Chapter IV: Part III: Act i. Sc. 4.)

The Brock[20] or Badger (_Twelfth Night_, Act ii. Sc. 5); the Wild Cat who “sleeps by day” (_Merch. of Venice_, Act ii. Sc. 5, and _Pericles_, Act iii. Intro.); “the quarrelous Weasel” (_Cymbeline_, Act iii. Sc. 4, and _Henry IV._ Part I. Act ii. Sc. 3); “the Dormouse of little valour” (_Twelfth Night_, Act iii. Sc. 1); “the joiner Squirrel” (_Romeo and Juliet_, Act i. Sc. 4), whose habit of hoarding appears to have been well known to Shakespeare (_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, Act iv. Sc. 2); and “the blind Mole,” who “casts copp’d hills towards heaven” (_Pericles_, Act i. Sc. 1);[21]--all these are mentioned in their turn, while the Bat “with leathern wing,”[22] “the venom Toad,” “the thorny Hedgehog,”[23] “the Adder blue,” and the “spotted Snake with double tongue,” are all called in most aptly by way of simile or metaphor.

We cannot forget Titania’s directions to her fairies in regard to Bats:--

“Some war with _rear mice_[24] 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:--

“615. THE BIRDS AND BEASTS. A Fable.

“Once the Birds and Beasts strove for the prerogative: the neuter
Batt, seeing the Beasts prevail, goes to them and shows them her
large forehead, long ears, and teeth: afterwards, when the Birds
prevail’d, the Batt flies with the Birds, and sings chit, chit,
chat, and shows them her wings.

“Hence Beakless Bird, hence Winged Beast, they cry’d;
Hence plumeless wings; thus scorn her either side.

“LONDON. PRINTED FOR EDW. LEWIS,
FLOWER-DE-LUCE COURT, FLEET STREET. 1710.”

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: firstly, because a more extended notice of all would be beyond the limits of the present work; and, secondly, because the Entomology of Shakespeare has been already dealt with elsewhere.[25]

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 showing the profit to be derived from a study of natural objects, is everywhere apparent.

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.