The Birds of Shakespeare 
which it haunted. He refers to the sudden 
uprise and flight of 
The wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,} 
and to the autumnal movement of these 
fowl to the larger waters, a fact known 
even to Lear’s fool, who remarks : 
The winter’s not gone yet if the wild geese fly 
that way.” 
The rapidity with which these birds dis- 
appear when they take wing was likewise 
familiar knowledge. ‘The melancholy 
Jaques claims that if a man whom he 
censures does not deserve reproof, 
Why then my taxing, like a wild goose, flies, 
Unclaim’d of any man.® 
The difficulty of circumventing i bird 
is conveyed in the proverbial expression 
“a wild-goose chase,” which was well 
known in the time of Elizabeth. Mercutio 
retorts to Romeo : 
1 Midsummer-Night’s Dream, 1. il. 20. 
2 King Lear, i. iv. 45. 
3 As You Like t, 1. vii. 86. 
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