suckers and superfluous banqueting stuffs, with a hundred other odd and needless trifles, which at that time must fill the pockets of dainty dames."

This last phrase recalls a habit still in vogue among women feasters in the north of England. At church tea parties, a popular style of feminine entertainment, where there is a profusion of plum cakes and pastry of various kinds, the attendants frequently find it necessary to warn the participants against "pocketing" any portion of the dainty fare. But despite this prudent mandate, old women and young have been known to depart from the party with enough stuff concealed in their pockets to keep their bairns in "goodies" for the next few days.

When Hostess Quickly tells of Falstaff passing away "an it had been any christom child," she not only describes a calm and peaceable end, but alludes to an old and beautiful custom. "The christom child," states Dyer, "was one who had recently been baptized and died within a month from birth, the term having originated from the face cloth, or piece of linen, put upon the head of a child newly baptized." After the usual immersion or sprinkling with water, the priest made a cross on the child's head with oil. The chrisom was then put on, and on learning the child's name, the priest said: "Receive this white, pure and holy vestment, which thou shalt wear before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ, that thou mayest inherit eternal life."

The chrisom was to be worn seven days, but after the Reformation, when the use of oil was omitted, it was retained by the child until the mother's churching, and then returned to the priest. If the child died before the churching, it was buried in the chrisom, and hence it was that the child was called a chrisom or chrisomer. These facts lend additional pathos to the death of Falstaff.

Another old superstition, which is still cherished in

some of the northern counties of England, is referred to in Dame Quickly's speech, "a parted even just between 12 and 1, even at the turning o' the tide." Church records give numerous instances of deaths occurring at the turning of the tide. "There may be some slight foundation for the belief that death is more apt to occur at this time," says one of the chroniclers, "because of the change of temperature which undoubtedly takes place on the change of tide, and which may act on the flickering spark of life, extinguishing it as the ebbing sea recedes."

Shakespeare was also eminently happy in the application of folk-lore associated with the feathered races. He seems to have absorbed most of the legends and traditions connected with birds in many climes. Whether it be the innocent dove, whose fidelity and patience is commended to all true lovers; the princely eagle, which can stare undazzled at the blazing sun, and which suffers smaller birds to sing knowing that he can at pleasure "stint their melody with the shadow of his wing;" the soaring lark, which at heaven's gate sings, when "Phoebus 'gins to rise;" the melancholy nightingale, which warbles its mournful notes while its breast is pierced by a thorn; the allusions are always in accord with ancient stories about the winged denizens of the air.

His richest treasures of ornithological lore, however, relate to the so-called birds of ill-omen. Among these The croaking

are crows, ravens, kites, owls and rooks. raven bellowing for revenge has always been held in abhorrence. It was supposed to have the faculty of "smelling death," and its dismal cry was believed to be the precursor of a plague. On being apprised of the Scottish king's visit to the castle, Lady Macbeth exclaims:

The raven himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.

In "Much Ado About Nothing" Benedick scoffs at Balthazar's singing, and says: "I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it." Some ornithologists claim that the night-raven was the owl, but there are numerous passages by early writers showing that a distinction was recognized between those inauspicious birds. Spenser, in "The Faery Queen," refers to "owls and night ravens," the hateful messengers of "death and dolor." Witches were partial to ravens, whose feathers were supposed to possess the power of propagating diseases. This potency was evidently in Caliban's mind when he called down afflictions upon Prospero and Miranda:

As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen,
Drop on you both.

In olden times the owl probably gave rise to more superstitious awe than any other bird. Pliny speaks of it as funereal, a monster of the night, the very abomination of mankind. Its presence was always looked upon as a forerunner of evil and mischief. Many of the old poets fancied that its eldritch cry foreboded bloody crimes and calamities. Even in Addison's day the "Spectator" tells the story of a screech-owl alarming a family at midnight worse than a band of robbers. Lady Macbeth hears it shriek while Duncan is being murdered by her husband; and Lenox, in reciting the dire portents of that fearful time, adds that "the obscure bird clamored the livelong night."

Nothing but evil appears to have been associated with the owl. Its appearance at a birth augured ill to the child and the family. When Crook-back Gloucester was born, "the owl shriek'd-an evil sign." On the approach of death it horrified the watchers with its scream

ing. In the closing lines of "Midsummer Night's Dream" Puck says:

Now the wasted brands do glow,

Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe

In remembrance of a shroud.

Rarely is an owl seen in the light of the sun. When it did appear in daylight, the same dread arose as though it were hooting at midnight. Among the ominous things enumerated by Casca in "Julius Caesar" was:

And yesterday the bird of night did sit,

Even at noon-day, upon the market place,
Hooting and shrieking.

With regard to Ophelia's remark in the mad scene, "They say the owl was a baker's daughter," Douce quotes a story which is still current in Gloucestershire: "Our Savior went into a baker's shop where they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat. The mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough into the oven to bake for him, but was reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it to a very small size. The dough, however, immediately began to swell, and presently became a most enormous size; whereupon the baker's daughter cried out 'Heugh, heugh, heugh!' which owl-like noise probably induced our Savior to transform her into that bird for her wickedness."

Crows were not accounted as bad as owls in malicious influence, but they were never in favor with either learned or ignorant in the dark days of yore. The lean and hungry Cassius, however, was appalled by their presence on the eve of battle:

Crows and kites

Fly o'er our heads and downward look on us,
As we were sickly prey; their shadows seem

A canopy most fatal, under which

Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.

In "King John" the Bastard refers to the crow as a terror-breeder when he speaks of the king making the French

Thrill and shake

Even at the crying of your nation's crow,

Thinking his voice an armed Englishman.

The kite figured in the catalog of unlucky birds, although its ill-repute was largely on account of thievish habits, which made its name a term of reproach. It was a pilferer of linen, and was, therefore, especially detested by housewives, who are sometimes reckless in distributing bad names even among unfeathered bipeds. That snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, Autolycus, alludes to the practice of kites carrying away small linen articles with which to line their nests: "My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen."

While in the ecstacy of fear caused by Banquo's ghost, Macbeth raves:

It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood;
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;
Augurs and understood relations have

By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret'st blood of man.

Magot-pie is another name for the magpie, which is still classed as mysterious and mischievous in the rural districts of England and Scotland. When this bird crosses the vision of any person it is a sign of ill-luck. The farmhands in Yorkshire cross their breasts and thumbs and raise their caps in salutation to avert the threatened evil; in Durham they also spit over their left shoulders three times for the same purpose. According to a rhyme recited by the peasantry of Cumberland, different degrees of bad or good luck portend according to the number of chattering pies seen at a time:

One is sorrow, two means mirth,
Three a wedding, four a birth,
Five heaven, six for hell,
Seven is the deil's ain-sell.