The Good Observer Of Nature

John Burroughs contributos to tho March Centuiy an interesling paper on Signa and soasons. In speakiug of observers of Datare Mr. Burroughs perlinently gftys: The gooil observer of nature exists in fragmenta, a trait here and a trait there. Eaeh person seos wht it concerns him to sec. The fox-hunter knows prelty well the wavs and habita of the fox. but on any other subject ho is apt to misload you. He comes to see only fox traits in whatever lic looksupon. Thebee-hunter vvill follow the beo, but lose the bird. The farmer notes what afl'ects his crops and his earnings, and little else. Common people, St. Pierre says, observe without reasoning, and the learncd reason without observing. If one could app!jT to the observation of nature the skill of the South American rastreador, or trailer, how much lic would track liome. This man's eye is kecner tlian a hound's scent. A fugitivo can no more elude him than he can elude fate. His porcoptions aro said to be so keen that the displacement of a leaf or pebblo, or tho bending down of a spire of grass, or the removal of a little dust from the fence are enough to givo him tho clew. He secs the ha'.f-obliterated foot-prints of a thief in the sand, and carnes the impression in his eye tall a year afterward, when lio agajn deteets it in the suburbs of a city, and the culpnt is tracked homo and caught. 1 knew :i man blind froni his youth who not only went about his own neighborhood without a guide, turning up to hifi neighbor'8 gato or door as unerringly as if lie liad tho bost of oyes, but who would go many miles on an orraud to a new part of the country. He Beemed to carvy a map of tho township in the bottom of his fcet, a niost minuto and accurate survey. He never took tlio wrong road, and he knew tho right house when he liad reached it. Ho was :i miller and fuller, and ran his mili at night whilo his sons ran it by day. Ho never made a mistake with his customers' bags or wool, knowing oach man's by the sense of touch. He frightened a colored man whom he detootod stealiñg, as if lie had seen out of tho back of his lioad. Such íactB show ono how delicate. and sensitivo a man's relatioh to ontward nature through his bodily sonsos may boeomc. Heighton it a little more, and he could forocast tho weather and the seisons, and detect liiddon springs anl minoráis. A good observer has somothing of this delicacy and quickness of perception. All the groat poets and naturalists havo it. Agassiü traces the glaciors liko 11 rastreador, and Darwin missen no stop that the slow but tiroless gods of Tphysical oliango have laken, no matter how they cross or retraco thcir courso. In the obscure íisii-worm he sees m agent that lias kneadod and leavoned the soil like giant liands.