The present little volume was written as a Presidential Address to the Haslemere Natural History Society, and was read to the members on March 9th of the present year. The approach of the Shakespeare Tercentenary having brought the poet and his writings more closely to the mind, it appeared to me not inappropriate that a company of naturalists should be asked to consider how one branch of the subjects in which they are more specially interested had been treated by the greatest poet of all time. The Address was nearly finished when I came, for the first time, upon the excellent and exhaustive _Ornithology of Shakespeare_, by Mr. James Harting, published in 1871. I would gladly have availed myself of this volume had I known of it sooner, but I gleaned from it a few quotations which in my search through the Poems and Plays I had missed. My object, however, was somewhat different from that author’s. Approaching the subject from the literary rather than the scientific side, I desired to show that Shakespeare’s delight in birds and bird-music was not less keen than that of Chaucer and the earlier poets, and at the same time to point out how detailed was his acquaintance with birds, and how wide the range of similitudes which he drew from them to the great enrichment of our literature. I have ventured also to illustrate the change of poetic mood since his time in regard to Nature by citing three poems on Birds by three of the great poets of last century. The _Cambridge Shakespeare_ of W. Aldis Wright is the text from which my citations are made. I have to thank Messrs. Gurney and Jackson for their courtesy in supplying some clichés taken from the illustrations in the useful _Manual of British Birds_ by my friend the late Mr. Howard Saunders, in which the text-figures are so faithful and at the same time artistic. In all humility I desire to lay this little Tercentenary offering at the shrine of the “Sweet Swan of Avon.” SHEPHERDS’ DOWN, HASLEMERE, _1st August, 1916_. List of Illustrations PAGE THE EAGLE 32 THE PEREGRINE FALCON 40 THE COMMON BUZZARD 42 THE KITE 46 THE CORMORANT 48 THE BARN OWL 56 THE CUCKOO 58 THE QUAIL 62 THE LAPWING 64 THE MALLARD 72 THE RAVEN 74 THE CHOUGH 78 THE STARLING 80 THE MAGPIE 88 THE JAY 90 THE TURTLE DOVE 94 THE SONG-THRUSH 96