Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/177

 JET. 29.] TO ELLIOT CABOT. 153

caddice-worms, leeches, muscles, etc., or rather, here they are. The funds which you sent me are nearly exhausted. Most fishes can now be taken with the hook, and it will cost but little trouble or money to obtain them. The snapping turtles will be the main expense. I should think that five dollars more, at least, might be profita bly expended.

TO ELLIOT CABOT (AT BOSTON).

CONCORD, June 1, 1847.

DEAR SIR, I send you 15 pouts, 17 perch, 13 shiners, 1 larger land tortoise, and 5 muddy tortoises, all from the pond by my house. Also 7 perch, 5 shiners, 8 breams, 4 dace ? 2 muddy tortoises, 5 painted do., and 3 land do., all from the river. One black snake, alive, and one dor mouse? caught last night in my cellar. The tortoises were all put in alive ; the fishes were alive yesterday, i. e., Monday, and some this morning. Observe the difference between those from the pond, which is pure water, and those from the river.

I will send the light-colored trout and the pickerel with the longer snout, which is our large one, when I meet with them. I have set a price upon the heads of snapping turtles, though it is late in the season to get them.

If I wrote red-firmed eel, it was a slip of the