Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/135

Rh them killed, I would rather save one of these hawks than have a hundred hens and chickens. It was worth more to see them soar, especially now that they are so rare in the landscape. It is easy to buy eggs, but not to buy hen-hawks. My neighbors would not hesitate to shoot the last pair of hen-hawks in the town to save a few of their chickens! But such economy is narrow and groveling. I would rather never taste chickens meat nor hens eggs than never to see a hawk sailing through the upper air again. The sight is worth incomparably more than a chicken soup or boiled egg. So we exterminate the deer and substitute the hog. It was amusing to observe the swaying to and fro of the young hawk's head to counterbalance the gentle action of the bough in the wind.

Violets appear to be about done generally. Four-leaved loosestrife just out; also, the smooth wild rose yesterday. The pogonia at Forget-me-not Brook.

What was that rare and beautiful bird in the dark woods under the Cliffs, with black above and white spots and bars, a large triangular blood-red spot on breast, and sides of breast and beneath, white? Note, a warble, like the oriole, but softer and sweeter. It was quite tame. Probably a rose-breasted grossbeak. At first I thought it was a chewink, as it sat