Ravens, 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.[75] At the battle of St. Albans York declares that The deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed; But match to match I have encounter’d him, And made a prey for carrion kites and crows Even of the bonny beast he loved so well.[76] The thievish propensities of the kite when building its nest led it to plunder all sorts of garments that might be bleaching on the hedge,――pieces of rag, old hats, and bits of paper. This habit is sympathetically referred to by Autolycus, who was himself, as he confesses, another “snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.”――“My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen.”[77] The very name of kite became an epithet of contempt and hatred. When Goneril announced to her father in peremptory terms that he must “disquantity his train,” poor old Lear’s indignation was in response hurled at her in these words, “Detested kite.”[78] The OSPREY, now almost extirpated as a native of these islands, was probably not uncommon in the time of Elizabeth. It is once mentioned by Shakespeare. Aufidius, the General of the Volscians, alluding to the regard of the Roman people for the banished Coriolanus, reluctantly confesses: I think he’ll be to Rome As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it By sovereignty of nature.[79] It would almost seem that the poet had himself watched the bird plunge into some clear lake or pond in southern England, and, with unerring stroke, seize in its talons the unsuspecting fish which its keen eyes had detected from aloft. [Illustration: THE KITE] [Sidenote: _The Vulture_] The VULTURE, not infrequently mentioned by Shakespeare, is not a British bird, though at rare intervals it has appeared as a migrant in this country. The poet most likely never saw one, his allusions to it being obviously based on its reputation for voracity, and partly also on the legend of Prometheus and the eagle. In one passage a speaker asserts “there cannot be that vulture in you to devour so many.”[80] The expressions “vulture thought” and “vulture folly” are used in the Poems.[81] A favourite observation of the braggart Pistol was “let vultures vile seize on his lungs.” Sir William Lucy speaks of “the vulture of sedition that feeds in the bosom of great commanders.”[82] “The gnawing vulture of the mind” is referred to in _Titus Andronicus_. But the most touching allusion in which this bird is used is that where King Lear, wounded to the quick by Goneril’s unkindness, exclaims to her sister, as he raises his hand to his heart, O Regan, she hath tied Sharp-tooth’d unkindness like a vulture here.[83] [Illustration: THE CORMORANT] [Sidenote: _Parrots and Popinjays_]