The Audubon Societies 257 



Shakespeare's knowledge of birds was probably largely acquired during 

 his boyhood, in the well-wooded district of Warwickshire, which may account 

 for his failure to mention some then familiar species, as, for example, the Bus- 

 tard, though his omission of the Woodpecker or 'Laughing-hecco,' as it was 

 called, is less clear. Hummingbirds were unknown to him, a matter of regret, 

 when we reflect that the Spanish historian Gonzalo Ferdinando de Oviedo, in 

 his notable history of America, published at Seville in 1535, had given a delight- 

 ful and quite accurate description of them, and one calculated to seize the fancy 

 of a poet who conceived the revels of fairies and spirits with such grace as 

 Shakespeare. It is interesting to learn that Joseph Acosta, a Jesuit historian 

 and traveler, while in Peru (1582-83), observed Hummingbirds, which were, as 

 he naively says: "so small, that oftentimes I have doubted, seeing them flie, 

 whether they were bees or butterflies; but, in truth, they are birds." From the 

 pen of Antonio Galvano who resided in New Spain, as Mexico was then known, 

 comes the information that Hummingbirds "live of the dew, and the juyce of 

 flowers and roses. They die or sleepe every yeere in the moneth of October, sitting 

 upon a little bough in a warme and close place: they revive or wake againe in 

 the moneth of April after that the flowers be sprung, and therefore they caH 

 them the revived birds." 



Equally curious are the ideas then prevalent concerning the Pelican, which, 

 like the Flamingo, had been observed by Sir John Hawkins and other travelers. 

 In King Lear, Shakespeare speaks of Regan and Goneril as 'pelican daughters, ' 

 referring to the supposed habit of the mother bird of piercing her flesh with 

 her beak and feeding her young with her blood if other food could not be pro- 

 cured. In Richard II [ii, 7, 124], you will find another allusion to this same 

 notion. Hardly less fabulous, and more significant of the credulity of people 

 when the real life-history of a strange bird or creature is not known, is the fol- 

 lowing statement published in a treatise on animals toward the end of the last 

 century: "Wild animals come to the pehcan's nest to drink the water which 

 the parent bird brings in a sufficient quantity to last for many days. She carries 

 the water in her pouch, and pours it into the nest to refresh her young ones, 

 and to teach them to swim." 



Such curious misconceptions were not confined to foreign birds, for we find 

 that the Crane, once plentiful but becoming scarce, probably as a result of 

 being killed as game ("the crane was a customary dish at great entertainments 

 in the reign of Henry VIII"), was supposed to carry a stone in its mouth dur- 

 ing its migration-journey, in order to keep it quiet and to help it maintain a 

 steady flight. 



Shakespeare alludes frequently to the Cuckoo and the Owl, and the 

 Lark, Crow, Rook, Wren, Blackbird, Starling, Sparrow, Pigeon, Cock, 

 and other common species, are used by him in a familiar way that 

 indicates his close observation of their habits. The 'princely eagle,' or 'royal 

 bird,' as it was called by poets, was probably known to Shakespeare in the 



