20 
INTRODUCTION. 
“ Marcus. Alas, my lord, I have but kill’d a fly. 
Titus. But how if that fly had a father and mother ? 
How would he hang his slender gilded wings, 
And buzz lamenting doings in the air! 
Poor harmless fly! 
That, with his pretty buzzing melody, 
Came here to make us merry! and thou hast 
kill’d him.” 
Titus Andronicus , Act iii. Sc. 2. 
This is but one of the many lessons taught us by 
Shakespeare in his allusions to the animal world, and the 
kindly spirit which characterizes all his dealings with 
animals is frequently exemplified throughout the Plays ; 
perhaps nowhere so clearly as in Measure for Measzire, 
Act iii. Sc. i, where we are told— 
“ The sense of death is most in apprehension ; 
And the poor beetle that we tread upon, 
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great 
As when a giant dies.” 
Probably enough has been said to show the reader that 
Shakespeare’s knowledge of natural history was by no 
means slight, and if it be thought to have been only 
general, it was, at all events, accurate. The use which he 
has made of this knowledge, throughout his works, in 
depicting virtue and vice in their true colours, in pointing 
out lessons of industry, patience, and mercy, and in 
