XVII 



THE WAYS OF SPORTSMEN 



~r HAVE often had occasion to notice how much 

 -*- more intelligence the bird carries in its eye than 

 does the animal or quadruped. The animal will see 

 you, too, if you are moving, but if you stand quite 

 still even the wary fox will pass within a few yards 

 of you and not know you from a stump, unless the 

 wind brings him your scent. But a crow or a hawk 

 will discern you when you think yourself quite 

 hidden. His eye is as keen as the fox's sense of 

 smell, and seems fairly to penetrate veils and screens. 

 Most of the water-fowl are equally sharp-eyed. The 

 chief reliance of the animals for their safety, as well 

 as for their food, is upon the keenness of their scent, 

 while the fowls of the air depend mainly upon the 

 eye. 



A hunter out in Missouri relates how closely a 

 deer approached him one day in the woods. The 

 hunter was standing on the top of a log, about four 

 feet from the ground, when the deer bounded play- 

 fully into a glade in the forest, a couple of hundred 

 yards away. The animal began to feed and to move 

 slowly toward the hunter. He was on the alert, 

 but did not see or scent his enemy. He never took 



