The Birds of Shakespeare 
school of Stratford. At all events, that 
he himself had known the excitements of 
bird-nesting may be fairly inferred from 
the following passage: 
Unreasonable creatures feed their young ; 
And though man’s face be fearful to their eyes, 
Yet, in protection of their tender ones, 
Who hath not seen them, even with those wings 
Which sometime they have used with fearful flight, 
Make war with him that climb’d unto their nest, 
Offering their own lives in their young’s defence ? ? 
As a concomitant of his love of outdoor 
life it was natural and almost inevitable 
that the future dramatist should become a 
sportsman. There does not appear to be 
any good reason to question the truth of 
the tradition that in his youth he joined 
his Stratford companions in poaching Sir 
Thomas Lucy’s deer in Charlecote Park. 
When he wrote the following lines we can 
well imagine that he had some of his own 
escapades in mind: 
What, hast not thou full often struck a doe, 
And borne her cleanly by the keeper’s nose ?* 
13 Henry VI, 1. ii. 26, 2 Titus Andronicus, it. 1. 93. 
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