November 25.For some days since colder weather, I notice the snow-fleas skipping on the surface the shore. I see them today skipping by thousands in the wet clamshells left by the muskrats. These are rather a cool-weather phenomenon.
There is a thin ice for half a rod in width along the shore, which shivers and breaks in the undulations of my boat.
A large whitish-breasted bird is perched on an oak under Lee's Cliff, for half an hour at least. I think it must be a fish hawk.
In this clear, cold water I see no fishes now, and it is as empty as the air. Our hands and feet are quite cold, and the water freezes on the paddles.
H.D. Thoreau, Journal, November 25, 1859
I notice the snow-fleas skipping on the surface the shore. See November 11, 1858 ("Snow-fleas are skipping on the surface of the water at the edge"); January 22, 1860 ("This must be as peculiarly a winter animal as any. It may truly be said to live in snow.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow-flea
A thin ice along the shore shivers and breaks in the undulations of my boat. See November 14, 1855 ("The motion of my boat sends an undulation to the shore, which rustles the dry sedge half immersed there.”)
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