A SHARP LOOKOUT 23 



water was standing there, from which the April 

 sunbeams had invoked these airy, fairy creatures. 

 They belong to the crustaceans, but apparently no 

 creature has so thin or impalpable a crust; you can 

 almost see through them; certainly you can see 

 what they have had for dinner, if they have eaten 

 substantial food. 



All we know about the private and essential 

 natural history of the bees, the birds, the fishes, 

 the animals, the plants, is the result of close, pa- 

 tient, quick-witted observation. Yet Nature will 

 often elude one for all his pains and alertness. 

 Thoreau, as revealed in his journal, was for years 

 trying to settle in his own mind what was the first 

 thing that stirred in spring, after the severe New 

 England winter, in what was the first sign or 

 pulse of returning life manifest ; and he never seems 

 to have been quite sure. He could not get his salt 

 on the tail of this bird. He dug into the swamps, 

 he peered into the water, he felt with benumbed 

 hands for the radical leaves of the plants under the 

 snow; he inspected the buds on the willows, the 

 catkins on the alders; he went out before daylight 

 of a March morning and remained out after dark; 

 he watched the lichens and mosses on the rocks; 

 he listened for the birds; he was on the alert for 

 the first frog ("Can you be absolutely sure," he 

 say^ "that you have heard the first frog that 

 croaked in the township ? ") ; he stuck a pin here 

 and he stuck a pin there, and there, and still he 

 could not satisfy himself. Nor can any one. Life 



