THE TRUE INTENT OF OBSERVING NATURE. 57 



This little incident has a moral for us in two ways. One is, that often 

 the apparent rarity of an animal comes from the fact that we do not know 

 where to look for it ; and the other, that it requires a practised eye to 

 recognize it when at last it comes to light. Many instances of the first 

 named "moral" might be quoted from the history of American birds. 

 There is a sparrow (Centronyx bairdi), now common enough in the col- 

 lections of museums, and whose habits are well known, which for thirty 

 years after its first discovery on the Upper Missouri by Audubon, kept 

 itself out of sight. Sprague's lark, of the same region, affords another 

 similar instance. 



Practise your methods of observation, then, without ceasing. In no 

 other way can you make discoveries, and the cultivation of the habit will 

 be of inestimable advantage to you in many ways. 



This is the merest hint of how, without going away from home, by 

 always keeping his eyes open, a man or a boy or a girl can study, to 

 the great advantage and enjoyment not only of himself (or herself), but 

 to the help of all the rest of us. I should like to tell you how patiently 

 this naturalist friend of mine watches the ways of the wary birds and 

 small game he loves ; how those sunfish and shy darters forget that he 

 is looking quietly down through the still water, and go on with their 

 daily Hfe as he wants to witness it ; how he drifts silently at midnight, 

 hid in his boat, close to the timid heron, and sees him strike at his prey ; 

 or how, concealed in the topmost branches of a leafy tree, he overlooks 

 the water-birds drilling their little ones, and smiles, at the play of a pair 

 of rare otters, whose noses would not be in sight an instant did they 

 suppose any one was looking at them. 



But I cannot recount all his vigils and ingenious experiments, or the 

 entertaining facts they bring to our knowledge, since my object now is 

 only to give a suggestion of how much one man may do and learn on a 

 single farm in the most thickly settled part of the United States. ""What 

 you seek in vain for half your life," said Thoreau, "one day you come 

 full upon all the family at dinner." 



And yet, as Emerson well remarked, none knew better than Thoreau 

 that it is not the fact that imports, but the impression or effect of the fact 

 on your mind. "Let tne suggest a theme for you," Thoreau writes to a 

 friend — " to state to yourself precisely and completely what that walk 

 over the mountains amounted to for you." 



