That fine slaty-blue butterfly – bigger than the small red – in wood-paths.

April 24

P. M. — To Flint’s Pond. 

Warm and quite a thick haze. Cannot see distant  hills, nor use my glass to advantage. 

The Equisetum arvense on the causeway sheds its green pollen, which looks like lint on the hand abundantly, and may have done so when I first saw it upon the 21st. 

Young caterpillars’ nests are just hatched on the wild cherry. Some are an inch in diameter, others just come out. The little creatures have crawled at once to the extremity of the twigs and commenced at once on the green buds just about to burst, eating holes into them. They do not come forth till the buds are about to burst. 

I see on the pitch pines at Thrush Alley that golden crested wren or the other, ashy-olive above and whitish beneath, with a white bar on wings, restlessly darting at insects like a flycatcher, —into the air after them. It is quite tame. A very neat bird, but does not sing now. 

I see a bee like a small bumble-bee go into a little hole under a leaf in the road, which apparently it has made, and come out again back foremost. 

That fine slaty-blue butterfly, bigger than the small red, in wood-paths. 

I see a cone-bearing willow in dry woods, which will begin to leaf to-morrow, and apparently to show cones. 

Pyrus arbutifolia will begin to leaf to-morrow. Its buds are red while those of the shad-bush are green.

I can find no red cedar in bloom, but it will undoubtedly shed pollen to-morrow. It is on the point of it. I am not sure that the white cedar is any earlier. 

The sprigs of red cedar, now full of the buff-colored staminate flowers, like fruit, are very rich. The next day they shed an abundance of pollen in the house. It is a clear buff color, while that of the white cedar is very different, being a faint salmon. 

It would be very pleasant to make a collection of these powders,—like dry ground paints. They would be the right kind of chemicals to have. 

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. 

The Salix alba begins to leaf. 

Have not seen the F. hyemalis for a week.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 24, 1855

Young caterpillars’ nests are just hatched on the wild cherry. See April 24, 1856 ("old caterpillar-nests which now lie on the ground under wild cherry trees ”)

I see on the pitch pines at Thrush Alley that golden crested wren or the other, See April 26, 1855 (“Going over Ponkawtasset, hear a golden-crested wren, — the robin’s note, etc., —in the tops of the high wood”); April 27, 1855 (“Few birds are heard this cold and windy morning. Hear a partridge drum before 6 A. M., also a golden-crested wren.”); May 6, 1855 ("Hear at a distance a ruby(?)-crowned wren,. . . I think this the only Regulus I have ever seen.”).  See also May 7, 1854 ("A ruby-crested wren. . .Saw its ruby crest and heard its harsh note. (This was the same I have called golden-crowned ; and so described by W[ilson], I should say, except that I saw its ruby crest. . . ..Have I seen the two?)”);  May 11, 1854 (“I am in a little doubt about the wrens (I do not refer to the snuff -colored one), whether I have seen more than one. All that makes me doubt is that I saw a ruby, or perhaps it might be called fiery, crest on the last — not golden.”); December 25, 1859 ("I can see a brilliant crown, evidently the golden-crested wren, which I have not made out before.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the Ruby-crowned or crested wren. [Thoreau first misidentified the ruby-cowned as a warbler and also misidentified the ruby-crowned as the golden-crowned.  He was put in doubt when  he saw a red crest on what he had been calling the golden-crested wren, and did not truly identify a golden-crested wren until  Christmas 1859.]

That fine slaty-blue butterfly, bigger than the small red, in wood-paths. See April 19, 1860 ("See the small blue butterfly hovering over the dry leaves."); April 28, 1856 (“A fine little blue-slate butterfly fluttered over the chain. Even its feeble strength was required to fetch the year about. How daring, even rash, Nature appears, who sends out butterflies so early!”); April 30, 1859 ("That interesting small blue butterfly (size of small red) is apparently just out, fluttering over the warm dry oak leaves within the wood in the sun"); May 4, 1858 (“See a little blue butterfly (or moth) — saw one yesterday — fluttering about over the dry brown leaves in a warm place by the swamp-side, making a pleasant contrast. ”); See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  Blue Butterfly in Spring; A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly

I can find no red cedar in bloom, but it will undoubtedly shed pollen to-morrow. See April 25, 1854 ("The red cedar has fairly begun to-day; maybe the first yesterday. Put the red yesterday and the white to-day. As I approach the red cedars now, I perceive a delicious strawberry-like fragrance in the air, like that from the arbor-vita.")

Black birch stumps . . . cut by Flint’s Pond the past winter . . . covered with a greasy-looking pinkish-colored cream.  See June 29, 1854 ("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."). . See also  April 23, 1856 ("The white birch sap flows yet from a stump cut last fall, and a few small bees, flies, etc., are attracted by it.")

The Salix alba begins to leaf. See April 27, 1854 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf, and the catkins are three quarters of an inch long.");   April 29, 1855 ("For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other tree, —a pyramid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape."):  April 30, 1859 ("Salix alba leafing, or stipules a quarter of an inch wide; probably began a day or two.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Leaf-Out

Have not seen the F. hyemalis for a week.  See March 14 1858 ("I see a Fringilla hyemalis, the first bird, perchance . . .which is an evidence of spring . . . They are now getting back earlier than our permanent summer residents."); April 17, 1854 ("There are but few F. hyemalis about now; they appear to have gone north mostly on the advent of warmer weather about the 5th of April. "); April 17, 1855 ("I believe I see a tree sparrow still, but I do not remember an F. hyemalis for two days. ");  April 23, 1859 ("I have not noticed a hyemalis of late.");  May 4, 1855 ("See no gulls, nor F. hyemalis nor tree sparrows now."; )May 6, 1854 ("Is not that the true spring when the F. hyemalis and tree sparrows are with us singing in the cold mornings with the song sparrows, and ducks and gulls are about?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: Signs of the Spring, the note of the dark-eyed junco going northward and  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

That fine slaty-blue 

butterfly – bigger than the 

small red – in wood-paths. 

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, That fine slaty-blue butterfly in wood-paths.

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 © 2009-2025

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