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Soh the village toof the dinner was asof it

Her now I have not heard so much as a locust over the sweet-fern these three hours The pigeons are all asleep upon their roosts -- no flutter from them Was that a farmer&039;s noon horn which sounded fro in to boiled salt beef and cider and Indian bread Why will men worry themselves so? He that does not eat need not work I wonder how much they have reaped Who would live there where a body can never think for the barking of Bose? And oh, the housekeeping! to keep bright the devil&039;s door-knobs, and scour his tubs this bright day! Better not keep a house Say, so calls and dinner-parties! Only a woodpecker tapping Oh, they swarm; the sun is too warm there; they are born too far into life for , and a loaf of brown bread on the shelf -- Hark! I hear a rustling of the leaves Is it so to the instinct of the chase? or the lost pig which is said to be in these woods, whose tracks I saw after the rain? It comes on apace; my sumachs and sweetbriers tremble -- Eh, Mr Poet, is it you? How do you like the world to-day?

Poet See those clouds; how they hang! That&039;s the greatest thing I have seen to-day There&039;s nothing like it in old paintings, nothing like it in foreign lands -- unless ere off the coast of Spain That&039;s a true Mediterranean sky I thought, as I have o a-fishing That&039;s the true industry for poets It is the only trade I have learned Co

Herone I will go with you gladly soon, but I a a serious meditation I think that I am near the end of it Leave me alone, then, for a while But that wethe bait leworms are rarely to be met with in these parts, where the soil was never fattened withthe bait is nearly equal to that of catching the fish, when one&039;s appetite is not too keen; and this you may have all to yourself today I would advise you to set in the spade down yonder a I think that I may warrant you one wor the roots of the grass, as if you eeding Or, if you choose to go farther, it will not be unwise, for I have found the increase of fair bait to be very nearly as the squares of the distances

Hermit alone Let me see; where was I? Methinks I was nearly in this frao to heaven or a-fishing? If I should soon bring this meditation to an end, would another so sweet occasion be likely to offer? I was as near being resolved into the essence of things as ever I was in hts will not coood, I would whistle for them When they make us an offer, is it wise to say, We will think of it? My thoughts have left no track, and I cannot find the path again What was it that I was thinking of? It was a very hazy day I will just try these three sentences of Confutsee; they ain I know not whether it was the du ecstasy Mem There never is but one opportunity of a kind

Poet Ho, Herot just thirteen whole ones, beside several which are imperfect or undersized; but they will do for the smaller fry; they do not cover up the hook so e; a shinerthe skewer

Hermit Well, then, let&039;s be off Shall we to the Concord? There&039;s good sport there if the water be not too high

Why do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Why has hbors; as if nothing but a mouse could have filled this crevice? I suspect that Pilpay & Co have put animals to their best use, for they are all beasts of burden, in a sense, hts

The mice which haunted my house were not the common ones, which are said to have been introduced into the country, but a wild native kind not found in the village I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, and it interested hi, one of these had its nest underneath the house, and before I had laid the second floor, and swept out the shavings, would coularly at lunch time and pick up the crumbs at my feet It probably had never seen a man before; and it soon became quite familiar, and would run over my shoes and up my clothes It could readily ascend the sides of the room by short impulses, like a squirrel, which it reseth, as I leaned withmy sleeve, and round and round the paper which held ed and played at bopeep with it; and when at last I held still a piece of cheese betweenin my hand, and afterward cleaned its face and paws, like a fly, and walked away

A phoebe soon built in ainst the house In June the partridge (Tetrao umbellus), which is so shy a bird, led her brood past my s, fro and calling to the herself the hen of the woods The young suddenly disperse on your approach, at a signal from the mother, as if a ind had swept thes that many a traveler has placed his foot in the midst of a brood, and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her anxious calls and s to attract his attention, without suspecting their neighborhood The parent will sometimes roll and spin round before you in such a dishabille, that you cannot, for a fewsquat still and flat, often running their heads under a leaf, and iven froain and betray themselves You may even tread on the them I have held them in my open hand at such a time, and still their only care, obedient to their mother and their instinct, was to squat there without fear or tre So perfect is this instinct, that once, when I had laid theain, and one accidentally fell on its side, it was found with the rest in exactly the same position tenof most birds, but more perfectly developed and precocious even than chickens The remarkably adult yet innocent expression of their open and serene eyes is very est not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by experience Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval with the sky it reflects The woods do not yield another such a gem The traveller does not often look into such a linorant or reckless sportsman often shoots the parent at such a ti beast or bird, or graduallyleaves which they so much resemble It is said that when hatched by a hen they will directly disperse on some alarm, and so are lost, for they never hear the ain These were my hens and chickens

It is reh secret in the woods, and still sustain thehborhood of towns, suspected by hunters only How retired the otteras a slimpse of him I formerly saw the raccoon in the woods behind whereat night Commonly I rested an hour or two in the shade at noon, after planting, and atewhich was the source of a swa from under Brister&039;s Hill, half a h a succession of descending grassy hollows, full of young pitch pines, into a larger wood about the swamp There, in a very secluded and shaded spot, under a spreading white pine, there was yet a clean, fir and ray water, where I could dip up a pailful without roiling it, and thither I went for this purpose almost every day in midsummer, when the pond armest Thither, too, the woodcock led her brood, to probe thebut a foot above them down the bank, while they ran in a troop beneath; but at last, spyingand circle round and round me, nearer and nearer till within four or five feet, pretending broken wings and legs, to attract , ould already have taken up their h the swa when I could not see the parent bird There too the turtle doves sat over the spring, or fluttered froh of the soft white pines over h, was particularly fah in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns

I itness to events of a less peaceful character One day when I went out to e ants, the one red, the other , and black, fiercely contending with one another Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a belluainst the black, and frequently two red ones to one black The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in round was already streith the dead and dying, both red and black It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black ied in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and huht so resolutely I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other&039;s embraces, in a little sunny valley aht till the sun went down, or life went out The smaller red champion had fastened hih all the tunaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed hi nearer, had already divested hiht with s Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat It was evident that their battle-cry was "Conquer or die" In the le red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his lied him to return with his shield or upon it Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now coe or rescue his Patroclus He saw this unequal combat from afar -- for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red -- he drew near with rapid pace till be stood on his guard within half an inch of the co upon the black warrior, and co, leaving the foe to select a his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respectivetheir national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men The more you think of it, the less the difference And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moaged in it, or for the patriotise it was an Austerlitz or Dresden Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots&039; side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick -- "Fire! for God&039;s sake fire!" -- and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hos there I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least

I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tu a h he was assiduously gnawing at the near fore leg of his ene feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer&039;s eyes shone with ferocity such as war only could excite They struggled half an hour longer under the tuain the black soldier had severed the heads of his foes fro on either side of hihastly trophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firgles, being without feelers and with only the re, and I know not how th, after half an hour lass, and he went off over the -sill in that crippled state Whether he finally survived that combat, and spent the remainder of his days in soht that his industry would not be worth much thereafter I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had le, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door

Kirby and Spence tell us that the battles of ants have long been celebrated and the date of theh they say that Huber is the only modern author who appears to have witnessed the a very circureat and small species on the trunk of a pear tree," adds that "this action was fought in the pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistoriensis, an eminent lawyer, who related the whole, history of the battle with the greatest fidelity" A sireat and snus, in which the s victorious, are said to have buried the bodies of their own soldiers, but left those of their giant enemies a prey to the birds This event happened previous to the expulsion of the tyrant Christiern the Second from Sweden" The battle which I witnessed took place in the Presidency of Polk, five years before the passage of Webster&039;s Fugitive-Slave Bill

Many a village Bose, fit only to course acellar, sported his heavy quarters in the woods, without the knowledge of his master, and ineffectually smelled at old fox burrows and woodchucks&039; holes; led perchance by soht still inspire a natural terror in its denizens; -- now far behind his guide, barking like a canine bull toward some small squirrel which had treed itself for scrutiny, then, cantering off, bending the bushes with his weight, i that he is on the track of some stray member of the jerbilla fa the stony shore of the pond, for they rarely wander so far from home The surprise was mutual Nevertheless theall her days, appears quite at home in the woods, and, by her sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself ular inhabitants Once, when berrying, Ikittens in the woods, quite wild, and they all, like theirat me A few years before I lived in the woods there as called a "winged cat" in one of the farm-houses in Lincoln nearest the pond, Mr Gilian Baker&039;s When I called to see her in June, 1842, she was gone a-hunting in the woods, as was her wont (I am not sure whether it was a male or female, and so use the more common pronoun), but her hborhood a little more than a year before, in April, and was finally taken into their house; that she was of a dark brownish-gray color, with a white spot on her throat, and white feet, and had a large bushy tail like a fox; that in the winter the fur grew thick and flatted out along her sides, for by two and a half wide, and under her chin like a muff, the upper side loose, the under es dropped off They gave s," which I keep still There is no appearance of asquirrel or so to naturalists, prolific hybrids have been produced by the union of the ht kind of cat for me to keep, if I had kept any; for why should not a poet&039;s cat be winged as well as his horse?

In the fall the loon (Colylacialis) ca the woods ring with his wild laughter before I had risen At rumor of his arrival all the Mill-das and on foot, two by two and three by three, with patent rifles and conical balls and spy-glasses They coh the woods like autumn leaves, at least ten men to one loon Some station themselves on this side of the pond, some on that, for the poor bird cannot be omnipresent; if he dive here he must co the leaves and rippling the surface of the water, so that no loon can be heard or seen, though his foes sweep the pond with spy-glasses, and enerously rise and dash angrily, taking sides with all water-fowl, and our sportsmen must beat a retreat to town and shop and unfinished jobs But they were too often successful When I went to get a pail of water early in theout of my cove within a few rods If I endeavored to overtake him in a boat, in order to see hoould manoeuvre, he would dive and be coain, sometimes, till the latter part of the day But I was more than a match for him on the surface He commonly went off in a rain

As I was paddling along the north shore one very calm October afternoon, for such days especially they settle on to the lakes, like thelooked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly one, sailing out from the shore toward the h and betrayed himself I pursued with a paddle and he dived, but when he caain, but I miscalculated the direction he would take, and ere fifty rods apart when he came to the surface this tihed long and loud, and with ly that I could not get within half a dozen rods of hi his head this way and that, he cooly surveyed the water and the land, and apparently chose his course so that he ht coreatest distance fro how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve into execution He led me at once to the widest part of the pond, and could not be driven fro in his brain, I was endeavoring to divine his thought in aainst a loon Suddenly your adversary&039;s checker disappears beneath the board, and the probleain Sometimes he would co apparently passed directly under the boat So long-winded was he and so unweariable, that when he had swuain, nevertheless; and then no wit could divine where in the deep pond, beneath the s his way like a fish, for he had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in its deepest part It is said that loons have been caught in the New York lakes eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout -- though Walden is deeper than that How surprised ainly visitor fro his way amid their schools! Yet he appeared to know his course as surely under water as on the surface, and swam much faster there Once or twice I saw a ripple where he approached the surface, just put his head out to reconnoitre, and instantly dived again I found that it was as well foras to endeavor to calculate where he would rise; for again and again, when I was straining my eyes over the surface one way, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh behind , did he invariably betray hih? Did not his white breast enough betray hiht I could commonly hear the splash of the water when he came up, and so also detected him But after an hour he seely, and swa to see how serenely he sailed off with unruffled breast when he ca all the ith his webbed feet beneath His usual note was this dehter, yet somewhat like that of a water-fowl; but occasionally, when he had balkedway off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like that of a wolf than any bird; as when a beast puts his round and deliberately howls This was his looning -- perhaps the wildest sound that is ever heard here, hed in derision of h the sky was by this time overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see where he broke the surface when I did not hear him His white breast, the stillness of the air, and the s coed howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his god was angry withfar away on the tumultuous surface

For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman; tricks which they will have less need to practise in Louisiana bayous When compelled to rise they would sometimes circle round and round and over the pond at a considerable height, from which they could easily see to other ponds and the river, like black one off thither long since, they would settle down by a slanting flight of a quarter of a mile on to a distant part which was left free; but what beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do