  BEFORE proceeding to examine the ornithology of Shakespeare, it may be well to take a glance at his knowledge of natural history in general. Pope has expressed the opinion that whatever object of nature or branch of science Shakespeare either speaks of or describes, it is always with competent if not with exclusive knowledge. His descriptions are always exact, his metaphors appropriate, and remarkably drawn from the true nature and inherent qualities of each subject. There can indeed be little doubt that Shakespeare must have derived the greater portion of his knowledge of nature from his own observation, and no one can fail to be delighted with the variety and richness of the images which he has by this means produced. Whether we accompany him to the woods and fields, midst “daisies pied and violets blue,” or sit with him “under the shade of melancholy boughs,” whether we A sportsman is oft-times more or less a naturalist. His rambles in search of game bring him in contact with creatures of such curious structure and habits, with insects and plants of such rare beauty, that the purpose of his walk is for the time forgotten, and he turns aside from sport, to admire and learn from nature. That Shakespeare was both a sportsman and a naturalist, there is much evidence to show. During the age in which he lived “hawking” was much in vogue. Throughout the Plays, we find frequent allusions to this sport, and the accurate employment of terms used exclusively in falconry, as well as the beautiful metaphors derived therefrom, prove that our poet had much practical knowledge on the subject. We shall have occasion later to discuss his knowledge of falconry at greater length. It will suffice for the present to observe that there are many passages in the Plays which to one unacquainted with the habits of animals and birds, or ignorant of hawking phraseology, would be wholly unintelligible, but which are otherwise found to contain the most beautiful and forcible metaphors. As instances of this may be cited Shakespeare, although a contemplative man, appears to have found but little “recreation” in fishing, and the most enthusiastic disciple of Izaak Walton would find it difficult to illustrate a work on angling with quotations from Shakespeare. He might refer us to Twelfth Night (Act ii. Sc. 5), where Maria, on the appearance of Malvolio, exclaims, “Here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling;” and to the song of Caliban in The Tempest (Act ii. Sc. 2), “No more dams I’ll make for fish.” Possibly, by straining a point or two, he might ask with Benedick, in Much Ado about Nothing (Act i. Sc. 1), “Do you play the flouting Jack?” But our poet seems to have considered— “The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream, And greedily devour the treacherous bait.” Much Ado, Act iii. Sc. 1.12 His forte lay more in hunting and fowling than in fishing,13 and in all that relates to deer-stalking (as practised in his day, when the deer was killed with cross-bow or bow and arrow), to deer-hunting with hounds, and to coursing, we find him fully informed. In the less noble art of bird-catching14 he was probably no mean adept, while the knowledge which he displays of the habits of our wild animals, as the fox, the badger, the weasel, and the wild cat, could only have been acquired by one accustomed to much observation by flood and field. On each of these subjects a chapter might be written, but it will suffice for our present purpose to draw attention only to some of the more remarkable passages in support of the assertions above made. Deer-shooting was a favourite sport of both sexes in Shakespeare’s day, and to enable the ladies to enjoy it in safety, “stands,” or “standings,” were erected in many parks, and concealed with boughs. From these the ladies with bow and arrow, or cross-bow, shot at the deer as they were driven past them by the keepers. Queen Elizabeth was extremely fond of this sport, and the nobility who entertained her in her different progresses, made large hunting parties, which she usually joined when the weather was favourable. She frequently amused herself in following the hounds. “Her Majesty,” says a courtier, writing to Sir Robert Sidney, “is well and excellently disposed to hunting, for every second day she is on horseback, and continues the sport long.”15 At this time Her Majesty had just entered the seventy-seventh year of her age, and was then at her palace at Oatlands. Often, when she was not disposed to hunt herself, she was entertained with a sight of the sport. At Cowdray Park, Sussex, then the seat of Lord Montagu (1591), Her Majesty one day after dinner saw “sixteen bucks, all having fayre lawe, pulled downe with greyhounds in a laund or lawn.”16 No wonder, then, that the ladies of England, with the royal example before their eyes, found such delight in the chase during the age of which we speak, and not content with being mere spectators, vied with each other in the skilful use of the bow. To this pastime Shakespeare has made frequent allusion. In Love’s Labour’s Lost, the first scene of the fourth act is laid in a park, where the Princess asks,— “Then, forester,17 my friend, where is the bush That we must stand and play the murtherer in?” To which the forester replies,— “Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice; A ‘stand’ where you may make the fairest shoot.” And in Henry VI. Part III. Act iii. Sc. 1,— “Under this thick-grown brake we’ll shroud ourselves; For through this laund anon the deer will come; And in this covert will we make our ‘stand,’ Culling the principal of all the deer.” Again, in Cymbeline (Act iii. Sc. 4), “When thou hast ta’en thy ‘stand,’ the elected deer before thee.” Other passages might be mentioned, but it will be sufficient to refer only to The Merry Wives of Windsor (Act v. Sc. 5), and to the song in As You Like It (Act iv. Sc. 2), commencing “What shall he have that kill’d the deer?” Deer-stealing in Shakespeare’s day was regarded only as a youthful frolic. Antony Wood (“Athen. Oxon.” i. 371), speaking of Dr. John Thornborough, who was admitted a member of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1570, at the age Shakespeare himself has been accused of this indiscretion. The story is first told in print by Rowe, in his “Life of Shakespeare”:—“He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and amongst them some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought somewhat too severely; and in order to revenge that ill-usage, he made a ballad upon him. And though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter, that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree, that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire, for some time, and shelter himself in London.” Mr. Staunton, in his library edition of Shakespeare’s Plays, says: “What degree of authenticity the story possesses will never probably be known. Rowe derived his version of it no doubt through Betterton; but Davies makes no allusion to the source from which he drew his “Then there is the pasquinade, and the unmistakable identification of Sir Thomas Lucy as Justice Shallow, in the Second Part of Henry IV., and in the opening scene of The Merry Wives of Windsor. The genuineness of the former may be doubted; but the ridicule in the Plays betokens a latent hostility to the Lucy family, which is unaccountable, except upon the supposition that the deerstealing foray is founded on facts.” The more legitimate sport in killing deer was by means of blood-hounds, and in The Midsummer Night’s Dream we are furnished with an accurate description of the dogs in most repute:— “My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew’d, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep away the morning dew; Crook-knee’d, and dew-lapp’d like Thessalian bulls; Slow in pursuit, but match’d in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tuneable Was never holla’d to, nor cheer’d with horn.” Act iv. Sc. 1. In the Comedy of Errors (Act iv. Sc. 2), Dromio of Syracuse alludes to “a hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry foot well,” and in the Taming of the Shrew we have the following animated dialogue:— “Lord. Saw’st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault? I would not lose the dog for twenty pound. Huntsman. Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord; He cried upon it at the merest loss, And twice to-day pick’d out the dullest scent: Trust me, I take him for the better dog.” Many more such instances might be adduced, but the reader might perhaps be tempted to exclaim, with Timon of Athens:— “Get thee away, and take thy beagles with thee.” Act iv. Sc. 3. We will therefore only glance at that amusing scene in the Merry Wives of Windsor (Act v. Sc. 5), where Falstaff appears in Windsor Forest, disguised with a buck’s head on. “Divide me,” says he, “like a brib’d-buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands.” We have here an allusion to the ancient method of “breaking up” a deer.18 “The fellow of this walk” is the forester, to whom it was customary on such occasions to present a shoulder. Dame Juliana Berners, in her “Boke of St. Albans,” 1496, says,— “And the right shoulder, wheresoever he be, Bere it to the foster, for that is fee.” And in Turbervile’s “Book of Hunting,” 1575, the distribution of the various parts of a deer is minutely described. The touching description of a wounded stag, in As You Like It, can scarcely escape notice. Alluding to “the melancholy Jaques,” one of the lords says,— “To-day my lord of Amiens and myself Did steal behind him, as he lay along Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood; To the which place a poor sequestred stag, That from the hunters’ aim had ta’en a hurt, Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord, The wretched animal heav’d forth such groans, That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat Almost to bursting; and the big round tears Cours’d one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool, Much marked of the melancholy Jaques, Stood on th’ extremest verge of the swift brook, Augmenting it with tears.” Act ii. Sc. 1. Although the deer, as the nobler animal, has received more attention from our poet than the fox and the hare, yet the two last-named are by no means forgotten:— “The fox [who] barks not when he would steal the lamb” (Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1); who, when he “hath once got in his nose,” will “soon find means to make the body follow” (Henry VI. Part III. Act iv. Sc. 7); and— “Who ne’er so tame, so cherish’d and lock’d up, Will have a wild trick of his ancestors” (Cymbeline, Act v. Sc. 2); receives his share of notice, although it is not always in his praise, and “subtle as the fox” has become a proverb (Cymbeline, Act iii. Sc. 3). From the “subtle fox” to the “timorous hare,” the transition is easy. What “more a coward than a hare”? (Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 5.) In Roxburgh and Aberdeen, as we learn from Jamieson’s “Scottish Dictionary,” a hare is termed “a bawd,” “Mercutio. A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho! Romeo. What hast thou found? Mercutio. No hare, sir.” Act ii. Sc. 4. That coursing was in vogue in Shakespeare’s day, and practised in the same way as at present, we may infer from such expressions as “a good hare-finder” (Much Ado, Act i. Sc. 1), “Holla me like a hare” (Coriolanus, Act i. Sc. 8), and “I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start” (Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 1). Rabbits were taken, and no doubt poached, in the same way then as now; for we read of the coney19 “that you see dwell where she is kindled” (As You Like It, Act iii. Sc. 2) struggling “in the net.” (Henry VI. Part III. Act i. Sc. 4.) The Brock20 or Badger (Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 5); We cannot forget Titania’s directions to her fairies in regard to Bats:— “Some war with rear mice24 for their leathern wings, To make my small elves coats” (Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act ii. Sc. 2); nor the comfortable seat which Ariel appears to have found “on the bat’s back” (Tempest, Act v. Sc. 1). The following striking passage must also be familiar to readers of Shakespeare:— “Ere the bat hath flown His cloister’d flight; ere, to black Hecate’s summons, The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums, Hath rung night’s yawning peal, There shall be done a deed of dreadful note.” Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 2. In a printed broadside of the time of Queen Anne, in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London, is the following curious fable relating to the Bat:—
In alluding to the “venom toad” as “mark’d by the destinies to be avoided,” Shakespeare probably only treated it as other writers had done before him, and, without any personal investigation of the matter, ranked it with the viper and other poisonous reptiles, when in fact it is perfectly harmless. The habit which the snake has, in common with other reptiles, of periodically casting its skin or slough, is frequently alluded to in the Plays, where that covering is sometimes called “the enamell’d skin” (Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act ii. Sc. 1); at other times the “casted slough” (Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1, and Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 4); and the “shining checker’d slough” (Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1). It is difficult to say why the Adder is supposed to be deaf, unless because it has no visible ears—but then the term would apply to other reptiles. Shakespeare has several times alluded to this. In the Second Part of King Henry VI. Act iii. Sc. 2, Queen Margaret asks the King,— “What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?” And in Troilus and Cressida, Act ii. Sc. 2, Hector says to Paris and Troilus,— “Pleasure and revenge Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice Of any true decision.” Again, in Sonnet CXII., “the adder’s sense” is referred to in such a way as to leave no doubt of the poet’s impression that adders do not hear. “Caliban.Sometime am I All wound with adders, who, with cloven tongues Do hiss me into madness.” Tempest, Act ii. Sc. 2. The “eyeless venom’d worm” referred to in Timon of Athens, Act iv. Sc. 3, is of course the Slow-worm (Anguis fragilis). The observant naturalist must doubtless have remarked the partiality evinced by snakes and other reptiles for basking in the sun. Shakespeare has noticed that— “The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun.” Titus Andronicus, Act ii. Sc. 3. And— “It is the bright day that brings forth the adder; And that craves wary walking.” Julius CÆsar, Act ii. Sc. 1. In Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 2, allusion is made to the wonderful vitality which snakes possess, and to the popular notion that they are enabled, when cut in two, to reunite the dissevered portions and recover:— “We have scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it; She’ll close and be herself.” Passing to the insect world, we may well be astonished at the number of species to which Shakespeare has alluded. Although the same attention has not been given to the insects as to the birds, the following have, nevertheless, been noted. Many others, doubtless, have been overlooked. The Beetle (Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 2; King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 6; Measure for Measure, Act iii. Sc. 1). The Grasshopper (Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. 4). The Cricket, (Pericles, Act iii. Introduction; Winter’s Tale, Act ii. Sc. 1; Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. 4; Cymbeline, Act ii. Sc. 2). The Glowworm (Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 5); and the Caterpillar (Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 4; Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1; Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc. 1; Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. 1). The Butterfly (Troilus and Cressida, Act iii. Sc. 3; Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act iii. Sc. 1); and Moth (Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 9; King John, Act iv. Sc. 1). The House-fly (Titus Andronicus, Act iii. Sc. 2). The small Gilded-fly (King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 6). The Blow-fly (Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act v. Sc. 2; Tempest, Act iii. Sc. 1); and the Gad-fly, or Brize (Troilus and Cressida, Act i. Sc. 3). The Grey-coated Gnat (Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. 4; Comedy of Errors, Act ii. Sc. 2); the Wasp (Taming of the Shrew, Act ii. Sc. 1; Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act i. Sc. 2; Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2); the Drone (Henry V. Act i. Sc. 2); and the Honey-bee (numerous passages). To three only of these shall we direct further attention: These three are the Bee, the Drone, and the Fly, and we select quotations in reference to these in order to illustrate Shakespeare’s knowledge of the subject on which he wrote; the lessons to be learnt from his allusions; and the sympathy which he has manifested for all living creatures. What better picture of the interior of a hive can be found than the following? How well are the duties of the inmates described! “For so work the honey bees, Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king, and officers of sorts: Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds; Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor; Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold, The civil citizens kneading-up the honey; The poor mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate; The sad-ey’d justice, with his surly hum, Delivering o’er to executors pale The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,— That many things, having full reference To one consent, may work contrariously; As many arrows, loosed several ways, Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town; As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea; As many lines close in the dial’s centre; So may a thousand actions, once afoot, End in one purpose, and be all well borne Without defeat.” Henry V. Act i. Sc. 2. “The lazy yawning drone” is frequently alluded to as the type of idleness and inactivity (Pericles, Act ii. Sc. 1; Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2). And we are counselled— “Not to eat honey, like a drone, From others’ labours.” Pericles, Act i. Sc. 4. Who does not remember the scene in which Titus Andronicus reproves his brother Marcus for killing a fly at dinner?— “Marcus. Alas, my lord, I have but kill’d a fly. Titus. But how if that fly had a father and mother? How would he hang his slender gilded wings, And buzz lamenting doings in the air! Poor harmless fly! That, with his pretty buzzing melody, Came here to make us merry! and thou hast kill’d him.” Titus Andronicus, Act iii. Sc. 2. This is but one of the many lessons taught us by Shakespeare in his allusions to the animal world, and the kindly spirit which characterizes all his dealings with animals is frequently exemplified throughout the Plays; perhaps nowhere so clearly as in Measure for Measure, Act iii. Sc. 1, where we are told— “The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies.” Probably enough has been said to show the reader that Shakespeare’s knowledge of natural history was by no means slight, and if it be thought to have been only general, it was, at all events, accurate. The use which he has made of this knowledge, throughout his works, in depicting virtue and vice in their true colours, in pointing out lessons of industry, patience, and mercy, and in The words of the banished Duke, in As You Like It (Act ii. Sc. 1), seem to no one so applicable as to Shakespeare himself. He— “Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” But to come to the Ornithology. The accurate observations on this subject, the apt allusions, and the beautiful metaphors to be met with throughout the Plays, may be said to owe their origin mainly to three causes. Firstly, Shakespeare had a good practical knowledge of Falconry, a pastime which, being much in vogue in his day, brought under his notice, almost of necessity, many wild birds, exclusive of the various species which were hawked at and killed. Secondly, he was a great reader, and, possessing a good memory, was enabled subsequently to express in verse ideas which had been suggested by older authors. Thirdly, and most important of all, he was a genuine naturalist, and gathered a large amount of information from his own practical observations. In all his walks, he evidently did not fail to note even the most trivial facts in natural history, and these were treasured up in his memory, to be called forth as occasion required, to be aptly and eloquently introduced into his works. Apart from the consideration that a poet may be expected, almost of necessity, to invoke the birds of song, Shakespeare has gone further, and displays a greater knowledge of ornithology, and a greater accuracy in his statements, than is generally the case with poets. How far we shall succeed in proving this assertion, it will be for the reader of the following pages to determine. Rabbit and Beagle |
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