(v. 2):

"What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?"

and again in "Hamlet" (iii. 4).

Some doubt exists as to the exact meaning of "Mouse-hunt," by Lady
Capulet, in "Romeo and Juliet" (iv. 4):

"Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time,
But I will watch you from such watching now."

According to some, the expression implies "a hunter of gay women," mouse
having been used in this signification.[439] Others are of opinion that
the stoat[440] is meant, the smallest of the weasel tribe, and others
again the polecat. Mr. Staunton[441] tells us that the mouse-hunt is the
marten, an animal of the weasel tribe which prowls about for its prey at
night, and is applied to any one of rakish propensities.

[439] Halliwell-Phillipps's "Handbook Index to Shakespeare,"
1866, p. 331.

[440] Forby's "Vocabulary of East Anglia," vol. ii. p. 222.

[441] See Staunton's "Shakespeare," vol. i. p. 278.

Holinshed, in his "History of Scotland" (1577, p. 181), quotes from the
laws of Kenneth II., King of Scotland: "If a sowe eate her pigges, let
hyr be stoned to death and buried, that no man eate of hyr fleshe." This
offence is probably alluded to by Shakespeare in "Macbeth" (iv. 1),
where the witch says:

"Pour in sow's blood, that hath eaten
Her nine farrow."

_Polecat_, or _Fitchew_. This animal is supposed to be very amorous; and
hence its name, Mr. Steevens says, was often applied to ladies of easy
or no virtue. In "Othello" (iv. 1) Cassio calls Bianca a "fitchew," and
in "Troilus and Cressida" (v. 1) Thersites alludes to it.[442]

[442] Cf. "King Lear," iv. 6.

_Porcupine._ Another name for this animal was the porpentine, which
spelling occurs in "Hamlet" (i. 5):

"Like quills upon the fretful porpentine."

And again, in "2 Henry VI." (iii. 1) York speaks of "a sharp-quill'd
porpentine." Ajax, too, in "Troilus and Cressida" (ii. 1), applies the
term to Thersites: "do not, porpentine." In the above passages, however,
and elsewhere, the word has been altered by editors to porcupine.
According to a popular error, the porcupine could dart his quills. They
are easily detached, very sharp, and slightly barbed, and may easily
stick to a person's legs, when he is not aware that he is near enough to
touch them.[443]

[443] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 673.

_Rabbit._ In "2 Henry IV." (ii. 2) this animal is used as a term of
reproach, a sense in which it was