210 LOVERS OF NATURE 



philosopher in the town with what the traders 

 would call a 'shocking bad hat ' on, but the 

 woman whose bonnet does not come up to the 

 mark is at best a blue- stocking." 



So clever an observation upon anything in 

 nature as that is hard to find in the Journals. 



To observe is to discriminate and take note 

 of all the factors. 



One day while walking in my vineyard, la- 

 menting the damage the storm of yesterday had 

 wrought in it, my ear caught, amid the medley 

 of other sounds and songs, an unfamiliar bird- 

 note from the air overhead. Gradually it 

 dawned upon my consciousness that this was 

 not the call of any of our native birds, but of a 

 stranger. Looking steadily in the direction the 

 sound came, after some moments I made out 

 the form of a bird flying round and round in a 

 large circle high in air, and momentarily utter- 

 ing its loud sharp call. The size, the shape, 

 the manner, and the voice of the bird were all 

 strange. In a moment I knew it to be an Eng- 

 lish skylark, apparently adrift and undecided 

 which way to go. Finally it seemed to make 

 up its mind, and then bore away to the north. 

 My ear had been true to its charge^ 



The man who told me that some of our birds 

 took an earth bath, and some of them a water 

 bath, and a few of them took both, had looked 

 closer into this matter than I had. The spar- 

 rows usually earth their plumage, but the Eng- 

 lish sparrow does both. The farm boy who 

 told a naturalist a piece of news about the tur- 



