18 SHARP EYES. 
questionably, 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 whe 
did not have the walking fern in his mind. A per- 
son whose eye is full of Indian relics picks them up in 
every field he walks through. 
One season I was interested in the tree-frogs; espe- 
cially the tiny pipers that one hears about the woods 
and brushy fields — the hylas of the swamps become 
a denizen of the trees; I had never seen him in this 
new role. But this season having them in mind, or 
rather being ripe for them, I several times came across 
them. One Sunday, walking amid some bushes, I 
captured two. They leaped before me as doubtless 
they had done many times before; but though not 
looking for or thinking of them, yet they were quickly 
recognized, because the eye had been commissioned to 
find them. On another occasion, not long afterward, 
I was hurriedly loading my gun in the October woods 
in hopes of overtaking a gray squirrel that was 
fast escaping through the tree-tops, when one of these 
lilliput frogs, the color of the fast-yellowing leaves, 
leaped near me. I saw him only out of the corner of 
my eye and yet bagged him, because I had already 
made him my own. 
Nevertheless, the habit of observation is the habit’ 
of clear and decisive gazing. Not by a first casual 
glance, but by a steady deliberate aim of the eye are 
the rare and characteristic things discovered. You 
must look intently and hold your eye firmly to the 
spot, to see more than do the rank and file of man- 
kind. The sharp-shooter picks out his man and knows 

