Henry David Thoreau

Name: Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals
Author: Henry David Thoreau

Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (1893)

Summary

“Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals”, published in 1893, is a work by Henry David Thoreau. It explores elements such as hounds, partridge and fox.

Quotes from Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (Henry David Thoreau)

Henry David Thoreau, Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (1893)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry David Thoreau, Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (1893)

“ 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? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry David Thoreau, Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (1893)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry David Thoreau, Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (1893)

“ I am glad that the partridge gets fed, at any rate. It is Nature's 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry David Thoreau, Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (1893)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry David Thoreau, Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (1893)

“ 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 ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry David Thoreau, Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (1893)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry David Thoreau, Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (1893)

“ 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 ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry David Thoreau, Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (1893)

“ 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. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry David Thoreau, Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (1893)

“ 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 hunter's 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 ”

Henry David Thoreau

Summary

Quotes from Walden — Chapter XV: Winter Animals (Henry David Thoreau)

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