180 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



case of stuffed birds those unlovely mementoes 

 of death in their gay plumes ? Who does not shud- 

 der, albeit not with fear, to see the wild cat, filled 

 with straw, yawning horribly, and trying to 

 frighten the spectator with its crockery glare? 

 I shall never forget the first sight I had of the 

 late Mr. Gould's collection of humming-birds (now 

 in the National Museum), shown to me by the 

 naturalist himself, who evidently took consider- 

 able pride in the work of his hands. I had just 

 left tropical nature behind me across the Atlantic, 

 and the unexpected meeting with a transcript of 

 it in a dusty room in Bedford Square gave me a 

 distinct shock. Those pellets of dead feathers, 

 which had long ceased to sparkle and shine, stuck 

 with wires not invisible over blossoming cloth 

 and tinsel bushes, how melancholy they made me 

 feel! 



Considering the bright color and great splendor 

 of some eyes, particularly in birds, it seems prob- 

 able that in these cases the organ has a twofold 

 use: first and chiefly, to see; secondly, to intimi- 

 date an adversary with those luminous mirrors, in 

 which all the dangerous fury of a creature brought 

 to bay is seen depicted. Throughout nature the 

 dark eye predominates; and there is certainly a 

 great depth of fierceness in the dark eye of a bird 

 of prey; but its effect is less than that produced 

 by the vividly-colored eye, or even of the white 

 eye of some raptorial species, as, for instance, 

 of the common South American hawk, Asturina 



