Year: 1879

The whip-poor-wi1 walks as awk-
wardly as a swallow, which is as awk-
ward as man in bag, and yet she
manages to lead her young about the
woods. The latter, think, move by
leaps and sudden spurts, their protec-
tive coloring shielding them most eff
fectively. Wilson once came upon the
| mother bird and her brood in the woods,
and, though they were at his very feet,
was so baffied by the concealment of the
young that he was about to give up the
search, much disappointed, when he
perceived something s'like slight mold
mess among the withered leaves and,
on STOPPING down, discovered it to be
young whip-poor-will, seemingly
asleep" Wilson's description of the
young is very accurate, as its downy
covering does look precisely like
'sslight moldiness.' Returning few
moments afterward to the spot to get
pencil he had forgotten, he could find
neither old nor young.


1t takes an eye to see q partridge in
the woods motionless upen the leaves;
this sense needs TO be as sharp as that
of smell in hounds and pointers, and
yet l know an unkempt youth that sell
dom fails to see the bird and shoot it
before it takes wing. l think he sees it
as soon as it sees him and before it sus-
poets itself seen. What training to
the eye is limiting! to pick out the game
from its surroundings, the grouse from
the leaves, the gray squirrel from the
messy oak-limb it hugs so closely, the
red fox from the ruddy or brown or
gray field, the rabbit from the stubble,
or the white hare from the snow, re-
quires the best powers of this sense. A
woodchuck, motionless in the fields or
upon a rock, looks very much like a
large stone or bowlder, yet keen eye
knows the difference at glance, a
quarter of a mile away.


A man has sharper eye than dog,
or fox, or than any of the wild crea-
lures, but not so sharp an ear or nose.
But in the birds he finds his match.
How quickly the old turkey discovers
the hawk, mere speck against the sky,
and how quickly the hawk discovers
you if you happen to be secreted in the
bushes or behind the fence near which
he alights. One advantage the bird
surely has, and that is owing to the
form, structure and position of the eye,
it has much larger field of vision-in-
deed, can probably see in nearly every
direction at the same instant, behind as
well as before. Mans field of vision
embraces less than half a circle hori-
zontally, and still less vertically; his
brow and brain prevent him from seeing
within many degrees of the zenith with
out a movement of the head; the bird,
on the other hand, takes in nearly the
whole sphere at a glance.


find l see, almost without effJrt,
nearly every bird within sight in the
field or wood l pass through "a fit of
the wing, flirt of the tail, are enough,
though the fiickering leaves do all con.
spire to hide them), and that with like
ease the birds sea me, though, unques-
tionably the chances are immensely in
their favor. The eye sees what it has
the means of seeing, truly. You must
have the bird in your heart before you
can find it in the bush. The eye must
have purpose and aim. No one ever
yet found the walking fern who did not
have the walking fern in his mind. A
person whose eye is full of Indian relics
picks them up in every field he walks
through.-John Bstrroughs's " Locasts
and Wlld Honey.