ZOOLOGY IN TIME OF SHAKESPEARE 241 



famous passage on bees in " Henry V." is not an 

 accurate record of the economy of a hive, we may 

 infer that, unlike Virgil, unlike Maeterlinck, and 

 unlike Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Shakespeare never 

 kept a bee. After all it is the Archbishop of 

 Canterbury who is speaking, and I, who have 

 read the lives of many Archbishops of Canterbury, 

 cannot recall a really expert apiculturist amongst 

 them all. In his allusions to field sports, as in 

 so much else, he strikes one as amazingly com- 

 petent. He made, when we judge him by the 

 standard of his times, comparatively few mis- 

 takes ; his metaphors drawn from the animal 

 world were on the whole appropriate. In this 

 as in all other aspects of his genius he had " das 

 Gefiihl." 



Shakespeare certainly had a first-hand know- 

 ledge of falconry. In Elizabeth's time this sport 

 was " much esteemed and exercised. " People 

 of all classes eagerly took part in it. To quote 

 Mr. Harting : 



" The rank of the owner was indicated by the 

 species of bird which he carried. To a king 

 belonged the gerfalcon ; to a prince, the falcon 

 gentle ; to an earl, the peregrine ; to a lady, 



