ose, feeling of
every current of air, analyzing every scent to see if danger is
near. Apparently detecting something suspicious in the currents
that drift from my direction, she turns back, pauses again, works
her nose as before, then hurries out of my sight.

Yesterday I saw a rat stealing green peas from my garden in the
open day. He darted out of the stone wall six or eight feet away
to the row of peas, rushed about nervously among the vines; then,
before I could seize my rifle, darted back to the cover of the
wall. Once I cautiously approached his hiding-place in the wall
and waited. Presently his head emerged from the line of weeds by
the fence, his nose began working anxiously, he sifted and
resifted the air with it, and then quickly withdrew; his nose had
detected me, but his eye had not. The touchstone of most animals
is the nose, and not the eye. The eye quickly detects objects in
motion, but not those at rest; this is the function of the nose.

A highhole alights on the ground in full view in the orchard
twenty yards away, and, spying my motionless figure, pauses and
regards me long and intently. His eye serves him, and not his
nose. Finally concluding that I am not dangerous, he stoops to
the turf for his beloved ants and other insects, but lifts his
head every few seconds to see that no danger is imminent. Not one
moment is he off his guard. A hawk may suddenly swoop from the
air above, or a four-footed foe approach from any side. I have
seen a sharp-shinned hawk pick up a highhole from the turf in a
twinkling under just such conditions. What a contrast between the
anxious behavior of these wild creatures and the ease and
indifference of the grazing cattle!

All the wild creatures evidently regard me with mingled feelings
of curiosity and distrust. A song sparrow hops and flirts and
attitudinizes and peers at me from the door-sill, wondering if
there is any harm in me. A ph[oe]be-bird comes in and flits
about, disturbed by my presence. For the third or fourth time
this season, I think, she is planning a nest. In June she began
one over a window on the porch where I sleep in the open air. She
had the foundation laid when I appeared, and was not a little
disturbed by my presence, especially in the early morning, when I
wanted to sleep and she wanted to work. She let fall some of her
mortar upon me, but at least I had no fear of a falling brick.
She gradually got used to me, and her work was progressing in