. British birds. Birds. LETM5 " SCAMELS " IN SHAKESPERE'S " THE ; To the Editors of British Birds. Sirs,—Mr. Armstrong's ingenious suggestion {antea, p. 259), that the " young Scamels " which figure among CaUban's promised offerings to- Stephano are really SheKl-Ducks, though adding another to the already very long list oi" conjectural readings, is surely literally too far-fetched to be probable ; while his further suggestion that, possibly, " like our word ' Sea-gull,' as used popularly, ' Scamel ' was a general name for various sea fowl,"
. British birds. Birds. LETM5 " SCAMELS " IN SHAKESPERE'S " THE ; To the Editors of British Birds. Sirs,—Mr. Armstrong's ingenious suggestion {antea, p. 259), that the " young Scamels " which figure among CaUban's promised offerings to- Stephano are really SheKl-Ducks, though adding another to the already very long list oi" conjectural readings, is surely literally too far-fetched to be probable ; while his further suggestion that, possibly, " like our word ' Sea-gull,' as used popularly, ' Scamel ' was a general name for various sea fowl," is rendered most unlikely by the fact that this is the only known occurrence of the word (if it be a word) in all the vast body of Elizabethan literature. The editorial note to Mr. Arm- strong's letter, in preferring the reading " Stannels," follows Dyce, who pinned his faith to it mainly because Kestrels often nest " in rocky situations and high cliffs on our ; But both " Stannels " and " Sea-mells " ( Sea-mews) were originally suggested long ago- by the acute Theobald ; and, as experts state that palacographically there is nothing to choose between the two, the latter will certainly be preferred by many students of Elizabethan literature and ornithology. William Strachey in his letter describing the Bermudas (1610), which- was most probably one of Shakespere's sources for the " local colour " in " The Tempest," mentions " ; Moreover, in the account of the capture of his so-called " Sea-Owles " he refers to " our men standing upon the sands or ; The following passage from Richard Carew's The Survey of Cornwall (London, 1602, leaf 35), which I believe has never hitherto been cited in this connection, seems to me to offer still stronger support of the reading " ; After mentioning various coastal birds including " Meawes," " Mu
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