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1At length the jays arrive, whose discordant screams were heard long before, as they were warily making their approach an
2eighth of a mile off, and in a stealthy and sneaking manner they flit from tree to tree, nearer and nearer, and pick up
3the kernels which the squirrels have dropped. Then, sitting on a pitch-pine bough, they attempt to swallow in their
4haste a kernel which is too big for their throats and chokes them; and after great labor they disgorge it, and spend an
5hour in the endeavor to crack it by repeated blows with their bills. They were manifestly thieves, and I had not much
6respect for them; but the squirrels, though at first shy, went to work as if they were taking what was their own.
7Meanwhile also came the chickadees in flocks, which, picking up the crumbs the squirrels had dropped, flew to the
8nearest twig, and, placing them under their claws, hammered away at them with their little bills, as if it were an
9insect in the bark, till they were sufficiently reduced for their slender throats. A little flock of these tit-mice came
10daily to pick a dinner out of my wood-pile, or the crumbs at my door, with faint flitting lisping notes, like the
11tinkling of icicles in the grass, or else with sprightly day day day, or more rarely, in spring-like days, a wiry
12summery phe-be from the wood-side. They were so familiar that at length one alighted on an armful of wood which I was
13carrying in, and pecked at the sticks without fear. I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I
14was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by
15any epaulet I could have worn. The squirrels also grew at last to be quite familiar, and occasionally stepped upon my
16shoe, when that was the nearest way. When the ground was not yet quite covered, and again near the end of winter, when
17the snow was melted on my south hill-side and about my wood-pile, the partridges came out of the woods morning and
18evening to feed there. Whichever side you walk in the woods the partridge bursts away on whirring wings, jarring the
19snow from the dry leaves and twigs on high, which comes sifting down in the sun-beams like golden dust; for this brave
20bird is not to be scared by winter. It is frequently covered up by drifts, and, it is said, "sometimes plunges from on
21wing into the soft snow, where it remains concealed for a day or two." I used to start them in the open land also, where
22they had come out of the woods at sunset to "bud" the wild apple-trees. They will come regularly every evening to
23particular trees, where the cunning sportsman lies in wait for them, and the distant orchards next the woods suffer thus
24not a little. I am glad that the partridge gets fed, at any rate. It is Nature's own bird which lives on buds and
25diet-drink. In dark winter mornings, or in short winter afternoons, I sometimes heard a pack of hounds threading all the
26woods with hounding cry and yelp, unable to resist the instinct of the chase, and the note of the hunting horn at
27intervals, proving that man was in the rear. The woods ring again, and yet no fox bursts forth on to the open level of
28the pond, nor following pack pursuing their Actæon. And perhaps at evening I see the hunters returning with a single
29brush trailing from their sleigh for a trophy, seeking their inn. They tell me that if the fox would remain in the bosom
30of the frozen earth he would be safe, or if he would run in a straight line away no fox-hound could overtake him; but,
31having left his pursuers far behind, he stops to rest and listen till they come up, and when he runs he circles round to
32his old haunts, where the hunters await him. Sometimes, however, he will run upon a wall many rods, and then leap off
33far 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
34pursued by hounds burst out on to Walden when the ice was covered with shallow puddles, run part way across, and then
35return to the same shore. Ere long the hounds arrived, but here they lost the scent. Sometimes a pack hunting by
36themselves would pass my door, and circle round my house, and yelp and hound without regarding me, as if afflicted by a
37species of madness, so that nothing could divert them from the pursuit. Thus they circle until they fall upon the recent
38trail of a fox, for a wise hound will forsake every thing else for this. One day a man came to my hut from Lexington to
39inquire after his hound that made a large track, and had been hunting for a week by himself. But I fear that he was not
40the wiser for all I told him, for every time I attempted to answer his questions he interrupted me by asking, "What do
41you 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
42Walden once every year when the water was warmest, and at such times looked in upon me, told me that many years ago he
43took his gun one afternoon and went out for a cruise in Walden Wood; and as he walked the Wayland road he heard the cry
44of hounds approaching, and ere long a fox leaped the wall into the road, and as quick as thought leaped the other wall
45out of the road, and his swift bullet had not touched him. Some way behind came an old hound and her three pups in full
46pursuit, hunting on their own account, and disappeared again in the woods. Late in the afternoon, as he was resting in
47the thick woods south of Walden, he heard the voice of the hounds far over toward Fair Haven still pursuing the fox; and
48on they came, their hounding cry which made all the woods ring sounding nearer and nearer, now from Well-Meadow, now
49from the Baker Farm. For a long time he stood still and listened to their music, so sweet to a hunter's ear, when
50suddenly the fox appeared, threading the solemn aisles with an easy coursing pace, whose sound was concealed by a
51sympathetic rustle of the leaves, swift and still, keeping the ground, leaving his pursuers far behind; and, leaping
52upon a rock amid the woods, he sat erect and listening, with his back to the hunter. For a moment compassion restrained
53the latter's arm; but that was a short-lived mood, and as quick as thought can follow thought his piece was levelled,
54and whang!--the fox rolling over the rock lay dead on the ground. The hunter still kept his place and listened to the
55hounds. Still on they came, and now the near woods resounded through all their aisles with their demoniac cry. At length
56the old hound burst into view with muzzle to the ground, and snapping the air as if possessed, and ran directly to the
57rock; but spying the dead fox she suddenly ceased her hounding as if struck dumb with amazement, and walked round and
58round him in silence; and one by one her pups arrived, and, like their mother, were sobered into silence by the mystery.
59Then the hunter came forward and stood in their midst, and the mystery was solved. They waited in silence while he
60skinned the fox, then followed the brush a while, and at length turned off into the woods again. That evening a Weston
61Squire came to the Concord hunter's cottage to inquire for his hounds, and told how for a week they had been hunting on
62their own account from Weston woods. The Concord hunter told him what he knew and offered him the skin; but the other
63declined it and departed. He did not find his hounds that night, but the next day learned that they had crossed the
64river and put up at a farm-house for the night, whence, having been well fed, they took their departure early in the
65morning.
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