Chough. In using this word Shakespeare probably, in most cases, meant the jackdaw;[160] for in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iii. 2) he says:
“russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun’s report;”
the term russet-pated being applicable to the jackdaw, but not to the real chough. In “1 Henry IV.” (v. 1). Prince Henry calls Falstaff chewet—“Peace, chewet, peace”—in allusion, no doubt, to the chough or jackdaw, for common birds have always had a variety of names.[161] Such an appellation would be a proper reproach to Falstaff, for his meddling and impertinent talk. Steevens and Malone, however, finding that chewets were little round pies made of minced meat, thought that the Prince compared Falstaff, for his unseasonable chattering, to a minced pie. Cotgrave[162] describes the French chouette as an owlet; also, a “chough,” which many consider to be the simple and satisfactory explanation of chewet. Belon, in his “History of Birds” (Paris, 1855), speaks of the chouette as the smallest kind of chough or crow. Again, in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 2), in the amusing scene where Falstaff, with the Prince and Poins, meet to rob the travellers at Gadshill, Falstaff calls the victims “fat chuffs,” probably, says Mr. Harting, who connects the word with chough, from their strutting about with much noise. Nares,[163] too, in his explanation of chuff, says, that some suppose it to be from chough, which is similarly pronounced, and means a kind of sea-bird, generally esteemed a stupid one. Various other meanings are given. Thus, Mr. Gifford[164] affirms that chuff is always used in a bad sense, and means “a coarse, unmannered clown, at once sordid and wealthy;” and Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps explains it as spoken in contempt for a fat person.[165] In Northamptonshire,[166] we find the word chuff used to denote a person in good condition, as in Clare’s “Village Minstrel:”
“His chuff cheeks dimpling in a fondling smile.”
Shakespeare alludes to the practice of teaching choughs to talk, although from the following passages he does not appear to have esteemed their talking powers as of much value; for in “All’s Well That Ends Well” (iv. 1), he says: “Choughs’ language, gabble enough, and good enough.” And in “The Tempest” (ii. 1), he represents Antonio as saying:
“There be that can rule Naples
As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate
As amply and unnecessarily
As this Gonzalo; I myself could make
A chough of as deep chat.”
Shakespeare always refers to the jackdaw as the “daw.”[167] The chough or jackdaw was one of the birds considered ominous by our forefathers, an allusion to which occurs in “Macbeth” (iii. 4):
“Augurs and understood relations have,
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret’st man of blood.”
At the present day this bird is not without its folk-lore, and there is a Norwich rhyme to the following effect:[168]
“When three daws are seen on St. Peter’s vane together,
Then we’re sure to have bad weather.”