Show companions lie ile made F friends lathe la the forest with the life around him the mice ice which haunted my lay hou house houe e were not the common ones which are said to have bave been introduced anio the country but a wild native kind not found in the village il lage I 1 sent one to a distinguished naturalist and it inter sted him very much when I 1 was building uil ding one of these had its nest underneath der neath the house and before I 1 had said aid the second floor and swept out the bavi would come out regularly at aunch time and pick up the crumis crumbs at my iny feet it probably had bad never seen i tan an before and it soon became becam quite quit familiar and would run over my shoes and up my clothes it could readily ascend the sides of the room by short impulses s like a squirrel which it resembled in its motions us at length ms as I 1 le leaned abed with my bibow on the bench one day it ran up my clothes and chlong my sleeve and round and around the paper which held my dinner while I 1 kept the latter close and dodged and played at bopeep bo peep with it and when at last I 1 held still a piece of cheese between my linger finger it came and nibbled it sitting in my hand and afterward aften cleaned its face and paws like a fly and walked away away A phoebe soon built in my shed and a robin for protection in a 0 pine which grew against the house in june th tha partridges partridge which is so shy a bird led her brood broad past my windows from the woods in the rear to the front of my house clucking clochin T and calling to them like a hen and in in all her behavior proving herself the hen of the woods the young suddenly disperse on your approach roach at a signal from the mother as aa if a whir whirlwind lAvind has swept them away ond and they so exactly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a traveler lias has placed his foot in the midst of a brood and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off and her anxious culls calls and mewing or seen her trail her wings wings to attract his attention Nit without bout sus pecking their neighborhood the parent will sometimes roll and spin round before you in such a dishabille that you cannot for a few moments detect detect what kind of a creature it is the young squat still and flat often running their heads under a leal leaf and mind only their mothers directions given from a distance distance nor will your approach make them run again and betray themselves I 1 have held tham in my open hand 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 1 laid them on the leaves again and one accidentally fell on its side it was found with the rest in exactly the same position ten minutes afterward the remarkable adult yet innocent expression of their open and serene eyes is very memorable all intelligence telli gence seems reflected in them they suggest not merely the purity of infancy but a wisdom clarified by experience peri ence such an eye was wag not born when the bird was but is coeval with the sky it the woods do not yield another such gem thoreau Thore aus s life |