"if we draw lots, he speeds; His cocks do win the battle still of mine, When it is all to nought; and his quails ever Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds."
[305] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 704; Halliwell-Phillipps's "Handbook Index to Shakespeare," 1866, p. 398; Dyce's "Glossary," p. 345; Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. vii. p. 264.
[306] "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 218.
[307] Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," 1876, pp. 19, 97, 677; Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 59, 60.
It appears that cocks as well as quails were sometimes made to fight within a broad hoop--hence the term _inhoop'd_--to keep them from quitting each other. Quail-fights were well known among the ancients, and especially at Athens.[308] Julius Pollux relates that a circle was made, in which the birds were placed, and he whose quail was driven out of this circle lost the stake, which was sometimes money, and occasionally the quails themselves. Another practice was to produce one of these birds, which being first smitten with the middle finger, a feather was then plucked from its head. If the quail bore this operation without flinching, his master gained the stake, but lost it if he ran away. Some doubt exists as to whether quail-fighting prevailed in the time of Shakespeare. At the present day[309] the Sumatrans practise these quail combats, and this pastime is common in some parts of Italy, and also in China. Mr. Douce has given a curious print, from an elegant Chinese miniature painting, which represents some ladies engaged at this amusement, where the quails are actually inhooped.
[308] Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 367.
[309] Marsden's "History of Sumatra," 1811, p. 276.
_Raven._ Perhaps no bird is so universally unpopular as the raven, its hoarse croak, in most countries, being regarded as ominous. Hence, as might be expected, Shakespeare often refers to it, in order to make the scene he depicts all the more vivid and graphic. In "Titus Andronicus" (ii. 3), Tamora, describing "a barren detested vale," says:
"The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean, O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe: Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds, Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven."