A string of lakes which have not made up their minds to be rivers.

July 30

A. M. — On river to ascertain the rate of the current.

This dog-day weather I can see the bottom where five and a half feet deep. At five feet it is strewn clear across with sium, heart-leaf, Ranunculus Purshii, etc. It is quite green and verdurous, especially with the first. I see the fishes moving leisurely about amid the weeds, their affairs revealed, especially perch, — some large ones prowling there; and pickerel, large and small, lie imperturbable. 

I see more moss (?) covered rocks on the bottom and some rising quite near the surface, — three or four be tween my boat's place and thirty rods above, — and a good many three feet over on the bottom, revealed in the sunny water, and little suspected before. 

Indeed, the bottom may be considered rocky from above Dodd's to my boat's place, though you would suspect it only when looking through this clear water. They are so completely covered with moss-like weeds or tresses that you do not see them, — like the heads of mermaids. 

A rock there is a nucleus or hard core to a waving mass of weeds, and you must probe it hard with a paddle to detect the hard core. No doubt many a reach is thus rock-strewn which is supposed to have an uninterruptedly muddy bottom. They sleep there concealed under these long tresses on the bottom, suggesting a new kind of antiquity. 

There is nothing to wear on and polish them there. They do not bear the paint rubbed off from any boat. Though unsuspected by the oldest fisher, they have eyed Concord for centuries through their watery veil without ever parting their tresses to look at her. 

Perchance the increased stagnancy of the river at this season makes the water more transparent, it being easier to look into stagnant water than when the particles are in rapid motion. 

The outside heart-leaves above Dodd's grow in six feet of water, and also the kalmiana lily. 

Trying the current there, there being a very faint, chiefly side, wind, commonly not enough to be felt on the cheek or to ripple the water, — what would be called by most a calm, — my bottle floats about seventy-five feet in forty minutes, and then, a very faint breeze beginning to drive it back, I cannot wait to see when it will go a hundred. It is, in short, an exceedingly feeble current, almost a complete standstill. 

My boat is altogether blown up-stream, even by this imperceptible breath. Indeed, you can in such a case feel the pulse of our river only in the shallowest places, where it preserves some slight passage between the weeds. It faints and gives up the ghost in deeper places on the least adverse wind, and you would presume it dead a thousand times, if you did not apply the nicest tests, such as a feather to the nostrils of a drowned man. 

It is a mere string of lakes which have not made up their minds to be rivers. As near as possible to a standstill. 

Yet by sinking a strawberry box beneath the surface I found that there was a slight positive current there, that when a chip went pretty fast up-stream in this air, the same with the box sunk one foot and tied to it went slowly down, at three feet deep or more went faster than when the box was sunk only one foot. The water flowed faster down at three feet depth than at one, there where it was about seven feet deep, and though the surface for several inches deep may be flowing up in the wind, the weeds at bottom will all be slanted down. 

Indeed, I suspect that at four or five feet depth the weeds will be slanted downward in the strongest wind that blows up, in that the current is always creeping along downward underneath. 

After my first experiments I was surprised to find that the weeds at bottom slanted down-stream. I have also been surprised to find that in the clear channel between the potamogetons, though it looked almost stagnant, it was hard to swim against it; as at Rice's Bend. 

See many cowbirds about cows.

P. M. — Left boat at Rice's Bend. 

I spoke to him of the clapper rail. He remembered that his father once killed a bird, a sort of mud-hen, which they called the tinker, since he made [a] noise just like a tinker on brass, and they used to set it agoing in the meadows by striking two coppers together. His father stuffed it and did not know what it was. It had a long body. 

Yet the river in the middle of Concord is swifter than above or below, and if Concord people are slow in consequence of their river's influence, the people of Sudbury and Carlisle should be slower still.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 30, 1859

I can see the bottom where five and a half feet deep. I see the fishes moving leisurely about amid the weeds, their affairs revealed, especially perch, — some large ones prowling there; and pickerel, large and small, lie imperturbable. See  July 18, 1854 ("I do not know why the water should be so remarkably clear and the sun shine through to the bottom of the river, making it so plain.“);  July 27, 1860 ("The water has begun to be clear and sunny, revealing the fishes and countless minnows of all sizes and colors”); July 28, 1859 ("The season has now arrived when I begin to see further into the water, — see the bottom, the weeds, and fishes more than before. I can see the bottom when it is five and a half feet deep even, see the fishes, especially the perch, scuttling in and out amid the weeds.."); July 30, 1856 ("The wonderful clearness of the water, enabling you to explore the river bottom and many of its secrets now...”)

My bottle floats about seventy-five feet in forty minutes, and then, a very faint breeze beginning to drive it back, I cannot wait to see when it will go a hundred. Compare June 24, 1859 ("Simonds of Bedford, who is measuring the rapidity of the current at Carlisle Bridge, says that a board with a string attached ran off there one hundred yards in fifteen minutes");   July 25, 1859 ("a bottle sunk low in the water floats one hundred feet . . . in four and a half minutes.")

It is a mere string of lakes which have not made up their minds to be rivers. As near as possible to a standstill. See April 16, 1852 ("A succession of bays it is, a chain of lakes, . . .There is just stream enough for a flow of thought; that is all. Many a foreigner who has come to this town has worked for years on its banks without discovering which way the river runs. ")

July 30. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 30

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 © 2009-2025

I too have been looking for frogs. If I were to be a frog hawk for a month I should soon know some things.

May 2.

Hepatica, May 2, 2018

Sit without fire to-day and yesterday.

I compare the three Rana palustris caught yesterday with the male and female of April 23d. 

The males agree very well. What I have regarded as the groundwork varies from pale brown to dusky brown, even in the same specimen at different times. 

The present female is larger than that of April 23d, more than half an inch longer than her male, and she has the round dark spots on the orbits and one in front on head and also oblong-square spots on back. She is also dusky-brown like male. 

None of all have any green. 

I at last hear the note, for two are coupled in a firkin in my chamber, under my face. It is made by the male alone, and is, as I supposed, the sound of April 30th and May 1st, — the tut tut tut, more or less rapidly repeated, and a frequent querulous or inquisitive cr-r-rack, half a second long. 

It makes these sounds only when I excite it by putting others of its kind near it. Its pouches are distended laterally, apparently beneath and behind the eye, and not very conspicuous. Close by, it sounds like a dry belching sound, the bursting of little bubbles more or less rapidly, and the querulous note may be the same very rapidly repeated. 

I doubt if I have heard any sound from a bullfrog in river yet. 

P. M. — Down river. 

The Salix Babylonica (fertile) behind Dodd's is more forward than the alba by my boat. Put it just before it. See stake-driver. 

At mouth of the Mill Brook, I hear, I should say, the true R. halecina croak, i. e. with the faint bullfrog-like er-er-er intermixed. Are they still breeding? 

Peetweet on a rock. 

See and hear the red-wings in flocks yet, making a great noise. 

If I were to be a frog hawk for a month I should soon know some things about the frogs. How patiently they skim the meadows, occasionally alighting, and fluttering as if it were difficult ever to stand still on the ground. I have seen more of them than usual since I too have been looking for frogs. 

Hear a tree-toad.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 2, 1858

Sit without fire to-day and yesterday. See May 3, 1857 (“”To-day we sit without fire")
I compare the three Rana palustris caught yesterday with the male and female of April 23d. See April 24, 1858 ("I go at 8 A.M. to catch frogs to compare with the R. palustris and bull frog which I have, but I find it too cold for them")

At mouth of the Mill Brook, I hear, I should say, the true R. halecina croak, i. e. with the faint bullfrog-like er-er-er intermixed. See note to  April 3, 1858 ("Their note is a hard dry tut tut tut tut, . . .  and from time to time one makes that faint somewhat bullfrog-like er er er. Both these sounds, then, are made by one frog, ")


If I were to be a frog hawk for a month I should soon know some things about the frogs. See March 27, 1855 (“See my frog hawk. . . .It is the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump. "); March 29, 1854 (See two marsh hawks, white on rump."); March 30, 1856 ("May have been a marsh hawk or harrier.");  April 5, 1854  ("These days . . . bring out the butterflies and the frogs, and the marsh hawks which prey on the last. Just so simple is every year.”); April 8, 1856 ("Marsh hawks circling low shows that frogs must be out."); April 19, 1858 ("He skims along exactly over the edge of the water, on the meadowy side, not more than three or four feet from the ground and winding with the shore, looking for frogs.."); April 22, 1856 (“A marsh hawk, in the midst of the rain, is skimming along the shore of the meadow, close to the ground, . . . It is looking for frogs.”); May 2, 1855 ("Was that a harrier seen at first skimming low then seating and circling, with a broad whiteness on the wings beneath?” ~~ What HDT calls the "frog/marsh hawk/hen harrier" is the northern harrier.

I go at 8 A.M. to catch frogs to compare with the R. palustris.

April 24.

A cold northwest wind.

April 24, 2018

I go at 8 A.M. to catch frogs to compare with the R. palustris and bull frog which I have, but I find it too cold for them. Though I walk more than a mile along the river, I do not get sight of one, and only of one or two turtles. Neither do I find any more frogs (though many Emys picta) at 4 P. M., it being still cold. 

Yet the frogs were quite numerous yesterday. This shows how sensitive they are to changes of temperature. Hardly one puts its head out of the water, if ever he creeps out the grassy or muddy bottom this cold day. 

That proserpinaca deserves to be named after the frog, — ranunculus, or what-not, — it is so common and pretty at the bottom the shallow grassy pools where I go looking for spawn. 

It is remarkable that I see many E. picta dead along the shore, dead within a few weeks apparently, also a sternothaerus. One of the last, alive, emitted no odor to-day. 

I find washed up by the riverside part of a pale-greenish egg-shell bigger than a hen’s egg, which was probably the egg of a duck laid on the meadow last year or lately. 

There is an abundance of the R. halecina spawn near the elm at the hill shore north of Dodd's. It is now semiopaque, greenish, and flatted down and run together, mostly hatched; and a good deal has been killed, apparently by the cold. The water thereabouts is swarming with the young pollywogs for a rod about, but where have all the frogs hidden themselves? 

E. Hoar saw the myrtle-bird to-day. 

The pollywogs must be a long time growing, for I see those of last year not more than two inches long, also some much larger. 

The hatched frog-spawn is quite soft and apparently dissolving at last in the water. Yet possibly that mass of jelly once brought me on a stake was this jelly consolidated. 

I find that my fish ova were not all killed some weeks ago in the firkin, as I supposed, for many that were accidentally left in it have hatched, and they bore the cold of last night better than those hatched earlier and kept in the larger vessel (tub), which froze but thinly, while the firkin froze a quarter of an inch thick last night.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 24, 1858

Many Emys picta. See April 24, 1856 ("A young Emys Picta one and five eighths inches long and one and a half wide. . . . already covered with some kind of green moss."); See also March 28, 1857 ("The Emys picta, now pretty numerous . . .He who painted the tortoise thus, what were his designs?");  April 22, 1858 ("The Emys picta are evidently breeding also.") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

A sternothaerus emitted no odor to-day. See April 1, 1858 ("I see six Sternothaarus odoratus . . . and smelt of five of these, and they emitted none of their peculiar scent! It would seem, then, that this may be connected with their breeding, or at least with their period of greatest activity.");   June 16, 1858 ("Two sternothaerus which I smell of have no scent to-day.  ")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus )

That proserpinaca [palustris] deserves to be named after the frog:  Rana palustris, the pickerel frog; Proserpinaca is a genus of flowering plants found in aquatic or terrestrial wetland habitat  Palustris is a Latin word meaning swampy or marshy often used for species names to refer to the typical habitat of the species. ~ Wikipedia

There is an abundance of the R. halecina spawn near the elm at the hill shore north of Dodd's. The water thereabouts is swarming with the young pollywogs for a rod about. See April 14, 1858 (“My Rana halecina spawn in tumbler is now flatted out and begins to betray the pollywog form.”); 

I find that my fish ova were not all killed some weeks ago in the firkin, as I supposed. See note to April 16, 1858 ("I think that the spawn could not have been laid long when I found it April 3d, . . .My fish ova in a tumbler has gradually expanded ... (Some are still in the egg on the 18th.)")

April rain.

April 20

Rain, rain, rain, — a northeast storm. I see that it is raising the river somewhat again. Some little islets which had appeared on the meadow north west of Dodd’s are now fast being submerged again.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 20, 1856

Rain, rain, rain. See April 22, 1856 (“These rain-storms -- this is the third day of one – characterize 'the season, and belong rather to winter than to summer.”) See also April 20, 1855 ("Rains all day, taking out the frost and imprisoning me.”);  See also April 17, 1857 ("Rain. It rains about every other day now for a fortnight past.”)

April 20, 2026

 

See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 20

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 ©  2009-2026

Winter now first fairly commenced.

December 30

December 30, 2016

The snow which began last night has continued to fall very silently but steadily, and now it is not far from a foot deep, much the most we have had yet; a dry, light, powdery snow. 

When I come down I see it in miniature drifts against the panes, alternately streaked dark and light as it is more or less dense. A remarkable, perfectly regular conical peak, a foot high, with concave sides, stands in the fireplace under the sink-room chimney. The pump has a regular conical Persian(?) cap, and every post about the house a. similar one. It is quite light, but has not drifted. 

About 9 A. M. it ceases, and the sun comes out, and shines dazzlingly over the white surface. Every neighbor is shovelling out, and hear the sound of shovels scraping on door-steps. Winter now first fairly commenced, I feel. 

The places which are slowest to freeze in our river are, first, on account of warmth as well as motion, where a brook comes in, and also probably where are springs in banks and under bridges; then, on account of shallowness and rapidity, at bends. I perceive that the cold respects the same places every winter. In the dark, or after a heavy snow, I know well where to cross the river most safely. Where the river is most like a lake, broad with a deep and muddy bottom, there it freezes first and thickest. The open water at a bend seems to be owing to the swiftness of the current, and this to the shallowness, and this to the sands taken out of the opposing bank and deposited there. 

There was yesterday eight or ten acres of open water at the west end of Walden, where is depth and breadth combined. 

What a horrid shaggy and stiff low wilderness were the Andromeda Ponds yesterday! What then must they have been on the 21st! As it was, it was as if I walked through a forest of glass (with a tough woody core) up to my middle. That dense tufted grass with a greenish tinge was still stiffly coated with ice, as well as everything else, and my shoes were filled with the fragments, but here I and there the crimson sphagnum blushed through the crust beneath. Think of that dense grass, a horrid stiff crop, each stem as big as your finger, firm but brittle and about two feet high, and the countless birds’ nests filled even with ice!

P. M. - Across river and over Hill. 

The wind has been blowing and the snow drifting. The paths are filled up again. The surface of the snow is coarsely waved and rough now, as if it caught at every straw and faced its windy foe again. It appears a coarser grain now. By the river are conspicuous the now empty and spread pods of the water milkweed, gray-brown without, silky—white within, — in some a seed or two left still; also the late rose corymbs of red hips; also the eupatorium some with brown fuzz and seeds still; the sium sometimes, with its very flat cymes; and that light-brown sedge or rush. Some black ash keys still hang on amid the black abortions(?)

For a few days I have noticed the snow sprinkled with alder and birch scales. I go now through the birch meadow southwest of the Rock. The high wind is scattering them over the snow there. 

See one downy woodpecker and one or two chickadees. 

The track of a squirrel on the Island Neck. Tracks are altered by the depth of the snow. 

Looking up over the top of the hill now,  southwest, at 3.30 P.M., I see a few mother-o’-pearl tints, and methinks the same or rainbow tints in the drifting snow there, against the bright light of the unseen sun. 

December 30, 2025 

Only in such clear cold air as this have the small clouds in the west that fine evanishing edge. It requires a state of the air that quickly dissipates all moisture. It must be rare in summer. In this rare atmosphere all cloud is quickly dissipated and mother-o’-pearl tinted as it passes away. 

The snow is too deep and soft yet for many tracks. No doubt the mice have been out beneath it.

Recrossing the river behind Dodd’s, now at 4 P. M., the sun quite low, the open reach just below is quite green, a vitreous green, as if seen through a junk-bottle. Perhaps I never observed this phenomenon but when the sun was low. 

He who would study birds’ nests must look for them in November and in winter as well as in midsummer, for then the trees are bare and he can see them, and the swamps and streams are frozen and he can approach new kinds. He will often be surprised to find how many have haunted where he little suspected, and will receive many hints accordingly, which he can act upon in the summer. I am surprised to find many new ones (i. e. not new species) in groves which I had examined several times with particular care in the summer. 

This was not a lodging snow, and the wind has already blown most of it off the trees, yet the long-limbed oak on the north of the hill still supports a ridge of its pure white as thick as its limbs. They lie parallel like the ulna and radius, and one is a bare white bone. 

Beside the other weeds on the last page, I might have shown the tall rough goldenrod, still conspicuous. 

Found, in the Wheeler meadow southwest of the Island, a nest in the fork of an alder about eight feet from ground, partly saddled on, made apparently chiefly of fine grass and bark fibres, quite firm and very thick bottomed, and well bound without with various kind of lint. This is a little oval, three by three and a half inches within and seven eighths deep, with a very firm, smooth rim of fine grass and dark shreds, lined with the same and some lint. A few alder leaves dangle from the edge, and, what is remarkable, the outer edge all around is defiled, quite covered, with black and white caterpillar like droppings of the young birds. It is broader and shallower than a yellowbird’s and larger than a wood pewee’s. Can it be a redstart’s? I should think it too large.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 30, 1855

Not far from a foot deep, much the most we have had yet. See December 30, 1859 ("I awake to find it snowing fast. Perhaps seven or eight inches have fallen, - the deepest snow yet.”); December 30, 1853 (“I carried a two-foot rule and measured the snow of yesterday. . . it varied from fourteen to twenty-four inches.”) and note to January 16, 1856 ("With this snow the fences are scarcely an obstruction to the traveller; he easily steps over them. Often they are buried. I suspect it is two and a half feet deep in Andromeda Swamps now.")

The track of a squirrel . . .The snow is too deep and soft yet for many tracks. No doubt the mice have been out beneath it. See December 30, 1853 ("I see the tracks of mice, and squirrels, probably gray ones, leading straight to or from the feet of the largest pines and oaks, which they had plainly ascended.")

Winter now first fairly commenced, I feel.  See December 29, 1853 ("The thoughts and associations of summer and autumn are now as completely departed from our minds as the leaves are blown from the trees.") See also March 16, 1859 ("A new phase of the spring is presented; a new season has come.. . . The earth has cast off her white coat and come forth in her clean-washed sober russet early spring dress . . .This first sight of the bare tawny and russet earth, seen afar, perhaps, over the meadow flood in the spring, affects me as the first glimpse of land, his native land, does the voyager who has not seen it a long time."); March 20, 1853 ("It is glorious to behold the life and joy of this ribbon of water sparkling in the sun. . . There is the difference between winter and spring. The bared face of the pond sparkles with joy."); March 26, 1860 ("The brown season extends from about the 6th of March ordinarily into April. . . Tried by various tests, this season fluctuates more or less.") ; April 25, 1859 ("I got to-day and yesterday the first decided impression of greenness beginning to prevail. . .Even the grass begins to wave . . . and I am suddenly advertised that a new season has arrived. This is the beginning of that season which, methinks, culminates with the buttercup and wild pink and Viola pedata. It begins when the first toad is heard.");  May 14, 1858 ("To-day, for the first time, it appears to me summerlike and a new season. There is a tender green on the meadows and just leafing trees."); May 17, 1852  ("Does not summer begin after the May storm? "); May 27, 1853 ("A new season has commenced - summer - leafy June.”); May 30, 1852 (Now is the summer come.  . . . A day for shadows, even of moving clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave."); July 18, 1854 ("A hot midsummer day with a sultry mistiness in the air and shadows on land and water beginning to have a peculiar distinctness and solidity."); July 28, 1854 ("Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month, — that the year was of indefinite promise before, but that, after the first intense heats, we postponed the fulfillment of many of our hopes for this year, and, having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year."); August 5, 1854 ("It is one long acclivity from winter to midsummer and another long declivity from midsummer to winter."); August 9, 1853 ("How fatally the season is advanced toward the fall! I am not surprised now to see the small rough sunflower. There is much yellow beside now in the fields.");August 26, 1859 ("The first fall rain is a memorable occasion, when the river is raised and cooled, and the first crop of sere and yellow leaves falls. The air is cleared; the dog-days are over; sun-sparkles are seen on water; crickets sound more distinct."); September 20, 1857 ("This is our first fall rain, and makes a dividing line between the summer and fall."); November 10, 1858 ("The season of brilliant leaves may be considered over, — say about the 10th; and now a new season begins, the pure November season of the russet earth and withered leaf and bare twigs and hoary withered goldenrods, etc. ")

The countless birds’ nests filled even with ice! See December 24, 1851 (Now and long since the birds' nests have been full of snow.“); December 29, 1855 (“I find in the andromeda bushes in the Andromeda Ponds a great many nests apparently of the red-wing suspended after their fashion amid the twigs of the andromeda, each now filled with ice.”); January 7, 1856 ("I go along the edge of the Hubbard Meadow woods, the north side, where the snow is gathered, light and up to my middle, shaking down birds’ nests"); January 24, 1856 (“The snow is so deep along the sides of the river that I can now look into nests which I could hardly reach in the summer. . . .They have only an ice egg in them now.”); February 16, 1860 ("Also all the birds' nests in the blueberry bushes are revealed, by the great snow-balls they hold.")

There was yesterday eight or ten acres of open water at the west end of Walden, where is depth and breadth combined. See December 21, 1855 (“Walden is skimmed over, all but an acre, in my cove.”);  December 29, 1855 ("Am surprised to find eight or ten acres of Walden still open, notwithstanding the cold of the 26th, 27th, and 28th and of to-day. It must be owing to the wind partly.”);  January 1, 1856 (“Walden is covered with white snow ice six inches thick, for it froze while it was snowing, though commonly there is a thin dark beneath. . . . A very small patch of Walden, frozen since the snow, looks at a little distance exactly like open water by contrast with the snow ice, the trees being reflected in it, and indeed I am not certain but a very small part of this patch was water.”) Compare December 30, 1853 ("The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night. “) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden

Recrossing the river behind Dodd’s, now at 4 P. M., the sun quite low, the open reach just below is quite green, a vitreous green, See  .February 19, 1852 ("Returning across the river just as the sun was setting behind the Hollowell place, the ice eastward of me a few rods, where the snow was blown off, was as green as bottle glass, seen at the right angle, though all around, above and below, was one unvaried white, — a vitreous glass green. Just as I have seen the river green in a winter morning. This phenomenon is to be put with the blue in the crevices of the snow"); January 7, 1856 (" Returning, just before sunset, the few little patches of ice look green as I go from the sun (which is in clouds). It is probably a constant phenomenon in cold weather when the ground is covered with snow and the sun is low, morning or evening, and you are looking from it."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, when the ice turns green

Snow began last night 

now light powdery snow not 

far from a foot deep.

 In this clear cold air 

 that fine evanishing edge

of clouds in the west. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Winter now first fairly commenced.

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-551230

Why is the pollen of flowers commonly yellow?

March 28.

My Aunt Maria asked me to read the life of Dr. Chalmers, which however I did not promise to do. Yesterday, Sunday, she was heard through the partition shouting to my Aunt Jane, who is deaf, "Think of it! He stood half an hour to-day to hear the frogs croak, and he wouldn't read the life of Chalmers." 

6 a.m.- To Cliffs. 

Too cold for the birds to sing much. There appears to be more snow on the mountains. Many of our spring rains are snow-storms there. 

The woods ring with the cheerful jingle of the F. hyemalis. This is a very trig and compact little bird, and appears to be in good condition. The straight edge of slate on their breasts contrasts remarkably with the white from beneath ; the short, light-colored bill is also very conspicuous amid the dark slate ; and when they fly from you, the two white feathers in their tails are very distinct at a good distance. They are very lively, pursuing each other from bush to bush.

Could that be the fox-colored sparrow I saw this morning, — that reddish-brown sparrow ? 

I do not now think of a bird that hops so distinctly, rapidly, and commonly as the robin, with its head up.

Why is the pollen of flowers commonly yellow?


I saw yesterday, on the warm pool by Hubbard's Wood, long, narrow blades of reddish grass, bent nearly at right angles and floating on the water, lighter-colored beneath (lake-colored?). The floating part was from six inches to ten or twelve in length. This is much the greatest growth of grass that I have seen, for it is scarcely anywhere yet visibly green. It is an agreeable surprise, flushing the cheek, this warm color on the surface of some warm pool. 

P. M. — To Assabet. Saw eleven black ducks near the bathing-place on the Assabet, flying up the stream. Came within three or four rods of me, then wheeled and went down. Their faint quack sounded much [like] the croak of the frogs occasionally heard now in the pools. As they wheeled and went off, made a very fine whistling sound, which yet I think was not made by their wings. 

Opened an ant-hill about two and a half feet wide and eight inches high, in open land. It was light and dry, and apparently made by the ants; free from stones or sticks for about a foot in depth. The ants, which were red with black abdomens and were about a third of an inch long, crawled about sluggishly on being ex posed. Their galleries, a quarter of an inch and more in diameter, with ants in them, extended to the depth of two feet in the yellow sand, and how much further I don't know. Opened another in the woods with black ants of the same size in the same condition. 

This is a raw, cloudy, and disagreeable day. Yet I think you are most likely to see wild fowl this weather.

I saw in Dodd's yard and flying thence to the alders by the river what I think must be the tree sparrow,— a ferruginous crowned, or headed, and partly winged bird, light beneath, with a few of the F . hyemalis in company. It sang sweetly, much like some notes of a canary. One pursued another. It was not large enough for the fox-colored sparrow. Perhaps I have seen it before within the month. 

As near as I can make out, the hawks or falcons I am likely to see here are 

• the American sparrow hawk,
•  the fish hawk,
•  the goshawk, 
• the short-winged buzzard (if this is the same with Brown's stuffed sharp-shinned or slate-colored hawk, — not slate in his specimen; is not this the common small hawk that soars ?), 
• the red- tailed hawk 
• (have we the red-shouldered hawk, about the same size and aspect with the last ?), 
• the hen-harrier. (I suppose it is the adult of this with the slate-color over meadows.)

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 28, 1853

He stood half an hour to-day to hear the frogs croak. See March 27, 1853 ("Tried to see the faint-croaking frogs at J. P. Brown's Pond in the woods. . . .. Stood perfectly still amid the bushes on the shore, before one showed himself; finally five or six, and all eyed me, gradually approached me within three feet to reconnoitre, and, though I waited about half an hour, would not utter a sound.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)

Saw eleven black ducks near the bathing-place on the Assabet. Their faint quack sounded much [like] the croak of the frogs occasionally heard now in the pools. See.March 28, 1858 (“ I look toward Fair Haven Pond . . .There is not a duck nor a gull to be seen on it. I can hardly believe that it was so alive with them yesterday. Apparently they improve this warm and pleasant day, with little or no wind, to continue their journey northward . . . It is a wild life that is associated with stormy and blustering weather”); March 28, 1859 (“The meadows, which are still covered far and wide, are quite alive with black ducks”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Black Duck

The woods ring with the cheerful jingle of the F. hyemalis. See March 28, 1854 ("A flock of hyemalis drifting from a wood over a field incessantly for four or five minutes, — thousands of them, notwithstanding the cold"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

The hen-harrier with the slate-color over meadows. See March 27, 1855 ("See my frog hawk.  . . .It is the hen-harrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump."); March 29, 1853 ("I believe I saw the slate-colored marsh hawk to-day"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

As near as I can make out, the hawks or falcons I am likely to see here. See September 14, 1859 ("I can learn nothing from Wilson and Nuttall. The latter thinks that neither the pigeon nor sparrow hawk is found here")  See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Hawk (Merlin) A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Sharp-shinned Hawk

December snowfalls

December 30

I awake to find it snowing fast, but it slackens in a few hours. Perhaps seven or eight inches have fallen, — the deepest snow yet, and almost quite level. 

At first the flakes (this forenoon) were of middling size. At noon, when it was leaving off, they were of a different character. I observed them on my sleeve, — little slender spiculae about one tenth of an inch long, little dry splinters, sometimes two forking, united at one end, or two or three lying across one another, quite dry and fine; and so it concluded. 

P. M. — Going by Dodd's, I see a shrike perched on the tip-top of the topmost upright twig of an English cherry tree before his house, standing square on the topmost bud, balancing himself by a slight motion of his tail from time to time. I have noticed this habit of the bird before. You would suppose it inconvenient for so large a bird to maintain its footing there. Scared by my passing [?] in the road, it flew off, and I thought I would see if it alighted on a similar place. It flew toward a young elm, whose higher twigs were much more slender, though not quite so upright as those of the cherry, and I thought he might be excused if he alighted on the side of one; but no, to my surprise, he alighted without any trouble upon the very top of one of the highest of all, and looked around as before. 

I spoke to the barber to-day about that whirl of hair on the occiput of most (if not all) men's heads. He said it was called the crown, and was of a spiral form, a beginning spiral, when cut short; that some had two, one on the right, the other on the left, close together. I said that they were in a sense double-headed. He said that it was an old saying that such were bred under two crowns. 

I noticed the other day that even the golden-crested wren was one of the winter birds which have a black head, — in this case divided by yellow. 

Those who depend on skylights found theirs but a dim, religious light this forenoon and hitherto, owing to the thickness of snow resting on them. Also cellar windows are covered, and cellars are accordingly darkened. 

What a different phenomenon a musquash now from what it is in summer! Now if one floats, or swims, its whole back out, or crawls out upon the ice at one of those narrow oval water spaces in the river, some twenty rods long (in calm weather, smooth mirrors), in a broad frame of white ice or yet whiter snow, it is seen at once, as conspicuous (or more so) as a fly on a window-pane or a mirror. 

But in summer, how many hundreds crawl along the weedy shore or plunge in the long river unsuspected by the boatman! 

Even if the musquash is not there I often see the open clam shell on the edge of the ice, perfectly distinct a long way off, and he is betrayed. 


However, the edges of these silver lakes, — winter lakes, late freezers, swift-waters, musquash mirrors, breathing-holes, — to-day, after the morning's snow, are, by the water flowing back over the thin edges and staining the snow, a distinct yellow (brown-yellow) tinge for a rod or two on every side. This shows what and how much coloring matter there is in the river water. I doubt if it would be so at Walden. No doubt, however, we here get the impurer parts of the river, the scum as it were, repeatedly washed over at these places.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 30, 1859


Going by Dodd's, I see a shrike perched on the tip-top of the topmost upright twig of an English cherry tree before his house, standing square on the topmost bud, balancing himself by a slight motion of his tail from time to time. See note to December 24, 1858 ("See another shrike this afternoon, — the fourth this winter!")

I noticed the other day that even the golden-crested wren was one of the winter birds which have a black head, — in this case divided by yellow. See December 25, 1859 ("I can see a brilliant crown . . .the golden-crested wren, which I have not made out before . . .This little creature is contentedly seeking its food here alone this cold winter day on the shore of our frozen river.")

Those who depend on skylights found theirs but a dim, religious light this forenoon, owing to the thickness of snow resting on them. See December 27, 1853 ("High wind with more snow in the night. The snow is damp and covers the panes, darkening the room.")

I awake to find it snowing fast. Perhaps seven or eight inches have fallen, — the deepest snow yet. See December 30, 1853 (“I carried a two-foot rule and measured the snow of yesterday. . . it varied from fourteen to twenty-four inches.”); December 30, 1855 ("The snow which began last night has continued to fall very silently but steadily, and now it is not far from a foot deep, much the most we have had yet; a dry, light, powdery snow")

December 1859  snowfalls:

Awake to winter, and snow two or three inches deep, the first of any consequence. December 4, 1859

At 2 p. m. begins to snow, and snows till night. Still, normal storm, large flakes, warm enough, lodging. December 11, 1859

Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face, almost as much so as sand. It is cold also. It is drifting but not accumulating fast. I can see the woods about a quarter of a mile distant through it. That of the 11th was a still storm, of large flakes falling gently in the quiet air, like so many white feathers descending in different directions when seen against a wood-side, — the regular snow-storm such as is painted. A myriad falling flakes weaving a coarse garment by which the eye is amused. The snow was a little moist and the weather rather mild. Also I remember the perfectly crystalline or star snows, when each flake is a perfect six(?)-rayed wheel. This must be the chef-d'oeuvre of the Genius of the storm. Also there is the pellet or shot snow, which consists of little dry spherical pellets the size of robin-shot. This, I think, belongs to cold weather. Probably never have much of it. Also there is sleet, which is half snow, half rain. December 14, 1859

The first kind of snow-storm, or that of yesterday, which ceased in the night after some three inches had fallen, was that kind that makes handsome drifts behind the walls. There are no drifts equal to these behind loosely built stone walls, the wind passing between the stones. Slight as this snow was, these drifts now extend back four or five feet and as high as the wall, on the north side of the Corner Bridge road. December 15, 1859

Snows very fast, large flakes, a very lodging snow, quite moist; turns to rain in afternoon. If we leave the sleigh for a moment, it whitens the seat, which must be turned over. We are soon thickly covered, and it lodges on the twigs of the trees and bushes, — there being but little wind, — giving them a very white and soft, spiritual look. Gives them a still, soft, and light look. When the flakes fall thus large and fast and are so moist and melting, we think it will not last long, and this turned to rain in a few hours, after three or four inches had fallen. To omit the first mere whitening, — There was the snow of the 4th. December. 11th was a lodging snow, it being mild and still, like to-day (only it was not so moist). Was succeeded next day noon by a strong and cold northwest wind. 14th, a fine, dry, cold, driving and drifting storm. 20th (to-day's), a very lodging, moist, and large-flaked snow, turning to rain. To be classed with the 11th in the main. This wets the woodchopper about as much as rain. December 20, 1859

The snow of yesterday having turned to rain in the afternoon, the snow is no longer (now that it is frozen) a uniformly level white, as when it had just fallen, but on all declivities you see it, even from a great distance, strongly marked with countless furrows or channels. These are about three inches deep, more or less parallel where the rain ran down. On hillsides these reach from top to bottom and give them a peculiar combed appearance. Hillsides around a hollow are thus very regularly marked by lines converging toward the centre at the bottom. In level fields the snow is not thus furrowed, but dimpled with a myriad little hollows where the water settled, and perhaps answering slightly to the inequalities of the ground. In level woods I do not see this regular dimpling — the rain being probably conducted down the trunks — nor the furrows on hillsides; the rain has been differently distributed by the trees. This makes a different impression from the fresh and uniformly level white surface of recently fallen snow. It is now, as it were, wrinkled with age. The incipient slosh of yesterday is now frozen, and makes good sleighing and a foundation for more. December 21, 1859

After being uniformly overcast all the forenoon, still and moderate weather, it begins to snow very gradually, at first imperceptibly, this afternoon, — at first I thought I imagined it, — and at length begins to snow in earnest about 6 p. m., but lasts only a few minutes. December 26, 1859

I awake to find it snowing fast, but it slackens in a few hours. Perhaps seven or eight inches have fallen, — the deepest snow yet, and almost quite level. At first the flakes (this forenoon) were of middling size. At noon, when it was leaving off, they were of a different character. I observed them on my sleeve, — little slender spiculae about one tenth of an inch long, little dry splinters, sometimes two forking, united at one end, or two or three lying across one another, quite dry and fine; and so it concluded. December 30, 1859  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.

The deepest snow yet.

Those who depend on skylights

find theirs a dim light