UNDER THE ACORNS. 169 



•where it disappeared under some withering yellow 

 ferns. 



Of course I could easily have solved the problem 

 long before, merely by startling the bird ; but what 

 would have been the pleasure of that ? Any plough- 

 lad could have forced the bird to rise, and would have 

 recognized it as a pheasant ; to . me, the pleasure 

 consisted in discovering it under every difficulty. 

 That was woodcraft ; to kick .the bird up would have 

 been simply nothing at all. Now I found why I 

 could not see the pheasant's neck or body ; it was not 

 really concealed, but shaded out by the mingled hues 

 of white grasses, the brown leaves of the surface, and 

 the general gray-brown tints. Now it was gone, there 

 was a vacant space — its plumage had filled up that 

 vacant space with hues so similar, that, at no farther 

 distance than two yards, I did not recognize it by 

 colour. Had the bird fully carried out its instinct 

 of concealment, and kept its head down as well as 

 its body, I should have passed it. Nor should I have 

 seen its head if it had looked the other way ; the eye 

 betrayed its presence. The dark glittering eye, which 

 the sunlight touched, caught my attention instantly. 

 There is nothing like an eye in inanimate nature; 

 no flower, no speck on a bough, no gleaming stone 

 wet with dew, nothing, indeed, to which it can be 

 compared. The eye betrayed it ; I could not overlook 

 an eye. Neither nature nor inherited experience had 

 taught the pheasant to hide its eye ; the bird not only 

 wished to conceal itself, but to watch my motions, 

 and, looking up from its cover, was immediately 

 observed. 



