Shakespeare knew the flowers, too, and knew their times and seasons:—
"When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight."
They have, in England, the cuckoo-flower, which comes in April and is lilac in color, and the cuckoo-pint, which is much like our "Jack in the pulpit;" but the poet does not refer to either of these (if he did, we would catch him tripping), but to buttercups, which are called by rural folk in Britain "cuckoo-buds."
In England the daffodil blooms in February and March; the swallow comes in April usually; hence the truth of Shakespeare's lines:—
"Daffodils,
That come before the swallow
dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty."
The only flaw I notice in Shakespeare's natural history is in his treatment of the honey-bee, but this was a flaw in the knowledge of the times as well. The history of this insect was not rightly read till long after Shakespeare wrote. He pictures a colony of bees as a kingdom, with
"A king and officers of sorts"
(see "Henry V."), whereas a colony of bees is an absolute democracy; the rulers and governors and "officers of sorts" are the workers, the masses, the common people. A strict regard to fact also would spoil those fairy tapers in "Midsummer Night's Dream,"—
"The honey-bags steal from the
humble-bees,
And, for night-tapers, crop their
waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery
glow-worm's eyes,"—
since it is not wax that bees bear upon their thighs, but pollen, the dust of the flowers, with which bees make their bread. Wax is made from honey.