Surroundings of his Boyhood 
which he spent the active years of his 
middle life, was a comparatively small 
town. Open country lay within a short 
walking distance from any part of it. 
Heaths and woodlands, with all their riches 
of animal life, extended almost up to its 
outskirts. So that even in the height of 
his busy theatrical career the dramatist 
could easily, at any interval of leisure, 
renew his acquaintance with the face of 
Nature which he dearly loved. 
An attentive study of Shakespeare’s 
dramas supplies probable indications of 
some of his early observations among 
natural history objects. When, for in- 
stance, he makes Benedick assert that 
Claudio had committed 
the flat transgression of a school-boy, who, being 
overjoyed with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his 
companion, and he steals it,} 
he probably could remember incidents of 
that kind among the boys at the grammar 
1 Much Ado about Nothing, 1. i. 197. 
7 
