46 LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY 



Some friends of mine who lived in the country 

 tried to describe to me a bird that built a nest in 

 a tree within a few feet of the house. As it was a 

 brown bird, I should have taken it for a wood thrush, 

 had not the nest been described as so thin and loose 

 that from beneath the eggs could be distinctly seen. 

 The most pronounced feature in the description was 

 the barred appearance of the under side of the bird's 

 tail. I was quite at sea, until one day, when we 

 were driving out, a cuckoo flew across the road in 

 front of us, when my friends exclaimed, "There is 

 our bird ! " I had never known a cuckoo to build 

 near a house, and I had never noted the appearance 

 the tail presents when viewed from beneath; but if 

 the bird had been described in its most obvious fea- 

 tures, as slender, with a long tail, cinnamon brown 

 above and white beneath, with a curved bill, any 

 one who knew the bird would have recognized the 

 portrait. 



We think we have looked at a thing sharply until 

 we are asked for its specific features. I thought I 

 knew exactly the form of the leaf of the tulip-tree, 

 until one day a lady asked me to draw the outlines 

 of one. A good observer is quick to take a hint and 

 to follow it up. '^Most of the facts of nature, espe- 

 cially in the life of the birds and animals, are well 

 screened.^ We do not see the play because we do 

 not look intently enough. The other day I was sit- 

 ting with a friend upon a high rock in the woods, 

 near a small stream, when we saw a water-snake 

 swimming across a pool toward the opposite bank. 



