Like the mackerel sky

February 28. 

To Cambridge and Boston. 

FEBRUARY 28, 2019

Saw a mackerel in the market. The upper half of its sides is mottled blue and white like the mackerel sky, as stated January 19th, 1858 [sic].

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 28, 1859

See January 19, 1859 (“The sky is most wonderfully and beautifully mottled with evenly distributed cloudlets, of indescribable variety yet regularity in their form, suggesting fishes’ scales, with perhaps small fish-bones thrown in here and there. It is white in the midst, or most prominent part, of the scales, passing into blue in the crannies. Something like this blue and white mottling, methinks, is seen on a mackerel, and has suggested the name. ”)