The Bird's-Eye View. 185 



even at 2,000 feet a soaring bird would be unnoticed 

 by, and perhaps invisible to, the traveller, while it is 

 quite likely that a number of vultures would remain at 

 that height, at wide intervals no doubt, forming a 

 chain of observation extending far over the country. 

 One bird swoops downward. The movement is fol- 

 lowed by others in their turn, until the news of plunder 

 has been spread perhaps for fifty miles. 



Most of the higher orders of animals, no doubt, 

 possess in a state of nature far-reaching powers of 

 sight. The hunter who has followed the chamois 

 among its native mountains knows well the keenness 

 of its vision. But it is probable that birds excel all 

 other creatures in this as in the power of flight. 



The epithet ' lynx-eyed ' is based upon a misconcep- 

 tion. The word does not really refer to the beast at 

 all, but to Lynceus, the Argonaut, the hero of the 

 Calydonian Hunt, whose power of finding treasure in 

 the bowels of the earth first brought the word into 

 existence. 



Even the smaller birds have vision far before our 

 feeble powers. If we watch a flock of starlings picking 

 up without a moment's pause a harvest from the 

 meadow, and then, driving them away, examine the 

 spot which they found so productive, we shall in all 

 probability see nothing but the grass of the field 

 where the industrious and keen-eyed birds were glean- 

 ing a sufficient feast of flies, and grubs, and centipedes, 

 too small for the casual observer to discover. 



