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, and weight, in the region of the eye, but
also 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.

Persons frequently describe to me some bird they have seen or heard,
and ask me to name it, but in most cases the bird might be any one of a
dozen, or else it is totally unlike any bird found on this continent.
They have either seen falsely or else vaguely. Not so the farm youth
who wrote me one winter day that he had seen a single pair of strange
birds, which he describes as follows: "They were about the size of the
'chippie;' the tops of their heads were red, and the breast of the male
was of the same color, while that of the female was much lighter; their
rumps were also faintly tinged with red. If I have described them so
that you would know them, please write me their names." There can be
little doubt but the young observer had, seen a pair of redpolls,--a
bird related to the goldfinch, and that occasionally comes down to us
in the winter from the far north. Another time, the same youth wrote
that he had seen a strange bird, the color of a sparrow, that alighted
on fences and buildings as well as upon the ground, and that walked.
This last fact showed the youth's discriminating eye and settled the
case. From this and the season, and the size and color of the bird, I
knew he had seen the pipit or titlark. But how many persons would have
observed that the bird walked instead of hopped?