52 SHARP EYES. 



prostrate body. She kept a shart eye out the mean 

 while to see if the ruse took, and if it did not, she was 

 quickly cured, and moving about to some other point, 

 tried to draw my attention as before. When followed 

 she always alighted upon the ground, dropping down 

 in a sudden peculiar way. The second or third day 

 both old and young had disappeared. 



The whip-poor-will walks as awkwardly as a swal- 

 low, which is as awkward as a man in a bag, and 

 yet she manages to lead her young about the woods. 

 The latter, I think, move by leaps and sudden spurts, 

 their protective coloring shielding them most effect- 

 ively. Wilson once came upon the mother-bird and 

 her brood in the woods, and, though they were at his 

 very feet, was so baffled by the concealment of the 

 young that he was about to give up the search, much 

 disappointed, when he perceived something " like a 

 slight moldiness among the withered leaves, and, on 

 stooping down, discovered it to be a young whip-poor- 

 will, seemingly asleep." Wilson's description of the 

 young is very accurate, as its downy covering does 

 look precisely like a " slight moldiness." Returning 

 a few moments afterward to the spot to get a pencil 

 he had forgotten, he could find neither old nor young. 



It takes an eye to see a partridge in the woods, 

 motionless upon the leaves ; this sense needs to be 

 as sharp as that of smell in hounds and pointers, and 

 yet I know an unkempt youth that seldom fails to 

 see the bird and shoot it before it takes wing. I 

 think he sees it as soon as it sees him, and before 



