Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/156

142 sound the tree, and so see if it has any worm in it, or perchance to start them. How much he deals with the bark of trees, all his life long tapping and inspecting it. He it is that scatters these fragments of bark and lichens about on the snow at the base of trees. What a lichenest he must be! or rather perhaps it is fungi make his favorite study, for he deals most with dead limbs. How briskly he glides up or drops himself down a limb, creeping round and round, and hopping from limb to limb, and now flitting with a rippling sound of his wings to another tree.

Jan. 8, 1857. I picked up on the bare ice of the river  a furry caterpillar, black at the two ends and red-brown in the middle, rolled into a ball or close ring, like a woodchuck. I pressed it hard between my fingers and found it frozen, put it into my hat, and when I took it out in the evening, it soon began to stir, and at length crawled about, though a portion of it seemed not quite flexible. It took some time for it to thaw. This is the fifth cold day, and it must have been frozen so long.

Jan. 8, 1860. To-day it is very warm and pleasant. 2 Walk to Walden. After December all weather that is not wintry is spring-like. How changed are our feelings and thoughts by this more genial sky! When I get to the railroad, I listen from time to time to