Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/351

Rh cow not for the sake of her milk or her beef, or the money they yield, but perchance to hear the tinkling of the cow-bell. We would keep hens not for eggs, but to hear the cocks crow and the hens cackle.

As for the locality of bee-hives, Varro says they must be placed near the villa, &quot;potissimum ubi non resonent imagines, hie enim sonus harum fugæ causa existimatur esse,&quot; especially where there are no echoes, &quot;for this sound is thought to be the cause of their flight.&quot;

Feb. 4, 1855. Saw this  a very distinct otter track by the Rock, at the junction of the two rivers. The separate foot tracks were quite round, more than two inches in diameter, showing the five toes distinctly in the snow, which was about half an inch deep. In one place where it had crossed last night to Merrick's pasture, its trail about six inches wide and of furrows in the snow was on one side of its foot tracks, and there were about nine inches between its fore and hind feet. Close by the great aspen I saw where it had entered or come out of the water under a shelf of ice left adhering to a maple. There it apparently played or slid on the level ice, making a broad trail, as if a shovel had been shoved along, just eight inches wide, without a foot track in it for four feet or more. And again the trail was only two inches wide and