A Spider on ice.

December 18.

See to-day a dark-colored spider of the very largest kind on ice, -- the mill-pond at E. Wood’s in Acton.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal,  December 18, 1855

A dark-colored spider of the very largest kind on ice. See January 6, 1854 ("Frequently see a spider apparently stiff and dead on snow."); December 23, 1859 ("A little black, or else a brown, spider (sometimes quite a large one) motionless on the snow or ice.") Compare December 17, 1850 ("There were handsome spider-shaped dark places, where the under ice had melted, and the water had worn it running through, a handsome figure on the icy carpet."); December 7, 1856 ("There are many of those singular spider-shaped dark places amid the white ice, where the surface water has run through some days ago.")