118 RIVERBY 



II 



KEEN PERCEPTIONS 



Success in observing nature, as in so many other 

 things, depends upon alertness of mind and quick- 

 ness to take a hint. One's perceptive faculties must 

 be like a trap lightly and delicately set; a touch 

 must suffice to spring it. But how many people 

 have I walked with, whose perceptions were rusty 

 and unpracticed, — nothing less than a bear would 

 spring their trap! All the finer play of nature, all 

 the small deer, they miss. The little dramas and 

 tragedies that are being enacted by the wild crea- 

 tures in the fields and woods are more or less veiled 

 and withdrawn ; and the actors all stop when a spec- 

 tator appears upon the scene. One must be able to 

 interpret the signs, to penetrate the scenes, to j)ut 

 this and that together. 



Then nature speaks a different language from our 

 own ; the successful observer translates this language 

 into human speech. He knows the meaning of every 

 sound, movement, gesture, and gives the human 

 equivalent. Careless or hasty observers, on the 

 other hand, make the mistake of reading their own 

 thoughts or mental and emotional processes into na- 

 ture; plans and purposes are attributed to the wild 

 creatures which are quite beyond them. Some peo- 

 ple in town saw an English sparrow tangled up in a 

 horsehair, and suspended from a tree, with other 

 sparrows fluttering and chattering about it. They 

 concluded at once that the sparrows had executed 



