I found another caterpillar on the ice.

February 11. 

Wednesday. 

The meadows, flooded by the thaw of the last half of last week and Sunday, are now frozen hard enough to bear, and it is excellent skating. 

Near the other swamp white oak on Shattuck's piece I found another caterpillar on the ice. From its position I thought it possible that it had been washed from its winter quarters by the freshet, and so left on top of the ice. It was not frozen in, and may have been blown from the oak. 

It was of a different species from that of January 8th, about one and one tenth inches long, with but little fuzziness, black with three longitudinal buff stripes, the two lateral quite pale, and a black head; the foremost feet black, the others lighter-colored. 

It was frozen quite stiffly, as many tested, being curled up like the other, and I did not dare to bend it hard for fear of breaking it, even after I took it out in the house. But being placed on the mantelpiece it soon became relaxed, and in fifteen minutes began to crawl.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 11, 1857

It was of a different species from that of January 8th. . .See January 8, 1857 ("I picked up on the bare ice of the river, opposite the oak in Shattuck's land, on a small space blown bare of snow, a fuzzy caterpillar, black at the two ends and red-brown in the middle, rolled into a ball . . .”)

It was frozen quite stiffly but being placed on the mantelpiece it soon became relaxed, and in fifteen minutes began to crawl.See February 12, 1857 ("The caterpillar, which I placed last night on the snow beneath the thermometer, is frozen stiff again, this time not being curled up, the temperature being -6° now. Yet, being placed on the mantelpiece, it thaws and begins to crawl in five or ten minutes"); February 14, 1857 ("Numerous caterpillars are now crawling about on the ice and snow, the thermometer in the shade north of house standing 42°. So it appears that they must often thaw in the course of the winter, and find nothing to eat.”)