What? Really?
```
>>> import cartopy.io.shapereader as shp
>>> LAKES_PATH = shp.natural_earth(resolution='110m',
...                                category='physical',
...                                name='lakes')
>>> 
>>> reader = shp.Reader(LAKES_PATH)
>>> type(reader.fields)
<type 'list'>
>>> reader.fields 
[('DeletionFlag', 'C', 1, 0), ['scalerank', 'N', 10, 0], ['featurecla', 'C', 32, 0], ['name', 'C', 254, 0], ['name_alt', 'C', 254, 0], ['admin', 'C', 50, 0]]
```