Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/73

Rh The oven-bird runs from her covered nest, so close to the ground, under the lowest twigs and leaves, even the loose leaves on the ground, like a mouse, that I cannot get a fair view of her. She does not fly at all. Is it to attract me, or partly to protect herself?

Visited my night-hawk on her nest. Could hardly believe my eyes when. I stood within seven feet and beheld her sitting on her eggs, her head towards me; she looked so Saturnian, so one with the earth, so sphynx-like, a relic of the reign of Saturn which Jupiter did not destroy, a riddle that might well cause a man to go dash his head against a stone. It was not an actual living creature, far less a winged creature of the air, but a figure in stone or bronze, a fanciful production of art, like the gryphon or phœnix. In fact, with its breast toward me, and, owing to its color or size, no bill perceptible, it looked like the end of a brand, such as are common in a clearing, its breast mottled, or alternately waved with dark brown and gray, its flat, grayish, weather-beaten crown, its eyes nearly closed, purposely, lest these bright beads should betray it, with the stony cunning of the sphynx. A fanciful work in bronze to ornament a mantel. It was enough to fill one with awe. The sight of this creature sitting on its eggs impressed me with the venerableness of the globe. There was