The Turtle-Dove
The Pigeon is not only presented as an article of food; but is sometimes slightingly alluded to, with reflections on its mode of feeding and its timidity. Of the “honey-tongued Boyet” it was remarked
This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease
And utters it again when God doth please.[198]
And Hamlet, reflecting on his slowness to avenge his father’s murder, reproaches himself as “pigeon-liver’d and lacking gall.”[199]
The Smaller Birds
I have reserved for the last section of this Essay the smaller birds, including the songsters, as these are noticed in Shakespeare’s Poems and Dramas. A number of them are grouped together by Bottom in the ditty, singing which he wakes the sleeping Fairy Queen:
The ousel-cock so black of hue,