Two marsh hawks skimming low over the meadows

September 25. 

A very fine and warm afternoon after a cloudy morning. 

Carry Aunt and Sophia a-barberrying to Conantum. 

Scare up the usual great bittern above the railroad bridge, whose hoarse qua qua, as it flies heavily off, a pickerel-fisher on the bank imitates. 

See two marsh hawks skimming low over the meadows and another, or a hen-hawk, sailing on high. 

See where the moles have been working in Conant’s meadow,—heaps of fresh meadow mould some eight inches in diameter on the green surface, and now a little hoary. 

We get about three pecks of barberries from four or five bushes, but I fill my fingers with prickles to pay for them. With the hands well defended, it would be pleasant picking, they are so handsome, and beside are so abundant and fill up so fast. I take hold the end of the drooping twigs with my left hand, raise them, and then strip downward at once as many clusters as my hand will embrace, commonly bringing away with the raceme two small green leaves or bracts, which I do not stop to pick out. When I come to a particularly thick and handsome wreath of fruit, I pluck the twig entire and bend it around the inside of the basket. Some bushes bear much larger and plumper berries than others. Some also are comparatively green yet. 

Meanwhile the catbird mews in the alders by my side, and the scream of the jay is heard from the wood-side. 

When returning, about 4.30 P. M., we observe a slight mistiness, a sea-turn advancing from the east, and soon after felt the raw east wind, — quite a contrast to the air we had before, — and presently all the western woods are partially veiled with the mist. Aunt thought she could smell the salt marsh in it. 

At home, after sundown, I observe a long, low, and uniformly level slate-colored cloud reaching from north to south throughout the western horizon, which I suppose to be the sea-turn further inland, for we no longer felt the east wind here.

In the evening go to Welch’s (?) circus with C. Approaching, I perceive the peculiar scent which belongs to such places, a certain sourness in the air, suggesting trodden grass and cigar smoke. The curves of the great tent, at least eight or ten rods in diameter, —the main central curve and wherever it rested on a post,—suggest that the tent was the origin of much of the Oriental architecture, the Arabic perhaps. There is the pagoda in perfection. 

It is remarkable what graceful attitudes feats of strength and agility seem to require.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1855


Carry Aunt and Sophia a-barberrying to Conantum . . . We get about three pecks of barberries from four or five bushes, but I fill my fingers with prickles to pay for them.”) See September 18, 1856 ("By boat to Conantum, barberrying . . .With all my knack, it will be some days before I get all the prickles out of my fingers.”);  October 1, 1853 ("A-barberrying by boat to Conantum, carrying Ellen, Edith, and Eddie. . . .Got three pecks of barberries.”)