. The bird, its form and function . ^ perhaps sunlight splashes,—nothing others which, like the Brown Creeper, haunt thetree-trunks of the forest, seem veritably to be but straybits of roughened bark creeping here and 306 The Bird Let us glance at one more bird upon her nest,—a Laugh-ing Gull. At a distance we see a shapeless blotch of whitesand among the reeds, that is all. We walk over a hundredother similar patches; but when near enough, we atlast are able to distinguish the dark head and wing-tips,all but invisible among the shadows, and even throughthe centre of the head
. The bird, its form and function . ^ perhaps sunlight splashes,—nothing others which, like the Brown Creeper, haunt thetree-trunks of the forest, seem veritably to be but straybits of roughened bark creeping here and 306 The Bird Let us glance at one more bird upon her nest,—a Laugh-ing Gull. At a distance we see a shapeless blotch of whitesand among the reeds, that is all. We walk over a hundredother similar patches; but when near enough, we atlast are able to distinguish the dark head and wing-tips,all but invisible among the shadows, and even throughthe centre of the head we can see two spots of light be-yond,—or no, it is the little subtle ring of white aboutthe eye! Two majestic Black-necked Swans may swim closelyalong in full view near the opposite bank of a pond, andyet be totally unrecognizable; showing to the eye asbodiless necks or neckless bodies, according to the chang-ing conditions of light and shade around them. We see a troop of ostriches rushing past. Surelynothing could hide bn-ds such as these! Again we seeone of these birds prone upon the ground, and a mightycreature towering eight feet or more above the earth,becomes naught but a dark ant-hill, which the photo-graph picks
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Keywords: ., bookauthorbeebewil, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1906
