Mr. John R. Wise comments on this passage as follows: "This description of the run is wonderfully true; how the 'dew-bedabbled wretch' betakes herself to a flock of sheep to lead the hounds off the scent; how she stops to listen, and again makes another double. Mark, too, the beauty and aptness of the epithets, 'the hot scent-snuffing' hounds, and the 'earth-delving' conies; but more especially mark the pity that the poet feels for the poor animal, showing that he possessed a true feeling heart, without which no line of poetry can ever be written." FOWLING. There are many allusions to fowling in Shakespeare's works. He had evidently seen a good deal of it, probably in his boyhood, whether he had had actual experience in it or not. In _As You Like It_ (v. 4. 111) the Duke says of Touchstone, who combined much philosophy with his professional foolery, "He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit." And in _Much Ado About Nothing_ (ii. 3. 95), when Don Pedro and his companions are talking about Benedick, whom they know to be hid within hearing, Claudio says: "Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits"; that is, go on with the practical joke, for the victim does not suspect it. The stalking-horse, originally, was a horse trained for the purpose and covered with trappings, so as to conceal the sportsman from the game. It was particularly useful to the archer by enabling him to approach the birds, without being seen by them, near enough to reach them with his arrows. As it was not always convenient to use a real horse for this purpose, the fowler had recourse to an artificial one, made of stuffed canvas and painted like a horse, but light enough to be moved with one hand. Hence _stalking-horse_ came to be used figuratively for anything put forward to conceal a more important object, or to mask one's real intention. Thus an old writer describes a hypocrite as one "that makes religion his stalking-horse." In the _Midsummer-Night's Dream_ (iii, 2. 20) Puck, describing the fright of the clowns when Bottom makes his appearance with the ass's head on his shoulders, says:-- "Anon his Thisbe must be answered, And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy, As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye, Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort, Rising and cawing at the gun's report, Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky, So at his sight away his fellows fly." In _1 Henry IV._ (iv. 2. 21) Falstaff says that his recruits are "such as fear the report of a caliver [musket] worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild-duck." And in _Much Ado_ (ii. 1. 209) Benedick says of Claudio, who runs away from his friend's bantering: "Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges"; that is, he will go and brood over his vexation in solitude.