SHARP EYES 19 



him with fatal certainty from a stump, or a rock, or a 

 cap on a pole. The phrenologists do well to locate, not 

 only form, color, and weight, in the region of the eye, 

 but also a faculty which they call individuality — that 

 which separates, discriminates, and sees in every object 

 its essential character. This is just as necessary to 

 the naturalist as to the artist or the poet. The sharp 

 eye notes specific points and differences, — it seizes 

 upon and preserves the individuality of the thing. 



Persons frequently describe to me some bird they 

 have seen or heard and ask me to name it, but in most 

 cases the bird might be any one of a dozen, or else 

 it is totally unlike any bird found on this continent. 

 They have either seen falsely or else vaguely. Not 

 so the farm youth who wrote me one winter day that 

 he had seen a single pair of strange birds, which he 

 describes as follows: "They were about the size of 

 the ' chippie,' the tops of their heads were red, and 

 the breast of the male was of the same color, while 

 that of the female was nmch lighter ; their rumps 

 were also faintly tinged with red. If I have described 

 them so that you would know them, please write me 

 their names." There can be little doubt but the 

 young observer had seen a pair of red-polls, — a bird 

 related to the goldfinch, and that occasionally comes 

 down to us in the winter from the far north. Another 

 time, the same youth wrote that he had seen a strange 

 bird, the color of a sparrow, that alighted on fences 

 and buildings as well as upon the ground, and that 

 walked. This last fact showed the youth's discrimi- 

 nating eye and settled the case. I knew it to be a 

 species of the lark, and from the size, color, season, 

 etc., the tit-lark. But how many persons would have 

 observed that the bird walked instead of hopped ? 



