in this new
role. But this season having them in mind, or rather being ripe for
them, I several times came across them. One Sunday, walking amid some
bushes, I captured two. They leaped before me as doubtless they had done
many times before, but though not looking for or thinking of them, yet
they were quickly recognized, because the eye had been commissioned to
find them. On another occasion, not long afterward, I was hurriedly
loading my gun in the October woods in hopes of overtaking a gray
squirrel that was fast escaping through the treetops, when one of these
Lilliput frogs, the color of the fast-yellowing leaves, leaped near me.
I saw him only out of the corner of my eye, and yet bagged him, because
I had already made him my own.

Nevertheless, the habit of observation is the habit of clear and
decisive gazing; not by a first casual glance, but by a steady,
deliberate aim of the eye are the rare and characteristic things
discovered. You must look intently and hold your eye firmly to the spot,
to see more than do the rank and file of mankind. The sharpshooter picks
out his man and knows him with fatal certainty from a stump, or a rock,
or a cap on a pole. The phrenologists do well to locate not only form,
color, weight, etc., in the region of the eye, but a faculty which they
call individuality--that which separates, discriminates, and sees in
every object its essential character. This is just as necessary to the
naturalist as to the artist or the poet. The sharp eye notes specific
points and differences,--it seizes upon and preserves the individuality
of the thing.

* * * * *

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, especially in the life of the birds and animals, are
well screened. We do not see the play, because we do not look intently
enough.

* * * * *

Birds, I say, have wonderfully keen eyes. Throw a fresh bone or a piece
of meat upon the snow in winter, and see how soon the crows will
discover it and be on hand. If it be near the house or barn, the crow
that first discovers it will alight near it, to make sure that he is not
deceived; then he will go away and soon return with a com