38 INDOOK STUDIES 



Often a single word or epithet of his tells the 

 whole story. Thus he says, speaking of the music 

 of the blackbird, that it has a " split- whistle ; " the 

 note of the red- shouldered starling is "gurgle-ee." 

 Looking out of his window one March day, he says 

 he cannot see the heel of a single snowbank any- 

 where. He does not seem to have known that the 

 shrike sings in the fall and winter as well as in the 

 spring; and is he entirely sure he saw a muskrat 

 building its house ia March (the fall is the time 

 they build); or that he heard the whip-poor-will 

 singing in September; or that the woodchuck dines 

 principally upon crickets? With what patience and 

 industry he watched things for a sign ! From his 

 journal it would appear that Thoreau kept nature 

 about Concord under a sort of police surveillance 

 the year round. He shadowed every flower and 

 bird and musquash that appeared. His vigilance 

 was unceasing ; not a mouse or a squirrel must leave 

 its den without his knowledge. If the birds or 

 frogs were not on hand promptly at his spring roll- 

 call, he would know the reason; he would look 

 them up; he would question his neighbors. He 

 was up in the morning and off to some favorite haunt 

 earlier than the day-laborers ; and he chronicled his 

 observations on the spot, as if the case was to be 

 tried in court the next day and he was the princi- 

 pal witness. He watched the approach of spring 

 as a doctor watches the development of a critical 

 case. He felt the pulse of the wind and the tem- 

 perature of the day at all hours. He examined the 



