Death of a Naturalist (1966) is a collection of poems written by Seamus Heaney, who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The work consists of 34 short poems and is largely concerned with childhood experiences and the formulation of adult identities, family relationships, and rural life.

The collection begins with one of Heaney's best-known poems, "Digging", and includes the acclaimed "Death of a Naturalist" and "Mid-Term Break".

The poem makes extensive use of onomatopoeia and a simile that compares the behaviour of the amphibians to warfare ("Some sat poised like mud grenades") amongst other techniques.

[2] He describes his parents' different ways of displaying grief, visitors paying their respects, and his encounter of his brother's corpse in its coffin the next morning.

[3] It addresses themes of time and history and the cyclical nature of the two through the narrator's characterization of his grandfather digging in the bog on their family farm.

He also states that he rhymes "to see myself", echoing the common theme found in the poem "Digging" that he uses poetry to understand the depths of the well and his reflection within it.

In this quote he parallels himself to Narcissus, a hunter in Greek Mythology who is cursed to fall in love with his own reflection by the goddess Nemesis after he shuns Echo, an Oread nymph.

John Unterecker of The New York Times Book Review stated that he found some poems possessed "a wit that is sometimes heavy-handed".