INTRODUCTION.
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
follow him to “the brook that brawls along the wood,” or to that sea “whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege of watery Neptune,” we are alike instructed by his observations, and charmed with his apt descriptions. How often do the latter strike us as echoes of our own experience, sent forth in fitter tones than we could find.
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
that passage in Othello (Act iii. Sc. 3), where the Moor compares his suspected wife to a “haggard falcon,” and the hawking scene in Act ii. of the Second Part of King Henry VI.[11]
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—