Snow fleas

January 15.

January 15, 2012

For the first time this winter I notice snow-fleas this afternoon in Walden Wood. Wherever I go they are to be seen, especially in the deepest ruts and foot-tracks. Their number is almost infinite.

It is a rather warm and moist afternoon, and feels like rain. I suppose that some peculiarity in the weather has called them forth from the bark of the trees.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 15, 1852

For the first time this winter I notice snow-fleas. See January 5, 1854 (“This afternoon . . . being warm and thawing, though fair, the snow is covered with snow-fleas.”); January 7, 1860 ("A thaw begins, with a southerly wind. As soon as I reach the neighborhood of the woods I begin to see the snow-fleas, . . .Last night there was not one to be seen.”); January 30, 1860 ("The snow-flea seems to be a creature whose summer and prime of life is a thaw in the winter.. . .It is the creature of the thaw. Moist snow is its element.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Snow-flea