A splendid sunset.

January 17. 

Another mild day. 

January 17, 2020

P. M. — To Goose Pond and Walden. 

Sky overcast, but a crescent of clearer in the northwest. 

I see on the snow in Hubbard's Close one of those rather large flattish black bugs some five eighths of an inch long, with feelers and a sort of shield at the forward part with an orange mark on each side of it. 

In the spring-hole ditches of the Close I see many little water-bugs (Gyrinus) gyrating, and some under water. It must be a common phenomenon there in mild weather in the winter. 

I look again at that place of squirrels (of the 13th). As I approach, I have a glimpse of one or two red squirrels gliding off silently along the branches of the pines, etc. They are gone so quickly and noiselessly, perhaps keeping the trunk of the tree between you and them, that [you] would not commonly suspect their presence if you were not looking for them. 

But one that was on the snow ascended a pine and sat on a bough with its back to the trunk as if there was nothing to pay. Yet when I moved again he scud up the tree, and glided across on some very slender twigs into a neigh boring tree, and so I lost him. 

Here is, apparently, a settlement of these red squirrels. 

There are many holes through the snow into the ground, and many more where they have probed and dug up a white pine cone, now pretty black and, for aught I can see, with abortive or empty seeds; yet they patiently strip them on the spot, or at the base of the trees, or at the entrance of their holes, and evidently find some good seed. The snow, however, is strewn with the empty and rejected seeds. 

They seem to select for their own abode a hillside where there are half a dozen rather large and thick white pines near enough together for their aerial travelling, and then they burrow numerous holes and depend on finding (apparently) the pine cones which they cast down in the summer, before they have opened. In the fall they construct a nest of grass and bark-fibres, moss, etc., in one of the trees for winter use, and so apparently have two resources. 

I walk about Ripple Lake and Goose Pond. I see the old tracks of some foxes and rabbits about the edge of these ponds (over the ice) within a few feet of the shore. I think that I have noticed that animals thus commonly go round by the shore of a pond, whether for fear of the ice, or for the shelter of the shore, i. e. not to be seen, or because their food and game is found there. But a dog will oftener bolt straight across.
 

January 16, 2018

When I reached the open railroad causeway returning, there was a splendid sunset. The northwest sky at first was what you may call a lattice sky, the fair weather establishing itself first on that side in the form of a long and narrow crescent, in which the clouds, which were uninterrupted overhead, were broken into long bars parallel to the horizon — 

Alcott said well the other day that this was his definition of heaven, "A place where you can have a little conversation."

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 17, 1860

In the spring-hole ditches of the Close I see many little water-bugs (Gyrinus) gyrating. See  January 23, 1858 ("Standing on the bridge over the Mill Brook on the Turnpike, there being but little ice on the south side, I see several small water-bugs (Gyrinus) swimming about, as in the spring.")

I look again at that place of squirrels (of the 13th). See January 13, 1860 ("I see under some sizable white pines in E. Hubbard's wood, where red squirrels have run about much since this snow.") See also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, The Red Squirrel.

I see the old tracks of some foxes and rabbits about the edge of these ponds (over the ice) within a few feet of the shore. See January 8, 1860 ("We see no fresh tracks. The old tracks of the rabbit, now after the thaw, are shaped exactly like a horse shoe, an unbroken curve. Those of the fox which has run along the side of the pond are now so many snowballs, raised . . . above the level of the water-darkened snow.")

When I reached the open railroad causeway returning, there was a splendid sunset. See January 17, 1852 ("In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days.")