SHARP EYES. 45 



piped for an hour longer ; then he committed himself 

 to his wings and went his way like the rest. 



A young farmer in the western part of New York, 

 who has a sharp, discriminating eye, sends me some 

 interesting notes about a tame high-hole he once had. 



"Did you ever notice," says he, "that the high- 

 hole never eats anything that he cannot pick up with 

 his tongue ? At least this was the case with a young 

 one I took from the nest and tamed. He could 

 thrust out his tongue two or three inches, and it was 

 amusing to see his efforts to eat currants from the 

 hand. He would run out his tongue and try to stick 

 it to the currant ; failing in that, he would bend his 

 tongue around it like a hook and try to raise it by a 

 sudden jerk. But he never succeeded, the round 

 fruit would roll and slip away every time. H never 

 seemed to think of taking it in his beak. His tongue 

 was in constant use to find out the nature of every- 

 thing he saw; a nail-hole in a board or any sim- 

 ilar hole was carefully explored. If he was held 

 near the face he would soon be attracted by the eye 

 and thrust his tongue into it. In this way he gained 

 the respect of a number of half-grown cats that were 

 around the house. I wished to make them familiar 

 to each other, so there would be less danger of their 

 killing him. So I would take them both on my knee, 

 when the bird would soon notice the kitten's eyes, 

 and leveling his bill as carefully as a marksman lev- 

 els his rifle, he would remain so a minute when he 

 would dart his tongue into the cat's eye. This was 



