The last line of this quotation recalls another passage in which, as if the writer had watched the bird on the wing, the majestic sweep of its flight is pictured: The course I hold Flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, Leaving no tract behind.[57] The eagle has been credited with a nobility of nature in keeping with his regal rank: The eagle suffers little birds to sing, And is not careful what they mean thereby, Knowing that with the shadow of his wings He can at pleasure stint their melody.[58] Shakespeare may have seen an eagle in confinement, for his description of its manner of feeding seems as if drawn from actual observation: Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast, Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone, Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste, Till either gorge be stuff’d or prey be gone.[59] Whether in captivity or in stuffed specimens, the dramatist had evidently set eyes on the bird close at hand, so as to be able to put so whimsical a comparison into Falstaff’s mouth: My own knee! When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle’s talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman’s thumb-ring.[60] [Sidenote: _Hawks and Hawking_] Shakespeare’s acquaintance with the family of HAWKS was manifestly of the most intimate kind. These birds were common natives of the country, and in great request for the sport of falconry. His writings prove him to have had a detailed knowledge of the terminology of this sport, and he was probably himself a keen falconer in his early years, if not throughout his life. His Plays are full of the technical language of hawking, which he employs by way of similitude in matters of a wholly different nature. As an example of this habit no better illustration can be given than Petruchio’s description of the method he meant to employ to tame his ill-tempered wife. In the approved lingo of the practical falconer he remarks to himself: Thus have I politicly begun my reign, And ’tis my hope to end successfully. My falcon now is sharp and passing empty; And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged, For then she never looks upon her lure. Another way I have to man my haggard, To make her come and know her keeper’s call, That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites That bate and beat and will not be obedient. She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat; Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not; As with the meat, some undeserved fault I’ll find about the making of the bed; And here I’ll fling the pillow, there the bolster, This way the coverlet, another way the sheets: Ay, and amid this hurly I intend That all is done in reverend care of her.[61]