The Fool in King Lear reminds us that it is in the hedge-sparrow’s nest that the Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) frequently deposits her egg:—
“For you know, nuncle, the hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, that it had its head bit off by its young.”—King Lear, Act i. Sc. 4.
Mr. Guest, in adopting the reading of the first folio, observes (Phil. Pro., i. 280) that “in the dialects of the North-western counties, formerly it was sometimes used for its. So in the passage just quoted we have ‘For you know,’ &c., ‘that its had it head bit off by it young;’ that is, that it has had its head, not that it had its head, as the modern editors give the passage, after the second folio.”
“So likewise, long before its was generally received, we have it self commonly printed in two words, evidently
under the impression that it was a possessive of the same syntactical force with the pronouns in my self, your self, her self.”[78]
So in Timon of Athens (Act v. Sc. 1), we have—
“The public body····
····feeling in itself
A lack of Timon’s aid, hath sense withal
Of it own fall.”