Winter Animals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

indeterminable distance over the ice, moving slowly about with their

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

snow or bristling with icicles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

first three syllables accented somewhat like how der do; or

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

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

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

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

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

seemingly deterred from settling by my light, their commodore

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

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

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

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

intruder from Hudsons Bay by exhibiting a greater compass and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

as these plains never saw nor heard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

of an inch wide.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

still standing on their defence, awaiting their transformation.

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

a vulpine curse at me, and then retreated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

afforded me much entertainment by their manoeuvres. One would

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

circumspection than would have sufficed to walk the whole distance

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

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

up his clock and chiding all imaginary spectators, soliloquizing and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ludicrous expression of uncertainty, as if suspecting that it had

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

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

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

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

considerably bigger than himself, and skilfully balancing it, he

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

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

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

its fall a diagonal between a perpendicular and horizontal, being

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

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

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

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

woods in various directions.

At length the jays arrive, whose discordant screams were heard

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

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

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

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

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

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

it, and spend an hour in the endeavor to crack it by repeated blows

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

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

work as if they were taking what was their own.

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

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

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

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

sufficiently reduced for their slender throats. A little flock of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I

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

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

upon my shoe, when that was the nearest way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

wild apple trees. They will come regularly every evening to

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

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

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

own bird which lives on buds and diet drink.

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

sometimes heard a pack of hounds threading all the woods with

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

had lost a dog, but found a man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

to a hunters ear, when suddenly the fox appeared, threading the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

woods resounded through all their aisles with their demoniac cry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

evening a Weston squire came to the Concord hunters cottage to

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

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

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

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

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

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

took their departure early in the morning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

was engaged. The hunters were formerly a numerous and merry crew

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

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

my memory serves me, than any hunting-horn.

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

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

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

passed.

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

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

in diameter, which had been gnawed by mice the previous winter -- a

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

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

diet. These trees were alive and apparently flourishing at

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

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

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

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

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

wont to grow up densely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

distinguished when still. Sometimes in the twilight I alternately

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

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

evening one sat by my door two paces from me, at first trembling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are

among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

spring up afford them concealment, and they become more numerous

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

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

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

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