Saw the grizzly bear near the Haymarket to-day.

February 9.

 At Cambridge to-day.

Dr. Harris thinks the Indians had no real hemp but their apocynum, and, he thinks, a kind of nettle, and an asclepias, etc.

He doubts if the dog was indigenous among them. Finds nothing to convince him in the history of New England.

Thinks that the potato which is said to have been carried from Virginia by Raleigh was the ground-nut (which is described, I perceived, in Debry (Heriot?) among the fruits of Virginia), the potato not being indigenous in North America, and the ground-nut having been called wild potato in New England, the north part of Virginia, and not being found in England.

Yet he allows that Raleigh cultivated the potato in Ireland.

Saw the grizzly bear near the Haymarket to-day, said (?) to weigh nineteen hundred, — apparently too much. He looked four feet and a few inches in height, by as much in length, not including his great head, and his tail, which was invisible.

He looked gentle, and continually sucked his claws and cleaned between them with his tongue. Small eyes and funny little ears; perfectly bearish, with a strong wild-beast scent; fed on Indian meal and water.

Hind paws a foot long. Lying down, with his feet up against the bars; often sitting up in the corner on his hind quarters.

Two sables also, that would not be waked up by day, with their faces in each other's fur.

An American chinchilla, and a silver lioness said to be from California.

 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 9, 1853

Dr. Harris ( the librarian of Harvard University and one of Thoreau's professors) See Clark A. Elliott, Thaddeus William Harris 1795-1856: Nature, Science, and Society in the Life of an American Naturalist . See also note to January 1, 1853 ("Agassiz told him that Harris was the greatest entomologist in the world.")

Indians had no real hemp but their apocynum, and, he thinks, a kind of nettle, and an asclepias.See note to September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain . . .”); January 19, 1856 ("Probably both the Indian and the bird discovered for themselves this same (so to call it) wild hemp. [milkweed fibre]")

February 9.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  February 9

Snowing all day but

just beginning to clear up –

blue sky visible.

February 9, 2021

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 ©  2009-2023