Myrica Island.

December 14.

I walk on Loring's Pond to three or four islands there which I have never visited, not having a boat in the summer.

On one containing an acre or two, I find a low, branching shrub frozen into the edge of the ice, with a fine spicy scent somewhat like sweet-fern and a handsome imbricate bud. When I rub the dry-looking fruit in my hands, it feels greasy and stains them a permanent yellow, which I cannot wash out.

It lasts several days, and my fingers smell medicinal. I conclude that it is sweetgale, and we name the island Myrica Island.

On those unfrequented islands, too, I notice the red osier or willow, that common hard-berried plant with small red buds, apparently two kinds of swamp-pink buds, some yellow, some reddish, a brittle , rough yellow ish bush with handsome pinkish shoots; in one place in the meadow the greatest quantity of wild rose hips of various forms that I ever saw, now slightly withered; they are as thick as winterberries .

I notice a bush covered with cocoons which are artfully concealed by two leaves wrapped round them, one still hanging by its stem, so that they look like a few withered leaves left dangling.

The worm, having first encased itself in another leaf for greater protection, folded more loosely around itself one of the leaves of the plant, taking care, however, to encase the leaf-stalk and the twig with a thick and strong web of silk, so far from depending on the strength of the stalk, which is now quite brittle. The strongest fingers cannot break it, and the cocoon can only be got off by slipping it up and off the twig.

There they hang themselves secure for the winter, proof against cold and the birds, ready to become butterflies when new leaves push forth.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 14, 1850

I walk on Loring's Pond to three or four islands there which I have never visited, not having a boat in the summer. See December 14. 1851 ("I have had no time to skate for surveying. I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business."); December 18, 1852 ("Loring's Pond beautifully frozen. So polished a surface, I mistook many parts of it for water.");May 17, 1852 ("This pond is the more interesting for the islands in it. ") See also December 6, 1854 ("I see thick ice and boys skating all the way to Providence, but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture."); December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond. ") December 13, 1859 ("My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer. . . . Now that the river is frozen we have a sky under our feet also."); December 15, 1855 ("The boys have skated. a little within two or three days, but it has not been thick enough to bear a man yet."); December 19, 1854 (" Last night was so cold that the river closed up almost everywhere, and made good skating where there had been no ice to catch the snow of the night before. . . ."); December 20, 1854 ( P. M. — Skate to Fair Haven.”)

I find a low, branching shrub frozen into the edge of the ice, with a fine spicy scent. See April 13, 1860 (“It distinctly occurred to me that, perhaps, if I came against my will, as it were, to look at the sweet-gale as a matter of business, I might discover something else interesting.”)