200 
“WALDEN. 
in g four pounds,-—I am thus particular because the 
weight of a fish is commonly its only title to fame, and 
these are the only eels I have heard of here; — also, I 
have a faint recollection of a little fish some five inches 
long, with silvery sides and a greenish back, somewhat 
dace-like in its character, which I mention here chiefly 
to link my facts to fable. Nevertheless, this pond is 
not very fertile in fish. Its pickerel, though not abun¬ 
dant, are its chief boast. I have seen at one time lying 
on the ice pickerel of at least three different kinds; a 
long and shallow one, steel-colored, most like those 
caught in the river; a bright golden kind, with green¬ 
ish reflections and remarkably deep, which is the most 
common here; and another, golden-colored, and shaped 
like the last, but peppered on the sides with small dark 
brown or black spots, intermixed with a few faint blood- 
red ones, very much like a trout. The specific name 
reticulatus would not apply to this ; it should be gutta - 
tus rather. These are all very firm fish, and weigh 
more than their size promises. The shiners, pouts, and 
perch also, and indeed all the fishes which inhabit this 
pond, are much cleaner, handsomer, and firmer fleshed 
than those in the river and most other ponds, as the 
water is purer, and they can easily be distinguished 
from them. Probably many ichthyologists would make 
new varieties of some of them. There are also a clean 
race of frogs and tortoises, and a few muscles in it; 
muskrats and minks leave their traces about it, and oc¬ 
casionally a travelling mud-turtle visits it. Sometimes, 
when I pushed off my boat in the morning, I disturbed a 
great mud-turtle which had secreted himself under the 
boat in the night. Ducks and geese frequent it in the 
spring and fall, the white-bellied swallows (Hirundo 
