It is surprising that so profuse and prodigal a poet as Shakespeare, and one so bold in his dealings with human nature, should seldom or never make a mistake in his dealings with physical nature, or take an unwarranted liberty with her. True it is that his allusions to nature are always incidental,--never his main purpose or theme, as with many later poets; yet his accuracy and closeness to fact, and his wide and various knowledge of unbookish things, are seen in his light "touch and go" phrases and comparisons as clearly as in his more deliberate and central work. In "Much Ado about Nothing," BENEDICK says to MARGARET:-- "Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth--it catches." One marked difference between the greyhound and all other hounds and dogs is, that it can pick up its game while running at full speed, a feat that no other dog can do. The foxhound, or farm dog, will run over a fox or a rabbit many tunes without being able to seize it. In "Twelfth Night" the clown tells VIOLA that "Fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings--the husband's the bigger." The pilchard closely resembles the herring, but is thicker and heavier, with larger scales. In the same play, MARIA, seeing MALVOLIO coming, says:-- "Here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling." Shakespeare, then, knew that fact so well known to poachers, and known also to many an American schoolboy, namely, that a trout likes to be tickled, or behaves as if he did, and that by gently tickling his sides and belly you can so mesmerize him, as it were, that he will allow you to get your hands in position to clasp him firmly. The British poacher takes the jack by the same tactics: he tickles the jack on the belly; the fish slowly rises in the water till it comes near the surface, when, the poacher having insinuated both hands under him, he is suddenly scooped out and thrown upon the land. Indeed, Shakespeare seems to have known intimately the ways and habits of most of the wild creatures of Britain. He had the kind of knowledge of them that only the countryman has. In "As You Like It," JAQUES tells AMIENS:-- "I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs." Every gamekeeper, and every farmer for that matter, knows how destructive the weasel and its kind are to birds' eggs, and to the eggs of game-birds and of domestic fowls. In "Love's Labor's Lost," BIRON says of BOYET:-- "This fellow picks up wit as pigeons peas." Pigeons dp not pick up peas in this country, but they do in England, and are often very damaging to the farmer on that account. Shakespeare knew also the peculiar manner in which they feed their young,--a manner that has perhaps given rise to the expression "sucking dove." In "As You Like It" is this passage:-- "CELIA. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau. "ROSALIND. With his mouth full of news. "CELIA. Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young.