At 8 A.M., the river rising, the thin yellowish ice of last night, next the shore, is, as usual, much heaved up in ridges, as if beginning to double on itself, and here and there at 9 o’clock, being cracked thus in the lowest parts, the water begins to spurt up in some places in a stream, as form an ordinary pump, and flow along these valleys . . .

  As I skated near the shore under Lee’s Cliff, I saw what I took to be some scrags or knotty stubs of a dead limb lying on the bank beneath a white oak, close by me. Yet while I looked directly at them I could not but admire their close resemblance to partridges . . . I was not convinced that they were birds till I had pulled out my glass and deliberately examined them . . . I was much surprised at the remarkable stillness they preserved . . .