250 
WALDEN. 
in a victualling cellar, sported his heavy quarters in the 
woods, without the knowledge of his master, and inef¬ 
fectually smelled at old fox burrows and woodchucks’ 
holes; led perchance by some slight cur which nimbly 
threaded the wood, and might still inspire a natural ter¬ 
ror in its denizens ; — now far behind his guide, bark¬ 
ing like a canine bull toward some small squirrel which 
had treed itself for scrutiny, then, cantering off, bending 
the bushes with his weight, imagining that he is on the 
track of some stray member of the jerbilla family. 
Once I was surprised to see a cat walking along the 
stony shore of the pond, for they rarely wander so far 
from home. The surprise was mutual. Nevertheless 
the most domestic cat, which has lain on a rug all her 
days, appears quite at home in the woods, and, by her 
sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself more native 
there than the regular inhabitants. Once, when berry¬ 
ing, I met with a cat with young kittens in the woods, 
quite wild, and they all, like their mother, had their 
backs up and were fiercely spitting at me. A few 
years before I lived in the woods there was what was 
called a “winged cat” in one of the farm-houses in 
Lincoln nearest the pond, Mr. Grilian Baker’s. When 
I called to see her in June, 1842, she was gone a-hunt- 
ing in the woods, as was her wont, (I am not sure 
whether it was a male or female, and so use the more 
common pronoun,) but her mistress told me that she 
came into the neighborhood a little more than a year 
before, in April, and was finally taken into their house ; 
that she was of a dark brownish-gray color, with a 
white spot on her throat, and white feet, and had a large 
bushy tail like a fox; that in the winter the fur grew 
thick and flatted out along her sides, forming strips ten 
