NONSUCH 



binoculars down to the beach. They are brob- 

 dignagian opera-glasses, mighty double-barrels, 

 weighing 16 pounds, each tube 22 inches long, and 

 with revolving eye-pieces of 12, 20 and 40 diameters. 



I set them up on the tripod, arranged a com- 

 fortable seat and focused. For two score years I 

 have been peering at wild birds through glasses of 

 one kind or another, but one glance now and I 

 realized that I had never yet really seen a wild bird. 

 The 12-power eye-piece gave me the same magni- 

 fication as my largest field-glasses, which as I have 

 said, are too powerful to use satisfactorily without 

 a rest. But here the illumination was almost of the 

 naked eye in full sunlight. Then I turned the 20- 

 power into alignment and it is a wonder that 

 my exclamation did not clear the beach of bird 

 hfe. 



The naked eye saw a confused group too far 

 away for certain identification ; the Number 3's per- 

 mitted recognition of all but the smaller sandpipers, 

 but through the twin telescopes the field was com- 

 pletely filled by a quartet of tumstones, a sanderling 

 and two semipalmated sandpipers. Never satisfied, 

 I turned on the 40 diameters but could not get a 

 clear focus — I was too close ! After all, this was a 

 telescope, not a hand lens. 



I found that from my laboratory porch on Non- 

 such I could focus on Castle Island, which was over 

 1300 yards, or three-quarters of a mile away, and 

 with a favorable light I could readily distinguish 

 between the sexes of house sparrows and even of 



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