NOTES BY THE WAT. 187 



In the 'same play, Maria, seeing Malvolio coming, 

 lays : 



"Here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling." 



Shakespeare, then, knew that fact so well known to 

 poachers, and known also to many an American 

 school-boy, namely, that a trout likes to be tickled, 

 or behaves as if he did, arid that by gently tickling 

 his sides and belly you can so mesmerize him, as it 

 were, that he will allow you to get your hands in 

 position to clasp him firmly. The British poacher 

 takes the jack by the same tactics ; he tickles the 

 jack on the belly ; the fish slowly rises in the water 

 till it comes near the surface, when the poacher hav- 

 ing insinuated both hands under him, he is suddenly 

 scooped out and thrown upon the land. 



Indeed, Shakespeare seems to have known inti- 

 mately the ways and habits of most of the wild creat- 

 ures of Britain. He had the kind of knowledge of 

 them that only the countryman has. In "As You 

 Like It," Jaques tells Amiens : 



" I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs." 

 Eveiy gamekeeper, and every farmer, for that matter, 

 knows how destructive the weasel and its kind are to 

 birds' eggs, and to the eggs of game birds and of do- 

 mestic fowls. 



In " Love's Labor J s Lost," Biron says of Boyet : 



" This fellow picks up wit as pigeons peas." 

 Pigeons do not pick up peas in this country, but they 

 io in England, and are often very damaging to the 



