PREFACE 
no other author, perhaps, has more been written 
than of Shakespeare. Yet whatever other knowledge 
his commentators professed, few of them appear to have 
been naturalists, and none, so far as I am aware, have 
examined his knowledge of Ornithology. 
An inquiry upon this subject, undertaken in the first 
instance for my own amusement, has resulted in the 
bringing together of so much that is curious and enter¬ 
taining, that to the long list of books already published 
about Shakespeare, I have been bold enough to add yet 
another. In so doing, I venture to hope that the reader 
may so far appreciate the result of my labour as not to 
consider it superfluous. 
As regards the treatment of the subject, a word or two 
of explanation seems necessary. In 1866, from the notes 
I had then collected, I contributed a series of articles on 
the birds of Shakespeare to The Zoologist . In these 
articles, I referred only to such birds as have a claim to be 
considered British, and omitted all notice of domesticated 
