some time paired. They are a hundred rods off, the male, the larger, with his black head and white breast; the female with a red head. With my glass I see the long red bills of both. They swim, at first one way near together, then tack and swim the other, looking around incessantly, never quite at their ease, wary and watchful for foes. A man cannot walk down to the shore, or stand out on a hill overlooking the pond, without disturbing them. They will have an eye upon him. The locomotive whistle makes every wild duck start that is floating within the limits of the town. I see that these ducks are not here for protection alone, for at last they both dive and remain beneath about forty pulse-beats, and again and again. I think they are looking for fishes. Perhaps, therefore, these divers are more likely to alight in Walden than the black ducks are. Hear the hovering note of a snipe.
March 31, 1842. I cannot forget the majesty of that bird at the Cliff. It was no sloop or smaller craft hove in sight, but a ship of the line, worthy to struggle with the elements. It was a great presence, as of the master of river and forest. His eye would not have quailed before the owner of the soil, none could challenge his rights. And then his retreat, sailing so steadily away, was a kind of advance. How
