Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/82

 snails and cockles. Then away it goes with a limping flight, uncertain where it will alight, until a rod of clean sand amid the alders invites its feet. But now our steady approach compels it to another flight, a new retreat. I have seen them standing by the half-dozen together, with their heads thrust into the mud under the water. It is a bird of the oldest Thalesian school, and no doubt believes in the priority of water to the other elements. When the world was made, from water was it made; when the earth subsided from the waters, was it left on the shore, a relic, perhaps, of some slimy antediluvian age, which yet inhabits these bright American rivers, along with us Yankees. It is of my kindred after all, then; and I have a lingering respect for my unreclaimed brother. There is something venerable in the race of birds, which might have trodden the earth while yet in a transitory and imperfect state. What second advent does it look forward to? Meanwhile, bravely supporting its fate, it continues to fulfil its end, without sympathy from proud man.

The neighboring wood was alive with [34]