Note E405 — 64.*

"False birds can fetch the wind;" an expression taken from hawking. To fetch the wind, to take the wind (Bacon), and to have the wind are various forms of the same expression, the meaning of which is to gain or take an advantage. We still use the expression "to get to windward of another," meaning to get the better or advantage of him. Mavor reads, "false words can fetch the wind," i.e. slander will spread as though borne on the wind. I do not, however, know on what authority he has adopted this reading, as the text of 1577 gives "birds."