52 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



at my door * and could hear their wings when they sud- 

 denly spied my light and, ceasing their noise, wheeled 

 to the east and apparently settled in the pond. 



March 27, 1846. This morning I saw the geese from 

 the door through the mist sailing about in the middle 

 of the pond, but when I went to the shore they rose and 

 circled round like ducks over my head, so that I counted 

 them, — twenty-nine. I after saw thirteen ducks. 



March 28, 1852. 10.15 P. M. — The geese have just 

 gone over, making a great cackling and awaking people 

 in their beds. They will probably settle in the river. 

 Who knows but they had expected to find the pond 

 open ? 



April 15, 1852. How indispensable our one or two 

 flocks of geese in spring and autumn ! What would be 

 a spring in which that sound was not heard ? Coming 

 to unlock the fetters of northern rivers. Those annual 

 steamers of the air. 



April 18, 1852. Going through Dennis's field with 

 C.,^ saw a flock of geese on east side of river near wil- 

 lows. Twelve gfreat birds on the troubled surface of the 

 meadow, delayed by the storm. We lay on the ground 

 behind an oak and our umbrella, eighty rods off, and 

 watched them. Soon we heard a gun go off, but could 

 see no smoke in the mist and rain. And the whole flock 

 rose, spreading their great wings and flew with clangor ' 

 a few rods and lit in the water again, then swam swiftly 



1 [Of his hut at Walden Pond.] 



"^ [William Ellery Channing, the younger, the Concord poet, Tho- 

 reau's most intimate friend and afterwards his biographer.] 

 ^ The " honk " of the goose. 



