Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/235

Rh and from the loiterers you have a quite tender peep, as they fly after the vanishing flock. What independent creatures! They go seeking their food from north to south. If New Hampshire and Maine are covered deeply with snow, they scale down to Massachusetts for their breakfast. Not liking the grains in this field, away they dash to another distant one, attracted by the weeds rising above the snow. Who can guess in what field, by what river or mountain, they breakfasted this morning. They did not seem to regard me so near, but as they went off, their wave actually broke over me as a rock. They have the pleasure of society at their feasts, a hundred dining at once, busily talking while eating, remembering what occurred in Grinnell Land. As they flew past me, they presented a pretty appearance, somewhat like broad bars of white alternating with bars of black.

Jan. 22, 1852. Having occasion to get up and light a lamp in the middle of a sultry night, perhaps to exterminate mosquitoes, I observed a stream of large black ants passing up and down one of the bare corner posts, those descending having their large white eggs or larvæ in their mouths, the others making haste up for another load. I supposed that they had found the heat so great just under the roof as to compel them to remove their progeny to a cooler place.