38 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



larger than to human eyes. This has been held to 

 explain why creatures smaller and weaker than man, 



like hares and rabbits, flee desperately at 

 T f W*m eS his a PP roac k a reasonable habit if all men 

 Creatures ^ th em are as giants. One's sympathies 



would go out to the rabbit if he sees foxes 

 as horses, and weasels as foxes. If birds' eyes have 

 magnifying power, many miracles of flight and of 

 feeding would seem natural. The swift passage of 

 birds through obstacles that appear to our eyes to 

 be almost impenetrable is something of a miraculous 

 nature. Without a moment's survey of difficulties 

 or direction, a bird flashes through a jungle where 

 there is no possible way for it to be found by human 

 eyes. The blackbird flies shrieking in and out of a 

 dense hedge of thorns ; but not a feather is ruffled 

 in the course of his intricate flight. Or watch the 

 jay or the sparrow-hawk passing at speed through an 

 almost solid network of twigs and stems. The human 

 eye cannot properly follow this performance by the 

 sparrow-hawk ; a swish and a streak of bluish grey, 

 and it is gone. Many a bold jay, finding itself caught 

 between beaters and guns, has saved its life by this 

 wonderful power of flight at speed, going away with- 

 out giving the slightest chance for a shot ; it will 

 dash out of a wall of undergrowth on one side of a 

 ride sheer into another wall. No doubt the jay 

 knows to an inch which is the shortest cut out of 

 man's sight. Hardly less wonderful than birds' 

 flight through crowded obstacles is the way in which 



