A Book of the Seasons: the Tree-toad

 

I would make a chart of our life, 

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

It is remarkable that animals are often obviously, manifestly, related to the plants which they feed upon or live among, –– as caterpillars, butterflies  tree-toads, partridges, chewinks, and this afternoon I noticed a yellow spider on a goldenrod; 

as if every condition might have its expression in some form of animated.  

August 21, 1851

We sit about half an hour, and it is surprising what 

various distinct sounds we hear there deep in the wood . . .

– the cawing of crows, the peeping of hylas in the swamp

and perhaps the croaking of a tree-toad,

the oven-bird, the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush, a distant stake-driver,

the night-warbler and black and white creeper, the lowing of cows, 

the late supper horn, the voices of boys, the singing of girls, –

not all together but separately, distinctly, and musically, 

from where the partridge and the red-tailed hawk 

and the screech owl sit on their nests.

May 12, 1855 

April 26.  It is now so warm that I go back to leave my greatcoat for the first time, and the cooler smell of possible rain is refreshing . The toads ring more or less. ―

When the toads begin to ring, 

Then thinner clothing bring, 

Or off your greatcoat fling. 

It is not yet time for thin clothes.  Did I hear a tree toad to-day?  April 26, 1854

Gray Treefrog (hyla versicolor) May 27, 2023

May 2 If I were to be a frog hawk for a month I should soon know some things about the frogs . . . I have seen more of them than usual since I too have been looking for frogs. Hear a tree-toad.  May 2, 1858

May 5. A tree toad again. May 5, 1852

May 8. Tree-toad is heard. May 8, 1859

May 10.  Heard a tree-toad. May 10, 1854

May 10.  Hear a tree-toad, — or, maybe, a woodpecker tapping.  May 10, 1855

May 11.  Now, some time after sunset, the robins scold and sing, the Maryland yellow-throat is heard amid the alders and willows by the waterside, and the peetweet and black birds, and sometimes a kingbird, and the tree-toad. May 11, 1854

May 16. Nature appears to have passed a crisis . . . The sprayey dream of the toad has a new sound; from the meadow the hylodes are heard more distinctly; and the tree-toad chirrups often from the elms (?). The sultry warmth and moister air has called him into life. May 16, 1853

May 18.  Hear a tree-toad.  May 18, 1856

May 23. I hear one regular bullfrog trump, and as I approach the edge of the Holden Swamp, the tree-toads. May 23, 1857

May 24. Tree-toads heard oftener. May 24, 1854

May 27. Methinks the tree-toad croaks more this wet weather. May 27, 1852

May 28. What is peculiar now, beginning yesterday, after rains, is the sudden heat, and the more general sound of insects by day, and the loud ringing croak of common toads and tree-toads at evening and in the night. May 28, 1853

May 31.  In evening hear distinctly a tree-toad. May 31, 1855

June 3. Tree-toads heard. June 3,  1860

June 9. The veery rings, and the tree-toad. June 9, 1854 

June 13. The different frogs mark the seasons pretty well, – the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog, and the bullfrog. I believe that all may be heard at last occasionally together. The bullfrog belongs to summer. The tree-toad's, too, is a summer sound. June 13, 1851

June 14.   Suddenly a tree-toad in the overhanging woods begins, and another answers, and another, with loud, ringing notes such as I never heard before, and in three minutes they are all silent again. June 14, 1853

June 29. The frogs and tortoises are striped and spotted for their concealment. The painted tortoise's throat held up above the pads, streaked with yellowish, makes it the less obvious. The mud turtle is the color of the mud, the wood frog and the hylodes of the dead leaves, the bullfrogs of the pads, the toad of the earth. The tree-toad of the bark.  June 29, 1852

July 4.  I hear the croak of a tree toad as I am crossing the yard. July 4, 1852

July 31. Tree-toads sing more than before. July 31, 1855

September 5. I hear the tree-toad to-day. Now at sundown, a blue heron flaps away from his perch on an oak over the river before me, just above the rock. September 5, 1854

October 18. Saw a tree-toad on the ground in a sandy wood-path. It did not offer to hop away, may have been chilled by the rain (?). It is marked on the back with black, somewhat in the form of the hylodes.   October 18, 1859

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Tree-toad

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

All Nature is My Bride

My mistress is at a more respectful distance,

for, by the coolness of the air, 

I am more continent in my thought and 

held aloof from her,

while by the genial warmth of the sun

 I am more than ever attracted to her.

Henry Thoreau, August 29, 1854

How rarely a man's love for nature

becomes a ruling principle with him,

like a youth's affection for a maiden,

but more enduring!

All nature is my bride.

April 23, 1857

All nature is my bride -- 

My celibate friend Henry over-compensated for his celibacy by taking all Nature as his bride. He is drawn to her as a lover, a mistress. At times he eroticizes her gaze, as any lover does. What he sees in her, I see in you my Muse.

The earliest promise of the summer. The smooth reflecting surface of woodland lakes in which the ice is just melted. Those liquid eyes of nature, blue or black or even hazel, deep or shallow, clear or turbid; green next the shore, the color of their iris. June 26, 1852

Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both. Viewed from a hill top it reflects the color of the sky, but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a; light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a hill top, it is of a vivid green next the shore. Walden

A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. Walden

All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love, — to sing; and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love. May 6, 1854

Dark shadows on field and wood are the more remarkable by contrast with the light yellow-green foliage now, and when they rest on evergreens they are doubly dark, like dark rings about the eyes of June. June 4, 1855

You see the dark eye and shade of June on the river as well as on land. June 6, 1855

Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,—the black elm-tops and shadows of June. It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath. It suggests . . . the repose and siesta of summer noons, the thunder-cloud, bathing, and all that belongs to summer. June 9. 1856

There are square rods in Middlesex County as purely primitive and wild as they were a thousand years ago. . . wild as a square rod on the moon, supposing it to be uninhabited. I believe almost in the personality of such planetary matter, feel something akin to reverence for it, can even worship it as terrene, titanic matter extant in my day. We are so different we admire each other, we healthily attract one another. I love it as a maiden. August 30, 1856

I love and could embrace the shrub oak with its scanty garment of leaves rising above the snow . . . I felt a positive yearning toward one bush this afternoon. There was a match found for me at last. I fell in love with a shrub oak. December 1, 1856

The sunniness contrasts with the shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June. May 29, 1857

… like the first bright flashings of an eye from under dark eyelashes after shedding warm tears. May 29, 1857

I sit on Lee's Cliff

looking into the light and

dark eye of the lake.

May 29, 1857

The dark river, now that shades are increased, is like the dark eye of a maiden. May 27, 1859

the eye of a maiden
May 27, 2013

These expressions of the face of Nature are as constant and sure to recur as those of the eyes of maidens, from year to year, — sure to be repeated as long as time lasts. May 27, 1859

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 27

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, All Nature is my Bride

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

In the crucible of my celibate life

purified of all desire,

I enter truth from behind

and call her name --

Simplify!

Day would not dawn if it were not for the inward Morning.

As we sat on the bank eating our supper, 

the clear light of the western sky fell on the eastern trees, 

and was reflected in the water, 

and we enjoyed so serene an evening as left nothing to describe . . .

It is when we do not have to believe, 

but come into actual contact with Truth, 

and are related to her 

in the most direct and intimate way.

Waves of serener life pass over us from time to time, 

like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather. . .

This world is but canvas to our imaginations . . .
“Imagination is the air of mind,” in which it lives and breathes.

All things are as I am . . . 

I am astonished at the singular pertinacity 

and endurance of our lives. 

The miracle is, that what is is,

when it is so difficult, if not impossible, for anything else to be;

•  that we walk on in our particular paths so far, before we fall on death and fate, merely because we must walk in some path; 
• that every man can get a living, and so few can do anything more. 
• So much only can I accomplish ere health and strength are gone,

 and yet this suffices . . .

When every other path would fail, 

with singular and unerring confidence 

we advance on our particular course. 

What risks we run! . . .

yet every man lives till he—dies. 

How did he manage that?

. . . 

I have found all things thus far, persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons, strangely adapted to my resources . . .

Day would not dawn if it were not for the inward morning.

THE INWARD MORNING

Packed in my mind lie all the clothes
    Which outward nature wears,
And in its fashion’s hourly change
    It all things else repairs.

In vain I look for change abroad,
    And can no difference find,
Till some new ray of peace uncalled
    Illumes my inmost mind.

What is it gilds the trees and clouds,
    And paints the heavens so gay,
But yonder fast-abiding light
    With its unchanging ray?

Lo, when the sun streams through the wood,
    Upon a winter’s morn,
Where’er his silent beams intrude,
    The murky night is gone.

How could the patient pine have known
    The morning breeze would come,
Or humble flowers anticipate
    The insect’s noonday hum,—

Till the new light with morning cheer
    From far streamed through the aisles,
And nimbly told the forest trees
    For many stretching miles?

I’ve heard within my inmost soul
    Such cheerful morning news,
In the horizon of my mind
    Have seen such orient hues,

As in the twilight of the dawn,
    When the first birds awake,
Are heard within some silent wood,
    Where they the small twigs break,

Or in the eastern skies are seen,
    Before the sun appears,
The harbingers of summer heats
    Which from afar he bears.

Whole weeks and months of my summer life slide away in thin volumes like mist and smoke, till at length, some warm morning, perchance, I see a sheet of mist blown down the brook to the swamp, and I float as high above the fields with it. 

H. D. Thoreau, A Week, Wednesday

Waves of serener life pass over us from time to time, like flakes of sunlight over the fields in cloudy weather. See June 22, 1851 ("I awake . . .with the calmness of a lake when there is not a breath of wind.")

I have found all things thus far, persons and inanimate matter, elements and seasons, strangely adapted to my resources. See Walden ("Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.")see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature is genial to man (the anthropic principle)

Such cheerful morning news / in the horizon of my mind. See Walden (“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”); Walden ("We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”);  Walden (“Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.”); March 17, 1852 ("There is a moment in the dawn, when the darkness of the night is dissipated and before the exhalations of the day commence to rise, when we see things more truly than at any other time")

and I float as high above the fields  See Walden ("By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent.. . .I may be either the driftwood in the stream, or Indra in the sky looking down on it")

A Book of the Seasons: The Arrival of the Eastern Wood Pewee

 

For the first time I perceive this spring that the year is a circle.

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

I do not hear those peculiar tender die-away notes from the pewee yet.

Is it another pewee, or a later note? 

April 14, 1852

Pee-a-wee, Pee-oo.

In the wood behind the spring

a wood pewee sings.

May 23, 1854

May 17.   I hear the wood pewee, — pe-a-wai. The heat of yesterday has brought him on. May 17, 1853

May 17.   Hear the wood pewee, the warm weather sound. May 17, 1854

May 19.   Wood pewee. May 19, 1856

May 22.The wood pewee’s warm note is heard . . .This is the first truly lively summer Sunday, what with lilacs, warm weather, waving rye, slight dusty sandy roads in some places, falling apple blossoms, etc., etc., and the wood pewee. May 22, 1853

May 22. I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu, the first syllable in a different and higher key emphasized, — all very sweet and naive and innocent. May 22, 1854

May 23. The wood pewee sings now in the woods behind the spring in the heat of the day (2 p. m.), sitting on a low limb near me, pe-a-wee, pe-a-wee, etc., five or six times at short and regular intervals, looking about all the while, and then, naively, pee-a-oo, emphasizing the first syllable, and begins again. It flies off occasionally a few feet, catches an insect and returns to its perch between the bars, not allowing this to interrupt their order. May 23, 1854

May 24. Hear the wood pewee.  May 24, 1859

May 24. Hear a wood pewee. May 24, 1860

May 25. Wood pewee. May 25, 1855

May 26..  I hear the pea-wai, the tender note. May 26, 1852

May 26.   Wood pewee. May 26, 1857

May 28.  Hear the wood pewee. May 28, 1858

Last night the eastern wood pewee was not heard, 

but tonight it was peeweeing in the creeping darkness of the evening.

Spring is coming to an end and 

the thickness of summer will soon take its place.

Avesong May 24, 2009.

See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Wood-Pewee

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Arrival of the Eastern Wood Pewee

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

A Book of the Seasons: the Bellworts

 

I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Observe all kinds of coincidences,

as what kinds of birds come with what flowers.

Henry Thoreau

April 18, 1852

The single modest-colored flower gracefully drooping,

neat, with a fugacious, richly spiced fragrance, facing the ground . . .

a beautiful sight, a pleasing discovery,  the first of the season. . .

When you turn up the drooping flower,

its petals make a perfect geometrical figure, a six-pointed star.

May 16, 1852

Sessile-leaved bellwort

  Avesong, April 24, 2023

May 3. P. M. – Ride to Flint's Pond to look for Uvularia perfoliata [see May 30, 1857 ] . . . See no signs of the Uvularia perfoliata yet; apparently will not bloom within ten days . . .  In the woods near the Uvularia perfoliata, see and hear a new bird to me . . . At first it was silent, and I took it for the common pewee, but . . . It surprised me by singing in a novel and powerful and rich strain. Yet it may be the white-eyed [solitary] vireo (which I do not know), if it comes so early. May 3, 1858

May 6. Uvularia sessilifolia just begun. May 6, 1853

May 11.  Uvularia perfoliata out in rain; say, then, the 9th. Just after plucking it I perceived what I call the meadow fragrance, though in the woods; but I afterward found that this flower was peculiarly fragrant, and its fragrance like that, so it was probably this which I had perceived. S. was reminded of the lily-of-the-valley by it.  May 11, 1859

May 13.  Uvularias, amid the dry tree-tops near the azaleas. May 13, 1854

May 13.  P. M. – To Island Uvularia sessilifolia is well out in Island woods, opposite Bath Rock; how long? May 13, 1858

May 13.  At Holden Swamp, hear plenty of parti-colored warblers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts. Uvularia sessilifolia abundant, how long?  May 13, 1860

May 14. The Uvularia sessilifolio, a drooping flower with tender stems and leaves; the latter curled so as to show their under sides hanging about the stems, as if shrinking from the cold .May 14, 1852

May 16.  The sessile-leaved bellwort, with three or four delicate pale-green leaves with reflexed edges, on a tender-looking stalk, the single modest-colored flower gracefully drooping, neat, with a fugacious, richly spiced fragrance, facing the ground, the dry leaves, as if unworthy to face the heavens. It is a beautiful sight, a pleasing discovery,  the first of the season, -- growing in a little straggling company, in damp woods or swamps. When you turn up the drooping flower, its petals make a perfect geometrical figure, a six-pointed star. May 16, 1852

May 16.  P. M. – To Uvularia perfoliata at Flint's Pond, which did not show itself at all on the 3d, is now conspicuous, and one is open but will not shed pollen before to-morrow. It has shot up about ten inches in one case and bloomed within thirteen days!! May 16, 1858

May 30.   By the path near the northeast shore of Flint's Pond, just before reaching the wall by the brook, I see what I take to be an uncommonly large Uvularia sessilifolia flower, but, looking again, am surprised to find it the Uvularia perfoliata, which I have not found hereabouts before. It is a taller and much more erect plant than the other, with a larger flower, methinks. It is considerably past its prime and probably began with the other.  May 30, 1857 

June 2. [climbing Monadnock] Uvularia grandiflora, not long begun to bloom. June 2, 1858

June 3.  Saw the Uvularia perfoliata, perfoliate bellwort, in Worcester near the hill; an abundance of mountain laurel on the hills, now budded to blossom and the fresh lighter growth contrasting with the dark green; an abundance of very large checkerberries, or partridge berries, as Bigelow calls them, on Hasnebumskit. June 3, 1851

June 14. Walk to Hermitage Woods with Sophia and aunts.  Uvularia perfoliata very common there; now out of bloom.  June 14, 1856

July 25. Large-flowered bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora), in fruit. [The Maine Woods] July 25, 1857

August 22. Edward Hoar . . . says he found the Uvularia perfoliata on the Stow road, he thinks within Concord bounds. August 22, 1857

August 26.  The Uvularia sessilifolia is for the most part turned yellow, with large green fruit, or even withered and brown. August 26, 1859

August 30.  The plants now decayed and decaying and withering are those early ones which grow in wet or shady places, as hellebore, skunk-cabbage, the two (and perhaps three) smilacinas, uvularias, polygonatum, medeola, Senecio aureus (except radical leaves), and many brakes and sarsaparillas. August 30, 1859

September 6. The sessile-leaved bellwort is yellow, green, and brown, all together or separately. September 6, 1854

September 22. Sophia has in her herbarium and has found in Concord these which I have not seen this summer:  . . . Uvularia perfoliata, Bigelow says May. September 22, 1852

October 22. It is just about nine miles, as I walk, from here around Flint’s Pond . . . I saw some hickory sprouts above the perfoliate bellwort near the pond. October 22, 1857

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bellworts

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

* Sessile-leaved bellwort (Uvularia sessilifolia )is the most widespread and common bellwort in New England, inhabiting deciduous and mixed evergreen deciduous forests, woodlands and edges throughout. The sessile (without a stalk but not perfoliate) leaves distinguish this species from large-flowered bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora) and perfoliate bellwort (Uvularia perfoliata).  

*Large-flowered bellwort is distributed in rich, moist, deciduous forests in western New England. 

*Perfoliate bellwort becomes increasingly rare in northern New England, and is absent in Maine. The name refers to the way the stem seems to pierce through the leaf blade. Large-flowered bellwort also has perfoliate leaves.~ GoBotany

(Thoreau’s only references to Concord occurrence of the perfoliate bellwort  are second-hand. See August 22, 1857,  and  September 22, 1852 ) ~ Ray Angelo, Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts)

The Black-throated Green Warbler (Evergreen-forest bird)

May 6. Hear near Second Division the er er twe, ter ter twe, evergreen-forest note. Bright-yellow head and shoulders and beneath, and dark legs and bill catching insects along base of pitch pine plumes, some, what creeper-like; very active and restless, darting from tree to tree; darts at and drives off a chickadee. 

I find I have thus described its colors last year at various times, viz.: [May 12] black throat, this often with dark and light beneath; again, [June 12] black streak from eyes, slate-colored back (?), forked tail, white beneath (?); another bird with yellow throat near by, perhaps female; again, June 17, black wings with white bars. 

Is it black throated green . . . ? May 6, 1855

May 7. In the meanwhile I hear, through this fresh, raw east wind, the te-a-lea of myrtle-birds from the woods across the-river. I hear the evergreen-forest note close by; and hear and see many myrtle-birds, at the same time that I hear what I have called the black and white creeper’s note.  Have I ever confounded them? May 7, 1856

May 10. Heard also that peculiarly wild evergreen forest note which I heard May 6th from a small, lisping warbler -- er er ter re rer ree  --  from high in the pines as if a chickadee (?); or was it the still smaller; slenderer white bellied bird I saw?  May 10, 1853

May 11. Hear the evergreen-forest note. May 11, 1854 

May 12.   Heard again the evergreen -forest note. It is a slender bird , about size of white-eyed vireo, with a black throat and I think some yellow above, with dark and light beneath , in the tops of pines and oaks. The only warblers at all like it are black-throated green, black-throated blue, black-poll, and golden winged, and maybe orange-crowned. May 12, 1854

May 15.  Hear the evergreen-forest note. May 15, 1858

May 30. In the thick of the wood between railroad and Turnpike, hear the evergreen forest note, and see probably the bird,-- black throat, greenish-yellow or yellowish-green head and back, light-slate (?) wings with two white bars. Is it not the black-throated green warbler?  I find close by a small fresh egg on the forest floor, with a slight perforation , white (with perhaps a tinge of flesh-color (?) when full)  and brown spots and black marks at the larger end. In Brewer's synopsis the egg of the black throat is described as “light flesh-color with purple spots.” But these spots are not purple. I could find no nest .May 30, 1855 

June 1. Hear my evergreen-forest note, sounding rather raspingly as usual, where there are large oaks and pines mingled, , er - er te , te ter twee , or er te , te ter twe. It is very difficult to discover now that the leaves are grown, as it frequents the tops of the trees. But I get a glimpse of its black throat and, I think, yellow head .June 1, 1854

June 12.  Hear the evergreen-forest note  and see the bird on the top of a white pine, somewhat creeper like, along the boughs, and golden head except a black streak from eyes, black throat, slate-colored back, forked tail, white beneath, er te , ter ter te. Another bird with yellow throat near by may have been the other sex. Is it the golden-winged warbler? June 12, 1854

June 16.  Heard around, from within the Purgatory, not only Wilson’s thrush, but evergreen forest note and tanager; and saw chip-squirrels within it  June 16, 1856

June 17.  The evergreen-forest bird at old place in white pine and oak tops, top of Brister's Hill on right. I think it has black wings with white bars. Is it not the black-throated green warbler? June 17, 1854

July 10. Evergreen-forest note, I think, still.  July 10 1854 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Black-throated Green Warbler

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