ZOOLOGY IN TIME OF SHAKESPEARE 247 



" The wise gods seel our eyes " (" Antony and 

 Cleopatra/' III. xiii. 112). Note also " To seel 

 her father's eyes up close as oak " (" Othello/' 

 III. iii. 210), where Mr. Harting suggests the 

 reasonable emendation " close as hawks/' 



Altogether Shakespeare mentions between 

 seventy and eighty different birds, and as Pope 

 reminds us " with competent . . . knowledge." 

 His references to coursing are less numerous. 

 Coursing is one of the oldest sports of which we 

 have detailed record. Arrian, in A.D. 150, wrote 

 a treatise upon coursing the hare, and with the 

 true feeling of the sportsman says the coursers 

 " do not take their dogs out for the sake of catch- 

 ing a hare, but for the contest or sport of coursing, 

 and they are glad if the hare escapes/' When 

 matches were first made between the dogs is un- 

 known, but during the reign of Elizabeth, and 

 by her special command, " laws of the Leash or 

 Coursing " were drawn up by Thomas Duke 

 of Norfolk. One of the few references made by 

 Shakespeare to this sport is in the famous speech 

 to the English soldiers at the siege of Harfleur : 



"I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 

 Straining upon the start." 



("Henry V.," III. i. 31.) 



