June 30, 2017
I hear the first brown thrasher singing within three or four rods of me on the shrubby hill side in front of the Hadley place. I think I had a glimpse of one darting down from a sapling-top into the bushes as I rode by the same place on the morning of the 28th. This, I think, is the very place to hear them early, a dry hillside sloping to the south, covered with young wood and shrub oaks.
I am the more attracted to that house as a dwelling-place. To live where you would hear he first brown thrasher! First, perchance, you have a glimpse of one’s ferruginous long brown back, instantly lost amid the shrub oaks, and are uncertain if it was a thrasher, or one of the other thrushes; and your uncertainty lasts commonly a day or two, until its rich and varied strain is heard.
Surveying seemed a noble employment which brought me within hearing of this bird. I was trying to get the exact course of a wall thickly beset with shrub oaks and birches, making an opening through them with axe and knife, while the hillside seemed to quiver or pulsate with the sudden melody.
Again, it is with the side of the ear that you hear. The music or the beauty belong not to your work itself but some of its accompaniments. You would fain devote yourself to the melody, but you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work.
Cutting off the limbs of a young white pine in the way of my compass, I find that it strips freely. How long this? By the time I have run through to the Harvard road, I hear the small pewee’s tche-vet’ repeatedly.
The Italian with his hand-organ stops to stare at my compass, just as the boys are curious about. his machine. We have exchanged places.
As I go along the Assabet, a peetweet skims away from the shore.
The canoe birch sap still flows. It is much like that of the white, and is now pink, white, and yellow on the bark.
Bluets out on the bank by Tarbell’s spring brook, maybe a day or two.
This was a very warm as well as pleasant day, but at one o’clock there was the usual fresh easterly wind and sea-turn, and before night it grew quite cold for the season. The regularity of the recurrence of this phenomenon is remarkable. I have noticed it, at least, on the 24th late in the day, the 28th and the 29th about 3 P. M., and to-day at 1 P. M. It has been the order.
Early in the afternoon, or between one and four, the wind changes (I suppose, though I did not notice its direction in the forenoon), and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air.
About 3.30 P. M., when it was quite cloudy as well as raw, and I was measuring along the river just south of the bridge, I was surprised by the great number of swallows—white-bellied and barn swallows and perhaps republican — flying round and round, or skimming very low over the meadow, just laid bare, only a foot above the ground.
Either from the shape of the hollow or their circling, they seemed to form a circular flock three or four rods in diameter and one swallow, deep. There were two or three of these centres and some birds equally low over the river. It looked like rain, but did not rain that day or the next. Probably their insect food was flying at that height over the meadow at that time.
There were a thousand or more of swallows, and I think that they had recently arrived together on their migration. Only this could account for there being so many together. We were measuring through one little circular meadow, and many of them were not driven off by our nearness. The noise of their wings and their twittering was quite loud.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 30, 1856
You have a glimpse of one’s ferruginous long brown back, instantly lost amid the shrub oaks, and are uncertain if it was a thrasher; and your uncertainty lasts commonly a day or two, until its rich and varied strain is heard. See May 12, 1855 (“The brown thrasher is a powerful singer; he is a quarter of a mile off across the river, when he sounded within fifteen rods.”); May 13, 1855 ("Now, about two hours before sunset, the brown thrashers are particularly musical. One seems to be contending in song with another.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Brown Thrasher
Again, it is with the side of the ear that you hear. . . . you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work. See November 20, 1851 ("Hard and steady and engrossing labor with the hands, especially out of doors, is invaluable to the literary man and serves him directly. Here I have been for six days surveying in the woods, and yet when I get home at evening, somewhat weary at last, and beginning to feel that I have nerves, I find myself more susceptible than usual to the finest influences, as music and poetry. The very air can intoxicate me, or the least sight or sound, as if my finer senses had acquired an appetite by their fast."); May 12, 1857 (“Methinks I hear these sounds, have these reminiscences, only when well employed. . . I am often aware of a certain compensation of this kind for doing something from a sense of duty, even unconsciously.”); April 28, 1856 ("I am reminded of the advantage to the poet, and philosopher, and naturalist, and whomsoever, of pursuing from time to time some other business than his chosen one, — seeing with the side of the eye. The poet will so get visions which no deliberate abandonment can secure. The philosopher is so forced to recognize principles which long study might not detect. And the naturalist even will stumble upon some new and unexpected flower or animal.”); December 11, 1855 ("Beauty and music are not mere traits and exceptions. They are the rule and character. It is the exception that we see and hear. “); June 14, 1853 (“You see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye, which you could not see by a direct gaze before.”); November 18, 1851 ("A man can hardly be said to be there if he knows that he is there, or to go there if he knows where he is going. The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work.”)
I hear the small pewee’s tche-vet’ repeatedly. See . May 3, 1854 ("What I have called the small pewee on the willow by my boat, — quite small, uttering a short tchevet from time to time.”); May 3, 1855 ("Small pewee; tchevet, with a jerk of the head.”); May 7, 1852 ("The first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings.) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, ,the “Small Pewee" [Empidonax minimus]
Early in the afternoon the wind changes and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Sea-turn
Great number of swallows . . . flying round and round. . .See April 30, 1855 ("circling about and flying . . . about six inches above the water, — it was cloudy and almost raining”); April 29, 1854 (" The barn swallows are very numerous, flying low over the water in the rain.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White-bellied Swallow
Early afternoon
a fresh cool wind from the sea –
a mist in the air.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Hearing with the side of the Ear
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
tinyurl.com/hdt-560430
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