248 What Birds Have Done With Me 



poles. I knew them as telegraph poles, they all 

 looked alike, there was no question of the cor- 

 rectness of my identification of them, but there 

 was a lot of facts concerning them of which I 

 knew nothing. For many years I was the owner 

 of two hundred and fifty sheep. I knew that they 

 were sheep and looked much alike and there was 

 no question of the correctness of my identification 

 of the kind of animal that I called a sheep. How- 

 ever, my knowledge did not stop with a few facts, 

 as it did in the case of the telegraph poles, for all 

 my life I had a close and intimate acquaintance 

 with sheep, beginning with a single individual when 

 I was a lad. I came to know this individual so 

 well that when more were added and I became 

 the owner of a little flock, each remained an indi- 

 vidual, and when, much later in life, I owned the 

 big flock, each had its individuality as much as two 

 hundred horses I have owned and a thousand head 

 of cattle. 



I knew my horses and cattle by name, and the 

 faces and voices and personality of every sheep 

 in my flock. Just as soon as you come to 

 know things as individuals, they cease to look 

 alike. I was making an address not so long ago 

 to an audience of tourists, most of whom were 

 well past middle life and few of whom I knew 

 personally, and I remember of having thought 

 that among them was a general resemblance great- 



