is colder than springs and wells which are protected
from it. The temperature of the pond water which had stood in the room
where I sat from five o'clock in the afternoon till noon the next day,
the sixth of March, 1846, the thermometer having been up to 65 deg. or 70 deg.
some of the time, owing partly to the sun on the roof, was 42 deg., or one
degree colder than the water of one of the coldest wells in the village
just drawn. The temperature of the Boiling Spring the same day was 45 deg.,
or the warmest of any water tried, though it is the coldest that I know
of in summer, when, besides, shallow and stagnant surface water is not
mingled with it. Moreover, in summer, Walden never becomes so warm as
most water which is exposed to the sun, on account of its depth. In the
warmest weather I usually placed a pailful in my cellar, where it became
cool in the night, and remained so during the day; though I also
resorted to a spring in the neighborhood. It was as good when a a week
old as the day it was dipped, and had no taste of the pump. Whoever
camps for a week in summer by the shore of a pond, needs only bury a
pail of water a few feet deep in the shade of his camp to be independent
of the luxury of ice.

There have been caught in Walden, pickerel, one weighing seven pounds,
to say nothing of another which carried off a reel with great velocity,
which the fisherman safely set down at eight pounds because he did not
see him, perch and pouts, some of each weighing over two pounds,
shiners, chivins or roach (_Leucisus pulchellus_), a very few breams,
and a couple of eels, one weighing 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 abundant, 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 greenish
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