The obscure bird Clamour’d the livelong night.[106] The appearance of the owl by day was unusual enough to be considered an evil omen. Among the portents that preceded the assassination of Julius Caesar it was reported that The bird of night did sit, Even at noon-day, upon the market-place Hooting and shrieking.[107] When Richard II. realises the machinations of his enemies, and is asked to come down to the base-court to meet Bolingbroke, he exclaims In the base-court? Come down? Down, court! Down, king! For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.[108] The hooting or screeching of the owl was often looked upon as a foreboding of death. Among the nocturnal sounds recounted by fairy Puck, he tells that Now the wasted brands do glow, Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud, Puts the wretch that lies in woe In remembrance of a shroud.[109] Even at a babe’s nativity the sound of this bird’s note might be taken as a bad omen. King Henry VI. tells Gloucester: The owl shriek’d at thy birth――an evil sign: The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time.[110] Among its mysterious relationships, the owl was believed to be connected with some of the machinations of witchcraft. It will be remembered that the miscellaneous ingredients which went to the making of the hell-broth of Macbeth’s “midnight hags” included “a lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing.”[111] Shakespeare’s introduction of the owl into his fairy-land was a dexterous artistic stroke, for it connected a well-known but somewhat mysterious bird with his world of sprites, and gave to that world a further touch of realism. Alike in the _Tempest_ and the _Merry Wives_ this conjunction may be seen. The “dainty Ariel,” Prospero’s “tricksy spirit,” sings: Where the bee sucks, there suck I, In a cowslip’s bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry.[112] Titania, the Queen of the fairies, when she disperses her train on their several quests, bids Some keep back The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders At our quaint spirits.[113] The popular association of owls with supernatural beings is again noted in the _Comedy of Errors_, where poor Dromio of Syracuse, utterly bamboozled by the confusion of Dromios and Antonios, exclaims: This is the fairy-land: O land of spites! We talk with goblins, owls and sprites; If we obey them not, this will ensue, They’ll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.[114] [Illustration: THE CUCKOO] The CUCKOO receives nearly as much notice from Shakespeare as the Owl. In the bright song at the end of _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ both birds appear as symbolical, the one of spring, the other of winter. [Sidenote: _The Cuckoo_]