The Birds of Shakespeare 
Shakespeare had the good fortune to be 
born in one of the pleasantest and most 
varied districts of England, in the midst of 
fields and gardens, as well as wide tracts of 
woodland and heath, among sturdy farmer- 
folk, and simple peasantry. The face of 
open Nature lay spread out around him, 
and his earliest poems bear witness to the 
range and acuteness of his faculty of 
observation amid the fields and forests, the 
beasts and birds of his home. ‘The extent 
and accuracy of his acquaintance with law 
have been claimed as proof that he had 
passed through some legal training. There 
is sounder evidence that his remarkable 
familiarity with objects of natural history 
could not have been derived at second- 
hand from books, but was acquired from 
his own personal observation. His youth- 
ful surroundings in Warwickshire furnished 
him with ample opportunity of acquiring 
and cultivating this knowledge. Nor 
should it be forgotten that the London in 
6 
