THE COUNTRY LIFE. 223 



fishes, and their spawning and nests, their 

 manners, their food ; the shad-flies which fill 

 the air on a certain evening once a year, and 

 which are snapped at by the fishes so raven- 

 ously that many of these die of repletion ; the 

 conical heaps of small stones on the river- 

 shallows ; the huge nests of small fishes, one 

 of which will sometimes overfill a cart; the 

 birds which frequent the stream, heron, duck, 

 sheldrake, loon, osprey; the snake, muskrat, 

 otter, woodchuck and fox, on the banks ; the 

 turtle, frog, hyla, and cricket, which make the 

 banks vocal were all known to him, and, as it 

 were, townsmen and fellow- creatures ; so that 

 he felt an absurdity or violence in any narrative 

 of one of these by itself apart, and still more 

 of its dimensions on an inch-rule, or in the 

 exhibition of its skeleton, or the specimen of 

 a squirrel or a bird in brandy. He liked to 

 speak of the manners of the river, as itself a 

 lawful creature, yet with exactness, and always 

 to an observed fact. As he knew the river, 

 so the ponds in this region. " 



Again, though Thoreau was short of stature 



