The GOOSE, so frequently alluded to in the Plays, usually appears there as the recognised symbol of human stupidity and cowardice. How far this character, if really deserved by the bird, is the result of domestication and association with man for many centuries, is a question for ornithological psychologists. There can be no doubt that the wild-goose does not deserve the reputation attributed to his degenerate kinsman in the farm-yard. Shakespeare was aware how active and vigilant that bird was among the fens which it haunted. He refers to the sudden uprise and flight of The wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,[168] and to the autumnal movement of these fowl to the larger waters, a fact known even to Lear’s fool, who remarks: The winter’s not gone yet if the wild geese fly that way.[169] The rapidity with which these birds disappear when they take wing was likewise familiar knowledge. The melancholy Jaques claims that if a man whom he censures does not deserve reproof, Why then my taxing, like a wild goose, flies, Unclaim’d of any man.[170] The difficulty of circumventing the bird is conveyed in the proverbial expression “a wild-goose chase,” which was well known in the time of Elizabeth. Mercutio retorts to Romeo: Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done; for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five.[171] [Sidenote: _The Swan_] The SWAN, perhaps in Shakespeare’s day more abundant in this country than it is now, was then regarded as a “Bird Royal” which nobody could keep without a licence from the Crown, and provision for making a certain mark on the bird’s bill to denote its ownership. Our Sovereigns still maintain the Royal Swans on the Thames, and the young birds are regularly taken up in summer to receive the mark. To this bird full recognition has been paid by our dramatist. He places it before us in its usual watery domain, where its nest serves as a symbol of Britain set in the midst of the sea, “like a swan’s nest in a great pool.”[172] He lets us see The swan her downy cygnets save, Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.[173] We watch the bird’s ungainly gait on land and are told that All the water in the ocean Can never turn the swan’s black legs to white, Although she lave them hourly in the flood.[174] The perfect stillness of the surface of a sheet of water is marked by The swan’s down-feather, That stands upon the swell at full of tide And neither way inclines.[175] Again, we watch A swan With bootless labour swim against the tide And spend her strength with overmatching waves.[176] The time-honoured legend that the “death-divining swan” utters a musical note or wail at the time of dying is repeatedly alluded to by the poet, and sometimes as if it were a reality. Lucrece, at her approaching death, like a