mouldiness. Returning a few moments afterward to the spot to get a
pencil he had forgotten, he could find neither old nor young.

It takes an eye to see a partridge in the woods, motionless upon the
leaves; this sense needs to be as sharp as that of smell in hounds and
pointers, and yet I know an unkempt youth that seldom fails to see the
bird and to shoot it before it takes wing. I think he sees it as soon
as it sees him, and before it suspects itself seen. What a training to
the eye is hunting! to pick out the game from its surroundings, the
grouse from the leaves, the gray squirrel from the mossy oak limb it
hugs so closely, the red fox from the ruddy or brown or gray field, the
rabbit from the stubble, or the white hare from the snow, requires the
best powers of this sense. A woodchuck motionless in the fields or upon
a rock looks very much like a large stone or boulder, yet a keen eye
knows the difference at a glance, a quarter of a mile away.

A man has a sharper eye than a dog, or a fox, or than any of the wild
creatures, but not so sharp an ear or nose. But in the birds he finds
his match. How quickly the old turkey discovers the hawk, a mere speck
against the sky, and how quickly the hawk discovers you if you happen
to be secreted in the bushes, or behind the fence near which he
alights! One advantage the bird surely has, and that is, owing to the
form, structure, and position of the eye, it has a much larger field of
vision,--indeed, can probably see in nearly every direction at the same
instant, behind as well as before. Man's field of vision embraces less
than half a circle horizontally, and still less vertically; his brow
and brain prevent him from seeing within many degrees of the zenith
without a movement of the head; the bird, on the other hand, takes in
nearly the whole sphere at a glance.