This trap, being commonly used now-a-days for rats, is probably too well known to need a description here.

"So strives the woodcock with the gin."

Henry VI. Part III. Act i. Sc. 4.

Under the head of " Wild-Fowl" we shall have occasion, in a subsequent chapter, to allude to the opinion of Pythagoras on the transmigration of souls, and to the discussion on this subject in Twelfth Night, when the clown portentously observes to Malvolio,

"Fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam. Fare thee well."-Twelfth Night, Act iv. Sc. 2.

The "woodcock's head" in Shakespeare's day, on account of its shape, was a fashionable term for a tobacco-pipe.* "Those who loved smoking sat on the stage-stools, with their three sorts of tobacco, and their lights by them, handing matches on the point of their swords, or sending out their pages for real Trinidado. They actually practised smoking under professors who taught them tricks; and the intelligence offices were not more frequented, no, nor the pretty seamstresses' shops at the Exchange, than the new tobacco office."+

It is somewhat remarkable that while Shakespeare's contemporary, Ben Jonson, has founded whole scenes upon

*Every Man Out of his Humour, Act iii. Sc. 3.

†Thornbury, "Shakespeare's England," vol. i. pp. 169, 170.

the practice of smoking, he himself has made no mention of it. Some commentators have brought this forward as a proof of the comparative earliness of many of his dramas, but smoking was in general use long before Shakespeare left London, and he drew his manners almost entirely from his own age, making mention of masks, false hair, pomanders, and fardingales, all of which were introduced about the same time. But apropos of "the woodcock's head," we are wandering away from Shakespeare's birds.

The Snipe (Scolopax gallinago) has been less frequently noticed by him than the woodcock. Indeed we have been unable to find more than one passage in which it is mentioned.

Iago, alluding to Roderigo, says :

"For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,
If I would time expend with such a snipe,

But for my sport and profit."

Othello, Act i. Sc. 3.

The speaker being evidently of opinion that a snipe was too insignificant a bird to the sportsman to warrant his taking much trouble to kill it, except for mere sport.

That there was a good deal more "sport" than "profit" is extremely likely; for it is difficult to believe that the sportsmen of Shakespeare's day, with guns such as we have described, fired with either fuze or flint, could have successfully, stopped the erratic flight of a snipe. That

H H

large numbers of snipe were brought to market, and appeared at table, in Shakespeare's time, is clear from the numerous entries in the old Household Book," where their value is stated to have been "after iii a jd." There can be little doubt, however, that these were not "shot birds," but were taken in snares and nets, as our modern fowlers take plovers and other fen birds.

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.

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."