THE BIRDS OF SHAKESPEARE PUBLISHED BY JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW Publishers to the University. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. _New York_, _The Macmillan Co._ _Toronto_, _The Macmillan Co. of Canada_. _London_, _Simpkin, Hamilton and Co._ _Cambridge_, _Macmillan and Bowes_. _Edinburgh_, _Douglas and Foulis_. _Sydney_, _Angus and Robertson_. MCMXVI. THE BIRDS OF SHAKESPEARE BY SIR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, O.M. K.C.B., D.C.L., F.R.S. GLASGOW JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY 1916 GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. Preface The attentive reader of Shakespeare’s Poems and Plays can hardly fail to notice the remarkable frequency of the Poet’s allusions to Birds, not merely as a great Choir of songsters, enlivening the woods and fields With their varied music, but as individual creatures, each endowed with its own special characters. Shakespeare has drawn an assemblage of bird-portraits to which, for extent and variety, no equal is to be found in any other great English poet. Making ample use of what he had himself observed about Birds in their native haunts, and combining this personal knowledge with what he could obtain from literature and from popular fancy or superstition, he has employed the material thus gathered to illustrate, in many an apt simile and striking metaphor, his vivid presentation of the great drama of human life. If we compare him in this respect with either the poets who preceded or those who have followed him we learn that he stands apart from them all.