A Nuthatch

November 26.

In the oak wood counting the rings of a stump, I hear the faint note of a nuthatch like the creak of a limb. I detect it on the trunk of an oak much nearer than I suspected, and its mate or companion not far off.

This is a phenomenon of the late fall or early winter; for we do not hear them in summer that I remember.

Commonly they are steadily hopping about the trunks in search of insect food. Yet today the nuthatch picks out from a crevice in the bark of an oak trunk, where it was perpendicular, something white and pretty large. May it not have been the meat of an acorn?

The value of these wild fruits is not in the mere possession or eating of them, but in the sight or enjoyment of them.

The very derivation of the word "fruit" would suggest this. It is from the Latin fructus, meaning that which is used or enjoyed.

If it were not so, then going a-berrying and going to market would be nearly synonymous expressions.

Of course it is the spirit in which you do a thing which makes it interesting, whether it is sweeping a room or pulling turnips.

Peaches are unquestionably a very beautiful and palatable fruit, but the gathering of them for the market is not nearly so interesting as the gathering of huckleberries for your own use.

A man fits out a ship at a great expense and sends it to the West Indies with a crew of men and boys, and after six months or a year it comes back with a load of pineapples.

Now, if no more gets accomplished than the speculator commonly aims at, — if it simply turns out what is called a successful venture, — I am less interested in this expedition than in some child's first excursion a-huckleberrying, in which it is introduced into a new world, experiences a new development, though it brings home only a gill of huckleberries in its basket.

I know that the newspapers and the politicians declare otherwise, but they do not alter the fact.

Then, I think that the fruit of the latter expedition was finer than that of the former. It was a more fruitful expedition.

The value of any experience is measured, of course, not by the amount of money, but the amount of development we get out of it.

If a New England boy's dealings with oranges and pineapples have had more to do with his development than picking huckleberries or pulling turnips have, then he rightly and naturally thinks more of the former; otherwise not.

Do not think that the fruits of New England are mean and insignificant, while those of some foreign land are noble and memorable. Our own, whatever they may be, are far more important to us than any others can be.

They educate us, and fit us to live in New England.

Better for us is the wild strawberry than the pineapple, the wild apple than the orange, the hazelnut or pignut than the cocoanut or almond, and not on account of their flavor merely, but the part they play in our education.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 26, 1860

The faint note of a nuthatch like the creak of a limb. See October 20, 1856 ("Think I hear the very faint gnah of a nuthatch. “); November 7, 1855 (". . .see a nuthatch flit with a ricochet flight across the river, and hear his gnah half uttered when he alights.”); February 24, 1854 ("Nuthatches are faintly answering each other, — tit for tat, — on different keys, — a faint creak. Now and then one utters a loud distinct gnah.”) and J. J. Audubon ("The notes of the White-breasted Nuthatch are remarkable on account of their nasal sound. Ordinarily they resemble the monosyllables hank, hank, kank, kank; but now and then in the spring, they emit a sweeter kind of chirp, whenever the sexes meet, or when they are feeding their young.”)

This is a phenomenon of the late fall or early winter . . . See December 1, 1857 ("I thus always begin to hear this bird on the approach of winter, as if it did not breed here, but wintered here * [but] Hear it all the fall (and occasionally through the summer of ’59")

 
May it not have been the meat of an acorn? See J.J. Audubon("Their bill is strong and sharp, and they not unfrequently break acorns, chestnuts, &c., by placing them in the crevices of the bark of trees, or between the splinters of a fence-rail, where they are seen hammering at them for a considerable time. “)

The fruits of New England . . .our own, whatever they may be, are far more important to us than any others can be. They educate us, and fit us to live in New England. Better for us is the wild strawberry than the pineapple, See November 23, 1860 ("Famous fruits imported from the tropics and sold in our markets — as oranges, lemons, pineapples, and bananas do not concern me so much as many an unnoticed wild berry whose beauty annually lends a new charm to some wild walk"); November 24, 1860 ("The bitter-sweet of a white oak acorn which you nibble in a bleak November walk over the tawny earth is more to me than a slice of imported pineapple. "); December 22, 1850 ("Apples are now thawed. . . . are now filled with a rich, sweet cider . . . a sweet and luscious food, — in my opinion of more worth than the pineapples which are imported from the torrid zone. "); May 28, 1854 ("One of the great crops of the year . . .the blossoms of the Vacciniece, or Whortleberry Family, which affords so large a proportion of our berries. The crop of oranges, lemons, nuts, and raisins, and figs, quinces, etc., etc., not to mention tobacco and the like, is of no importance to us compared with these.")