But to return to wild-fowl. Puck compares the frightened
varlets who fled at the sight of Bottom with the ass’s head to “wild-geese that the creeping fowler eye.”—Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act iii. Sc. 2.
“They flock together in consent, like so many wild-geese.”—Henry IV. Part II. Act v. Sc. 1.
And Marcius, addressing the retreating Romans before Corioli, reproaches them as having no more courage than geese:—
“You souls of geese,
That bear the shapes of men, how have you run
From slaves that apes would beat!”
Coriolanus, Act i. Sc. 4.
The Fool in King Lear reminds us of the old proverb—
“Winter’s not gone yet, if the wild-geese fly that way.”