I see the shadow of a hawk flying above and behind me.

September 27. 

I am surprised to find that, yesterday having been a sudden very warm day, the peaches have mellowed suddenly and wilted, and I find many more fallen than even after previous rains. Better if ripened more gradually. 

How out of all proportion to the value of an idea, when you come to one, — in Hindoo literature, for instance, — is the historical fact about it, — the when, where, etc., it was actually expressed, and what precisely it might signify to a sect of worshippers! Any thing that is called history of India — or of the world — is impertinent beside any real poetry or inspired thought which is dateless.

P. M. — To Lee's Cliff by land. 

Small red maples in low ground have fairly begun to burn for a week. It varies from scarlet to crimson. It looks like training-day in the meadows and swamps. They have run up their colors. A small red maple has grown, perchance, far away on some moist hill side, a mile from any road, unobserved. It has faith fully discharged the duties of a maple there, all winter and summer, neglected none of its economies, added to its stature in the virtue which belongs to a maple, by a steady growth all summer, and is nearer heaven than in the spring, never having gone gadding abroad; and now, in this month of September, when men are turned travellers, hastening to the seaside, or the mountains, or the lakes, – in this month of travelling, — this modest maple, having ripened its seeds, still with out budging an inch, travels on its reputation, runs up its scarlet flag on that hillside, to show that it has finished its summer work before all other trees, and withdraws from the contest. Thus that modest worth which no scrutiny could have detected when it was most industrious, is, by the very tint of its maturity, by its very blushes, revealed at last to the most careless and distant observer. It rejoices in its existence; its reflections are unalloyed. It is the day of thanksgiving with it. At last, its labors for the year being consummated and every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum. In its hue is no regret nor pining. Its leaves have been asking their parent from time to time in a whisper, “When shall we redden?” It has faith fully husbanded its sap, and builded without babbling nearer and nearer to heaven. Long since it committed its seeds to the winds and has the satisfaction of knowing perhaps that a thousand little well-behaved and promising maples of its stock are already established in business somewhere. It deserves well of Mapledom. It has afforded a shelter to the wandering bird. Its autumnal tint shows how it has spent its summer; it is the hue of its virtue.

These burning bushes stand thus along the edge of the meadows, and I distinguish them afar upon all the hillsides, here and there. Her virtues are as scarlet. 

The large common ferns (either cinnamon or interrupted) are yellowish, and also many as rich a deep brown now as ever. 

White birches have fairly begun to yellow, and blackberry vines here and there in sunny places look like a streak of blood on the grass. 

Bass, too, fairly begun to yellow. 

Solidago nemoralis nearly done. 

I sit on the hillside at Miles Swamp. A woodbine investing the leading stem of an elm in the swamp quite to its top is seen as an erect slender red column through the thin and yellowing foliage of the elm, – a very pretty effect. I see some small woodbine leaves in the shade of a delicate cherry-color, bordering on pink.

As I sit there I see the shadow of a hawk flying above and behind me. I think I see more hawks nowadays. Perhaps it is both because the young are grown and their food, the small birds, are flying in flocks and are abundant. I need only sit still a few minutes on any spot which overlooks the river meadows, before I see some black circling mote beating along, circling along the meadow's edge, now lost for a moment as it turns edgewise in a peculiar light, now reappearing further or nearer. 

Witch-hazel two thirds yellowed. 

Huckleberries are still abundant and quite plump on Conantum, though they have a somewhat dried taste. 

It is most natural, i. e. most in accordance with the natural phenomena, to suppose that North America was discovered from the northern part of the Eastern Continent, for a study of the range of plants, birds, and quadrupeds points to a connection on that side. Many birds are common to the northern parts of both continents. Even the passenger pigeon has flown across there. And some European plants have been detected on the extreme northeastern coast and islands, which do not extend inland. Men in their migrations obey in the main the same law.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 27, 1857

How out of all proportion to the value of an idea . . . is the historical fact about it. . . Any thing that is called history . . . is impertinent beside any real poetry or inspired thought which is dateless. See December 16, 1837 ("Mere accumulators of facts . . . are like those plants growing in dark forests, which 'put forth only leaves instead of blossoms.'"); November 9, 1851 ("I, too, would fain set down something beside facts."); February 18, 1852 ("I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant . . . I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all."); June 19, 1852 (“Facts collected by a poet are set down at last as winged seeds of truth”)

I see the shadow of a hawk flying above and behind me. I think I see more hawks nowadays. See September 16, 1852 ("What makes this such a day for hawks? . . . I detect the transit of the first by his shadow on the rock, and look toward the sun for him.”); April 29, 1852 (“Discover a hawk over my head by his shadow on the ground.”)

Every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum. See September 27, 1851 ("The maples by the riverside look very green yet, have not begun to blush, nor are the leaves touched by frost. Not so on the uplands"); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water."); September 27, 1858 ("Red maples now fairly glow along the shore.") See also September 1, 1852 ("Across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three birches diverge, at the point of a promontory next the water, I see two or three small maples already scarlet."); September 1, 1853 ("Some large maples along the river are beginning to redden."); September 12, 1858 ("Some small red maples by water begun to redden."); September 26, 1854 ("Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off."); September 20, 1857 ("A great many small red maples in Beck Stow's Swamp are turned quite crimson, when all the trees around are still perfectly green. It looks like a gala day there.")

The large common ferns (either cinnamon or interrupted) are yellowish, and also many as rich a deep brown now as ever. See September 6, 1854 ("The cinnamon ferns along the edge of woods next the meadow are many yellow or cinnamon, or quite brown and withered."); September 2, 1854 ("The interrupted fern begins to yellow.")