Chapter 82 Beasts are Neighbors - 4

In many villages, the slow-moving cattle, which are only suitable for chasing tortoises in the food cellars, come to the forest with their clumsy bodies to run and jump. Unknown to their owners, they sniff the dens of old foxes. and the woodchuck's hole, but in vain; perhaps some thin vicious dogs led the way in, they moved nimbly through the forest, and the birds and beasts in the forest naturally have a kind of fear of such vicious dogs; now The old cow was far behind its guide, barking wildly at some young squirrels in the tree, who were hiding in it to observe it carefully, and then it ran away slowly, its heavy body bent the branches , which thought it was following some stray mice.Once, I found a cat very strangely, walking on the pebble bank by the lake. They rarely walk so far away from home. Both the cat and I were amazed.Yet even the tameest cat, who lies all day on the rug, seems at home in the woods, more native than the native forest beasts, as can be seen from her furtive and cunning gait. of.Once, while picking berries in the forest, I met a cat leading her pack of kittens, all wild and untamed, arching their backs like their mother and spitting viciously at me .A few years before I moved into the woods, at Jillian Baker's Grange in Lincoln, nearest to the lake, there lived a so-called "winged cat."In June, 1842, I paid her a special visit (I was not sure whether the cat was male or female, so I adopted the female pronoun for cats), and she had gone, as she always did, to the forest. According to her mistress, she came to this neighborhood in April more than a year ago, and was taken in by her. The cat is dark brown and gray, with a white spot on its throat. The feet are also white, and the tail is big and furry like a fox.In winter, her hair grew thicker and fell sideways in two bands ten to twelve inches long and two and a half inches wide, and she also seemed to have a muff under her chin, with the fur on it. It is relatively loose, but underneath it is tangled like felt, and these attachments fall off in spring.They gave me a pair of her "wings" which I still have to this day.There does not appear to be a membrane on the outside of the wings.Some have supposed that the cat was partly descended from flying squirrels, or some other beast, for this is not improbable, and, according to naturalists, the ermine and the domestic cat dominated many such hybrids.If I were to keep a cat, this is exactly the kind of cat I would like to keep, because if a poet's horse can fly with wings, why can't his cat fly?In autumn, the loon (Colymbus glaclalis) came as usual, molted and bathed in the lake, and before I got up, his wild laughter sounded in the forest.On hearing that it had come, all the hunters on the Mill Lock set out, some in carriages, some on foot, in twos and threes, with guns and cartridges, and glasses.They came rustling through the woods like autumn leaves, and a loon had at least ten hunters.Some kept sentries on one side of the lake, and others on the other, because the poor bird couldn't be everywhere at once; and if he dived here, he would come up that way.But that sunny October wind blew up and rustled the leaves and puckered the lake, and the loon was no more heard or seen, though his enemies scoured the water with binoculars, and though the gunfire In the middle of the shock, there was no trace of the birds.The water surged up in great numbers and rushed ashore angrily, and they were on the same side as the water-fowl, and our hunter-gatherers returned empty-handed to the town shop, to do their unfinished business.However, their affairs are often very successful.When I went out to draw water from the lake at dawn, I used to see this regal loon sailing out of my little bay within a few rods.If I wanted to catch up with it in a boat and see how it behaved, it would dive into the water and disappear completely, never to be seen again, sometimes not coming out until the afternoon of the same day.However, on the water, I still have a way to deal with it.It often flies away in a shower of rain.I was paddling on the North Shore one quiet October afternoon, for it is on such days that loons appear on the lake like the down of milkweed.I was looking nowhere for loons, when suddenly one, emerging from the bank, swam towards the center of the lake, only a few rods away in front of me, and, laughing wildly, caught my attention.I paddle after it and it dives, but when it emerges I get closer.It dived again, this time I misjudged the direction, and when it reappeared it was fifty rods away.This distance was caused by myself; it laughed loudly for a long time again, and of course it laughed for more reason this time.It moved so nimbly, like a dragon, that I couldn't get within five or six shots of it.Each time it came to the surface, turning its head this way and that, calmly surveying the water and the ground, evidently picking its course so that it would float just where the lake was widest and farthest from the ship. .What is amazing is that it makes decisions very quickly, and executes them immediately once a decision is made.It immediately lured me into the most vast waters, but I couldn't drive it into a corner of the lake. When it was thinking about something, I also tried to measure its thoughts in my mind.This is really a beautiful chess game. On a mirror-like water, one man and one bird are playing chess.Suddenly the opponent has placed its piece on the bottom of the board, and the problem is to place your piece where it will be closest to it the next time it appears.Sometimes it came up unexpectedly opposite me, and evidently passed under my boat.Its breath is so long, and it is tireless, yet, when it reaches the furthest point, it immediately dives again; no wisdom can fathom how it can swim in such a deep lake under such a smooth surface. Somewhere in the lake swims like a fish because it has the ability and time to visit the deepest bottom of the lake.It is said that diving birds have been caught on mahi-hooks in Lake New York at a depth of eighty feet.Walden, however, is much deeper.I think the fish in the water must be amazed that this uninvited guest from another world can dive among them!However, it seems to have a deep understanding of water, and it recognizes the same way underwater as it does above water, and it swims very fast underwater.Once or twice, I saw the splash it made as it approached the surface, and as soon as I poked its head out to observe it, it immediately submerged again.I figured I could either estimate where it was next to appear, or stop oars and wait for it to come out of the water, because time and time again, when I looked through the autumn water in one direction, I suddenly heard it behind me. A strange laugh surprised me, but why, after playing tricks on me so cunningly, every time it got out of the water, it would laugh so loudly that it would expose itself?Wasn't its self-colored breast enough to make it noticeable?What a stupid diving bird I thought.I can usually hear it splashing as it comes out of the water, so I can spot it too.But after playing like this for an hour, he swam farther than he had at first, with as much vigor and exhilaration as before.He emerged from the water and swam majestically away, with no ruffle of breast feathers which he had smoothed with his flippers underwater.Its usual sound is this devilish laugh, a bit like the cry of a water bird, but sometimes, it manages to evade me, and it dives far away and then comes out of the water, and then it makes a long strange cry , not like a bird chirping, but more like a howling wolf; just like the mouth of a wild beast, gnawing on the ground and making a howl.It was the sound of a loon, such a wild sound had never been heard in this area, and the whole forest was shaken.I think it laughs at the futility of my efforts, and trusts itself to be resourceful.Although the sky was gloomy at this time, the surface of the lake was very calm. I only saw water coming out of it, but I didn't hear its sound yet.The whiteness of his chest, the solemnity of the air, and the calm of the lake had all been against him.At last, at fifty rods from me, he uttered such a cry, as if he were calling the god of loons to his aid, and at once a phoenix blew from the east, wrinkling the lake, and the sky and the earth were It was a drizzle, with raindrops, and I had the impression that the loon's call had been answered, and his god was angry with me, and I left him and let him go as far as he would on the rough waves.

I used to watch for hours in the fall how the mallards swam cunningly to and fro, always in the middle of the lake, away from the hunters; a formation they did not have to practice in the Louisiana Long Marshes.When they had to take off, they reached a considerable height and circled like black dots in the sky.From such a height they must have seen other lakes and rivers; but when I thought they had already got there, they suddenly flew obliquely for about a quarter of a mile. , and landed in a distant, less disturbed region; but was there any reason for their flight to the center of Walden Pond, except for safety?I don't know, maybe they love this lake for the same reason as mine.