back
doors, so as they cannot mute, the mother-kite, in compassion to their
distress, will steal lesser linen, as caps, cravats, ruffles, or any
other such small matters as she can best fly with, from off the hedges
where they are hanged to dry after washing, and carry them to her nest,
and there leave them, if possible to move the pity of the first comer,
to cut the thread and ease them of their misery."

[256] Also to the buzzard, which see, p. 100.

[257] Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. iv. p. 67.

[258] "Glossary," p. 243.

_Lapwing._ Several interesting allusions are made by Shakespeare to this
eccentric bird. It was a common notion that the young lapwings ran out
of the shell with part of it sticking on their heads, in such haste were
they to be hatched. Horatio ("Hamlet," v. 2) says of Osric: "This
lapwing runs away with the shell on his head."

It was, therefore, regarded as the symbol of a forward fellow.
Webster,[259] in the "White Devil" (1857, p. 13), says:

"forward lapwing!
He flies with the shell on's head."

[259] "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 495; see Yarrell's "History of
British Birds," 2d edition, vol. ii. p. 482.

The lapwing, like the partridge, is also said to draw pursuers from her
nest by fluttering along the ground in an opposite direction or by
crying in other places. Thus, in the "Comedy of Errors" (iv. 2),
Shakespeare says:

"Far from her nest the lapwing cries away."

Again, in "Measure for Measure" (i. 4), Lucio exclaims:

"though 'tis my familiar sin,
With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,
Tongue far from heart."

Once more, in "Much Ado About Nothing" (iii. 1), we read:

"For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs,
Close by the ground, to hear our conference."

Several, too, of our older poets refer to this peculiarity. In Ben
Jonson's "Underwoods" (lviii.) we are told:

"Where he that knows will like a lapwing fly,
Farre from the nest, and so himself belie."

Through thus alluring intruders from its nest, the lapwing became a
symbol of insincerity; and hence originated the proverb, "The lapwing
cries tongue from heart," or, "The lapwing cries most, farthest from her
nest."[260]

[260] Ray's "Proverbs," 1768, p. 199.

_Lark._ Shakespeare has bequeathed to us many exquisite passages
referring to the lark, full of the most sublime pathos and lofty
conceptions. Most readers