I thought I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle.

March 22

P. M.—To white maples and up Assabet.

The ice of the river is very rapidly softening, still concealed by snow, the upper part becoming homogeneous with the melting snow above it. I sometimes slump into snow and ice six or eight inches, to the harder ice beneath. I walk up the middle of the Assabet, and most of the way on middle of South Branch. 

Many tracks of crows in snow along the edge of the open water against Merrick’s at Island. They thus visit the edge of water—this and brooks —before any ground is exposed. Is it for small shellfish? 

The snow now no longer bears you. It has become very coarse-grained under the sun, and I hear it sink around me as I walk. 

Part of the white maples now begin to flow, some perhaps two or three days. Probably in equally warm positions they would have begun to flow as early as those red ones which I have tapped. Their buds, and apparently some of the red ones, are visibly swollen. This probably follows directly on the flowing of the sap. In three instances I cut off a twig, and sap flowed  and dropped from the part attached to the tree, but in no case would any sap flow from the part cut off (I mean where I first had cut it), which appears to show that the sap is now running up. I also cut a notch in a branch two inches in diameter, and the upper side of the cut remained dry, while sap flowed from the lower side, but in another instance both sides were wet at once and equally. 

The sap, then, is now generally flowing upward in red and white maples in warm positions. See it flowing from maple twigs which were gnawed off by rabbits in the winter. 

The down of willow catkins in very warm places has in almost every case peeped out an eighth of an inch, generally over the whole willow. 

On water standing above the ice under a white maple, are many of those Perla (?) insects, with four wings, drowned, though it is all ice and snow around the country over. Do not see any flying, nor before this. 

The woodchoppers, who are cutting the wood at Assabet Spring, now at last go to their work up the middle of the river, but one got in yesterday, one leg the whole length. It is rotted through in many places behind Prichard’s. 

At the red maple which I first tapped, I see the sap still running and wetting the whole side of the tree. It has also oozed out from the twigs, especially those that are a little drooping, and run down a foot or two bathing them sometimes all around, both twigs and buds sometimes, or collected in drops on the under sides of the twigs and all evaporated to molasses, which is, for the most part, as black as blacking or ink, having probably caught the dust, etc., even over all this snow. Yet it is as sweet and thick as molasses, and the twigs and buds look as if blacked and polished. Black drops of this thick, sweet syrup spot the under sides of the twigs. 

No doubt the bees and other insects frequent the maples now. I thought I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle on the Lowell Railroad. It is as thick as molasses. See a fuzzy gnat on it. It is especially apt to collect about the bases of the twigs, where the stream is delayed. Where the sap is flowing, the red maple being cut, the inner bark turns crimson. 

I see many snow-fleas on the moist maple chips. 

Saw a pigeon woodpecker under the swamp white oak in Merrick’s pasture, where there is a small patch of bare ground. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 22, 1856

On water standing above the ice under a white maple, are many of those Perla (?) insects, with four wings, drowned . . . Do not see any flying, nor before this. See March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . . The perla insects still about ice and water,"); See also March 3, 1860 ("I see one of those gray-winged (long and slender) perla-like insects by the waterside this afternoon."); March 17, 1858 ("As usual, I have seen for some weeks on the ice these peculiar (perla?) insects with long wings and two tails."); March 24, 1857 ("I see many of those narrow four-winged insects (perla?) of the ice now fluttering on the water like ephemerae. They have two pairs of wings indistinctly spotted dark and light..") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: insects and worms come forth and are active and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of the Spring, Perla-like insects appear

[Crows] visit the edge of water—this and brooks —before any ground is exposed. Is it for small shellfish? See March 20, 1856 ("Perhaps these [Paludina decisa] make part of the food of the crows which visit this brook and whose tracks I now see on the edge, and have all winter. Probably they also pick up some dead frogs") See also  March 22, 1854 ("See crows along the water's edge. What do they eat?"); March 22, 1855 ("I have noticed crows in the meadows ever since they were first partially bare, three weeks ago."); March 4, 1860 ("I saw half a dozen crows on a cake of ice in the middle of the Great Meadows yesterday, evidently looking for some favorite food which is washed on to it, - snails, or cranberries perhaps.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

The down of willow catkins in very warm places has in almost every case peeped out an eighth of an inch. See March 22, 1854 ("The now silvery willow catkins shine along the shore over the cold water, and C. thinks some willow osiers decidedly more yellow.") See also March 18, 1854 ("The willow catkins this side M. Miles's five eighths of an inch long and show some red. "); March 21, 1855 ("Early willow and aspen catkins are very conspicuous now. The silvery down of the former has in some places crept forth from beneath its scales a third of an inch at least . . .It is the first decided growth I have noticed, and is probably a month old.");  March 21, 1859 ("The willow catkins are also very conspicuous, in silvery masses rising above the flood. "); and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding

Part of the white maples now begin to flow, some perhaps two or three days. See March 24, 1856 ("9 A. M. -- Start to get two quarts of white maple sap and home at 11.30").

At the red maple which I first tapped, I see the sap still running and wetting the whole side of the tree. See March 14, 1856 ("[J]ust above Pinxter Swamp, one red maple limb was moistened by sap trickling along the bark. Tapping this, I was surprised to find it flow freely"); March 15, 1856 ("Put a spout in the red maple of yesterday, and hang a pail beneath to catch the sap.");  March 16, 1856 ("Going home, slip on the ice, throwing the pail over my head to save myself, and spill all but a pint. So it is lost on the ice of the river. "); March 21, 1856 ("I left home at ten and got back before twelve with two and three quarters pints of sap, in addition to the one and three quarters I found collected.");  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring:  Red Maple Sap Flows

I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle on the Lowell Railroad. See  August 15, 1854 ("The locomotive whistle, far southwest, sounds like a bell.”); November 21, 1857 ("I hear, I think, a boy whistling upon the bank above me, but immediately perceive that it is the whistle of the locomotive a mile off in that direction.");  January 4, 1859 ("When it grew late. . . I mistook the distant sound of the locomotive whistle for the hoot of an owl."); Compare December 31, 1853 ("I hear very distinctly from the railroad causeway the whistle of the locomotive on the Lowell road.") April 6, 1853 ("I first heard the fine, peculiarly sharp hum of the honey-bee before I thought of them."); July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers . . . It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bells and Whistles  

Saw a pigeon woodpecker under the swamp white oak in Merrick’s pasture, where there is a small patch of bare ground. See March 13, 1859 ("Also I hear, I am pretty sure, the cackle of a pigeon woodpecker.");  March 17, 1858 ("Ah! there is the note of the first flicker, a prolonged, monotonous wick-wick-wick-wick-wick-wick, etc., or, if you please, quick-quick, heard far over and through the dry leaves.. . .Now I hear and see him louder and nearer on the top of the long-armed white oak, sitting very upright, as is their wont, as it were calling for some of his kind that may also have arrived.");   March 23, 1859 ("The prolonged loud and shrill cackle, calling the thin-wooded hillsides and pastures to life. It is like the note of an alarm-clock set last fall so as to wake Nature up at exactly this date. Up up up up up up up up up ! ") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

The hum of a bee? – 

perhaps the railroad whistle

on the Lowell line.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I thought I heard the hum of a bee.

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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