The Thoreau
Institute at Walden Woods Library
Thoreau's Life &
Writings: Correspondence
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HDT to Horatio R.
Storer
Concord, 15 February 1847
Dear
Sir,
I have not forgotten your note which I
received sometime since. Though I live in the woods I am not so
attentive an observer of birds as I was once, but am satisfied if I
get an occasional sight of or sound from them.
My pursuits at present are such that I am not very likely to
meet with any specimens which you will not have obtained.
Moreover, I confess to a little squeamishness on the score of
robbing their nests, though I could easily go to the length of
abstracting an egg or two gently, now and then, and if the
advancement of science obviously demanded it might be carried even
to the extreme of deliberate murder.
I have no doubt that you will observe a
greater number of species in or near the College yard than I can
here. I have noticed that in
an open country where there are but few trees, there are more
attractions for many species of birds than in a wooded one. They not
only find food there in greater abundance, but protection against
birds of prey; and even if they are no more numerous than elsewhere,
the few trees are necessarily more crowded with nests.
Many of my classmates were quite successful in collecting
birds nests and eggs and they did not have to go far from the
college-yard
to
find them— I remember
a pigeon-woodpecker’s nest in the grove on the east side of the
yard, which annually yielded a number of eggs to collectors, while
the bird steadily supplied the loss like a hen, until my chum
demolished the whole with a hatchet. I found another in the next field chipped nearly two feet into a
solid stump. And in one
of the fields near the yard I used to visit daily in the winter the
dwelling of an ermine-weasel in a hollow apple tree.
But of course one must be a greater traveller than this if he
would make anything like a complete collection.
There are many whippoorwills & owls
about my house, and perhaps with a little pains one might find their
nests. I hope you have
more nimble and inquisitive eyes to serve you than mine now are— However, if I should chance to stumble on any rarer nest I will not
forget your request.
If you come to Concord again, as I understand
you sometimes do, I shall be glad
to see you at my hut,—Trusting that you will feather your own nest
comfortably without stripping those of the birds quite bare—I
am
Yrs
Henry D. Thoreau
A
Note on the Text:
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Source:
The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau edited by
Walter Harding and Carl Bode (New York: New York University
Press, c1958) p. 175-176.
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