Page 65. v. 452. _The dyuendop_] i. e. The dabchick or didapper.
v. 454. _The puffin_] A water-fowl with a singular bill.
v. 455. _Money they shall dele, &c._] According to the ancient custom at funerals.
v. 458. _the tytmose_] i. e. the titmouse.
v. 460. _The threstyl_] Or _throstle_, is properly the missel-thrush: see note on v. 424. p. 129.
v. 461. _brablyng_] i. e. clamour, noise—properly, quarrel, squabble.
—— _the ospraye_ _That putteth fysshes to a fraye_]
—_fraye_, i. e. fright. It was said that when the osprey, which feeds on fish, hovered over the water, they became fascinated and turned up their bellies.
v. 468. _The countrynge of the coe_]—_countrynge_; see note, p. 92: _coe_, i. e. jack-daw; “_Coo_ birde. Monedula. Nodula.” _Prompt. Parv._ ed. 1499.
_The storke also,_ _That maketh his nest_ _In chymneyes to rest;_ _Within those walles_ _No broken galles_ _May there abyde_ _Of cokoldry syde_]
The stork breeds in chimney-tops, and was fabled to forsake the place, if the man or wife of the house committed adultery. The following lines of Lydgate will illustrate the rest of the passage:
“a certaine knight Gyges called, thinge shameful to be tolde, To speke plaine englishe, made him [i. e. Candaules] cokolde. Alas I was not auised wel beforne, Vnkonnyngly to speake such langage, I should haue sayde how that he had an horne, Or sought some terme wyth a fayre vysage, To excuse my rudenesse of thys gret outrage: And in some land Cornodo men do them cal, And some affirme that _such folke haue no gal_.”
_Fall of Prynces_, B. ii. leaf lvi. ed. Wayland.
_The estryge, that wyll eate_ _An horshowe so great_]
—_estryge_, i. e. ostrich: _horshowe_, i. e. horse-shoe.—In _Struthiocamelus_, a portion of that strange book _Philomythie_, &c., by Tho. Scot., 1616, a merchant seeing an ostrich, in the desert, eating iron, asks—
“What nourishment can from those mettals grow? The Ostrich answers; Sir, I do not eate This iron, as you thinke I do, for meate. I only keepe it, lay it vp in store, To helpe my needy friends, the friendlesse poore. I often meete (as farre and neere I goe) _Many a fowndred horse that wants a shooe_, Seruing a Master that is monylesse: Such I releiue and helpe in their distresse.”