54 SHARP EYES. 



(a flit of the wing, a flirt of the tail are enough, 

 though the flickering leaves do all conspire to hide 

 them), and that with like ease the birds see me, 

 though, unquestionably, the chances are immensely 

 hi their favor. The eye sees what it has the means 

 of seeing, truly. You must have the bird in your 

 heart before you can find it in the bush. The eye 

 must have purpose and aim. No one ever yet found 

 the walking fern who did not have the walking fern 

 in his mind. A person whose eye is full of Indian 

 relics picks them up in every field he walks through. 

 One season I was interested in the tree-frogs ; 

 especially the tiny pipers that one hears about the 

 woods and brushy fields the hylas of the swamps 

 become a denizen of the trees ; I had never seen him 

 in this new role. But this season having them in 

 mind, or rather being ripe for them, I several times 

 came across them. One Sunday, walking amid some 

 bushes, I captured two. They leaped before me as 

 doubtless they had done many times before, but though 

 not looking for or thinking of them, yet they were 

 quickly recognized, because the eye had been com- 

 missioned to find them. On another occasion, not 

 long afterward, I was hurriedly loading my gun in the 

 October woods in hopes of overtaking a gray squirrel 

 that was fast escaping through the tree tops, when 

 one of these lilliput frogs, the color of the fast-yellow- 

 ing leaves leaped near me. I saw him only out of 

 the corner of my eye and yet bagged him, because I 

 aad already made him my own. 



