The first autumnal evening. A newly hatched turtle as "the result of all turtles that have been."

September 11.


Measured to-day the little Sternothærus odoratus which came out the ground in the garden September 9th.

Its shell is thirty-two fortieths of an inch long, by twenty-five fortieths wide.

It has a distinct dorsal ridge, and its head and flippers are remarkably developed. Its raised back and dorsal ridge, as in the case of the mud turtle, enable it to turn over very easily. 

It may have been hatched some time be fore it came out, for not only there was no trace of the yolk (?), but its shell was much wider than the egg, when it first came out of the ground. 

I placed a sieve over it, and it remained in the hole it had made mostly concealed the two rainy days, — the 9th and 10th, — but to-day I found it against the edge of the sieve, its head and legs drawn in and quite motionless, so that you would have said the pulses of life had not fairly begun to beat. 

I put it into the tub on the edge of the mud. 

It seems that it does not have to learn to walk, but walks at once. It seems to have no infancy such as birds have. 

It is surprising how much cunning it already exhibits. It is defended both by its form and color and its instincts. 

As it lay on the mud, its color made it very inobvious, but, besides, it kept its head and legs drawn in and perfectly still, as if feigning death; but this was not sluggishness. 

At a little distance I watched it for ten minutes or more. 

At length it put its head out far enough to see if the coast was clear, then, with its flippers, it turned itself toward the water (which element it had never seen before), and suddenly and with rapidity launched itself into it and dove to the bottom. Its whole behavior was calculated to enable it to reach its proper element safely and without attracting attention.

Not only was it made of a color and form (like a bit of coal) which alone almost effectually concealed it, but it was made, infant as it was, to be perfectly still as if inanimate and then to move with rapidity when unobserved.

The oldest turtle does not show more, if so much, cunning. I think I may truly say that it uses cunning and meditates how it may reach the water in safety. 

When I first took it out of its hole on the morning of the 9th, it shrunk into its shell and was motionless, feigning death.

That this was not sluggishness, I have proved. 

When to-day it lay within half an inch of the water's edge, it knew it for a friendly element and, without deliberation or experiment, but at last, when it thought me and all foes unobservant of its motions, with remarkable precipitation it committed itself to it as if realizing a long-cherished idea. 

Plainly all its motions were as much the result of what is called instinct as is the act of sucking in infants.

Our own subtlest [sic] is likewise but another kind of instinct. The wise man is a wise infant obeying his finest and never-failing instincts. 

It does not so much impress me as an infantile beginning of life as an epitome of all the past of turtledom and of the earth. I think of it as the result of all the turtles that have been. 

The little snapping turtle lies almost constantly on the mud with its snout out of water. 

It does not keep under water long. 

Yesterday in the cold rain, however, it lay buried in the mud all day! 

Surveying this forenoon, I saw a small, round, bright-yellow gall (some are red on one side), as big as a moderate cranberry, hard and smooth, saddled on a white oak twig. 

So I have seen them on the swamp white, the chinquapin, and the white, not to mention the Castile-soap one on the ilicifolia acorn edge. 

This is a cold evening with a white twilight, and threatens frost, the first in these respects decidedly autumnal evening. 

It makes us think of wood for the winter. 

For a week or so the evenings have been sensibly longer, and I am beginning to throw off my summer idleness. 

This twilight is succeeded by a brighter starlight than heretofore.

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

The little Sternotherus odoratus which came out the ground in the garden September 9th [impresses me as]  all the past of turtledom and of the earth. . . the result of all the turtles that have been. See September 9, 1854 ("The earth has some virtue in it; when seeds are put into it, they germinate; when turtles’ eggs, they hatch in due time. Though the mother turtle remained and brooded them, it would still nevertheless be the universal world turtle which, through her, cared for them as now. Thus the earth is the mother of all creatures.")

At length it put its head out far enough to see if the coast was clear, then, with its flippers, it turned itself toward the water. See September 16, 1854 ("I find the mud turtle’s eggs at the Desert all hatched, one still left in the nest . . . At length it puts out its head and legs, turns itself round, and crawls to the water.")

This is a cold evening with a white twilight, and threatens frost, the first - in these respects- decidedly autumnal evening. See September 11, 1853 ("Cool weather. Sit with windows shut, and many by fires. A great change . . . The air has got an autumnal coolness which it will not get rid of again. Signs of frost last night.") See also   August 28, 1853 ("A cool, white, autumnal evening.");September 7, 1857 ("Our first slight frost in some places this morning. Northwest wind to-day and cool weather; such weather as we have not had for a long time, a new experience, which arouses a corresponding breeze in us. "); September 10, 1860 ("There was a frost this morning. "); September 14, 1852 ("This morning the first frost"); September 29, 1854 ("This evening is quite cool and breezy, with a prolonged white twilight, quite Septemberish.")

This cold evening with 

a white twilight makes us think –

wood for the winter. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,   The first autumnal evening

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 ©  2009-2024

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