THE PONDS. 
203 
tered over its whole extent, by their motions in the 
sun produce the finest imaginable sparkle on it, or, per¬ 
chance, a duck plumes itself, or, as I have said, a swal¬ 
low skims so low as to touch it. It may be that in the 
distance a fish describes an arc of three or four feet in 
the air, and there is one bright flash where it emerges, 
and another where it strikes the water; sometimes the 
whole silvery arc is revealed; or here and there, per¬ 
haps, is a thistle-down floating on its surface, which the 
fishes dart at and so dimple it again. It is like molten 
glass cooled but not congealed, and the few motes in it 
are pure and beautiful like the imperfections in glass. 
You may often detect a yet smoother and darker water, 
separated from the rest as if by an invisible cobweb, 
boom of the water nymphs, resting on it. From a hill¬ 
top you can see a fish leap in almost any part; for not 
a pickerel or shiner picks an insect from this smooth 
surface but it manifestly disturbs the equilibrium of the 
whole lake. It is wonderful with what elaborateness 
this simple fact is advertised, — this piscine murder 
will out, — and from my distant perch I distinguish the 
circling undulations when they are half a dozen rods in 
diameter. You can even detect a water-bug ( Gyrinus) 
ceaselessly progressing over the smooth surface a quar¬ 
ter of a mile off; for they furrow the water slightly, 
making a conspicuous ripple bounded by two diverging 
lines, but the skaters glide over it without rippling it 
perceptibly. When the surface is considerably agitated 
there are no skaters nor water-bugs on it, but apparent¬ 
ly, in calm days, they leave their havens and adventu¬ 
rously glide forth from the shore by short impulses till 
they completely cover it. It is a soothing employment, 
on one of those fine days in the fall when all the warmth 
