In a passage already cited the buzzards are coupled with the disreputable kites. Professor Newton remarks that “in the old days of falconry, buzzards were regarded with infinite scorn, and hence in common English to call a man a ‘buzzard’ is to denounce him as stupid.”[71]
The Common Buzzard
The Kite
In the time of Elizabeth the kite (or Puttock), now one of the rarest of our birds, was quite common in this country. It was particularly abundant in London, where it fed on the garbage of the streets, and even of the Thames, and where, together with the raven, it was protected by law as a useful scavenger without pay. The frequency of Shakespeare’s allusions to this bird is good evidence of how familiar it must then have been. It is always referred to in some disparaging way. The “hungry kite” did not scruple to carry off any living creature it could overcome even from the very farm-yard. When Warwick mentions to the Queen his suspicions of foul play in Duke Humphrey’s death, he tells her:
Who finds the partridge in the puttock’s nest
But may imagine how the bird was dead,
Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?
Even so suspicious is this tragedy.[72]