e fields. At
present,[188] in all the midland counties, a boy set to drive away the
birds is said to keep birds; hence, a stuffed figure, now called a
_scarecrow_, was also called a crow-keeper, as in "King Lear" (iv. 6):
"That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper."

[188] Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 208.

One of Tusser's directions for September is:

"No sooner a-sowing, but out by-and-by,
With mother or boy that alarum can cry:
And let them be armed with a sling or a bow,
To scare away pigeon, the rook, or the crow."

In "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 4) a scarecrow seems meant:

"Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper."

Among further references to this practice is that in "1 Henry VI." (i.
4), where Lord Talbot relates that, when a prisoner in France, he was
publicly exhibited in the market-place:

"Here, said they, is the terror of the French,
The scarecrow that affrights our children so."[189]

[189] Cf. "Henry IV.," iv. 2.

And once more, in "Measure for Measure" (ii. 1):

"We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror."

The phrase "to pluck a crow" is to complain good-naturedly, but
reproachfully, and to threaten retaliation.[190] It occurs in "Comedy of
Errors" (iii. 1): "We'll pluck a crow together." Sometimes the word
_pull_ is substituted for pluck, as in Butler's "Hudibras" (part ii.
canto 2):

"If not, resolve before we go
That you and I must pull a crow."

[190] Miss Baker's "Northamptonshire Glossary," vol. ii. p.
161; Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. p. 393.

The crow has been regarded as the emblem of darkness, which has not
escaped the notice of Shakespeare, who, in "Pericles" (iv. introd.),
speaking of the white dove, says:

"With the dove of Paphos might the crow
Vie feathers white."[191]

[191] Cf. "Romeo and Juliet," i. 5.

_Cuckoo._ Many superstitions have clustered round the cuckoo, and both
in this country and abroad it is looked upon as a mysterious bird, being
supposed to possess the gift of second-sight, a notion referred to in
"Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2):

"Cuckoo, cuckoo:[192] O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear."

[192] "A cuckold being called from the cuckoo, the note of that
bird was suppose