TOUCHES OF NATURE 61 



you cannot catch an animal's eye; he looks at you, 

 but not into your eye. The dog directs his gaze 

 toward your face, but, for aught you can tell, it 

 centres upon your mouth or nose. The same with 

 your horse or cow. Their eye is vague and in- 

 definite. 



Not so with the birds. The bird has the human 

 eye in its clearness, its power, and its supremacy 

 over the other senses. How acute their sense of 

 smell may be is uncertain; their hearing is sharp 

 enough, but their vision is the most remarkable. 

 A crow or a hawk, or any of the larger birds, will 

 not mistake you for a stump or rock, stand you 

 never so still amid the bushes. But they cannot 

 separate you from your horse or team. A hawk 

 reads a man on horseback as one animal, and reads 

 it as a horse. None of the sharp-scented animals 

 could be thus deceived. 



The bird has man's brain also in its size. The 

 brain of a song-bird is even much larger in propor- 

 tion than that of the greatest human monarch, and 

 its life is correspondingly intense and high-strung. 

 But the bird's eye is superficial. It is on the out- 

 side of his head. It is round, that it may take in 

 a full circle at a glance. 



All the quadrupeds emphasize their direct for- 

 ward gaze by a corresponding movement of the ears, 

 as if to supplement and aid one sense with another. 

 But man's eye seldom needs the confirmation of his 

 ear, while it is so set, and his head so poised, that 

 his look is forcible and pointed without being thus 

 seconded. 



