Page:Autumn. From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/82

68 it is required that you be affected by ferns, that they amount to anything, signify anything, to you, that they be another sacred scripture and revelation to you, helping to redeem your life, this end is not so easily accomplished.

I see and hear probably flocks of grackles with their split and shuffling note, but no redwings for a long time; chipbirds (but without chestnut crowns; is that the case with the young?), bay wings on the walls and fences, and the yellow-browed sparrow. Hear the pine warblers in the pines, about the needles, and see them on the ground and on rocks, with a yellow ring round the eye, reddish legs, and a slight whitish bar on the wings. Going over the large hillside stubble field west of Holden wood, I start up a large flock of shore larks, hear their sveet sveet and sveet sveet sveet, and see their tails dark beneath. They are very wary, and run in the stubble, for the most part invisible, while one or two appear to act the sentinel at some rock, peeping out behind it, perhaps, and give their note of alarm, when away goes the whole flock. Such a flock circled back and forth several times over my head, just like ducks reconnoitringreconnoitering [sic] before they alight. If you look with a glass, you are surprised to see how alert the spies are. These larks have dusky bills and legs.