SIGHT IN SAVAGES 169 



In the following case the savage was right. I 

 pointed out an object, dark, far off, so low down 

 as to be just visible above the tall grasses, passing 

 with a falling and rising motion like that of a 

 horseman going at a swinging gallop. " There 

 goes a mounted man," I remarked. "No a 

 traru," returned my companion, after one swift 

 glance; the trarii being a large, black, eagle-like 

 bird of the plains, the carancho of the whites 

 Polyborus tharus. But the object was not neces- 

 sarily more distinct to him than to me ; he could 

 not see wings and beak at that distance ; but the 

 traru was a familiar object, which he was accus- 

 tomed to see at all distances a figure in the land- 

 scape which he looked for and expected to find. It 

 was only a dark blot on the horizon; but he knew 

 the animal's habits and appearance, and that 

 when seen far off, in its low down, dilatory, rising 

 and falling flight, it simulates the appearance of 

 a horseman in full gallop. To know this and a 

 few other things was his vocation. If one had set 

 him to find a reversed little "s" in the middle of 

 a closely-printed page the tears would have run 

 down his brown cheeks, and he would have aban- 

 doned the vain quest with aching eyeballs. Yet 

 the proofreader can find the reversed little "s" 

 in a few moments, without straining his sight. 

 But it is infinitely more important to the savage 

 of the plains than to us to see distant moving ob- 

 jects quickly and guess their nature correctly. His 

 daily food, the recovery of his lost animals, and 



