rme that they bestowe on a falcon is
an eyesse, and this name doth laste as long as she is an eyrie
and for that she is taken from the eyrie."

_Starling._ This was one of the birds that was in days gone by trained
to speak. In "1 Henry IV." (i. 3), Hotspur says:

"I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion."

Pliny tells us how starlings were taught to utter both Latin and Greek
words for the amusement of the young Caesars; and there are numerous
instances on record of the clever sentences uttered by this amusing
bird.

_Swallow._ This bird has generally been honored as the harbinger of
spring, and Athenaeus relates that the Rhodians had a solemn song to
welcome it. Anacreon has a well-known ode. Shakespeare, in the "Winter's
Tale" (iv. 3), alludes to the time of the swallow's appearance in the
following passage:

"daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty."

And its departure is mentioned in "Timon of Athens" (iii. 6): "The
swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lordship."

We may compare Tennyson's notice of the bird's approach and migration in
"The May Queen:"

"And the swallow 'll come back again with summer o'er the wave."

It has been long considered lucky for the swallow to build its nest on
the roof of a house, but just as unlucky for it to forsake a place which
it has once tenanted. Shakespeare probably had this superstition in his
mind when he represents Scarus as saying, in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv.
12):

"Swallows have built
In Cleopatra's sails their nests: the augurers
Say, they know not,--they cannot tell;--look grimly,
And dare not speak their knowledge."

_Swan._ According to a romantic notion, dating from antiquity, the swan
is said to sing sweetly just before its death, many pretty allusions to
which we find scattered here and there throughout Shakespeare's plays.
In "Merchant of Venice" (iii. 2), Portia says:

"he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music."

Emilia, too, in "Othello" (v. 2), just before she dies, exclaims:

"I will play the swan,
And die in music."

In "King John" (v. 7), Prince Henry, at his father's death-bed, thus
pathetically speaks:

"'Tis strange that death should s