Great pines two or more feet in diameter.

September 16.

A. M. – To Great Yellow Birch, with the Watsons. 

Solidago latifolia in prime at Botrychium Swamp.

Barberries very handsome now. See boys gathering them in good season. 

Some fever-bush berries already ripe. 

Watson has brought me apparently Artemisia vulgaris, growing naturally close to Austin's house in Lincoln; hardly in bloom. 

Walked through that beautiful soft white pine grove on the west of the road in John Flint’s pasture. These trees are large, but there is ample space between them, so that the ground is left grassy. Great pines two or more feet in diameter branch sometimes within two feet of the ground on each side, sending out large horizontal branches on which you can sit. Like great harps on which the wind makes music. There is no finer tree. 

The different stages of its soft glaucous foliage completely concealing the trunk and branches are separated by dark horizontal lines of shadow, the flakes of pine foliage, like a pile of light fleeces. 

I see green and closed cones beneath, which the squirrels have thrown down. On the trees many are already open. Say within a week have begun. 

In one small wood, all the white pine cones are on the ground, generally unopened, evidently freshly thrown down by the squirrels, and then the greater part have already been stripped. They begin at the base of the cone, as with the pitch pine. It is evident that they have just been very busy throwing down the white pine cones in all woods. Perhaps they have stored up the seeds separately. This they can do before chestnut burs open. 

Watson gave me three glow-worms which he found by the roadside in Lincoln last night. They exhibit a greenish light, only under the caudal extremity, and intermittingly, or at will. As often as I touch one in a dark morning, it stretches and shows its light for a moment, only under the last segment. 

An average one is five eighths of an inch long, exclusive of the head, when still; four fifths of an inch, or more, with the head, when moving; one fourth of an inch wide, broadest forward; and from one tenth to one eighth inch deep, nearly (at middle). They have six brown legs within about one fourth of an inch of the forward extremity. 

This worm is apparently composed of twelve scale-like segments, including the narrow terminal one or tail, and not including the head, which at will is drawn under the foremost scale or segment like a turtle's. (I do not remember if the other species concealed its head thus, completely.) Looking down on it, I do not see distinctly more than two antennae, one on each side, whitish at base, dark-brown at tip, and apparently about the same length with the longest of the other species. 

The general color above is black, or say a very dark brown or blackish; the head the same. On each side two faint rows of light-colored dots. The first segment is broadly conical, and much the largest; the others very narrow in proportion to their breadth transversely, and successively narrower, slightly recurved at tip and bristle-pointed and also curved upward at the thin outer edge, while the rounded dorsal ridge is slightly elevated above this. Beneath, dirty white with two rows of black spots on each side.

They always get under the sod by day and bury themselves. They are not often much curled up, never in a ring, nor nearly so much as the other kind. They are much more restless when disturbed, both by day and night, than the others. They are a much coarser insect than the other and approach more nearly to the form of a sow-bug. I kept them more than a week. 

Vide back, August 8th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 16, 1857

Solidago latifolia in prime at Botrychium Swamp. See September 1, 1856 (“Solidago latifolia not out quite.”); October 8, 1856 (“ S. latifolia, far gone.”)

Barberries very handsome now. See boys gathering them . . . See note to September 19, 1856 (“Gather just half a bushel of barberries on hill in less than two hours, or three pecks to-day and yesterday in less than three hours. It is singular that I have so few, if any, competitors.”)

Fever-bush berries already ripe. See September 2, 1857 (“In the botrychium swamp, where the fever-bush is the prevailing underwood”); August 21, 1854 ("The fever-bush berries are partly turned red, perhaps prematurely.”)

On the trees many are already open. Say within a week have begun. See note to September 9, 1857 (“To the Hill for white pine cones.”)

Watson gave me three glow-worms . . . See August 8, 1857 (“B. M. Watson sent me from Plymouth, July 20th, six glow-worms,”)