OBSERVATION ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 199 



we say to the skill which forms engines of battle, 

 such as these, and packs them by millions in an inch 

 of thread, not for the useless display of power, but for 

 the defence and sustentation of creatures which Om- 

 niscience has devised and Omnipotence has created? 



The naturalist has learned to see beauty where 

 others see ugliness ; nay, he can see what puts him in 

 raptures, where the uninitiated eye discerns nothing. 

 It is curious to note the difference between the in- 

 structed and the uninstructed sense ; between the 

 perception sharpened by habitual use, and by strong 

 desire, and the same perception in its ordinary, and 

 what we may call its passive exercise. The latter 

 takes in a wider range, but the impressions it receives 

 are proportionally vague, and their duration brief; 

 while the details altogether escape notice. The for- 

 mer discerns little, except what bears upon its imme- 

 diate object ; but within that sphere nothing escapes 

 it. Instead of the wide but indefinite diffusion of 

 the perceptive faculty, there is here the concentration 

 of.it upon some object or series of objects, which are 

 discerned with vivid intensity, and a corresponding 

 isolation from all other, irrevelant, objects. 



A remarkable example of this combination of con- 

 centration with isolation, is mentioned in Lander's 

 " North of Europe/' " A man set off one morning 

 to shoot the Tjader, or Cock of the Woods, which is 

 effected in this wise : the bird is so extremely shy, 

 that he may rarely be met with, except in the pairing 



