18 SHARP EYES. 



questionably, the chances are immensely in 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 per- 

 son 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 ; espe- 

 cially the tiny piper that one nears about the woods 

 and brushy fields — the hyla of the swamps become 

 a denizen of the trees ; I had never seen him in this 

 new role. But this season, having hylas in mind, or 

 rather being ripe for them, I several times came across 

 them. One Sunday, walking amid some bushes, I cap- 

 tured two. They leaped before me as doubtless they 

 had done many times before ; but though I was not 

 looking for or thinking of them, yet they were quickly 

 recognized, because the eye had been commissioned 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-yellowing leaves, 

 leaped near me. I saw him only out of the corner of 

 my eye and yet bagged him, because I had already 

 made him my own. 



Nevertheless, the habit of observation is the habit 

 of clear and decisive gazing. Not by a first casual 

 glance, but by a steady deliberate aim of the eye are 

 the rare and characteristic things discovered. You 

 must look intently and hold your eye firmly to the 

 spot, to see more than do the rank and file of man- 

 kind. The sharp-shooter picks out his man and knows 



