20 SHARP EYES. 



Some friends of mine who lived in the country tried 

 to describe to me a bird that built a nest in a tree 

 within a few feet of the house. As it was a brown 

 bird, I should have taken it for a wood-thrush, had 

 not the nest been described as so thin and loose that 

 from beneath the eggs could be distinctly seen. The 

 most pronounced feature in the description was the 

 barred appearance of the under side of the bird's tail. 

 I was quite at sea, until one day, when we were driv- 

 ing out, a cuckoo flew across the road in front of us^ 

 when my friends exclaimed, " There is our bird ! " I 

 had never known a cuckoo to build near a house, and 

 I had never noted the appearance the tail presents 

 when viewed from beneath ; but if the bird had been 

 described in its most obvious features, as slender, with 

 a long tail, cinnamon brown above and white beneath, 

 with a curved bill, any one who knew the bird would 

 have recognized the portrait. 



We think we have looked at a thing sharply until 

 we are asked for its specific features. I thought I 

 knew exactly the form of the leaf of the tulip-tree, 

 until one day a lady asked me to draw the outline of 

 one. A good observer is quick to take a hint and to 

 follow it up. Most of the facts of nature, especially 

 in the life of the birds and animals, are well screened. 

 We do not see the play because we do not look in- 

 tently enough. The other day I was sitting with a 

 friend upon a high rock in the woods, near a small 

 stream, when we saw a water-snake swimming across 

 a pool toward the opposite bank. Any eye would 

 have noted it, perhaps nothing more. A little closer 

 and sharper gaze revealed the fact that the snake bore 

 something in its mouth, which, as we went down to 

 investigate, proved to he a small cat-fish, three oit 



