WILD DUCKS 47 



pear to preserve constantly their relative distance. 

 Their note not exactly like that of a goose, yet re- 

 sembling some domestic fowl's cry, you know not what 

 one ; like a new species of goose. 



April 16, 1852. Flight of ducks and partridges ear- 

 nest but not graceful. 



April 17, 1852. These deep withdrawn bays, like that 

 toward Well Meadow, are resorts for many a shy flock 

 of ducks. They are very numerous this afternoon. We 

 scare them up every quarter of a mile. Mostly the 

 whitish duck which Brown thinks the golden-eye (we 

 call them whistlers), and also black ducks, perchance 

 also sheldrakes. They are quite shy ; swim rapidly away 

 far into the pond. A flock which we surprised in the 

 smooth bay of Well Meadow divided and showed much 

 cunning, dodging under the shore to avoid us. 



Oct. 12, 1852. Paddled on Walden. A rippled sur- 

 face. Scared up ducks. Saw them first far over the 

 surface, just risen, — two smaller, white-bellied, one 

 larger, black. They circled round as usual, and the first 

 went off, but the black one went round and round and 

 over the pond five or six times at a considerable height 

 and distance, when I thought several times he had gone 

 to the river, and at length settled down by a slanting 

 flight of a quarter of a mile into a distant part of the 

 pond which I had left free ; but what beside safety these 

 ducks get by sailing in the middle of Walden I don't 

 know. That black rolling-pin with wings, circling round 

 you half a mile off for a quarter of an hour, at that 

 height, from which he sees the river and Fair Haven 

 all the while, from which he sees so many things, while 



