after it was covered with snow, though I had often paddled about and

there sit for hours, supplying himself with a new ear from time to

moose there. Nutting had a famous foxhound named Burgoyne -- he

felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I

him. Sometimes, however, he will run upon a wall many rods, and

the crumbs the squirrels had dropped, flew to the nearest twig and,

got credit for hunting less noble game. Credit is given for

the forlorn but melodious note of a hooting owl indefinitely far;

or be off; now thinking of corn, then listening to hear what was in

far behind, he stops to rest and listen till they come up, and when

giants or pygmies. I took this course when I went to lecture in

forward and stood in their midst, and the mystery was solved. They

was making it. I seldom opened my door in a winter evening without

determined to put it through at any rate; -- a singularly frivolous

of the familiar landscape around them. When I crossed Flints Pond,

work as if they were taking what was their own.

little bills, as if it were an insect in the bark, till they were

expected as rustling leaves. The partridge and the rabbit are still

but the next day learned that they had crossed the river and put up

and snapping the air as if possessed, and ran directly to the rock;

and whimsical fellow; -- and so he would get off with it to where he

then was its nature. (Lepus, levipes, light-foot, some think.)

Sometimes one came near to my window, attracted by my light, barked

dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost,

snow or bristling with icicles.

wolfish dogs, passed for sealers, or Esquimaux, or in misty weather

time, nibbling at first voraciously and throwing the half-naked cobs

such a sound as the frozen earth would yield if struck with a

resting in the thick woods south of Walden, he heard the voice of

were obliged to mix a large proportion of pine bark with their other

another has told me the particulars of the hunt in which his uncle

circumspection than would have sufficed to walk the whole distance

What do you mean by alarming the citadel at this time of night

For sounds in winter nights, and often in winter days, I heard

a hare. Our woods teem with them both, and around every swamp may

One old hunter who has a dry tongue, who used to come to bathe

consecrated to me? Do you think I am ever caught napping at such an

to the open level of the pond, nor following pack pursuing their

legged. It is hardly as if you had seen a wild creature when a

Sometimes I heard the foxes as they ranged over the snow-crust,

and shorter routes to many points, but new views from their surfaces

18th, 1742-3, "John Melven Cr. by 1 Grey Fox 0--2--3"; they are not

expression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all the eyes in the

the sticks without fear. I once had a sparrow alight upon my

food, tasting only the inside of the kernel, and the ear, which was

The hares (Lepus Americanus) were very familiar. One had her

the same zig-zag course and frequent pauses, scratching along with

life, with a mind not made up whether to get it again, or a new one,

yourself? Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo! It was one of the most

held balanced over the stick by one paw, slipped from his careless

in diameter, which had been gnawed by https://read.99csw.commice the previous winter -- a

else for this. One day a man came to my hut from Lexington to

In dark winter mornings, or in short winter afternoons, I

way, as if afraid, and stand silent amid the bushes till I had

rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only a natural one, as much to be

they came, their hounding cry which made all the woods ring sounding

rods distant, and I would afterwards find the cobs strewn about the

end of winter, when the snow was melted on my south hillside and

then leap off far to one side, and he appears to know that water

midsummer, and many of them had grown a foot, though completely

in Walden once every year when the water was warmest, and at such

tree to tree, nearer and nearer, and pick up the kernels which the

hounding cry and yelp, unable to resist the instinct of the chase,

about my wood-pile, the partridges came out of the woods morning and

would set out with it to the woods, like a tiger with a buffalo, by

At midnight, when there was a moon, I sometimes met with hounds

bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its

intervals to the goose, as if determined to expose and disgrace this

the loud honking of a goose, and, stepping to the door, heard the

Actaeon. And perhaps at evening I see the hunters returning with a

the wind. So the little impudent fellow would waste many an ear in

inconceivable haste with his "trotters," as if it were for a wager,

diet. These trees were alive and apparently flourishing at

be seen the partridge or rabbit walk, beset with twiggy fences and

unhealthy, almost dropsical. I took a step, and lo, away it scud

a rod at a time; and then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous

also, where they had come out of the woods at sunset to "bud" the

could ever detect, or he himself was aware of, I suspect. At length

pronounced it Bugine -- which my informant used to borrow. In the

frozen earth he would be safe, or if be would run in a straight line

grasp and fell to the ground, when he would look over at it with a

squirrels have dropped. Then, sitting on a pitch pine bough, they

from the woodside. They were so familiar that at length one

took their departure early in the morning.

had not touched him. Some way behind came an old hound and her

For a long time he stood still and listened to their music, so sweet

indeterminable distance over the ice, moving slowly about with their

were scores of pitch pines around my house, from one to four inches

round, leaving his pursuers far behind; and, leaping upon a rock

questions he interrupted me by asking, "What do you do here?" He

shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I

divert them from the pursuit. Thus they circle until they fall upon

inquire after his hound that made a large track, and had been

woods resounded through all their aisles with their demoniac cry.

spring up afford them concealment, and they become more numerous

form under my house all winter, separated from me only by the

the roadside and play a strain on it wilder and more melodious, if

and were so nearly the color of the ground that they could hardly be

raggedly and demoniacally like forest dogs, as if laboring with some

much as those of a dancing girl -- wasting more time in delay and

to a hunte九*九*藏*書rs ear, when suddenly the fox appeared, threading the

hour, and that I have not got lungs and a larynx as well as

I ever heard from any inhabitant of the woods, responded at regular

horse-hair snares, which some cow-boy tends.

When I opened my door in the evening, off they would go with a

squeak and a bounce. Near at hand they only excited my pity. One

watching the motions of the various animals which were baited by it.

waited in silence while he skinned the fox, then followed the brush

by a sympathetic rustle of the leaves, swift and still, keeping the

particular trees, where the cunning sportsman lies in wait for them,

and listened to the hounds. Still on they came, and now the near

as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning

tinkling of icicles in the grass, or else with sprightly day day

sunbeams like golden dust, for this brave bird is not to be scared

thought leaped the other wall out of the road, and his swift bullet

alighted on an armful of wood which I was carrying in, and pecked at

distinguished when still. Sometimes in the twilight I alternately

with their bills. They were manifestly thieves, and I had not much

attempt to swallow in their haste a kernel which is too big for

honking all the while with a regular beat. Suddenly an unmistakable

in my path prowling about the woods, which would skulk out of my

When the ponds were firmly frozen, they afforded not only new

skated over it, it was so unexpectedly wide and so strange that I

occur. If the forest is cut off, the sprouts and bushes which

its fall a diagonal between a perpendicular and horizontal, being

but, spying the dead fox, she suddenly ceased her hounding as if

silence; and one by one her pups arrived, and, like their mother,

sufficiently reduced for their slender throats. A little flock of

woods in various directions.

evening a Weston squire came to the Concord hunters cottage to

walked the Wayland road he heard the cry of hounds approaching, and

approach at first warily through the shrub oaks, running over the

In the twilight and the night the rabbits came regularly and made a

"sometimes plunges from on wing into the soft snow, where it remains

away no foxhound could overtake him; but, having left his pursuers

above the ice, though none could be seen abroad when I crossed it.

upon my shoe, when that was the nearest way.

a mile off, and in a stealthy and sneaking manner they flit from

would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third

concealed for a day or two." I used to start them in the open land

wood-pile, before my window, where he looked me in the face, and

cat-owl from very near me, with the most harsh and tremendous voice

times looked in upon me, told me that many years ago he took his gun

he would reach the corn, and selecting a suitable ear, frisk about

amid the woods, he sat erect and listening, with his back to the

Usually the red squirrel (Sciurus Hudsonius) waked me in the

passed.

ere long a fox leaped the wall into the road, and as quick as

bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and had

my memory serves me, than any hunting-horn.

intruder from Hudsons Bay by exhibiting a greater compass and

Lincoln in the evening, travelling in no road and passing no house

evening one sat by my dｈｔｔps://ｒｅad•9９ｃｓｗ.cｏmoor two paces from me, at first trembling

universe were eyed on him -- for all the motions of a squirrel, even

dignity of Nature. Not without reason was its slenderness. Such

same shore. Ere long the hounds arrived, but here they lost the

talking to all the universe at the same time -- for no reason that I

Jack Robinson, he would be in the top of a young pitch pine, winding

shallow and interrupted drifts on it, was my yard where I could walk

girdled; but after another winter such were without exception dead.

in the same uncertain trigonometrical way to the topmost stick of my

day, or more rarely, in spring-like days, a wiry summery phe-be

-- I never saw one walk -- and then suddenly, before you could say

nearer and nearer, now from Well Meadow, now from the Baker Farm.

the rock, lay dead on the ground. The hunter still kept his place

flooring, and she startled me each morning by her hasty departure

and its limbs into graceful length, and soon put the forest between

hearty meal. All day long the red squirrels came and went, and

three pups in full pursuit, hunting on their own account, and

well trodden, overhung by oak woods and solemn pines bent down with

wild apple trees. They will come regularly every evening to

hunting on their own account from Weston woods. The Concord hunter

"Wast Book" of an old trader of this town, who was also a captain,

wont to grow up densely.

sound of their wings like a tempest in the woods as they flew low

had lost a dog, but found a man.

used to hunt bears on Fair Haven Ledges, and exchange their skins

not got ripe, on to the snow-crust by my door, and was amused by

their throats and chokes them; and after great labor they disgorge

discriminating ear, there were in it the elements of a concord such

pine tree for its dinner, gnawing round instead of up and down it;

looked as if Nature no longer contained the breed of nobler bloods,

with ragged ears and sharp nose, scant tail and slender paws. It

When the ground was not yet quite covered, and again near the

pursued by hounds burst out on to Walden when the ice was covered

told him what he knew and offered him the skin; but the other

seemingly deterred from settling by my light, their commodore

deerskins also, and they were daily sold. One man still preserves

the recent trail of a fox, for a wise hound will forsake everything

I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great

evening to feed there. Whichever side you walk in the woods the

suitable plectrum, the very lingua vernacula of Walden Wood, and

in my way, a colony of muskrats dwelt, and raised their cabins high

winter I threw out half a bushel of ears of sweet corn, which had

also grew at last to be quite familiar, and occasionally stepped

anxiety, or seeking expression, struggling for light and to be dogs

thought his piece was levelled, and whang! -- the fox, rolling over

lived, perhaps carry it to the top of a pine tree forty or fifty

here. I remember well one gaunt Nimrod who would catch up a leaf by

first three syllables accented somewhat like how der do; or

now found here; and in his ledger, Feb, 7th, 1743, Hezekiah Stratton

Norwegian winter for them, for the snow lay long and deep, and they

single brush trailing from their sleigh for a trophy, seeking their

it, and spend an hour i九九藏書n the endeavor to crack it by repeated blows

inquire for his hounds, and told how for a week they had been

that was a short-lived mood, and as quick as thought can follow

sometimes hoo, hoo only. One night in the beginning of winter,

among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and

about; till at length he grew more dainty still and played with his

disappeared again in the woods. Late in the afternoon, as he was

long before, as they were warily making their approach an eighth of

hearing it; Hoo hoo hoo, hoorer, hoo, sounded sonorously, and the

and the note of the hunting-horn at intervals, proving that man was

one afternoon and went out for a cruise in Walden Wood; and as he

respect for them; but the squirrels, though at first shy, went to

dry leaves and twigs on high, which comes sifting down in the

scent. Sometimes a pack hunting by themselves would pass my door,

the hounds far over toward Fair Haven still pursuing the fox; and on

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are

as if afflicted by a species of madness, so that nothing could

sure to thrive, like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions

were sobered into silence by the mystery. Then the hunter came

up his clock and chiding all imaginary spectators, soliloquizing and

inn. They tell me that if the fox would remain in the bosom of the

in the most solitary recesses of the forest, imply spectators as

over my house. They passed over the pond toward Fair Haven,

will not retain his scent. A hunter told me that he once saw a fox

for all I told him, for every time I attempted to answer his

solemn aisles with an easy coursing pace, whose sound was concealed

partridge bursts away on whirring wings, jarring the snow from the

for rum in Concord village; who told him, even, that he had seen a

between my own hut and the lecture room. In Goose Pond, which lay

a while, and at length turned off into the woods again. That

remember to have stood before; and the fishermen, at an

considerably bigger than himself, and skilfully balancing it, he

and the villagers were confined to their streets. There, far from

afforded me much entertainment by their manoeuvres. One would

thrilling discords I ever heard. And yet, if you had a

as well as men? They seemed to me to be rudimental, burrowing men,

few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy, making

volume of voice in a native, and boo-hoo him out of Concord horizon.

am glad that the partridge gets fed, at any rate. It is Natures

crumbs at my door, with faint flitting lisping notes, like the

against the floor timbers in her hurry. They used to come round my

freely when the snow was nearly two feet deep on a level elsewhere

sometimes heard a pack of hounds threading all the woods with

but stood on her last toes. Its large eyes appeared young and

the horns of the last deer that was killed in this vicinity, and

and circle round my house, and yelp and hound without regarding me,

very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to

a forenoon; till at last, seizing some longer and plumper one,

it as if it were too heavy for him and falling all the while, making

around me at the extremity of a snowy plain, in which I did not

outright and run freely in the streets; for if we take the ages into

was engaread.99csw.comged. The hunters were formerly a numerous and merry crew

should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. The squirrels

still standing on their defence, awaiting their transformation.

lost and recovered sight of one sitting motionless under my window.

me and itself -- the wild free venison, asserting its vigor and the

struck dumb with amazement, and walked round and round him in

with shallow puddles, run part way across, and then return to the

snow-crust by fits and starts like a leaf blown by the wind, now a

when I began to stir -- thump, thump, thump, striking her head

at a farmhouse for the night, whence, having been well fed, they

hunting for a week by himself. But I fear that he was not the wiser

a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated.

At length the old hound burst into view with muzzle to the ground,

It is remarkable that a single mouse should thus be allowed a whole

could think of nothing but Baffins Bay. The Lincoln hills rose up

in the rear. The woods ring again, and yet no fox bursts forth on

the ground -- and to one another; it is either winged or it is

quite familiar to me at last, though I never saw the bird while it

and the distant orchards next the woods suffer thus not a little. I

Stratton was a sergeant in the old French war, and would not have

town-clerk, and representative, I find the following entry. Jan.

jingle of sleigh-bells, I slid and skated, as in a vast moose-yard

Squirrels and wild mice disputed for my store of nuts. There

before the pond froze over, about nine oclock, I was startled by

own bird which lives on buds and diet drink.

and now as many paces that way, but never getting on more than half

with an elastic spring over the snow-crust, straightening its body

as these plains never saw nor heard.

placing them under their claws, hammered away at them with their

these titmice came daily to pick a dinner out of my woodpile, or the

with fear, yet unwilling to move; a poor wee thing, lean and bony,

has credit "by 1/2 a Catt skin 0--1--4+"; of course, a wild-cat, for

Walden, being like the rest usually bare of snow, or with only

At length the jays arrive, whose discordant screams were heard

Meanwhile also came the chickadees in flocks, which, picking up

of an inch wide.

as if sent out of the woods for this purpose. In the course of the

The hunter who told me this could remember one Sam Nutting, who

he runs he circles round to his old haunts, where the hunters await

ludicrous expression of uncertainty, as if suspecting that it had

the village street, and except at very long intervals, from the

hunter. For a moment compassion restrained the latters arm; but

than ever. That must be a poor country indeed that does not support

in moonlight nights, in search of a partridge or other game, barking

our account, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes

door at dusk to nibble the potato parings which I had thrown out,

loomed like fabulous creatures, and I did not know whether they were

but perhaps it is necessary in order to thin these trees, which are

dawn, coursing over the roof and up and down the sides of the house,

by winter. It is frequently covered up by drifts, and, it is said,

venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the

declined it and departed. He did not find his hounds that night,