Partridges under the apple trees

February 11.

Smith’s thermometer early this morning at -22°; ours at 8 A. M. -10°.

P. M. To J. Dugan’s via Tommy Wheeler’s. 

The atmosphere is very blue, tingeing the distant pine woods. 

The dog scares up some partridges out of the soft snow under the apple trees in the Tommy Wheeler orchard. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 11, 1855

The atmosphere is very blue, tingeing the distant pine woods. See January 13, 1859 ("I can see about a quarter of a mile through the mist, and when, later, it is somewhat thinner, the woods, the pine woods, at a distance are a dark-blue color."); February 2, 1854; ("The shade of pines on the snow is in some lights quite blue."); February 7, 1856 ("During the rain the air is thick, the distant woods bluish, and the single trees on the hill, under the dull mist-covered sky, remarkably distinct and black."); February 7, 1859 ("Evidently the distant woods are more blue in a warm and moist or misty day in winter.").

The dog scares up some partridges out of the soft snow under the apple trees . . .See February 11, 1856  ("See a partridge by the riverside, opposite Fair Haven Hill, which at first I mistake for the top of a fence-post above the snow, “); February 11, 1859 ("The south side of Ball’s Hill, which is warm and half bare, is tracked up with partridges, and I start several there. So is it next Sunday with the Hill shore, east of Fair Haven Pond. These birds are sure to be found now on such slopes, where only the ground and dry leaves are exposed");  February 18, 1852 (“I find the partridges among the fallen pine-tops on Fair Haven these afternoons, an hour before sundown, ready to commence budding in the neighboring orchard.”); April 22. 1852 ("Our dog sends off a partridge with a whir, far across the open field and the river, like a winged bullet.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge