Scott.[135] He says:--
“The Caliver was a kind of short musket or harquebus, fired by a
matchlock, and from its lightness did not require a rest.”
“‘Put me a caliver in Wart’s hands,’ says Falstaff, reviewing his
recruits, meaning thereby that Wart, who was a weak, undersized fellow,
was not capable of managing a heavier weapon. It was sometimes called
_arquebuse de calibre_, and was in fact an arquebus of specified bore,
having derived its name from the corruption of calibre into caliver. ‘I
remember,’ writes Edmund York, an officer who had served in the
Netherlands, and was appointed by the Privy Council to report on the
best mode of organizing the militia of London, in expectation of the
Spanish invasion, ‘when I was first brought up in Piemount, in the
Countie of Brisack’s Regiment of the old Bandes, we had our particular
calibre of Harquebuze to our Regiment, both that for one bullett should
serve all the harquebuses of our Regiment, as for that our Collonell
would not be deceaved of his armes; of which worde Calibre, came first
that unapt term we used to call a harquebuze a calliver, which is the
height of the bullett, and not of the piece. Before the battell of
Mountgunter (_Moncontour_, A.D. 1569) the Prynces of the Religion caused
seven thousand harquebuzes to be made, all of one calibre, which were
called _Harquebuze du calibre de Monsieur le Prince_. So as, I think,
some man not understanding French brought hither the name of the height
of the bullet of the piece; which worde calibre is yet contynued with
our good cannoniers.’”[136]
A contemporary military writer, Sir John Smythe, gives his opinion that
the term was derived from “the height of the bullet”--_i.e._ the bore.
He says, “The caliver is only a harquebuse; savinge, that it is of
greater circuite, or bullet, than the other is of; wherefore the
Frenchman doth call it a _piece de calibre_, which is as much as to
saie, a piece of bigger circuite.[137] I would that all harquebuses
throughout the field should be of one caliver and height, to the intent
that every soldier on the lack of bullets might use his fellows’
bullets.”
There are two specimens in the Tower Collection, of a caliver and a
musket of the sixteenth century, from Penshurst Place, Kent. The length
of the former (here figured) is 4 ft. 10 in., the latter 5 ft. 5¼
in.[138]
[Illustration]
Notwithstanding the “bigger circuite,” the musket was considered twice
as efficient in its effects, and Sir Roger Williams corroborates the
fact, admitting the advantage possessed by the caliver of being more
rapidly discharged. “The calivers may say they will discharge two shot
for one, but cannot denie that one musket-shot doth more hurt than two
calivers’ shot.”[139]
In the _Lancashire Lieutenancy_ is preserved the price of the caliver
and its appendages, and the equipment of the bearer, in 1574:--“Everie
caliū his peece, flaxe & touche-box xiiij^s; his morion vij^s viij^d,
sworde & dagger vij^s, his hose viij^s, his showes ij^s, his shirtt
iiij^s, his dublett iiij^s, his coate xij^s iiij^d, money in his purse
xxvj^s viij^d.”
For some unexplained reason, the price of a caliver, which, with flask
and touch-box, was charged only 14_s._ in 1574, in 1576 cost 24_s._:--
“Itm̃ a calliū xxiiij^s.”
In 1581, we find the charges for “A Shoot:--Caliu, flaxe, tuche box &
scorier xvj;” and in a “Schedule of such rates of money as armor may be
provided for at the Cyttie of Chester, for such souldiors as shall
repaire thither out of the county of Lancaster,” the caliver furnished
with flask, and touch-box, laces and moulds, xiij^s vj^d.[140]
In 1620, a caliver, with bandoleers,[141] is valued at 14_s._
10_d._[142] According to a passage in Brantôme,[143] it would appear
that the Spaniards originated this improvement in fire-arms, “la façon
et l’usage des belles harquebuzes de calibre;” and that it was
introduced by Phillippe Strozzi into the French infantry, under Charles
IX., but it was evidently not adopted by the English troops till
several years afterwards.
It will readily be understood by all sportsmen, that with such a weapon
as the “caliver,” much practice and patience must have been requisite to
bring it within range of the fowl, and use it with effect. The
successful use of a modern punt-gun necessitates an amount of skill and
judgment which those only who have tried it can really appreciate. How
much greater must have been the difficulties of the wild-fowler of the
sixteenth century, whose rude gun and inferior powder necessitated a
much nearer approach to the birds! We can sympathize with Cardinal
Beaufort, when he exclaimed--
“Believe me, cousin Gloster,
Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,
We had had more sport.”
_Henry VI._ Part II. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: THE STALE.]
The wild-fowler who could not succeed in “stalking” and shooting the
birds in the way we have described, often employed another method of
securing them, namely, by means of “a stale,” as it was termed. This was
a stuffed bird of the species the fowler wished to decoy, and which was
set up in as natural a position as possible, either before a net or in
the midst of several “springes.” By imitating the call of the passing
birds, the fowler would draw their attention to the “stale,” and as soon
as they alighted near it either the net was pulled over them, or they
were caught in the snares.
Beaumont and Fletcher speak of “stales to catch kites” (_Hum. Lieut._
iii. 2). Sometimes a live bird was pegged down instead of a stuffed one,
and was doubtless much more effective, since “one bird caught, served
_as a stale_ to bring in more.”[144]
Shakespeare has employed the word “stale” in this its primary sense, in
his _Comedy of Errors_ (Act ii. Sc. 1), in _The Tempest_ (Act iv. Sc.
1), and in the _Taming of the Shrew_ (Act iii. Sc. 1). But commentators
do not seem to be agreed on its meaning. In Act i. Sc. 1, of the
last-mentioned play, where it occurs again, it certainly admits of a
different interpretation.
Instructions for making a “stale” will be found in “The Experienced
Fowler” (London, 1704). At page 18 of this curious little volume, the
author says:--“You may shoot a lark or some other bird, take out the
entrails, stuff him with tow, and dry him in an oven, his wings set in a
flying posture; and so you may be furnished at all times.” This device
was chiefly resorted to for taking the ruff and reeve, and other fen
birds, which fetched good prices for the table. Now-a-days, the
bird-catchers who take linnets, goldfinches, and other small songsters,
almost invariably peg down live decoy birds with a foot or so of string
to the legs, in the centre of a pair of clap-nets.
[Sidenote: WILD-GEESE.]
But to return to wild-fowl. Puck compares the frightened varlets who
fled at the sight of Bottom with the ass’s head to “wild-geese that the
creeping fowler eye.”--_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act iii. Sc. 2.
“They flock together in consent, like so many wild-geese.”--_Henry
IV._ Part II. Act v. Sc. 1.
And Marcius, addressing the retreating Romans before Corioli, reproaches
them as having no more courage than geese:--
“You souls of geese,
That bear the shapes of men, how have you run
From slaves that apes would beat!”
_Coriolanus_, Act i. Sc. 4.
The Fool in _King Lear_ reminds us of the old proverb--
“Winter’s not gone yet, if the wild-geese fly that way.”
_King Lear_, Act ii. Sc. 4.
It is not surprising that, to so common a bird, numerous allusions
should be made in the Plays of Shakespeare, and, in addition to the
passages quoted in Chapter VII.,[145] many others might here be
mentioned, were it not that the repetition might prove tedious.
[Sidenote: BARNACLES.]
It was anciently believed that the Bernacle Goose (_Anser bernicla_) was
generated from the Bernacle or Barnacle (_Lepas anatifera_). Shakespeare
has alluded to the metamorphosis in the following line:--
“And all be turned to barnacles.”
_Tempest_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
It is strange that in matters concerning the marvellous, even men of
education will take pains to deceive themselves, and, instead of
investigating nature with a “learned spirit,” give a license to
ill-directed imagination, and credit absurdities. When such men are so
credulous, how can we wonder at the superstitions of the illiterate?
The first phase of the story in question is, that certain trees,
resembling willows, more particularly in one of the Orkneys, Pomona,
produced at the ends of their branches small swelled balls, containing
the embryo of a goose suspended by the bill, which, when ripe, fell off
into the sea and took wing.
[Illustration: THE BARNACLE GOOSE.]
So long ago as the twelfth century, the story was promulgated by
Giraldus Cambrensis, in his “Topographia Hiberniæ,” and Munster, Saxo
Grammaticus, Scaliger, Fulgosus, Bishop Leslie, and Olaus Magnus, all
attested to the truth of this monstrous absurdity. Gesner, too, and
Aldrovandus[146] may be also cited.
[Illustration: THE BARNACLE GOOSE TREE. _From Aldrovandus._]
A second phase or modification of the story is that given by Boëce, the
oldest Scottish historian: he denies that the geese (Scotticè, Claiks)
grow on trees by their bills, as some believe, but that, as his own
researches and personal experience prove, they are first produced in the
form of worms, in the substance of old trees or timber floating in the
sea; for such a tree, cast on shore in 1480, was brought to the laird,
who ordered it to be sawn asunder, when there appeared a multitude of
worms, “throwing themselves out of sundry holes and bores of the tree;
some of them were rude, as they were new-shapen; some had both head,
feet, and wings, but they had no feathers; some of them were
perfect-shapen fowls. At last the people, having this tree each day in
more admiration, brought it to the kirk of St. Andrew’s, beside the town
of Tyre, where it yet remains to our days.” Other instances he adduces
by way of proof, and at length he comes to the conclusion, that the
production of these geese from fruits is the erroneous opinion of the
ignorant; it being ascertained that “they are produced only by the
nature of the ocean sea, which is the cause and production of many
wonderful things.”
In this view he was supported by Turner and others: “When,” says Turner,
“at a certain time an old ship, or a plank, or a pine-mast rots in the
sea, something like a little fungus at first makes its appearance, which
at length puts on the manifest form of birds; afterwards these are
clothed with feathers, and at last become living and flying fowl.”
(“Avium Præcip. Hist.,” _Art._ “ANSER.”) Turner, however, does not give
up the goose-tree, but informs Gesner that it is a different bird from
the brent or bernicle goose, which takes its origin from it. (Gesner,
“De Avibus,” iii. p. 107.) Passing a host of other authorities, with
their accumulated proofs, and the depositions of unimpeachable
witnesses, we may come to Gerard, who, in 1597, published the following
account in his “Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes”:--
[Illustration: THE BARNACLE GOOSE TREE. _From Gerard._]
“There is a small island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Foulders,
wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some
whereof have been cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks or
bodies, with the branches, of old and rotten trees, cast up there
likewise; whereon is found a certaine spume, or froth, that in time
breedeth unto certaine shels, in shape like those of the muskle, but
sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour, wherein is contained a thing
in forme like a lace of silke, finely woven as it were together, of a
whitish colour; one ende whereof is fastened unto the inside of the
shell, even as the fish of oisters and muskles are; the other ende is
made fast unto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time cometh
to the shape and forme of a bird: when it is perfectly formed the shell
gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or
string; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth
greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come
forth, and hangeth only by the bill: in short space after, it cometh to
full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers,
and groweth to a fowle bigger than a mallard and lesser than a goose,
having blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white,
spotted in such manner as is our magge-pie, called in some places a
pie-annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a
tree-goose; which place aforesaide, and all those parts adjoining, do so
much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for three-pence.
For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repaire unto
me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses.”
Meyer, who wrote a treatise on this “bird without father or mother,”
states that he opened a hundred of the goose-bearing shells, and in all
of them found the rudiments of the bird completely formed.
Sir Robert Murray, in an account of the barnacle published in the
“Philosophical Transactions,” says that “these shells are hung at the
tree by a neck, longer than the shell, of a filmy substance, round and
hollow, and creased not unlike the windpipe of a chicken, spreading out
broadest where it is fastened to the tree, from which it seems to draw
and convey the matter which serves for the growth and vegetation of the
shell, and the little bird within it.
“In every shell that I opened,” he continues, “I found a perfect
sea-fowl; the little bill like that of a goose; the eyes marked; the
head, neck, breast, wing, tail, and feet formed; the feathers everywhere
perfectly shaped, and blackish coloured; and the feet like those of
other water-fowl, to my best remembrance.”
It is not to be supposed, however, that there were none who doubted this
marvellous story, or who took steps to refute it. Belon, so long ago as
1551, and others after him, treated it with ridicule, and a refutation
may be found in Willughby’s “Ornithology,” which was edited by Ray in
1678. An excellent account of the Barnacle was published by Mr. Thompson
in the “Philosophical Transactions” for 1835, while the latest and most
complete treatise on the subject is Mr. Darwin’s “Monograph of the
Cirrhipedia,” published by the Ray Society.
What, then, is the marine production from which the Barnacle Goose was
thought to be engendered? Merely certain shell-covered cirrhipedous
creatures, called Barnacles (_Lepas anatifera_--Linn.), which are to be
found adhering in clusters to floating logs of wood, the timbers of
wrecked vessels, the sides of rocks, and other objects which afford a
secure attachment.
[Illustration: BARNACLES. _From nature._]
Each individual consists of a body enclosed in a shell, not unlike that
of a mussel in figure, and of a fleshy worm-like stem or peduncle, the
extremity of which is fixed to the object upon which the animal is
stationed. This stem is tubular, tolerably firm, and has a fleshy feel;
it is composed exteriorly of a fine coriaceous outer membrane, bedewed
with a watery fluid, and beneath this, of an inner membrane of
considerable density, apparently consisting of muscular fibres, running
for the most part in parallel longitudinal lines. That these fibres are
muscular we may conclude from the animal having the power of contracting
the stem, or of twisting it in various directions. Within the tube there
is a fluid secretion.
The shell is composed of five pieces, four of which are lateral, two on
each side; while between the valves down the back is interposed a single
narrow slip uniting them together. Their colour is white, more or less
tinged with purplish blue. Along the anterior margin the valves are but
partially connected by a membrane, leaving a large fissure, through
which emerge the plumose and jointed arms or cirrhi.
The food of the Barnacles consists of small crustacea and mollusca.
These are entangled by the many-jointed plumose cirrhi, which are
perpetually thrown out and folded again, so as to serve the purpose of a
casting-net, and drag the prey to the mouth, where it is seized and
crushed.
With regard to the reproduction of these creatures, the eggs are seen
enclosed at certain times within the hollow of the peduncle, where they
appear of a blue colour, and render the pedicle opaque; from this they
pass through a minute conduit into the cavity of the mantle, where they
are arranged like two leaflets, attached to the septum between the body
and the peduncle. They are enclosed in a film, out of which they fall
when ready to hatch.
It is a remarkable fact, as we learn from Mr. Thompson[147], that the
young barnacles and other cirrhipeda on emerging from the egg are quite
free, and very different from their parents. “They possess locomotive
organs, consisting of a large anterior pair of limbs, provided with a
sucker, and hooks for the purpose of mooring themselves at pleasure to
various objects--and also of six pairs of swimming-limbs, acting in
concert like oars. Besides these, they have a tail bent under the body,
consisting of two joints and terminating in four bristles: this is an
additional locomotive organ. Thus endowed, they swim along in a series
of bounds, the oars and tail giving in measured time successive
impulses. They have, moreover, large lateral eyes set on peduncles, and
the body is covered with a sort of shell, as in certain crustacea
(_e.g._ _Cyclops_), which they closely resemble,” and for which Mr.
Thompson at first mistook them.
In due time a metamorphosis takes place; the shell is thrown off, the
eyes disappear, the limbs become transformed to cirrhi, the regular
valves develop themselves, the peduncle shoots forth, and the animal
becomes permanently fixed.
Believing these little creatures to be the larvæ of some crustaceous
animal, some of them, says Mr. Thompson, were collected in the spring,
and in order to see what changes they might undergo, were kept in a
glass vessel, covered by such a depth of sea-water, that they could be
examined at any time by means of a common magnifying-glass. They were
taken May 1st, and on the night of the 8th the author had the
satisfaction to find that two of them had thrown off their exuviæ, and,
wonderful to say, were firmly adhering to the bottom of the vessel, and
changed to young barnacles. In this stage the sutures between the valves
of the shell and of the operculum were visible, and the movements of the
arms of the animal within, although these last were not completely
developed: the eyes also were still perceptible, although the principal
part of the colouring-matter appeared to have been thrown off with the
exuviæ. On the 10th another individual was seen in the act of throwing
off its shell, and attaching itself as the others to the bottom of the
glass. It only remains to add, that as the secretion of the calcareous
matter goes on in the compartments destined for the valves of the shelly
covering, the eyes gradually disappear, from the increasing opacity
thence produced, and the visual ray is extinguished for the remainder of
the animal’s life; the arms at the same time acquire their usual
ciliated appearance. Thus, then, an animal originally natatory and
locomotive, and provided with a distinct organ of sight, becomes
permanently and immovably fixed, and its optic apparatus obliterated;
and furnishes not only a new and important physiological fact, but is
the only instance in nature of so extraordinary a metamorphosis.
We have been thus led to dilate upon barnacles in connection with
Shakespeare’s allusion to them, at somewhat greater length than we
should otherwise have done, on account of the interest which attaches to
the old story, handed down through so many centuries, and because we
have looked into many books in vain for a plain account of its origin,
and a modern description of the cirrhiped devoid of scientific
technicalities.
With this apology, then, to the reader, we return to the birds.
[Sidenote: WILD-FOWL.]
The following dialogue between Malvolio and the Clown, in _Twelfth
Night_, concerning wild-fowl, has reference to the theory of Pythagoras
on the subject of the transmigration of souls, and is quite as
applicable to birds in general as to wild-fowl in particular:--
“_Clo._ What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl?
_Mal._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
_Clo._ What thinkest thou of his opinion?
_Mal._ I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion.
_Clo._ Fare thee well: remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt
hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits; and
fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy
grandam. Fare thee well.”--_Twelfth Night_, Act iv. Sc. 2.[148]
Amongst the wild-fowl may be classed the various species of divers and
grebes which frequent our shores and harbours, especially in winter, and
which afford good sport to the gunner, by their wonderful power of
diving long distances in their efforts to escape.
[Sidenote: THE LOON.]
The provincial name of “loon” (_Macbeth_, Act v. Sc. 3) is applied both
to a diver and to a grebe. On many parts of the coast the red-throated
diver (_Colymbus septentrionalis_) is known as the “loon,” “speckled
loon,” and “sprat loon.” In Norfolk, the name is applied to the
great-crested grebe (_Podiceps cristatus_).
Shakespeare employs the term “loon” as synonymous with “coward;” and if
we call to mind the habits of the two birds to which the same name has
been applied, it is certainly not ill bestowed upon one who lacks
courage to face an enemy.
Another species of grebe is referred to by Shakespeare in his _Venus and
Adonis_:--
“Like a _dive-dapper_ peering through a wave,
Who, being look’d on, ducks as quickly in.”
This is the little grebe, or dabchick (_Podiceps minor_). In some parts
of the country we have heard it called “di’ dapper,” but it was not
until we had met with the passage above quoted that the meaning of the
word became apparent.
On the subject of “loons,” the Rev. H. Jones has some appropriate
remarks in a volume of essays entitled “Holiday Papers” (p. 65). “The
great-crested grebe, or loon,” he says, “is a giant compared to our
little friend the dabchick, and altogether makes a more respectable
appearance, both in picture and pond. The habits and figure of the two
birds, though, are much the same. There are numbers of loons on the
‘broads’ of Norfolk. Indeed it is in East Anglia that I have most
especially watched the dabchick. These loons, like the lesser grebes,
incubate and leave their eggs in the wet, and meet with the same
ridiculous failure when they attempt to walk. Like them, they are
capital divers, and begin from the egg.”
[Sidenote: THE CORMORANT.]
Close to the divers in the natural system of birds come the cormorants,
whose powers of swimming are in no way inferior to those of the species
we have just named. They swim so low in the water that nothing but the
head, neck, and top of the back appear above the surface. The tail,
composed of stiff elastic feathers, is submerged and used as a rudder,
and the wings as oars. The address with which they dive, and the
rapidity of their movements, are wonderful; no less so than the
pertinacity with which they pursue their prey. Voracious in the
extreme,--
“Insatiate cormorant.”
_Richard II._ Act ii. Sc. 1;
they are unwearied and active fishers, following their prey under water
like the otter, only coming to the surface occasionally for breath.
[Sidenote: FISHING WITH CORMORANTS.]
Indeed the voracity of this bird, which, doubtless, suggested the name
_cormoranus_, has become so proverbial, that a man of large appetite is
often likened to a cormorant.
In this sense Shakespeare has frequently employed the word as an
adjective, and we find such expressions as--
“The cormorant belly.”
_Coriolanus_, Act i. Sc. 1.
“This cormorant war.”
_Troilus and Cressida_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
And--
“Cormorant devouring time.”
_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, Act i. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: THE KING’S CORMORANTS.]
Ravenous as the cormorant is, it is easily tamed, and becomes very
attached and familiar. The use of trained cormorants for fishing is very
ancient, and is believed to have originated with the Chinese.[149] The
practice has been known in England, however, for many centuries. Ogleby,
who went on an embassy to China in the time of James I., and who
published an account of his travels on his return, describes the way in
which the Chinese take fish with cormorants. James himself, who was a
great sportsman, kept trained cormorants for many years, and was
accustomed to travel about the country with them, fishing as he went.
We have seen a curious MS. diary[150] in the British Museum, written in
old French, by Hans Jacob Wurmser v. Vendenheym, who accompanied Lewis
Frederick, Duke of Wurtemberg, in his diplomatic mission to England in
1610, from which it appears that the Duke, proceeding by Ware, Royston,
Cambridge, and Newmarket, arrived at Thetford on the 7th of May,[151]
where King James the First was then amusing himself with hunting,
hawking, and fishing with cormorants.
The entry with reference to the cormorants is as follows:--
Lundy 7.
THETFORD.
“_S. E. soupa derechef avecq sa Ma^te. Lesquel en sortans de table,
entrerent en carrosse pour aller à la rivière, ou ils virent des
Cormorants, oyseau qui par signe que maistre qui les addresses leur
donne, se plongent sous l’eaux et prennent des Anguilles et autre
poisson; lequel aussy par signe l’on le faict rendir et vomir tous
vifs, chose bien meruielleuse a voir. Sur toute chose estoit les
sages discours de sa Ma^te tres admirable.”_
The King had a regular establishment for his cormorants on the river at
Westminster, and created a new office, “Master of the Royal Cormorants,”
which office was first held by John Wood, as appears from various
documents in the Record Office. Amongst other entries, for a knowledge
of which I am indebted to Mr. F. H. Salvin, the distinguished falconer,
are the following:--
“No. 1, James I., 1611, April 11.--To John Wood, the sum of £30, in
respect he hath been at extraordinary charge in bringing up and training
of certain fowls called cormorants, and making of them fit for the use
of fishing, to be taken to him of His Majesty’s free gift and reward. By
writ, dated the 5th day of April, 1611.
“No. 2, May 27th, 1612.--Payment to the said John Wood for getting
cormorants from the north.
“No. 3, August 31st, 1618.--James I. to Robert Wood. Advance of £66
13_s._ 4_d._, in part payment of the sum of £286 due in respect of the
cormorant houses, and making nine ponds, &c., at Westminster, the ground
called the Vine-garden having been taken upon lease of the Lord Danvers.
[“In this document,” says Mr. Salvin, “this Wood is described as keeper
of His Majesty’s cormorants, ospreys, and otters. It is therefore clear
that the fishing-hawk was tried, and as we hear so little about it
afterwards, there can be no doubt but that it proved a failure, which,
indeed, might have been expected, as the bird is what falconers would
call an habitual ‘carrier.’ Neither do the otters seem to have answered.
Vines were grown in Surrey for wine in ancient times, and I wonder if
this vine-garden was for that purpose.”]
“No. 4, February 28th, 1619.--To John Wood, whom His Majesty heretofore
appointed to attend the French ambassadors, with the cormorants sent by
His Majesty’s good brother, the French King, the sum of £215, for so
much by him disbursed and laid out for his charges incident to the
performance of the said service, over and above the sum of £50,
impressed unto him, for and towards the said charges, appearing by his
bill, of the particulars thereof, delivered in upon oath, and allowed by
us and the rest of the Commissioners of the Treasury. By writ dated the
18th July, 1609, and by confirmation dated the last of July, 1618.
“14th October, 1619.--To Robert Wood, whom His Majesty intendeth to
send, with divers cormorants, to his good cousin, the Duke of Lorraine,
the sum of £60, by way of an imprest towards defraying the expenses in
that journey. By writ, dated 7th October, 1619.
“28th August, 1624.--To Robert Wood, the sum of £98 8_s._ 6_d._, in full
satisfaction of the charge and loss sustained by Luke Wood, in his late
travels, with three cormorants, to Venice, having been stayed in his
passage thither, and his cormorants taken away from him by the Duke of
Savoy.”
[“From these two documents,” says Mr. Salvin, “it would appear that
cormorant fishing was likely to have become fashionable upon the
continent, if poor Wood and his birds had not come to grief.
“The civil wars in the next reign extinguished the office of The Master
of the Royal Cormorants, and his assistants, and in the Record Office we
find this petition from poor old Mr. Wood, who appears to have been
rather hard-up and neglected in his old age.
“‘A prayer of Richard Wood, of Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, to Charles II.,
for restoration to his place as cormorant keeper, which he held, he
says, from King James’s first coming to England, to the late wars, in
which he served as a soldier, but being now ninety-five years old, has
been forced to retire to a dwelling at Walton.’”[152]]
“A document in the State Paper Office, sealed with the royal signet, and
addressed to the ‘Treasurer of the Chamber’ for the time being,
authorizes him to pay unto John Harris, gentleman, His Majesty’s
cormorant keeper, for his repairing yearly unto the north parts of
England to take haggard cormorants for His Majesty’s disport in
fishing, the yearly allowance of eighty-four pounds, to be paid on the
four usual feasts of the year, during His Majesty’s pleasure, in such
manner as John Wood and Robert Wood, or George Hutchinson, gentlemen,
formerly received.”[153]
Although Shakespeare has mentioned the cormorant in many of his Plays,
he has nowhere alluded to the sport with trained birds; and this is
somewhat singular, inasmuch as he has made frequent mention of the then
popular pastime of hawking, and he did not die until some years after
James I. had made fishing with cormorants a fashionable amusement.[154]
The sport has long since ceased to amuse royalty, and by English
sportsmen is now almost abandoned.[155]
[Sidenote: THE HOME OF THE CORMORANT.]
To return to the sea, the true home of the cormorant; that sea
“Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune.”
_Richard II._ Act ii. Sc. 1.
“Those who have never observed our boldest coasts,” says Oliver
Goldsmith, “have no idea of their tremendous sublimity. The boasted
works of art, the highest towers, and the noblest domes, are but ant
hills when put in comparison....
“To walk along the shore when the tide is departed, or to sit in the
hollow of a rock when it is come in, attentive to the various sounds
that gather on every side, above and below, may raise the mind to its
highest and noblest exertions.
“The solemn roar of the waves, swelling into and subsiding from the vast
caverns beneath, the piercing note of the gull, the frequent chatter of
the guillemot, the loud note of the auk, the screams of the heron, and
the hoarse, deep periodical croaking of the cormorant, all unite to
furnish out the grandeur of the scene, and turn the mind to Him who is
the essence of all sublimity.”
[Sidenote: GULLS.]
It is amid such scenes as these that we naturally look for and find the
next of Shakespeare’s birds, the Gull, or, as he sometimes calls it, the
“Sea-mell” (_The Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2).
In no passage, however, do we find a reference to any particular species
of gull; the word is used in its generic sense only, and is most
frequently applied metaphorically to a dupe or a fool:--
“Why, ’tis a gull, a fool!”
_Henry V._ Act iii. Sc. 6.
The gull is said to have derived its name from its voracious habits,
_i.e._, from “_gulo--ōnis_,” a gormandizer. Tooke holds that gull,
guile, wile, and guilt, are all from the Anglo-Saxon “_wiglian_,
_gewiglian_,” that by which any one is deceived. Archdeacon Nares
suggests that gull is from the old French _guiller_.
Malvolio asks:--
“Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck[156] and gull,
That e’er invention play’d on? tell me why.”
_Twelfth Night_, Act v. Sc. 1.
[Sidenote: GULL-CATCHERS.]
In the same play we find the word “gull” occurring several times in a
similar sense, as in Act ii. Sc. 3, and Act iii. Sc. 2;[157] and Fabian,
on the entry of Maria (Act ii. Sc. 5), exclaims,--
“Here comes my noble _gull-catcher_!”
[Sidenote: GULL-GROPERS.]
When sharpers were considered as bird-catchers, a gull was their proper
prey.[158] “Gull-catchers,” or “gull-gropers,” therefore, were the names
by which, in Shakespeare’s day, these sharpers were known.
“The _gull-groper_ was generally an old gambling miser, who frequented
the ordinary to save the charge of housekeeping, under the pretext of
meeting with travellers and seeking company, and carried in his pouch
some hundred or two hundred pounds in twenty-shilling pieces. By long
experience he knew to an ace how much the losing player was worth, and
as he scratched his head and paced uneasily up and down the room, as if
he wanted the ostler, he takes him to a side window and tells him that
he was, forsooth, sorry to see so honest a gentleman in bad luck, but
that ‘dice were made of women’s bones and would cozen the wisest,’ and
that for his father’s sake, Sir Luke Littlebrain (he had learned the
name from the drawer), if it pleased him he need not leave off play for
a hundred pound or two. The youth, eager to redeem his losses, accepted
the money ordinarily with grateful thanks. The gold was poured upon the
table, and a hard bond was hastily drawn up for the repayment at the
next quarter-day, deducting so much for the scrivener’s expense at
changing the pieces. If he lost, the usurer hugged his bond, and laughed
in his sleeve. If Sir Andrew won, the gull-groper would then steal
silently out of the noisy room to avoid repayment. The day that the bond
became due, Hunks was sure not to be within, and if seen, in some way
contrived to make the debtor break the bond, and then transformed
himself into two sergeants, who clapped the youth in prison. From thence
he usually escaped shorn of a goodly manor or fair lordship, worth
three times the money, and which was to be entered upon by Hunks three
months after his young friend came of age--an unpleasant thought, when
the ox was roasting whole, the bells ringing, and the tenants
shouting.”[159]
[Sidenote: SEA-MELLS.]
Not only was the person duped called “a gull,” but the trick itself was
also known as “a gull,” just as we now-a-days term it “a sell.”
“_Benedick._ I should think this ‘a gull,’ but that the
white-bearded fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide himself
in such reverence.”--_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act ii. Sc. 3.
But it is not always synonymously with “fool” that Shakespeare employs
the word “gull.” Caliban, addressing Trinculo, says,--
“Sometimes I’ll get thee
Young _sea-mells_ from the rock.”
_Tempest_, Act ii. Sc. 2.
Here it is evident that the sea-mall, sea-mew, or sea-gull, is intended,
the young birds being taken before they could fly. Young sea-gulls were
formerly considered great delicacies, and in the old “Household Books”
we often find such entries as the following:--
“Item, it is thought goode that See-gulles be hade for my Lordes
own mees and non other, so they be goode and in season, and at jd.
apece or jd. ob. at the moste.”
The description of their haunts which the poet gives us in the fourth
act of _King Lear_ cannot be easily forgotten. We seem to stand when
reading it upon the very edge of the cliff!--
“How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
... the murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high.--I’ll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.”
_King Lear_, Act iv. Sc. 6.
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