Walden [?w?ld?n] (Issue 194) 16. The Pond in Winter(2) [3] Early in the morning, while all things are crisp with frost, men come with fishing-reels and slender lunch, and let down their fine lines through the snowy[?sn???] field to take pickerel and perch; wild men, who instinctively follow other fashions and trust other authorities than their townsmen, and by their goings and comings stitch towns together in parts where else they would be ripped. They sit and eat their luncheon[?l?nt??n] in stout fear-naughts on the dry oak leaves on the shore, as wise in natural lore as the citizen is in artificial. They never consulted with books, and know and can tell much less than they have done. The things which they practice are said not yet to be known. Here is one fishing for pickerel[?p?k?r?l] with grown perch for bait. You look into his pail with wonder as into a summer pond, as if he kept summer locked up at home, or knew where she had retreated. How, pray, did he get these in midwinter? Oh, he got worms out of rotten logs since the ground froze, and so he caught them. His life itself passes deeper in nature than the studies of the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the naturalist. The latter raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of insects; the former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by barking trees. Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him. The perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisher-man swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the scale of being are filled. [4] When I strolled around the pond in misty weather I was sometimes amused by the primitive mode which some ruder['ru?d?r] fisherman had adopted. He would perhaps have placed alder branches over the narrow holes in the ice, which were four or five rods apart and an equal distance from the shore, and having fastened the end of the line to a stick to prevent its being pulled through, have passed the slack line over a twig of the alder, a foot or more above the ice, and tied a dry oak leaf to it, which, being pulled down, would show when he had a bite. These alders loomed through the mist at regular intervals as you walked half way round the pond. 一大早，當(dāng)萬物都粘著冰霜，人們帶著自己的魚竿和簡單的午餐來了，穿過雪野放下精細(xì)的漁線來釣梭魚和鱸魚；愛曠野的人們直覺會告訴他們?nèi)プ冯S另一種時尚和權(quán)威——而不像鎮(zhèn)上的人們——通過他們的來去縫合起鎮(zhèn)子支離破碎的部分，要不然會有裂隙[xì]。他們坐在岸邊干燥的橡樹葉子上肆無忌憚地享受他們的午宴，對自然的聰慧相當(dāng)于市民與城市的虛偽。他們從不用咨詢什么書，所做的遠(yuǎn)比他們知道和所說的要多。這里就有一種用剛長成的鱸魚釣梭魚的釣法。你看見他的水桶，會驚奇如同望進(jìn)了一個夏天的池塘，仿佛他把夏天鎖在了自己家里，或知道她退去了哪里。那么，請問，在隆冬他是如何做到的呢？噢，他從朽木里得到蟲子，既然地已經(jīng)凍得結(jié)實，而且就用那些蟲子逮到魚。他的生活本身就更深入了自然，比探刺[cì]自然的博物學(xué)家的研究領(lǐng)域；他本身就是博物學(xué)家的研究對象。后者輕柔地用刀掀開苔蘚和樹結(jié)尋找昆蟲；前者用斧子劈[pī]開木頭暴露核心，讓苔蘚和樹結(jié)空中四濺。他通過咆哮[xiào]的木頭得到自己的活物。這樣的人有某種權(quán)利垂釣，而且我也愛看著自然規(guī)律在他身上實施。鱸魚吞掉了那蟲子，梭魚吞吃鱸魚，漁人吞吃那梭魚；于是所有的生物鏈就銜接和循環(huán)起來。 當(dāng)我在霧天閑逛，時而會被某些更粗獷[guǎng]一些的漁人采用的原始方式逗樂。他也許會放赤楊樹枝在冰上的窄洞里，然后把漁線的末端固定在一根棍上來避免被拉下去，然后把松松的線繞過一根赤楊木杈，離冰面一英尺左右，再捆上一片橡樹葉子，一旦被拉下來，就會顯示咬鉤了。你只要繞湖轉(zhuǎn)上半圈，這些赤楊枝就在霧中成規(guī)律地若隱若現(xiàn)。