Thoreau writes in his journal:
Stand over a bream’s nest close to the shore at Hubbard’s rear wood. At length she ventures back to it, after many approaches. The apparent young bream, hardly half an inch long, are hovering over it all the while in a little school, never offering to swim away from over that yellow sport; such is their instinct. The old one at length returns and takes up her watch beneath, but I notice no recognition of each other . . .
