Early raspberries; young oaks

June 30.

June 30, 2014

Jersey tea. 

Young oak shoots have grown from one and a half to three or four feet, but now in some cases appear to be checked and a large bud to have formed. 

Poke, a day or two. 

Small crypta Elatine, apparently some days at least, at Callitriche Pool. 

Rubus triflorus berries, some time, — the earliest fruit of a rubus.The berries are very scarce, light red, semitransparent, showing the seed, — a few (six to ten) large shining grains and rather acid. 

Lobelia spicata, to-morrow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 30, 1854

Jersey tea. See June 29, 1853 ("Jersey tea, just beginning.")

Young oak shoots have grown from one and a half to three or four feet, but now in some cases appear to be checked and formed a large bud. See May 26, 1854 ("Some young red oaks have already grown eighteen inches, i. e. within a fortnight, before their leaves have two-thirds expanded. They have accomplished more than half their year's growth, as if,. . .  now burst forth like a stream which has been dammed. They are properly called shoots.”); May 25, 1853 ("Many do most of their growing for the year in a week or two at this season. They shoot - they spring - and the rest of the Year they harden and mature,. . .")

Rubus triflorus berries, some time, — the earliest fruit of a rubus. See May 21, 1856 ("Rubus triflorus abundantly out at the Saw Mill Brook”); June 7, 1857 ("Rubus triflorus still in bloom");   June 25, 1854 ("A raspberry on sand by railroad, ripe."); July 6, 1857 (“Rubus triflorus well ripe.”); July 2, 1851("Some of the raspberries are ripe, the most innocent and simple of fruits”); July 11, 1857 ("I see more berries than usual of the Rubus triflorus in the open meadow near the southeast corner of the Hubbard meadow blueberry swamp.. . .They are dark shining red and, when ripe, of a very agreeable flavor and somewhat of the raspberry's spirit.")

Lobelia spicata, to-morrow. See July 19, 1856 ("On the under side of a Lobelia spicata leaf, a sort of loose-spun cocoon, about five eighths of an inch long, of golden-brown silk, beneath which silky mist a hundred young spiders swarm")

Large black birches.

June 29.

All the large black birches on Hubbard's Hill have just been cut down, — half a dozen or more. 

The two largest measure two feet seven inches in diameter on the stump at a foot from the ground; the others, five or six inches less. The inner bark there about five eighths of an inch.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 29, 1854

All the large black birches on Hubbard's Hill have just been cut down . . .See April 24, 1855 ("I see the black birch stumps, where they have cut by Flint’s Pond the past winter, completely covered with a greasy-looking pinkish-colored cream . . ., yet without any particular taste or smell,—what the sap has turned to.")

Blueberries pretty numerously ripe on Fair Haven.

June 27.

June 27, 2014

Blueberries pretty numerously ripe on Fair Haven. 

P. Hutchinson says that he can remember when haymakers from Sudbury, thirty or forty years ago, used to come down the river in numbers and unite with Concord to clear the weeds out of the river in shallow places and the larger streams emptying in. 

H. D Thoreau, Journal, June 27, 1854


Blueberries pretty numerously ripe on Fair Haven. Compare July 6, 1851 ("Already I gather ripe blueberries on the hills."); July 26, 1854 ("Almost every bush now offers a wholesome and palatable diet to the wayfarer, — large and dense clusters of Vaccinium vacillans, largest in most moist ground, sprinkled with the red ones not ripe; great high blueberries, some nearly as big as cranberries, of an agreeable acid; huckleberries of various kinds, some shining black, some dull-black, some blue; and low blackberries of two or more varieties")

Up river to Purple Utricularia Shore.

June 26. 

P. M. — I am struck, as I look toward the Dennis shore from the bathing-place, with the peculiar agreeable dark shade of June, a clear air, and bluish light on the grass and bright silvery light reflected from fresh green leaves.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 26, 1854

The peculiar agreeable dark shade of June. . . .See note to June 6, 1855 ("You see the dark eye and shade of June on the river as well as on land"); and June 11, 1856 ("I think that this peculiar darkness of the shade, or of the foliage as seen between you and the sky, is not accounted for merely by saying that we have not yet got accustomed to clothed trees, but the leaves are rapidly acquiring a darker green, are more and more opaque, and, besides, the sky is lit with the intensest light.”)

To Assabet Bathing-Place and Derby Bridge.

June 25.

A green bittern, apparently, awkwardly alighting on the trees and uttering its hoarse, zarry note, zskeow-xskeow-xskeow. 

Shad-berry ripe. 

Garlic open, eighteen inches high or more. 

The calla fruit is curving down. 

I observe many kingfishers at Walden and on the Assabet, very few on the dark and muddy South Branch.  

A raspberry on sand by railroad, ripe. 

Through June the song of the birds is gradually growing fainter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 25, 1854

Shad-berry ripe. See June 25, 1853 ("an unusual quantity of amelanchier berries, –. . . the first, and I think the sweetest, bush berries.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Shad-bush, Juneberry, or Service-berry (Amelanchier canadensis)

I observe many kingfishers at Walden and on the Assabet. See May 10, 1854 ("Above the railroad bridge I see a kingfisher twice sustain himself in one place, about forty feet above the meadow, by a rapid motion of his wings, somewhat like a devil's-needle, not progressing an inch, apparently over a fish.”); June 9, 1854 (".Meanwhile the kingfishers are on the lookout for the fishes as they rise. I see one dive in the twilight and go off uttering his cr-r-ack, cr-r-rack. "); June 12, 1854 ("Scare a kingfisher on a bough over Walden. As he flies off, he hovers two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dives and apparently catches a fish, with which he flies off low over the water to a tree."); July 28, 1858 ("Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off. ")

A raspberry on sand by railroad, ripe. See June 30, 1854 ("Rubus triflorus berries, some time, — the earliest fruit of a rubus. The berries are very scarce, light red, semitransparent, showing the seed.")

Through June the song of the birds is gradually growing fainter. See June 15, 1854 ("Methinks the birds sing a little feebler nowadays. ")

July 25. See A Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, June 25

A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

Partridge season

June 23. 

June 23, 2014

There has been a foggy haze, dog-day-like, for perhaps ten days, more or less. To-day it is so cold that we sit by a fire. 

Disturb three different broods of partridges in my walk this afternoon in different places. One in Deep Cut Woods, big as chickens ten days old, went flying in various directions a rod or two into the hillside. Another by Heywood's meadow, the young two and a half inches long only, not long hatched, making a fine peep. Held one in my hand, where it squatted without winking. A third near Well Meadow Field. We are now, then, in the very midst of them. Now leading forth their young broods.

From the Cliffs the air is beautifully clear, showing the glossy and light-reflecting greenness of the woods. It is a great relief to look into the horizon. There is more room under the heavens. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 23, 1854

To-day it is so cold that we sit by a fire. See July 4, 1857 (“[F]or nearly a week many people have sat by a fire.”); July 8, 1860 ("The thermometer is at 66°, and some sit by fires.")

It is a great relief to look into the horizon. There is more room under the heavens. See June 23 1852 ("You can see far into the horizon.") See also  June 26, 1853 ("Summer returns without its haze. We see infinitely further into the horizon on every side, and the boundaries of the world are enlarged.") also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Horizon

We are now, then, in the very midst of them. Now leading forth their young broods. See June 27,1852 ("I meet the partridge with her brood in the woods."); June 27, 1860 (" just this side the Hemlocks, a partridge with her little brood.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge.

A wild and strange place

June 21.

Now there is a dense mass of weeds along the waterside, where the muskrats lurk, and overhead a canopy of leaves conceals the birds and shuts out the sun. 

Up the grassy hollows in the sprout-lands north of Goose Pond I feel as if in a strange country, — a pleasing sense of strangeness and distance. 

Here are numerous open hollows more or less connected, where for some reason the wood does not spring up, — and I am glad of it, — filled with a fine wiry grass, with the panicled andromeda, which loves dry places, now in blossom around the edges, and small black cherries and sand cherries straggling down into them. 

As wild and strange a place as you might find in the unexplored West or East. The quarter of a mile of sprout-land which separates it from the highway seems as complete a barrier as a thousand miles of earth. 

Your horizon is there all your own.

Again I am attracted by the deep scarlet of the wild moss rose half open in the grass , all glowing with rosy light.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 21, 1854

See August 6, 1851 ("After how few steps, how little exertion, the student stands in pine woods . . .in a place still unaccountably strange and wild to him.")

A thundershower breaks the drought.

June 19.

June 19, 2014

A thunder-shower in the north. Will it strike us? How impressive this artillery of the heavens! It rises higher and higher. At length the thunder seems to roll quite across the sky and all round the horizon, even where there are no clouds, and I row homeward in haste. 

The top of the swamp white oak in Merrick's pasture with its rich shade of green seems incrusted with light. Now by magic the skirts of the cloud are gathered about us, and it shoots forward over our head, and the rain comes at a time and place which baffles all our calculations. 

Suddenly comes the gust, and the big drops slanting from the north, and the birds fly as if rudderless, and the trees bow and are wrenched. It rains against the windows like hail and is blown over the roofs like steam or smoke. It runs down the large elm at Holbrook's and shatters the house near by. 

Soon silver puddles shine in the streets. This the first rain of consequence for at least three weeks.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1854

Suddenly comes the gust . . .See June 29, 1860 (“[T]here is a sudden burst from it with a remarkably strong, gusty wind, and the rain for fifteen minutes falls in a blinding deluge. The roof of the depot shed is taken off, . . .I think I never saw it rain so hard.”); June 16, 1860 ("Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.”)

Another round red sun of dry and dusty weather.

June 18.

The Rosa lucida is pale and low on dry sunny banks like that by Hosmer's pines. There are many strawberries this season, in meadows now, just fairly begun there. The meadows, like this Nut Meadow, are now full of the taller grasses, just beginning to flower.

Ovenbird

Observe in two places golden-crowned thrushes, near whose nests I must have been, hopping on the lower branches and in the underwood, — a somewhat sparrow-like bird, with its golden-brown crest and white circle about eye, carrying the tail somewhat like a wren, and inclined to run along the branches. Each had a worm in its bill, no doubt intended for its young. That is the chief employment of the birds now, gathering food for their young. I think I heard the anxious peep of a robin whose young have just left the nest.

Small grasshoppers very abundant in some dry grass. Another round red sun of dry and dusty weather to-night, — a red or red-purple helianthus. Every year men talk about the dry weather which has now begun as if it were something new and not to be expected.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 18, 1854

And more today on slavery:

My advice to the State is simply this: to dissolve her union with the slaveholder instantly. ... And to each inhabitant of Massachusetts, to dissolve his union with the State, as long as she hesitates to do her duty.

See May 29, 1854 , June 9, 1854, June 16, 1854, June 17, 1854 and ""Slavery in Massachusetts.

Observe in two places golden-crowned thrushes, near whose nests I must have been . . . See June 10, 1855 ("Oven-bird’s nest with four eggs two thirds hatched, under dry leaves, composed of pine-needles and dry leaves and a hair or two for lining,”)

I think I heard the anxious peep of a robin whose young have just left the nest. See June 10, 1853 ("We  hear the cool peep of the robin calling to its young, now learning to fly.")  See also  May 13, 1853 ("A robin's nest, with young, on the causeway."): May 24, 1855 ("Young robins some time hatched");June 9, 1856 ("A young robin abroad. "); June 15, 1855 ("Robin’s nest in apple tree, twelve feet high — young nearly grown."): June 15, 1852 ("Young robins,speck dark-led,"); June 20, 1855 (" A robin’s nest with young, which was lately, in the great wind, blown down and somehow lodged on the lower part of an evergreen by arbor,—without spilling the young!")

Every year men talk about the dry weather which has now begun as if it were something new and not to be expected. See July 7, 1853 ("Now is that annual drought which is always spoken of as something unprecedented and out of the common course.")

June18. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 18

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2020

The season of small fruits has arrived. It is dry, hazy June weather.

June 17.

A cold fog. 

These mornings those who walk in grass are thoroughly wetted above mid-leg. All the earth is dripping wet. I am surprised to feel how warm the water is, by contrast with the cold, foggy air.

From the Hill I am reminded of more youthful mornings, seeing the dark forms of the trees eastward in the low grounds, partly within and against the shining white fog, the sun just risen over it. The mist fast rolling away eastward from them, their tops at last streaking the mist and dividing it into vales. All beyond them a submerged and unknown country, as if they grew on the sea shore. 

See the sun reflected up from the Assabet to the hill top, through the dispersing fog, giving to the water a peculiarly rippled, pale-golden hue.

Another remarkably hazy day; our view is confined, the horizon near, no mountains; as you look off only four or five miles, you see a succession of dark wooded ridges and vales filled with mist. It is dry, hazy June weather. 

We are more of the earth, farther from heaven, these days.  We are getting deeper into the mists of earth.

The season of hope and promise is past; already the season of small fruits has arrived. We are a little saddened, because we begin to see the interval between our hopes and their fulfillment. The prospect of the heavens is taken away, and we are presented only with a few small berries.

Before sundown I reach Fair Haven Hill and gather strawberries. I find beds of large and lusty strawberry plants in sprout-lands, but they appear to run to leaves and bear very little fruit, having spent themselves in leaves by the time the dry weather arrives. It is those still earlier and more stinted plants which grow on dry uplands that bear the early fruit, formed before the droughts. But the meadows produce both leaves and fruit.

The sun goes down red again, like a high-colored flower of summer. As the white and yellow flowers of spring are giving place to the rose, and will soon to the red lily, etc., so the yellow sun of spring has become a red sun of June drought, round and red like a midsummer flower, production of torrid heats.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 17, 1854

Another remarkably hazy day; our view is confined, the horizon near, no mountains. Compare June 23, 1854 (“. . . the air is beautifully clear, showing the glossy and light-reflecting greenness of the woods. It is a great relief to look into the horizon. There is more room under the heavens”); See Also June 26, 1853 (" Summer returns without its haze. We see infinitely further into the horizon on every side, and the boundaries of the world are enlarged.");  June 23, 1852 (“ It is an agreeably cool and clear and breezy day, when all things appear as if washed bright and shine . . . You can see far into the horizon.”)

The season of hope and promise is past; already the season of small fruits has arrived. Compare
August 9, 1853 ("This is the season of small fruits. I trust, too, that I am maturing some small fruit as palatable in these months, which will communicate my flavor to my kind.");August 18, 1853 (“The season of flowers or of promise may be said to be over, and now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit ? The night of the year is approaching. What have we done with our talent?”)


Note: Today there is more on Anthony Burns:

Some men act as if they believed that they could safely slide down-hill a little way, — or a good way, — and would surely come to a place, by and by, whence they could slide up again. This is expediency, or choosing that course which offers the fewest obstacles. But there is no such thing as accomplishing a moral reform by the use of expediency or policy. There is no such thing as sliding up-hill. In morals the only sliders are backsliders.

See May 29, 1854 , June 9, 1854, June 16, 1854 and ""Slavery in Massachusetts.

A fine ripple and sparkle on the pond, seen through the mist...

Sunrise June 16, 2014

Sunset, June 16, 2014

June 16.  As the sun went down last night, round and red in a damp misty atmosphere, so now it rises in the same manner, though there is no dense fog.

Three days in succession, — the 13th, 14th, and 15th, — thunder-clouds, with thunder and lightning, have risen high in the east, threatening instant rain, and yet each time it has failed to reach us.  Thus it is almost invariably, methinks, with thunder-clouds which rise in the east; they do not reach us.  

The warmer, or at least drier, weather has now prevailed about a fortnight. Once or twice the sun has gone down red, shorn of his beams. There have been showers all around us, but nothing to mention here yet. 

Panicled cornel well out on Heywood Peak. There is a cool east wind, — and has been afternoons for several days, — which has produced a very thick haze or a fog.  There is a fine ripple and sparkle on the pond, seen through the mist.

It is eight days since I plucked the great orchis; one is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher. It may be plucked when the spike is only half opened, and will open completely and keep perfectly fresh in a pitcher more than a week. 

June 16, 2014

Do I not live in a garden, — in paradise? I can go out each morning before breakfast — I do — and gather these flowers with which to perfume my chamber where I read and write, all day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 16, 1854

 It is eight days since I plucked the great orchis; one is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher. See  June 19, 1852 (" The orchis keeps well. One put in my hat this morning, and carried all day, will last fresh a day or two at home"); June 21, 1852 (" The purple orchis is a good flower to bring home. It will keep fresh many days, and its buds open at last in a pitcher of water") See also Henry Thoreau, A Book of the Seasons, The purple fringed orchids

Each morning before breakfast [I] gather these flowers with which to perfume my chamber where I read and write, all day. . . See June 15, 1853 ("I bring home the buds ready to expand, put them in a pitcher of water, and the next morning they open and fill my chamber with fragrance.”)

Note. Today HDT extends his comments on the extradition of Anthony Burns:

But what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base? We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them. When we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country where both rulers and ruled are without principle? The remembrance of the baseness of politicians spoils my walks. My thoughts are murder to the State; I endeavor in vain to observe nature; my thoughts involuntarily go plot ting against the State. I trust that all just men will conspire.

We have used up all our inherited freedom, .... It is not an era of repose. If we would save our lives, we must fight for them. ... Why will men be such fools as to trust to lawyers for a moral reform? I do not believe that there is a judge in this country prepared to decide by the principle that a law is immoral and therefore of no force.

See May 29, 1854 , June 9, 1854 and "Slavery in Massachusetts,"

June 16. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 16

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2021

Staying out late miles from home.

Lambkill (Kalmia augustifolia)

June 13.

I hear the muttering of thunder and see a dark cloud in the west-southwest horizon; am uncertain how far up-stream I shall get. An opposite cloud rises fast in the east-northeast, and now the lightning crinkles and I hear the heavy thunder.

My boat passes over beds of potamogetons, pressing their spikes under water. I paddle slowly by farmers in small parties, busily hoeing corn and potatoes. The boy rides the horse dragging the cultivator. They have a jug of sweetened water in the grass at the end of the row.

How beautiful the solid cylinders of the lamb-kill now just before sunset, — small ten-sided, rosy-crimson basins, about two inches above the recurved, drooping dry capsules of last year, — and sometimes those of the year before are two inches lower. The first rose-bug on one of these flowers.

Stop to pick strawberries on Fair Haven. 

How thickly stewn our soil is with arrowheads. I never see the surface broken in sandy places but i think of them. I find them on all sides, not only in corn and grain and potato and bean fields, but in pastures and woods, by woodchucks' holes and pigeon beds and, as to-night, in a pasture where a cow has pawed the ground.

When I have stayed out thus late many miles from home, and have heard a cricket beginning to chirp louder near me in the grass I have felt that I was not far from home after all, -- began to be weaned from my village home. 

I float homeward over water almost perfectly smooth, my sail so idle that I count ten devil's-needles resting along it at once.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 13, 1854

How beautiful the solid cylinders of the lamb-kill now just before sunset. See June 13, 1852 ("Lambkill is out. I remember with what delight I used to discover this flower in dewy mornings.All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them, must be seen with youthful, early-opened, hopeful eyes."); June 13, 1858 ("To Ledum Swamp. Lambkill, maybe one day.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Lambkill (Kalmia augustifolia)

When I have stayed out thus late many miles from home . . . I have felt that I was not far from home after all. See  April 16, 1855 ('We are glad that we stayed out so late and feel no need to go home now in a hurry");May 23, 1853 ("When the chaste and pensive eve draws on...a certain lateness ... releases me from the obligation to return in any particular season. I have passed the Rubicon of staying out. I have said to myself, that way is not homeward; I will wander further from what I have called my home — to the home which is forever inviting me. In such an hour the freedom of the woods is offered me, . . .") ; June 14, 1853 ("home is farther away than ever. Here is home; the beauty of the world impresses you") Also June 13, 1851 (" I listen to the ancient, familiar, immoral, dear cricket sound under all others, and as these cease I become aware of the general earth-song."); January 27, 1858 ("You can not go home yet; you stay and sit in the rain.")

And the rain stops and Jane and i and the dogs head out. They haven’t been for a walk in a few days. and dogs are full of energy. Everything is green. The spring green is gone. Wet leaves are green and trunks are dark. The sun momentaily dapples the whole woods. Wet at the junction and beyond . 

An easy walk to the view. Blue low clouds  moving over the lake hide the Adirondacks. We sit a long time. Jane digs around the fire pit. Mist sometimes squeezes betweein the trees and floats in the clearing in front of us. 

It is 6 or 7. 

The rain stops 

and everything is green.

Wet leaves, dark trunks.

The sun momentarily  dapples the whole woods.

At the view low clouds over the lake hide the Adirondacks.

We sit a long time. 

Mist squeezes between

the trees and floats

into the clearing

in front of us

We take the Pritchard trail up then cut off towards the logging cable. There we flush a family of grouse. The little ones fly only a short distance then sit still -- one on a hemlock in clear view. The hemlock now in their prime with new green growth.

Following a deer trail we reach  the mountain trail go down to the pond.  It is full. Now dusk, the pond reflects what light there is.

We cut through the ravine at the headwater of the stream back to the junction then down on the edge of the cliff looking for the lady slipper.  It is there, blossom gone by. 

Then down along the cliff under the lower view past a Thrush nest on the cliff face and ultimatley down to the boulder trail. Between the boulders and before the rock fort we have a close encounter with two barred owls. Noisy and curious. Good view of them in trees and in silent flight. 

A satisfying walk. The birds are more quiet but ovenbird thrushes and black throated green still prominent. At the end, a pewee.  Wet green dark woods and mushrooms.

Hemlock new green growth

wet green dark woods and mushrooms

grouse and two barred owls.

June 13, 2014
zphx

A swamp white oak on Hubbard's meadow.

June 12. 

Clover now reddens the fields. Grass in its prime.

Scare a kingfisher on a bough over Walden. As he flies off, he hovers two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dives and apparently catches a fish, with which he flies off low over the water to a tree. 

Mountain laurel at the pond.

I sit on the Clamshell Hill at sunset, while several kinds of swallows are playing low over it chasing each other, and occasionally alighting on the bare hillside. The level rays of the sun shine into and light up the trunk and limbs of a swamp white oak on Hubbard's meadow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 12, 1854

Scare a kingfisher on a bough over Walden. . . .See June 25, 1854 ("I observe many kingfishers at Walden and on the Assabet, very few on the dark and muddy South Branch.”)

. . . he hovers two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dives. See May 10, 1854 ("Above the railroad bridge I see a kingfisher twice sustain himself in one place, about forty feet above the meadow, by a rapid motion of his wings, somewhat like a devil's-needle, not progressing an inch, apparently over a fish.”)


June 12. P. M. — To Walden. Clover now reddens the fields. Grass in its prime. Comfrey in front of Stow's well out some days apparently. With the roses now fairly begun I associate summer heats. Galium trifidum var. latifolium (?), smooth-angled, some with linear leaves. Is it tinctorium ?

Hear the evergreen-forest note, and see the bird on the top of a white pine, somewhat creeper- like, along the boughs, and golden head except a black streak from eyes, black throat, slate-colored back, forked tail, white beneath, — er te, ter ter te. Another bird with yellow throat near by may have been the other sex. Is it the golden-winged warbler ? Pyrola chlorantha. Rosa lucida, probably yesterday, the 11th, judging from what I saw Saturday, i. e. the 10th. A bud in pitcher the 13th. The R. nitida is the most common now. The round-leaved cornel is well out at Heywood Peak, probably two or three days. Perhaps this and the maple-leaved viburnum are as early as the V. nudum and V. dentatum, only more rare.

Scared a kingfisher on a bough over Walden. As he flew off, he hovered two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dove and apparently caught a fish, with which he flew off low over the water to a tree.

Mountain laurel at the pond.

A narrow-leaved potamogeton well out at the bathing- place, — leaves two to three inches long. Four-leaved loosestrife. Silene antirrhina, how long ?

Do I not see two birds with the seringo note, — the Savannah (?) sparrow, larger with not so bright a yellow over eye, none on wing, and white breast, and beneath former streaked with dark and perhaps a dark spot, and the smaller yellow-winged, with spot on wing also and ochreous breast and throat ? The first sings che che rar, che ra- a-a-a-a-ar.

Sundown. — To Clamshell Hill.

Nightshade a day or two. The cracks made by cold in pastures in the winter are still quite distinct. Phleum or herd's-grass (?). I sit on the Clamshell Hill at sunset, while several kinds of swallows are playing low over it chasing each other, and occasionally alighting on the bare hillside. The level rays of the sun shine into and light up the trunk and limbs of a swamp white oak on Hubbard's meadow.

A smooth, glassy mirror, reflecting the light sky and the dark and shady woods.

June 11.

To Framingham with Mrs. Brown. All day cloudy and cool without rain. At twelve walk up the Sudbury River above Frank's to Ashland, at first through the meadows, then over the high hills in the vicinity. From a high hill on the west of the river, about a mile from Frank's, get a good view of Farm Pond eastward, which empties into the river, with South Framingham on the south east side of it. I do not instantly detect it, the dark hills and trees being reflected in it. 

How agreeable in a still, cloudy day, when large masses of clouds, equally dispersed, float across the sky, not threatening rain, but preserving a temperate air, to see a sheet of water thus revealed by its reflections, a smooth, glassy mirror, reflecting the light sky and the dark and shady woods. It is very much like a mirage.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 11, 1854

A smooth, glassy mirror, reflecting the light sky and the dark and shady woods. See August 6, 1860 ("We distinguish the reflections of the woods perfectly in ponds three miles off. “)

The meadows now begin to be yellow.

June 10.

Saturday. P.M. — To Conantum on foot.

The bay-wing sparrow apparently is not my seringo, after all. What is the seringo? I see some with clear, dirty-yellow breasts, but others, as to-day, with white breasts, dark-streaked. Both have the yellow over eye and the white line on crown, and agree in size, but I have seen only one with distinct yellow on wings. Both the last, i. e. except only the bay-wing, utter the seringo note. Are they both yellow-winged sparrows? or is the white-breasted with streaks the Savannah sparrow?



The meadows now begin to be yellow with senecio. 

Side-saddle generally out; petals hang down. It is a conspicuous flower. 

The fragrance of the arethusa is like that of the lady's-slipper, or pleasanter. 

The Viburnum lentago is just out of bloom now that the V. nudum is fairly begun.

See probably a crow's nest high in a white pine, two crows with ragged wings circling high over it and me, not noisy.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 10, 1854


What is the seringo? See  June 26, 1856 ("[S]aw, apparently, the F. Savanna near their nests (my seringo note), restlessly flitting about me from rock to rock within a rod.") and note to December 7, 1858 ("Dr. Bryant calls my seringo (i. e. the faint-noted bird) Savannah sparrow.”). See also Guide to Thoreau’s Birds ("Thoreau frequently called the Savannah Sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis the seringo or seringo-bird, but he also applied the name to other small birds.")


Yellow-winged sparrows or white-breasted with streaks the Savannah sparrow? See June 12, 1854 ("Do I not see two birds with the seringo note, — the Savannah (?) sparrow, larger with not so bright a yellow over eye, none on wing, and white breast, and beneath former streaked with dark and perhaps a dark spot, and the smaller yellow-winged, with spot on wing also and ochreous breast and throat ? The first sings che che rar, che ra- a-a-a-a-ar.");  July 16, 1854 ("Is it the yellow-winged or Savannah sparrow with yellow alternating with dark streaks on throat, as well as yellow over eye, reddish flesh-colored legs, and two light bars on wings?“)” and note to June 26, 1856 ("Audubon says that the eggs of the Savannah sparrow “are of a pale bluish color, softly mottled with purplish brown,” and those of the yellow-winged sparrow are “of a dingy white, sprinkled with brown spots.”")


The meadows now begin to be yellow with senecio. See May 23, 1853 ("I am surprised by the dark orange-yellow of the senecio. . . .this broad distinction between the buttercup and the senecio, as the seasons revolve toward July. Every new flower that opens, no doubt, expresses a new mood of the human mind. “) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Golden Senecio

A crow’s nest high in a white pine. See May 11, 1855 ("It is most impressive when, looking for their nests, you first detect the presence of the bird by its shadow.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

June 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 10

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

  ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2021

The yellow-throated vireo I hear now.

June 9.

June 9, 2014

I should like to know the birds of the woods better, what birds inhabit our woods? I hear their various notes ringing through them. What musicians compose our woodland quire? They must be forever strange and interesting to me. How prominent a place the vireos hold! It is probably the yellow-throated vireo I hear now, — a more interrupted red-eye with its prelia — prelioit or tully-ho, — invisible in the tops of the trees.

7 p. m. — Up Assabet.  Chimney and bank swallows are still hovering over the river, and cherry-birds fly past. The veery rings, and the tree- toad. 

The air is now full of shad-flies, and there is an incessant sound made by the fishes leaping for their evening meal, dimpling the river like large drops as far as I can see, sometimes making a loud plashing.

Meanwhile the kingfishers are on the lookout for the fishes as they rise.  I see one dive in the twilight and go off uttering his cr-r-ack, cr-r-rack. 

The mosquitoes encircle my head and torment me, and I see a great moth go fluttering over the tree-tops and the water, black against the sky, like a bat. The fishes continue to leap by moonlight. A full moon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1854

The air is now full of shad-flies, and there is an incessant sound made by the fishes leaping for their evening meal . . . See June 9, 1856 ("Again, about seven, the ephemera came out, in numbers as many as last night, ...; and the fishes leap as before. . . "); June 8, 1856 (“my boat being by chance at the same place where it was in ’54, I noticed a great flight of ephemera”)

June 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 9

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

.

*** 

P . M . – To Well Meadow .

The summer aspect of the river begins perhaps when the Utricularia vulgaris is first seen on the surface, as yesterday.

As I go along the railroad causeway, I see in the cultivated grounds, a lark flashing his white tail, and showing his handsome yellow breast, with its black crescent like an Indian locket. For a day or two I have heard the fine seringo note of the cherry - birds, and seen them flying past, the only ( ? ) birds, methinks, that I see in small flocks now, except swallows.         

 The willow down and seeds are blowing over the causeway.         

 Veronica scutellata, apparently several days.         

 A strawberry half turned on the sand of the causeway side, — the first fruit or berry of the year that I have tasted.         

 Ladies’-slippers are going to seed. I see some white oak pincushions, nearly two inches through.         

Is that galium, out apparently some days in the woods by Deep Cut, near Linnæa, triflorum or Aparine ?. Compare that at Lee ' s. 

I should like to know the birds of the woods better, what birds in habit our woods? 

I hear their various notes ringing through them.         

What musicians compose our wood land quire ? They must be forever strange and interesting to me.         

How prominent a place the vireos hold ! It is probably the yellow - throated vireo I hear now, — a more interrupted red- ye with its prelia - prelioit or tully - ho, — invisible in the tops of the trees.         

 I see the thick, flower - like huckleberry apples.           

Haynes (?), Goodwin ' s comrade, tells me that he used to catch mud turtles in the ponds behind Provincetown with a toad on a mackerel hook thrown into the pond and the line tied to a stump or stake on shore.         

Invariably the turtle when hooked crawled up, following the line to the stake, and was there found waiting — Goodwin baits minks with muskrats.

Find the great fringed orchis out apparently two or three days.

Two are almost fully out, two or three only budded.

 A large spike of peculiarly delicate pale-purple flowers growing in the luxuriant and shady swamp is remarkable that this, one of the fairest of all our flowers, should also be one of the rarest, — for the most part not seen at all. 

I think that no other but myself in Concord annually finds it. 

That so queenly a flower should annually bloom so rarely and in such : withdrawn and secret places as to be rarely seen by man ! The village belle never sees this more delicate belle of the swamp. 

How little relation between our life and its ! Most of us never see it or hear of it. 

The seasons go by to us as if it were not. 

A beauty reared in the shade of a convent, who has never strayed be yond the convent bell.

  Only the skunk or owl or other inhabitant of the swamp beholds it. 

In the damp twilight of the swamp, where it is wet to the feet. 

 How little anxious to display its attractions ! It does not pine because man does not admire it. 

 How independent on our race ! It lifts its delicate spike amid the hellebore and ferns in the deep shade of the swamp. 

 I am inclined to think of it as a relic of the past as much as the arrowhead, or the tomahawk I found on the 7th.       

Ferns are four or five feet high there.         

7 P. M. — Up Assabet.

         
The tupelo stamens are loose and will perhaps shed pollen to- morrow or next day. 

 It is twilight, and the river is covered with that dusty lint, as was the water next the shore at Walden this afternoon.

  Chimney and bank swallows are still hovering over the river, and cherry-birds fly past.

 The veery rings, and the tree toad. 

The air is now pretty full of shad- flies, and there is an incessant sound made by the fishes leaping for such as are struggling on the surface ; it sounds like the lapsing of a swift stream, sucking amid rocks.

 The fishes make a business of thus getting their evening meal, dimpling the river like large drops as far as I can see, sometimes making a loud plashing. 

Meanwhile the kingfishers are on the lookout for the fishes as they rise, and I saw one dive in the twilight and go off utter ing his cr-r-ack, cr-r-rack. 

The mosquitoes encircle my head and torment me, and I see a great moth go fluttering over the tree-tops and the water, black against the sky, like a bat. 

The fishes continue to leap by moonlight.

 A full moon.

 Covered with disgrace, this State has sat down coolly to try for their lives the men who attempted to do its duty for it.

         And this is called justice! They who have shown that they can behave particularly well, — they alone are put under bonds “for their good behavior !” Such a judge and court are an impertinence. 

           Only they are guiltless who commit the crime of contempt of such a court.

            It behooves every man to see that his influence is on the side of justice, and let the courts make their own characters.

            What is any political organization worth, when it is in the service of the devil ? I see that the authorities — the Governor, Mayor, Commissioner, Marshal, etc.     — are either weak or unprincipled men, - i. e.         , well disposed but not equal to the occasion, — or else of dull moral perception, with the unprincipled and servile in their pay.

            All sound moral sentiment is opposed to them.

            I had thought that the Governor, was in some sense the executive officer of the State ; that it was his business to see that the laws of the State were executed ; but, when there is any special use for him, he is useless, permits the laws to go unexecuted, and is not heard from.

            But the worst I shall say of the Governor is that he was no better than the majority of his constituents - he was not equal to the occasion.

            While the whole military force of the State, if need be, is at the service of a slaveholder, to enable him to carry back a slave, not a soldier is offered to save a citizen of Massachusetts from being kidnapped.

           Is this what all these arms, all this “training,” has been for these seventy-eight years past  What is wanted is men of principle, who recognize a higher law than the decision of the majority.

            The marines and the militia whose bodies were used lately were not men of sense nor of principle; in a high moral sense they were not men at all.

            Justice is sweet and musical to hear; but injustice is harsh and discordant.

            The judge still sits grinding at his organ, but it yields no music, and we hear only the sound of the handle.

            He believes that all the music resides in the handle, and the crowd toss him their coppers just the same as before.