438 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



have one at the shanty, but this cock, at least, is still 

 abroad and can't be caught. If they could survive the win- 

 ter, I suppose we should have had wild hens before now. 



July 25, 1856. The haymakers getting in the hay 

 from Hubbard's meadow tell me the cock says we are 

 going to have a long spell of dry weather or else very 

 wet. " Well, there 's some difference between them," I 

 answer ; " how do you know it? " " I just heard a cock 

 crow at noon, and that 's a sure sign it will either be 

 very dry or very wet." 



Dec. 4, 1856. Sophia says that just before I came 

 home Min ^ caught a mouse and was playing with it in 

 the yard. It had got away from her once or twice, and 

 she had caught it again ; and now it was stealing off 

 again, as she lay complacently watching it with her 

 paws tucked under her, when her friend Riordan's stout 

 but solitary cock stepped up inquisitively, looked down 

 at it with one eye, turning his head, then picked it up 

 by the tail and gave it two or three whacks on the 

 ground, and giving it a dexterous toss into the air, 

 caught it in its open mouth, and it went head foremost 

 and alive down his capacious throat in the twinkling 

 of an eye, never again to be seen in this world, Min, 

 all the while, with paws comfortably tucked under her, 

 looking on unconcerned. What matters it one mouse 

 more or less to her? The cock walked off amid the 

 currant bushes, stretched his neck up, and gulped once 

 or twice, and the deed was accomplished, and then he 

 crowed lustily in celebration of the exploit. It might 

 be set down among the gesta (if not digesta) Gallorum. 

 ^ [The Thoreaus' cat.J 



