“Russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun’s report.”
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act iii. Sc. 2.
Now the jackdaw, though having a grey head, would more appropriately bear the designation of “russet-pated” than any of his congeners. We may presume, therefore, that this is the species to which Shakespeare intended to refer. The head of the chough, like the rest of its body, is perfectly black.
The Jackdaw (Corvus monedula) has not been so frequently noticed by Shakespeare as many other birds, and in the half-dozen instances in which it is mentioned, we find it referred to as the “daw.” The word occurs in Coriolanus, Act iv. Sc. 5; Troilus and Cressida, Act i. Sc. 2; Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 3; Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 4; and in a song in Love’s Labour’s Lost. Warwick, expressing his ignorance of legal matters, says:—
“But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.”
Henry VI. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
And the crafty and dissembling Iago remarks that—
“When my outward action doth demonstrate