760 
THE BIRDS THAT WE SEE. 
lied forth expressly to escape. I think 
it is Ruskiii who says, “Ten men can 
think for one that can speak, and ten 
men can sj^eak for one that can see.” 
Children have in perfection this won¬ 
derful power of seeing, and it is only 
by continued neglect and suppression, 
that, as we grow older, we succeed in 
depriving ourselves of this precious 
gift. Afterward, the power is regained 
only by hard study and continued 
practice, and the artist who sees colors, 
and the naturalist who sees living ob¬ 
jects, have merely succeeded in recov¬ 
ering the j)erceptive powers of their 
childhood, with the addition of names 
for the things seen. They have suc¬ 
ceeded also, in conferring on themselves 
one of the greatest and most elevating 
of j)leasures, something whose delights, 
and even existence, are unknown to 
the class represented by that worn-out 
Roman debauchee who vainly offered a 
fortune for a new sensation. 
The seven birds seen by the “ blind 
man,” shall I call him ? were, the com¬ 
mon black crow, the lawn-frequenting 
robin, the ubiquitous English sparrow, 
some swallows flitting about the barns, 
a woodpecker on an old apjde tree, a 
singing thmsh, and a hawk sailing high 
above the elms. But since each of the 
last four names represents several dif¬ 
ferent birds, our untrained observer 
cannot claim to have definitely seen 
more than three. This, compared with 
sixty odd, is a poor showing, but these 
figures fairly represent the two ex¬ 
tremes of the power to observe ; and 
though a long training was necessary 
to perfect the equipment of our natur¬ 
alist, it will 1)6 fomid that almost any¬ 
one may quickly acquire the skill to 
see and know at least twenty or twen¬ 
ty-five of the common birds that were 
observed that morning. Let us also go 
over the ground, trusting that if our ob¬ 
servations do not quite allow us to claim 
sixty birds, w^e shall at least get beyond 
the seven of the inferior observer. 
The common crow is a bird that few 
can mistake. Its great size, black color, 
and loud voice claiin attention every¬ 
where, while its high intelligence, and 
the almost military organization of its 
tribe, show a brain development unsur¬ 
passed in any of our birds. 
The mere fact that so conspicuous a 
bird continues to dwell and multij^lj 
throughout our highly cultivated coun- 
tiy, in spite of guns, traj^s, poisons, and 
unremitting, relentless j^ersecution, is 
the highest 230 ssible jjroof of its fitness 
for the great struggle. The crow was 
originally a woodland bird, but has 
suited itself readily to the mixed coun¬ 
try that Eastern America now affords, 
and is probably as numerous as ever. 
In j)rimitive days, when all Eastern 
America was a great forest, and all the 
central region a great j^lain, the distri¬ 
bution of birds was somewhat different 
from what it is now. Eor we know 
that the artificial destruction of forest, 
and extension of the oj)en country tow¬ 
ard the Atlantic, have resulted in the 
eastward spread of many 2)rairie birds, 
such as the shorelark and the bobolink, 
and a corresjDonding retreat of such 
purely forest birds as the j)ileated and 
ivory - billed wood2)eckers. But there 
are several which, like the crow, were 
originally forest birds, and yet have 
not in any sense retreated from their 
changed, ancestral domain, but are 
found to this day in every jDart of their 
former haunts which still retain a jDor- 
tion of their woodland shelter. 
One of these, the blue jay, esca2)ed 
altogether the observation of the “ blind 
man,” yet was quite as interesting to 
the naturalist as the semi-cmlized and 
highly intelligent crow. He heard it 
that morning, long before seeing it; 
the loud cry of “jay, jay,” announced its 
name to all the world, before the bright 
blue flash across the 02)ening in the 
grove, showed just where this cousin 
of the crow was foraging. 
In the days of the early pioneers the 
cries of the jay received more than 
passing notice, for they gave the hun¬ 
ters a general idea of what was astir in 
the woods, and whether it was owl, fox 
lynx, or prowling Indian he could not 
escape the watchful blue jay, Avhich 
failed not to 2)nblish the news for him 
that had ears to hear. Of course it 
was not easy to tell from the jay’s cry, 
precisely what foe had alarmed hin/ 
but the skiKul hunter could often do 
so, and he learned, at least, to be on the 
alert whenever he heard the blue jay’s 
warning. 
