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20 - Walden - Henry David Thoreau · Logic Library

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Chapter fifteen Winter animals. When the ponds were firmly frozen, they afforded not
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only new and shorter roots to many points, but new views from their surfaces
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of the familiar landscape around them. When I crossed Flint's Pond after it was
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covered with snow, though I had often paddled about and skated over it,
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it was so unexpectedly wide and so strange that I could think of nothing but
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Baffin's Bay. The Lincoln Hills rose up around me at the extremity of a
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snowy plain in which I did not remember to have stood before, And the
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fishermen, at an indeterminable distance over the ice, moving slowly about with their
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wolfish dogs, passed for sealers or eskimo, or in misty weather, loomed
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like fabulous creatures, and I did not know whether they were giants or pigmies.
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I took this course when I went to lecture in Lincoln in the evening,
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traveling in no road and passing no house. Between my own hut and
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the lecture room in Goose Pond, which lay in my way, a colony
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of muskrats dwelt and raised their cabins high above the ice, though none could
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be seen abroad when I crossed it, Walden being like the rest, usually
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bare of snow, or with only shallow and interrupted drifts on It was my
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yard where I could walk freely when the snow was nearly two feet deep on
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a level elsewhere, and the villagers were confined to their streets. There far
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from the village street, and except at very long intervals from the jingle of
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sleigh bells, I slid and skated as in a vast moose yard, well
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trodden overhung by oak woods and solemn pines bent down with snow or bristling with
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icicles. For sounds. In winter nights, and often in winter days,
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I heard the forlorn but melodious note of a hooting owl, indefinitely far,
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such a sound as the frozen earth would yield if struck with a suitable plectrum,
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the very lingua vernacula of Walden wood, and quite familiar to me.
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At last, Though I never saw the bird while it was making it,
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I seldom opened my door in a winter evening without hearing it. Hoo hoo,
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hoo, hoo hoo sounded sonorously, and the first three syllables accented a
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somewhat like how der do or sometimes hoo hoo. Only one night, in
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the beginning of winter, before the pond froze over, about nine o'clock,
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I was startled by the loud honking of a goose, and stepped to the
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door. Heard the sound of their wings like a tempest in the woods as
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they flew low over my house. They passed over the pond toward fair Haven,
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seemingly deterred from settling by my light there commodore, honking all the while
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with a regular beat. Suddenly, an unmistakable cat owl from very near me,
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with the most harsh and tremendous voice I ever heard from any inhabitant of
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the woods, responded at regular intervals to the goose, as if determined to
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expose and disgrace this intruder from Hudson's Bay by exhibiting a greater compass and volume
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of voice in a native and boohoo him out of concord horizon? What do
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you mean by alarming the citadel at this time of night? Consecrated to me?
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Do you think I am ever caught napping at such an hour? And
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that I have not got lungs and alarnics as well? As yourself. Woo
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ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo. It was one of the most thrilling discords I
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ever heard. And yet if you had a discriminating year, there were in
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it the elements of a concord, such as these plains never saw nor heard.
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I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great
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bedfellow in that part of concord, as if it were restless in its bed
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and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and had dreams. Or
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I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if
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some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would
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find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third
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of an inch wide. Sometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the
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snow crust in moonlight nights in search of a partridge or other game, barking
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raggedly and demoniacally, like forest dogs, as if laboring with some anxiety or
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seeking expression, struggling for light, and to be dogs outright and run freely
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in the streets. For if we take the ages into our account, may
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there not be a civilization going on among brutes as well? As men.
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They seemed to me to be rudimental burrowing men, still standing on their defense,
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awaiting their transformation. Sometimes one came near to my window, attracted by
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my light, barked a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated. Usually
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the red squirrel Siurius Hudsonius waked me in the dawn, coursing over the roof
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and up and down the sides of the house, as if sent out of
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the woods for this purpose. In the course of the winter, I threw
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out half a bushel of ears of sweet corn, which had not got ripe,
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onto the snow crust by my door, and was amused by watching the
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motions of the various animals which were baited by it. In the twilight and
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the night, the rabbits came regularly and made a hearty meal. All day
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long, the red squirrels came and went, and afforded me much entertainment by
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their maneuvers. One would approach, at first warily through the shrub oaks,
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running over the snow crust by fits and starts, like a leaf blown by
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the wind. Now a few paces this way with wonderful speed and waste of
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energy, making inconceivable haste with his trotters, as if it were for a
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wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting on more
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than half a rod at a time, and then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous
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expression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all the eyes in the universe were
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eyed on him. For all the motions of a squirrel, even in the
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most solitary recesses of the forest, imply spectators as much as those of a
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dancing girl, wasting more time and delay and circumspection than would have sufficed to
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walk the whole distance I never saw one walk. And then suddenly, before
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you could say Jack Robinson, he would be in the top of a young
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pitch pine, winding up his clock and chiding all imaginary spectators, soliloquising and
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talking to all the universe at the same time, for no reason that I
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could ever detect, or he himself was aware of. I suspect. At
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length he would reach the corn, and, selecting a suitable ear, frisk
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about in the same uncertain trigonymmetrical way, to the topmost stick of my wood
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pile before my window, where he looked me in the face, and there
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sit for hours, supplying himself with a new ear, from time to time,
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nibbling at first voraciously and throwing the half naked cobs about, till at
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length he grew more dainty still and played with his food, tasting only the
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inside of the kernel, and the ear, which was held balanced over the
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stick by one paw, slipping from his careless grasp, and fell to the
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ground when he would look over at it with a ludicrous expression of uncertainty,
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as if suspecting that it had life, with a mind not made up whether
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to get it again or a new one, or be off now thinking of
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corn, then listening to hear what was in the wind. So the little
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impudent fellow would waste many an year in a forenoon, till at last,
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seizing some longer and plumper one considerably bigger than himself, and skillfully balancing it,
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he would set out with it to the woods like a tiger with a
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buffalo, by the same zig zag course and frequent pauses, scratching along with
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it as if it were too heavy for him, and falling all the while
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making its fall a diagonal between a perpendicular and horizontal, being determined to put
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it through at any rate. A singularly frivolous and whimsical fellow, and so
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he would get off with it to where he lived, perhaps carry it to
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the top of a pine tree forty or fifty rods distant, and I would
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afterwards find the cobs strewn about the woods in various directions. At length the
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jays arrive, whose discordant screams were heard long before, as they were warily
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making their approach an eighth of a mile off, and in a stealthy and
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sneaking manner, they flit from tree to tree, nearer and nearer, and
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pick up the kernels which the squirrels have dropped. Then, sitting on a
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pitch pine bough, they attempt to swallow in their haste a kernel which is
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too big for their throats and chokes them, And after great labor, they
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disgorge it and spend an hour in the endeavor to crack it by repeated blows
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with their bills. They were manifestly thieves, and I had not much respect
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for them. But the squirrels, though at first shy, went to work
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as if they were taking what was their own. Meanwhile, mile also came
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the chickadees in flocks, which picking up the crumbs the squirrels had dropped,
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flew to the nearest twig, and, placing them under their claws, hammered
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away at them with their little bills as if it were an insect in the
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bark, till they were sufficiently reduced for their slender throats. A little flock
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of these tit mice came daily to pick a dinner out of my woodpile,
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or the crumbs at my door, with faint, flitting, lisping notes like
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the tinkling of icicles in the grass, or else with sprightly day day day,
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or more rarely, in spring like days, a wiry summery phoebe from
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the woodside. They were so familiar that at length one alighted on an armful
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of wood which I was carrying in and pecked at the sticks without fear.
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I once had a sparrow a light upon my shoulder for a moment while I
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was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished
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by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
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The squirrels also grew at last to be quite familiar, and occasionally stepped
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upon my shoe when that was the nearest way, when the ground was not
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yet quite covered. And again near the end of winter, when the snow
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was melted. On my south hillside and about my woodpile, the partridges came
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out of the woods morning and evening to feed there. Whichever side you walk
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in the woods, the partridge bursts away on whirring wings, jarring the snow
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from the dry leaves and twigs on high which comes sifting down in the sunbeams
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like golden dust. For this brave bird is not to be scared by winter.
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It is frequently covered up by drifts, and it is said sometimes plunges
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from on wing into the soft snow, where it remains concealed for a day
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or two. I used to start them in the open land also where they
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had come out of the woods at sunset, to bud the wild apple trees.
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They will come regularly every evening to particular trees where the cunning sportsman lies
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in wait for them, and the distant orchards next the woods suffer. Thus
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not a little I am glad that the partridge gets fed at any rate.
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It is nature's own bird which lives on buds and diet drink. In dark
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winter mornings or in short winter afternoons, I sometimes heard a pack of hounds
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threading all the woods with hounding cry and yelp, unable to resist the instinct
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of the chase, and the note of the hunting horn at intervals, proving
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that man was in the rear. The woods ring again, and yet no
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fox bursts forth on to the open level of the pond, nor following pack
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pursuing their actaeon and perhaps at evening I see the hunters returning with a single
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brush, trailing from their sleigh for a trophy, seeking their inn. They
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tell me that if the fox would remain in the bosom of the frozen earth,
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he would be safe, or if b would run in a straight line
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away, no foxhound could overtake him. But having left his pursuers far behind,
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he stops to rest and listen till they come up, And when he
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runs, he circles round to his old haunts, where the hunter await him.
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Sometimes, however, he will run upon a wall many rods, and
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then leap off far to one side, and he appears to know that water
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will not retain his scent. A hunter told me that he once saw fox
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pursued by hounds, burst out on to Walden, when the ice was covered
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with shallow puddles, run part way across, and then return to the same
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shore. Ere long the hounds arrived, but here they lost the scent.
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Sometimes a pack hunting by themselves would pass my door and circle round my house
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and yelp and hound without regarding me, as if afflicted by a species of
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madness, so that nothing could divert them from the pursuit. Thus they circle
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until they fall upon the recent trail of a fox. For a wise hound
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will forsake everything else for this. One day a man came to my hut
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from Lexington to inquire after his hound that made a large track and had been
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hunting for a week by himself. But I fear that he was not the
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wiser for all I told him, for every time I attempted to answer his
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questions, he interrupted me by asking what do you do here? He had
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lost a dog, but found a man, one old hunter who has a
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dry tongue, who used to come to bathe in Walden once every year when
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the water was warmest, and at such times looked in upon me. Told
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me that many years ago he took his gun one afternoon and went out for
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a cruise in Walden Wood, and as he walked the Wayland road, he
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heard the cry of hounds approaching, and ere long a fox leaped the wall
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into the road, and as quick as thought leaped the other wall out of
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the road, and his swift bullet had not touched him. Some behind came
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an old hound and her three pups in full pursuit, hunting on their own
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accord, and disappeared again in the woods. Late in the afternoon, as
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he was resting in the thick woods south of Walden he heard the voice of
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the hounds far over toward fair Haven, still pursuing the fox, and on
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they came their hounding cry, which made all the woods ring, sounding nearer
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and nearer, now from well Meadow, now from the Baker farm. For
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a long time he stood still and listened to their music, so sweet to
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a hunter's ear, when suddenly the fox appeared, threading the solemn aisles with
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an easy coursing pace, whose sound was concealed by a sympathetic rustle of the
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leaves, swift and still keeping the round, leaving his pursuers far behind,
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and leaping upon a rock amid the woods. He sat erect and listening,
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with his back to the hunter. For a moment compassion restrained the latter's arm,
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But that was a short lived mood, and as quick as thought can
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follow thought, his peace was leveled, and whang, the fox, rolling
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over the rock, lay dead on the ground. The hunter still kept his
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place and listened to the hounds. Still on they came, and now the
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near woods resounded through all their aisles with their demoniac cry. At length,
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the old hound burst into view, with muzzle to the ground and snapping the
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air as if possessed, and ran directly to the rock. But spying the
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dead fox, she suddenly ceased her hounding, as if struck dumb with amazement,
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and walked round and round him in silence. And one by one her
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pups arrived, and, like their mother, were sobered into silence by the
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mystery. Then the hunter came forward and stood in their midst, and the
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mystery was solved. They waited in silence while he skinned the fox, then
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followed the brush awhile and at length turned off into the woods again. That
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evening, a Western squire came to the Concord Hunter's cottage to inquire for his
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hounds, and told how for a week they had been hunting on their own
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account from Western Woods. The Concord hunter told him what he knew and offered
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him the skin, but the other declined it and departed. He did not
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find his hounds that night, but the next day learned that they had crossed
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the river and put up at a farm house for the night, whence,
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having been well fed, they took their departure early in the morning. The
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hunter who told me that, could remember one Sam Nutting, who used to
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hunt bears on fair Haven ledges and exchange their skins for rum in Concord village,
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who told him even that he had seen a moose there. Nutting had
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a famous foxhound named Burgoyne. He pronounced it Bogeen, which my informant used
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to borrow. In the wast book of an old trader of this town,
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who was also a captain, town clerk and representative, I find the following
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entry January eighteenth, seventeen forty two forty three John Melvin, credited by one
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Gray Fox zero two three. They are not now found here, and in
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his ledger February seventh, seventeen forty three Hezekiah Stratton has credit by one half
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a cat skin zero one four plus of course a wild cat, for Stratton
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was a sergeant in the Old French War, and would not have got credit
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for hunting less noble game. Credit is given for deer skins also, and
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they were daily sold. One man still preserves the horns of the last deer
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that was killed in this vicinity, and another has told me the particulars of
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the hunt in which his uncle was engaged. The hunters were formerly a numerous
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and merry crew. Here. I remember well one gaunt nimrod who would catch
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up a leaf by the roadside and play a strain on it, wilder and
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more melodious, if my memory serves me, than any hunting horn. At
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midnight when there was a moon, I sometimes met with hounds in my path,
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prowling about the woods, which would skulk out of my way as if
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afraid, and stand silent amid the bushes till I had passed. Squirrels and
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wild mice disputed for my store of nuts. There were scores of pitch pines
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around my house, from one to four inches in diameter, which had been
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gnawed by mice the previous winter. A Norwegian winter for them, for the
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snow lay long and deep, and they were obliged to mix a large proportion
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of pine bark with their other diet. These trees were alive and apparently flourishing
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at midsummer, and many of them had grown afoot, though completely girdled.
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But after another winter such were, without exception dead. It is remarkable that
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a single mouse should thus be allowed a whole pine tree for its dinner,
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gnawing round instead of up and down it. But perhaps it is necessary in
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order to thin these trees, which are wont to grow up densely. The
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hares Lepus americanus were very familiar. One had her form under my house all
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winter, separated from me only by the flooring, and she startled me each
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morning by her hasty departure when I began to stir, thump, thump,
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thump, striking her head against the floor timbers in her hurry. They used
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to come round my door at dusk to nibble the potato pairings which I had
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thrown out, and were so nearly the color of the ground that they could
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hardly be distinguished. When still. Sometimes in the twilight I alternately lost and
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recovered sight of one sitting motionless under my window. When I opened my door
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in the evening, off they would go with a squeak in a bounce near
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at hand. They only excited my pity. One evening one sat by my
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door two paces from me, at first, trembling with fear, yet unwilling
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to move. A poor wee thing, lean and bony, with ragged ears
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and sharp nose, scant tail, and slender paws. It looked as if
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nature no longer contained the breed of nobler bloods, but stood on her last
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toes. Its large eyes appeared young and unhealthy, almost dropsical. I took
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a step and lo away its scud with an elastic spring over the snow crust,
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straightening its body and its limbs into graceful length, and soon put the
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forest between me and itself, the wild free venison, asserting its vigor and
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the dignity of nature. Not without reason was its slendderness, Such then was
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its nature. Lepis levipis lightfoot, methinks, what is a country without rabbits
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and partridges. They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products, ancient
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and venerable families known to antiquity, as to modern times of the very hue
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and substance of nature nearest allied to leaves and to the ground, and to
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one another. It is either winged or it is legged. It is hardly
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as if you had seen a wild creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts
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away, only unnatural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves.
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The partridge and the rabbit are still sure to thrive, like true natives of
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the soil. Whatever revolutions occur. If the forest is cut off, the
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sprouts and bushes which spring up afford them concealment, and they become more numerous
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than ever. That must be a poor country, indeed, that does not
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support a hare. Our woods teem with them both, and around every swamp
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may be seen the partridge or rabbit walk beset with twiggy fences and horse hair
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snares, which some cowboy tends. End of Chapter fifteen,