244 
WALDEN. 
anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to 
attract his attention, without suspecting their neighbor¬ 
hood. The parent will sometimes roll and spin round 
before you in such a dishabille, that you cannot, for a 
few moments, detect what kind of creature it is. The 
young squat still and flat, often running their heads un¬ 
der a leaf, and mind only their mother’s directions given 
from a distance, nor will your approach make them run 
again and betray themselves. You may even tread on 
them, or have your eyes on them for a minute, without 
discovering them. I have held them in my open hand 
at such a time, and still their only care, obedient to their 
mother and their instinct, was to squat there without 
fear or trembling. So perfect is this instinct, that once, 
when I had laid them on the leaves again, and one acci¬ 
dentally fell on its side, it was found with the rest in 
exactly the same position ten minutes afterward. They 
are not callow like the young of most birds, but more 
perfectly developed and precocious even than chickens. 
The remarkably adult yet innocent expression of their 
open and serene eyes is very memorable. All intelli¬ 
gence seems reflected in them. They suggest not mere¬ 
ly the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by expe¬ 
rience. Such an eye was not bom when the bird was, 
but is coeval with the sky it reflects. The woods do 
not yield another such a gem. The traveller does not 
often look into such a limpid well. The ignorant or 
reckless sportsman often shoots the parent at such a 
time, and leaves these innocents to fall a prey to some 
prowling beast or bird, or gradually mingle with the de¬ 
caying leaves which they so much resemble. It is said 
that when hatched by a hen they will directly disperse 
on some alarm, and so are lost, for they never hear the 
