EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 279 
some time paired. They are a hundred rods 
off, the male, the larger, with his black head 
and white breast ; the female with a red head. 
With my glass I see the long red bills of both. 
They swim, at first one way near together, 
then tack and swim the other, looking around 
incessantly, never quite at their ease, wary and 
watchful for foes. A man cannot walk down 
to the shore, or stand out on a hill overlook¬ 
ing the pond, without disturbing them. They 
will have an eye upon him. The locomotive 
whistle makes every wild duck start that is 
floating within the limits of the town. I see 
that these ducks are not here for protection 
alone, for at last they both dive and remain 
beneath about forty pulse-beats, and again and 
again. I think they are looking for fishes. 
Perhaps, therefore, these divers are more likely 
to alight in Walden than the black ducks are. 
Hear the hovering note of a snipe. 
March 31,1842. I cannot forget the majesty 
of that bird at the Cliff. It was no sloop or 
smaller craft hove in sight, but a ship of the 
line, worthy to struggle with the elements. It 
was a great presence, as of the master of river 
and forest. His eye would not have quailed 
before the owner of the soil, none could chal¬ 
lenge his rights. And then his retreat, sailing 
so steadily away, was a kind of advance. How 
