THE ART OF SEEING THINGS 



the other. The mother turkey with her brood sees 

 the hawk when it is a mere speck against the sky; 

 she is, in her solicitude for her young, thinking of 

 hawks, and is on her guard against them. Fear 

 makes keen her eye. The hunter does not see the 

 hawk till his attention is thus called to it by the 

 turkey, because his interests are not endangered; 

 but he outsees the wild creatures of the plain and 

 mountain, — the elk, the antelope, and the moun- 

 tain-sheep, — he makes it his business to look for 

 them, and his eyes carry farther than do theirs. 



We may see coarsely and vaguely, as most 

 people do, noting only masses and unusual ap- 

 pearances, or we may see finely and discriminat- 

 ingly, taking in the minute and the specific. In 

 a collection of stuffed birds, the other day, I ob- 

 served that a wood thrush was mounted as in the 

 act of song, its open beak pointing straight to the 

 zenith. The taxidermist had not seen truly. The 

 thrush sings with its beak but slightly elevated. 

 Who has not seen a red squirrel or a gray squirrel 

 running up and down the trunk of a tree? But 

 probably very few have noticed that the position of 

 the hind feet is the reverse in the one case from 

 what it is in the other. In descending they are 

 extended to the rear, the toe-nails hooking to the 

 bark, checking and controlling the fall. In most 

 pictures the feet are shown well drawn up under 

 the body in both cases. 



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