How perfectly at home the musquash is on our river.

December 23. 

P. M. — To Eddy Bridge. 

December 23, 2018

Colder last night. Walden undoubtedly frozen at last, — What was left to freeze.[No.]

See a shrike on the top of an oak. It sits still, pluming itself. At first, when it was flying, I thought it a hairy woodpecker. 

How perfectly at home the musquash is on our river. And then there is an abundance of clams, a wholesome diet for him, to be had for the diving for them. I do not know that he has any competition in this chase, unless it is an occasional otter. The clams are a sizable fish and in time of scarcity would not be contemptible food for man.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 23, 1858


Walden undoubtedly frozen at last, — [No.] See December 24, 1858 ("Those two places in middle of Walden not frozen over yet, though it was quite cold last night! “).

How perfectly at home the musquash is on our river. See November 11, 1855 ("The building of these cabins appears to be coincident with the commencement of their clam diet, for now their vegetable food, excepting roots, is cut off. "); November 16, 1852 ("Muskrat-houses completed. Interesting objects looking down a river-reach at this season, and our river should not be represented without one or two of these cones. They are . . .of too much importance to be omitted in the river landscape."); November 17, 1858 ("The musquash are more active since the cold weather. I see more of them about the river now, swimming back and forth across the river, and diving in the middle, where I lose them. They dive off the round-backed, black mossy stones, which, when small and slightly exposed, look much like themselves. In swimming show commonly three parts with water between. One sitting in the sun, as if for warmth, on the opposite shore to me looks quite reddish brown. They avail themselves of the edge of the ice now found along the sides of the river to feed on”); December 3, 1853 ("I see that muskrats have not only erected cabins, but, since the river rose, have in some places dug galleries a rod into the bank, pushing the sand behind them into the water. So they dig these now as places of retreat merely, or for the same purpose as the cabins, apparently."); December 26, 1859 ("Twice this winter I have noticed a musquash floating in a placid open place in the river when it was frozen for a mile each side, looking at first like a bit of stump or frozen meadow, but showing its whole upper outline from nose to end of tail; perfectly still till he observed me, then suddenly diving and steering under the ice toward some cabin's entrance or other retreat half a dozen or more rods off. ")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash