I spend a considerable portion of my time observing the habits of the wild animals, my brute neighbors. By their various movements and migrations they fetch the year about to me.
Very significant are the flight of geese and the migration of suckers, etc., etc. But when I consider that the nobler animals have been exterminated here, — the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverene, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc., etc., — I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed, and, as it were, emasculated country. Would not the motions of those larger and wilder animals have been more significant still?
Is it not a maimed and imperfect nature that I am conversant with? As if I were to study a tribe of Indians that had lost all its warriors. Do not the forest and the meadow now lack expression, now that I never see nor think of the moose with a lesser forest on his head in the one nor, of the beaver in the other?
When I think what were the various sounds and notes, the migrations and works, and changes of fur and plumage which ushered in the spring and marked the other seasons of the year, I am reminded that this my life in nature, this particular round of natural phenomena which I call a year, is lamentably incomplete. I listen to a concert in which so many parts are wanting. The whole civilized country is to some extent turned into a city, and I am that citizen whom I pity. Many of those animal migrations and other phenomena by which the Indians marked the season are no longer to be observed.
I seek acquaintance with Nature, -- to know her moods and manners.
Primitive Nature is the most interesting to me.
I take infinite pains to know all the phenomena of the spring, for instance, thinking that I have here the entire poem, and then, to my chagrin, I hear that it is but an imperfect copy that I possess and have read, that my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places.
I should not like to think that some demigod had come before me and picked out some of the best of the stars. I wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth.
All the great trees and beasts, fishes and fowl are gone.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 23, 1856
the nobler animals have been exterminated. ...See January 29, 1856 ("It is observable that not only the moose and the wolf disappear before the civilized man, but even many species of insects, such as the black fly and the almost microscopic 'no-see-em.'"); April 11, 1857 ("The very fishes in countless schools are driven out of a river by the improvements of the civilized man, as the pigeon and other fowls out of the air. . . .That river which the aboriginal and indigenous fishes have not deserted is a more primitive and interesting river to me. "); Natural History of Massachusetts (1842) ("The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten have disappeared ")
to know Nature's moods and manners. See June 22, 1851 ("My pulse must beat with Nature"); September 7, 1851 ("My profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the operas, in nature."); January 11, 1852 ("Let me not live as if time was short. Catch the pace of the seasons; have leisure to attend to every phenomenon of nature, and to entertain every thought that comes."); March 11, 1856; ("I wish so to live ever as to derive my satisfactions and inspirations from the commonest events, every-day phenomena, so that what my senses hourly perceive, my daily walk, the conversation of my neighbors, may inspire me"); September 24, 1859 ("I would know when in the year to expect certain thoughts and moods, as the sportsman knows when to look for plover."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Moods and Seasons of the Mind.
I should not like to think that some demigod had come before me and picked out some of the best of the stars. I wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth.
All the great trees and beasts, fishes and fowl are gone.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 23, 1856
the nobler animals have been exterminated. ...See January 29, 1856 ("It is observable that not only the moose and the wolf disappear before the civilized man, but even many species of insects, such as the black fly and the almost microscopic 'no-see-em.'"); April 11, 1857 ("The very fishes in countless schools are driven out of a river by the improvements of the civilized man, as the pigeon and other fowls out of the air. . . .That river which the aboriginal and indigenous fishes have not deserted is a more primitive and interesting river to me. "); Natural History of Massachusetts (1842) ("The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten have disappeared ")
to know Nature's moods and manners. See June 22, 1851 ("My pulse must beat with Nature"); September 7, 1851 ("My profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the operas, in nature."); January 11, 1852 ("Let me not live as if time was short. Catch the pace of the seasons; have leisure to attend to every phenomenon of nature, and to entertain every thought that comes."); March 11, 1856; ("I wish so to live ever as to derive my satisfactions and inspirations from the commonest events, every-day phenomena, so that what my senses hourly perceive, my daily walk, the conversation of my neighbors, may inspire me"); September 24, 1859 ("I would know when in the year to expect certain thoughts and moods, as the sportsman knows when to look for plover."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Moods and Seasons of the Mind.
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