Chapter 80 Beasts are Neighbors - 2

Why is it precisely these things that we see that make up the world?Why does man have only such beasts as his neighbors; it seems that only mice can fill this hole in the world?I think the use of animals by Pilbay Company is very good, because the animals there are all loaded with heavy loads. It can be said that they are loaded with some of our thoughts. The mice that often come to my house are not the usual ones. The usual ones are said to have been brought to this field from other places, but the ones that often come to my house are native voles that cannot be seen in the village.I sent one to a famous naturalist, who took a great interest in it.One of these rats made a nest under my house when I was building it, and it came to my house at lunchtime before I had laid the slabs and swept the shavings out. Come to eat the bag crumbs at your feet.Maybe it never saw people; we made out quickly, and it galloped over my shoes and up my clothes.It easily climbed up to the side of the house, and jumped up three times, like a squirrel, even the movements are similar.And then one day I was sitting like this, with my elbows on the stool, and it climbed up my clothes, up my sleeves, and around my food paper, and I pulled the paper towards me, hiding I opened it, then suddenly pushed the paper in front of it, played peek-a-boo with it, and at last I picked up a piece of cheese with my thumb and forefinger, and it came, sat in my palm, and ate it bite by bite. , like a fly, wiped its face and front paws, and then walked away.

Soon a flycatcher came to make a nest in my house; and a robin took refuge in a pine tree by my side, under my protection.In June, the partridge (Tetraoumbellus), a shy bird, brought its young past my window, and flew from the woods behind my house to the front of my house, clucking her chicks like an old hen. Folks, her behavior proves that she is an old hen of the forest.As soon as you approached them, the mother gave a signal, and they scattered like a whirlwind; the color of the partridges is really like dead branches and leaves, and often some travelers step on them. Among the young ones, the old bird could only be heard fluttering away and uttering the anxious cry, its flapping wings, in order to attract the travelers, did not pay attention to their front, back, left, and right sides.The mother bird rolls and whirls in front of you, fluffing its feathers so that you don't know for a moment what kind of bird it is.The chicks squat peacefully and flattened, often tucking their heads under a leaf, not listening to anything, only listening to the signal from their mother from a distance, even if you approach them, they will not Run around again so they won't be noticed.Even your feet have stepped on them, and your eyes have been looking at them for a while, but you still can't find what you are stepping on.Once I accidentally put them in my open palm, because they have always obeyed their mother and their own instincts, and they didn't feel fear or trembling at all, they just squatted as usual.This instinct is so perfect that once I put them back on the village leaves, one of them accidentally fell to the ground, but I found that it was still with other chicks ten minutes later, still original pose.The chicks of the partridge are not so bare as the rest of the chicks, they plump up more quickly, and mature earlier than the chicks.Their wide, serene eyes are remarkably mature, yet innocent enough to impress at first sight.Such eyes seem to reflect all wisdom.Not only the purity of infancy is revealed, but also the wisdom refined by experience.Such an eye of a bird is not born with it, but is as old as the sky it reflects.No gem like their eyes has ever been produced in the mountains.Ordinary travelers have rarely seen such a clear well.The ignorant and reckless hunters often shot their parents at such times, and the innocent flock fell prey to prowling beasts or birds of prey, or gradually mingled with dead animals so like them. Leaves die together.It is said that if these young chicks are hatched by the old hen, they will wander around if they are slightly disturbed, which is very difficult for them, because they can no longer hear the sound of the mother bird calling them.These are my hens and chicks.

It is astonishing how many animals live freely and secretly in the forest, prowling about towns and villages where only the hunter guesses they are.What a secluded life the otters lead here!He grew to four feet long, the size of a small child, perhaps not yet seen.I've seen raccoons before, in the woods behind my house, and I still seem to hear them whining at night.Usually I plowed in the morning, rested an hour or two in the shade at noon, and read after lunch by a spring that flowed down Brister Hill, half a mile from my field, near A swamp and a brook both originate there.To get to the spring, one passes through a succession of lush hollows, overgrown with sapling pines, to a larger forest near the swamp.In a secluded and shady spot there, under a huge white pine, there was clean firm grass to sit on.I dug out the spring, and dug a well, from which flowed a clear, silver-gray stream that could raise a bucket of water without the well being cloudy.In midsummer, I fetched water there almost every day, and the lake was so hot.The woodsnipe brings the young here too, looks for worms in the soil, and flies about a foot above the young, on the side of the spring, while the young run in groups below, but then it Seeing me, it left its young, and circled around me, getting closer and closer, only four or five feet away, pretending to have a broken wing or foot, to attract my attention and make me let him go The little ones, who were already squawking weakly by then, did as she directed them to cross the swamp in single file.Or, I can't see the mother bird, but hear their whispers.Here too the turtledove sat upon the spring, or flew from branch to branch of the soft white pine above my head; and the red squirrel, hovering from the nearest branch, was especially kind I am affectionate and especially curious about me.It doesn't take long to sit at some scenic spots in the mountains and forests, and you can see all its members take turns to exhibit themselves.