"Sed circumsiliens, modo huc, modo illuc, Ad solam dominam usque pipilabat."
Skelton, in an elegy upon a sparrow, calls it "Phyllyp Sparowe;" and Gascoigne also writes "The praise of Philip Sparrow."
In "Measure for Measure" (iii. 2), Lucio, speaking of Angelo, the deputy-duke of Vienna, says: "Sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are lecherous."[326]
[326] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 653; Dyce's "Glossary," p. 320.
_Sparrow-hawk._ A name formerly given to a young sparrow-hawk was eyas-musket,[327] a term we find in "Merry Wives of Windsor" (iii. 3): "How now, my eyas-musket! what news with you?" It was thus metaphorically used as a jocular phrase for a small child. As the invention, too, of fire-arms took place[328] at a time when hawking was in high fashion, some of the new weapons were named after those birds, probably from the idea of their fetching their prey from on high. _Musket_ has thus become the established name for one sort of gun. Some, however, assert that the musket was invented in the fifteenth century, and owes its name to its inventors.
[327] Derived from the French _mouschet_, of the same meaning.
[328] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 593: Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 46. Turbervile tells us "the first name and terme 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 Cæsars; 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 Athenæus 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."