The Aster Tradescanti sugars the banks.

 

September 10. 

The pontederia and pads have already their fall look by river. It is not the work of frost.

The Aster Tradescanti, now in its prime, sugars the banks all along the riverside with a profusion of small white blossoms resounding with the hum of bees.

It covered the ground to the depth of two feet over large tracts, looking at a little distance somewhat like a smart hoar frost or sleet or sugaring on the weeds.

The banks are sugared with the A. Tradescanti.


H. D.. Thoreau, Journal, September 10, 1853

The Aster Tradescanti, now in its prime, sugars the banks all along the riverside with a profusion of small white blossoms resounding with the hum of bees. SeeAugust 11, 1854 ("Aster Tradescanti, two or three days in low ground; flowers smaller than A. dumosus, densely racemed, with short peduncles or branchlets, calyx-scales narrower and more pointed."); August 14, 1856 ("Aster tradescanti, apparently a day or two."); August 31, 1853 (Is that very dense-flowered small white aster with short branched racemes A. Tradescanti?"); September 1, 1853 (""That small aster which I call A. Tradescanti, with crowded racemes, somewhat rolled or cylindrical to appearance, of small white flowers a third of an inch in diameter, with yellow disks turning reddish or purplish, is very pretty by the low roadsides, resounding with the hum of honey-bees; which is commonly despised for its smallness and commonness, — with crowded systems of little suns.");September 1, 1854 (" The Aster Tradescanti is perhaps beginning to whiten the shores on moist banks."); September 1, 1856 ("A. Tradescanti, got to be pretty common, but not yet in prime."); September 14, 1856 ("Now for the Aster Tradescanti along low roads, like the Turnpike, swarming with butterflies and bees. Some of them are pink."); September 27, 1856 ("The Aster multiflorus may easily be confounded with the A. Tradescanti. Like it, it whitens the roadside in some places. It has purplish disks, but a less straggling top than the Tradescanti.")

The year is stretching itself, is waking up.

April 25.


1.30 P. M. — Up railroad, returning through Acton via powder-mills and Second Division.

The frogs peep at midday.

The bees are on the pistillate flowers of the early willows, – the honey-bee, a smaller, fly-like bee with very transparent wings and bright-yellow marks on the abdomen, and also a still smaller bee, more like the honey-bee. They all hum like summer.

The water in the meadow beyond J. Hosmer's is still and transparent, and I hear the more stertorous sound or croak of frogs from it, such as you associate with sunny, warmer, calm, placid spring weather.

The tortoises are out sunning. The painted tortoise on a tussock. A spotted tortoise on the rail road hisses when I touch it with my foot and draws its [head] in.

What is that bird on the willows, size of a vireo, yellow below, with darker lines, chestnut crown, whitish (?) line over eye, two white feathers in tail, yellow - olive back, darker tail?

Yarrow is started.

Saw the first kingfisher, and heard his most unmusical note.

That warmer, placid pool and stertorous sound of frogs must not be forgotten, - beneath the railroad causeway.

The bees hum on the early willows that grow in the sand.

They appear to have nearly stripped the sterile flowers of their pollen, and each has its little yellow parcel.

The year is stretching itself, is waking up.
. . .

What different tints of blue in the same sky! It requires to be parted by white clouds that the delicacy and depth of each part may appear.  Beyond a narrow wisp or feather of mist, how different the sky! Sometimes it is full of light, especially toward the horizon.

The sky is never seen to be of so deep and delicate a blue as when it is seen between downy clouds.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 25, 1852

The year is stretching itself, is waking up. See April 25, 1854 ("I hear the woods filled with the hum of insects, as if my hearing were affected; and thus the summer's quire begins. The silent spaces have begun to be filled with notes of birds and insects and the peep and croak and snore of frogs, even as living green blades are everywhere pushing up amid the sere ones.")

Flowers advance as steadily as a clock. Nature loses not a moment, takes no vacation.

 

April 6.

6 A. M. – To Cliffs.

April 6, 2021

The robin is the singer at present, such is its power and universality, being found both in garden and wood. Morning and evening it does not fail, perched on some elm or the like, and in rainy days it is one long morning or evening.

The song sparrow is still more universal but not so powerful.

The lark, too, is equally constant, morning and evening, but confined to certain localities, as is the blackbird to some extent.

The bluebird, with feebler but not less sweet warbling, helps fill the air, and the pheobe does her part.

The tree sparrow, F. hyemalis, and fox-colored sparrows make the meadow-sides or gardens where they are flitting vocal, the first with its canary-like twittering, the second with its lively ringing trills or jingle. The third is a very sweet and more powerful singer, which would be memorable if we heard him long enough.

The woodpecker's tapping, though not musical, suggests pleasant associations in the cool morning,-is inspiriting, enlivening.

I hear no hylas nor croakers in the morning. Is it too cool for them?

The gray branches of the oaks, which have lost still more of their leaves, seen against the pines when the sun is rising and falling on them, how rich and interesting! 

From Cliffs see on the still water under the hill, at the outlet of the pond, two ducks sailing, partly white.

Hear the faint, swelling, far-off beat of a partridge.

Saw probably female red-wings (?), grayish or dark ashy-brown, on an oak in the woods, with a male (?) whose red shoulder did not appear.

How many walks along the brooks I take in the spring! What shall I call them? Lesser riparial excursions? Prairial? rivular?

When I came out there was not a speck of mist in the sky, but the morning without a cloud is not the fairest.

Now, 8.30 A. M., it rains. Such is April.

A male willow, apparently same with that at H.'s Bridge, or No. 2, near end of second track on west. Another male by ring-post on east side, long cylindrical catkins, now dark with scales, which are generally more rounded than usual and reddish at base and not lanceolate, turning backwards in blossom and exposing their sides or breasts to the sun, from which side burst forth fifty or seventy-five long white stamens like rays, tipped with yellow anthers which at first were reddish above, spears to be embraced by invisible Arnold Winkelrieds; — reddish twigs and clear gray beneath.

These last colors, especially, distinguish it from Nos. 1 and 2. Also a female, four or five rods north of last, just coming into bloom, with very narrow tapering catkins, lengthening already, some to an inch and a half, ovaries conspicuously stalked; very downy twigs, more reddish and rough than last below.

If we consider the eagle as a large hawk, how he falls in our estimation! 

Our new citizen Sam Wheeler has a brave new weathercock all gilt on his new barn. This morning at sunrise it reflected the sun so brightly that I thought it was a house on fire in Acton, though I saw no smoke, but that might well be omitted.

The flower-buds of the red maple have very red inner scales, now being more and more exposed, which color the tree-tops a great distance off.

P. M.-To Second Division Brook.

Near Clamshell Hill, I scare up in succession four pairs of good-sized brown or grayish-brown ducks. They go off with a loud squeaking quack. Each pair is by itself. One pair on shore some rods from the water.  Is not the object of the quacking to give notice of danger to the rest who cannot see it? 

All along under the south side of this hill on the edge of the meadow, the air resounds with the hum of honey-bees, attracted by the flower of the skunk cabbage. I first heard the fine, peculiarly sharp hum of the honey-bee before I thought of them. Some hummed hollowly within the spathes, perchance to give notice to their fellows that plant was occupied, for they repeatedly looked in, and backed out on finding another.

It was surprising to see them, directed by their instincts to these localities, while the earth has still but a wintry aspect so far as vegetation is concerned, buzz around some obscure spathe close to the ground, well knowing what they were about, then alight and enter. As the cabbages were very numerous for thirty or forty rods, there must have been some hundreds of bees there at once, at least.

I watched many when they entered and came out, and they all had little yellow pellets of pollen at their thighs.

As the skunk-cabbage comes out before the willow, it is probable that the former is the first flower they visit. It is the more surprising, as the flower is for the most part invisible within the spathe.

Some of these spathes are now quite large and twisted up like cows ' horns, not curved over as usual. Commonly they make a pretty little crypt or shrine for the flower, like the overlapping door of a tent.

It must be bee-bread (?), then, they are after. Lucky that this flower does not flavor their honey.

I have noticed for a month or more the bare ground sprinkled here and there with several kinds of fungi, now conspicuous, — the starred kind, puffballs, etc. 

Now it is fair, and the sun shines, though it shines and rains with short intervals to-day.

I do not see so much greenness in the grass as I expected, though a considerable change. No doubt the rain exaggerates a little by showing all the greenness there is ! The thistle is now ready to wear the rain-drops.

I see, in J. P. Brown's field, by Nut Meadow Brook, where a hen has been devoured by a hawk probably. The feathers whiten the ground. They cannot carry a large fowl very far from the farmyard, and when driven off are frequently baited and caught in a trap by the remainder of their quarry.

The gooseberry has not yet started.

I cannot describe the lark's song.

I used these syllables in the morning to remember it by, -- heetar-su-e-00.

The willow in Miles's Swamp which resembles No. 2 not fairly in blossom yet.

Heard unusual notes from, I think, a chickadee in the swamp, elicited, probably, by the love season, -- che che vet, accent on last syllable, and vissa viss a viss, the last sharp and fine.

Yet the bird looked more slender than the common titmouse, with a longer tail, which jerked a little, but it seemed to be the same bird that sang phebe and he-phebe so sweetly. The woods rang with this.

Nuttall says it is the young that phebe in winter.

I noticed some aspens (tremuliformis) of good size there, which have no flowers! 

The first lightning I remember this year was in the rain last evening, quite bright; and the thunder followed very long after. A thunder-shower in Boston yesterday.

One cowslip, though it shows the yellow, is not fairly out, but will be by to-morrow. How they improve their time ! Not a moment of sunshine lost.

One thing I may depend on : there has been no idling with the flowers. They advance as steadily as a clock. Nature loses not a moment, takes no vacation.

These plants, now protected by the water, just peeping forth. I should not be surprised to find that they drew in their heads in a frosty night.

Returning by Harrington's, saw a pigeon woodpecker flash away, showing the rich golden under side of its glancing wings and the large whitish spot on its back, and presently I heard its familiar long-repeated loud note, almost familiar as that of a barn-door fowl, which it somewhat resembles.

The robins, too, now toward sunset, perched on the old apple trees in Tarbell's orchard, twirl forth their evening lays unweariedly.

Is that a willow, the low bush from the fireplace ravine which from the lichen oak, fifty or sixty rods distant, shows so red in the westering sun light? More red, I find, by far than close at hand.

To-night for the first time I hear the hylas in full blast.

Is that pretty little reddish-leaved star-shaped plant by the edge of water a different species of hypericum from the perforatum?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 6, 1853

The robin is the singer at present, such is its power and universality, . . .The song sparrow is still more universal but not so powerful . . .and the pheobe does her part. See April 6, 1856 ("the note of the first pewee! If there is one within half a mile, it will be here, and I shall be sure to hear its simple notes from those trees, borne over the water") see also April 1, 1854 (" The robin now begins to sing sweet powerfully"); April 2, 1852 ("The air is full of the notes of birds, - song sparrows, red-wings, robins (singing a strain), bluebirds, - and I hear also a lark, - as if all the earth had burst forth into song."); April 9, 1855 ("At sunset after the rain, the robins and song sparrows fill the air along the river with their song.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring

 

The air resounds with the hum of honey-bees, attracted by the flower of the skunk cabbage. See April 6, 1854 ("I am surprised to find so much of the white maples already out. The light-colored stamens show to some rods. They resound with the hum of honey-bees, ").  See also   March 18, 1860 ("The first sunny and warmer day in March the honeybee leaves its home. . .There is but one flower in bloom in the town, and this insect knows where to find it. . . . it knows a spot a mile off under a warm bank-side where the skunk-cabbage is in bloom. No doubt this flower, too, has learned to expect its winged visitor knocking at its door in the spring. ");  April 7, 1855  ("At six this morn to Clamshell. The skunk-cabbage open yesterday, — the earliest flower this season") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau , the Skunk Cabbage; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Earliest Flower

To-night for the first time I hear the hylas in full blast. See April 6, 1858 ("I hear hylas in full blast 2.30 P. M.") See also  March 26, 1857 ("The notes of the croaking frog and the hylodes are not only contemporary with, but analogous to, the blossoms of the skunk-cabbage and white maple."); March 31, 1855 ("I go listening for the croak of the first frog, or peep of a hylodes."); March 31, 1857 ("The shrill peeping of the hylodes locates itself nowhere in particular.");  April 1, 1860 ("I hear the first hylodes by chance, but no doubt they have been heard some time"); April 2, 1852 ("I hear a solitary hyla for the first time."). April 5, 1854("Hark! while I write down this field note, the shrill peep of the hylodes is borne to me from afar through the woods") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling

Flowers advance as steadily as a clock. See April 6, 1860 ("Vegetation thus comes forward rather by fits and starts than by a steady progress. . . .The spring thus advances and recedes repeatedly, — its pendulum oscillates, — while it is carried steadily forward.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature

April 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 6

Flowers advance as

steadily as a clock. Nature

loses no moment.

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

The Yankee belongs properly to the northern temperate fauna.

October 14.

Down the railroad before sunrise. A freight-train in the Deep Cut. The sun rising over the woods.

When the vapor from the engine rose above the woods, the level rays of the rising sun fell on it. It presented the same redness, — morning red, — inclining to saffron, which the clouds in the eastern horizon do.

There was but little wind this morning, yet I heard the telegraph harp. It does not require a strong wind to wake its strings; it depends more on its direction and the tension of the wire apparently. A gentle but steady breeze will often call forth its finest strains, when a strong but unsteady gale, blowing at the wrong angle withal, fails to elicit any melodious sound.

In the psychological world there are phenomena analogous to what zoologists call alternate reproduction, in which it requires several generations unlike each other to evolve the perfect animal. Some men's lives are but an aspiration, a yearning toward a higher state, and they are wholly misapprehended, until they are referred to, or traced through, all their metamorphoses.

We cannot pronounce upon a man's intellectual and moral state until we foresee what metamorphosis it is preparing him for.

It is said that “the working bees. are barren females. The attributes of their sex seem to consist only in their solicitude for the welfare of the new generation, of which they are the natural guardians, but not the parents.” (Agassiz and Gould.) This phenomenon is paralleled in man by maiden aunts and bachelor uncles, who perform a similar function.

“The muskrat,” according to Agassiz and Gould, “ is found from the mouth of Mackenzie's River to Florida." It is moreover of a type peculiar to temperate America. He is a native American surely. He neither dies of consumption in New England nor of fever and ague at the South and West. Thoroughly acclimated and naturalized.

“The hyenas, wild-boars, and rhinoceroses of the Cape of Good Hope have no analogues on the American continent.” At the last menagerie I visited they told me that one of the hyenas came from South America! There is something significant and interesting in the fact that the fauna of Europe and that of the United States are very similar, pointing to the fitness of this country for the settlement of Europeans.

They say, “There are . . .  many species of animals whose numbers are daily diminishing, and whose extinction may be foreseen; as the Canada deer (Wapiti), the Ibex of the Alps, the Lämmergeyer, the bison, the beaver, the wild turkey, etc.” With these, of course, is to be associated the Indian.

They say that the house-fly has followed man in his migrations.

One would say that the Yankee belonged properly to the northern temperate fauna, the region of the pines.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 14, 1851

The telegraph harp. See note to January 3, 1852 ("Why was it made that man should be thrilled to his inmost being by the vibrating of a wire?")

The muskrat. . . peculiar to temperate America . . .a native American surely. See December 23, 1858 ("How perfectly at home the musquash is on our river.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. (All the year is a spring.)

 October 9

October 9, 2023

Heard two screech owls in the night.

Boiled a quart of acorns for breakfast, but found them not so palatable as raw, having acquired a bitterish taste, per chance from being boiled with the shells and skins; yet one would soon get accustomed to this.

The sound of foxhounds in the woods, heard now, at 9 A. M., in the village, reminds me of mild winter mornings.

2 P. M. - To Conantum.

In the maple woods the ground is strewn with new fallen leaves.

I hear the green locust again on the alders of the causeway, but he is turned a straw-color. The warm weather has revived them.

All the acorns on the same tree are not equally sweet. They appear to dry sweet.

From Conantum I see them getting hay from the meadow below the Cliffs. It must have been quite dry when cut.

The black ash has lost its leaves, and the white here is dry and brownish yellow, not having turned mulberry.

I see half a dozen snakes in this walk, green and striped (one very young striped one), who appear to be out enjoying the sun. They appear to make the most of the last warm days of the year.

The hills and plain on the opposite side of the river are covered with deep warm red leaves of shrub oaks.

On Lee's hillside by the pond, the old leaves of some pitch pines are almost of a golden-yellow hue, seen in the sunlight, a rich autumnal look. The green are, as it were, set in the yellow.

***

October 9, 2023

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside, while its broad yellow leaves are falling. Some bushes are completely bare of leaves, and leather-colored they strew the ground.

It is an extremely interesting plant, — October and November's child, and yet reminds me of the very earliest spring. Its blossoms smell like the spring, like the willow catkins; by their color as well as fragrance they belong to the saffron dawn of the year, suggesting amid all these signs of autumn, falling leaves and frost, that the life of Nature, by which she eternally flourishes, is untouched.

It stands here in the shadow on the side of the hill, while the sunlight from over the top of the hill lights up its topmost sprays and yellow blossoms. Its spray, so jointed and angular, is not to be mistaken for any other.

I lie on my back with joy under its boughs. 

While its leaves fall, its 

blossoms spring. The autumn, then, 

is indeed a spring.

All the year is a spring.

I see two blackbirds high overhead, going south, but I am going north in my thought with these hazel blossoms.  It is a faery place.

This is a part of the immortality of the soul.

When I was thinking that it bloomed too late for bees or other insects to extract honey from its flowers, – that perchance they yielded no honey, – I saw a bee upon it. How important, then, to the bees this late-blossoming plant!

October 9, 2023

***

The circling hawk steers himself through the air, like the skater, without a visible motion.

The hoary cinquefoil in blossom.

A large sassafras tree behind Lee's, two feet diameter at ground.

As I return over the bridge, I hear a song sparrow singing on the willows exactly as in spring.

I see a large sucker rise to the surface of the river.

I hear the crickets singing loudly in the walls as they have not done (so loudly) for some weeks, while the sun is going down shorn of his rays by the haze.

There is a thick bed of leaves in the road under Hubbard's elms.

This reminds me of Cato, as if the ancients made more use of nature.
He says, “ Stramenta si deerunt, frondem iligneam legito, eam substernito ovibus bubusque.” (If litter is wanting, gather the leaves of the holm oak and strew them under your sheep and oxen.) In another place he says, “Circum vias ulmos serito, et partim populos, uti frondem ovibus et bubus habeas.” 

I suppose they were getting that dry meadow grass for litter. There is little or no use made by us of the leaves of trees, not even for beds, unless it be sometimes to rake them up in the woods and cast into hog-pens or compost-heaps.

Cut a stout purple cane of pokeweed.

H. D, Thoreau, Journal, October 9, 1851

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. See October 4, 1858 ("Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime."); October 11, 1858 ("Witch-hazel in full bloom, which has lost its leaves! "); October 13, 1859 ("I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom "); October 18, 1858 ("By the brook, witch-hazel, as an underwood, is in the height of its change, but elsewhere exposed large bushes are bare"); October 20, 1852 ("The witch-hazel is bare of all but flowers") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

I was thinking that it bloomed too late for bees or other insects. See Bernd Heinrich, “Thermoregulation in Winter Moths.” Sci. Am 277: 73–83 (1987. ); Anderson & Hill (2002)("Given the morphology of H. virginiana flowers, the exposed glistening staminodes where a thin film of nectar is produced, the small exposed floral parts, the sugar ratio, and documented visits to some of the flowers open in late September or early October, small bees are also potential pollinators") and The Pollination Puzzle of American Witch Hazel (December 2020)

Heard two screech owls in the night. See September 9, 1859 ("Within a week I think I have heard screech owls at evening from over the river once or twice."); October 28, 1855 ("As I paddle under the Hemlock bank this cloudy afternoon, about 3 o’clock, I see a screech owl sitting on the edge of a hollow hemlock stump about three feet high, at the base of a large hemlock. . . . So I spring round quickly, with my arm outstretched, and catch it in my hand. "); November 24, 1858 ("I hear a screech owl in Wheeler’s wood by the railroad, and I heard one a few evenings ago at home") and note to September 23, 1855 ("I hear from my chamber a screech owl — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Screech Owl

Deep warm red leaves of shrub oaks. See October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit."); November 25, 1858 ("Most shrub oaks there have lost their leaves (Quercus ilicifolia), which, very fair and perfect, cover the ground. "); November 29, 1857 ("Again I am struck by the singularly wholesome colors of the withered oak leaves, especially the shrub oak, so thick and firm and unworn, without speck or fret, clear reddish-brown (sometimes paler or yellowish brown), its whitish under sides contrasting with it in a very cheerful manner."); December 1. 1856 ("The dear wholesome color of shrub oak leaves, so clean and firm, not decaying, but which have put on a kind of immortality, not wrinkled and thin like the white oak leaves, but full-veined and plump, as nearer earth. Well-tanned leather on the one side, sun-tanned, color of colors, color of the cow and the deer, silver-downy beneath, turned toward the late bleached and russet fields . . .The shrub oak, lowly, loving the earth and spreading over it, tough, thick-leaved; leaves firm and sound in winter and rustling like leather shields; leaves fair and wholesome to the eye, clean and smooth to the touch.")

On Lee's hillside by the pond, the old leaves of some pitch pines are almost of a golden-yellow hue, seen in the sunlight, a rich autumnal look. The green are, as it were, set in the yellow. See October 19, 1856 ("The rich sunny yellow of the old pitch pine needles, just ready to fall, contrasting with the new and unmixed masses above, makes a very pleasing impression, as I look down into the hollows this side of Lee's Cliff");  October 23, 1852 ("The white pines have shed their leaves, making a yellow carpet on the grass, but the pitch pines are yet parti-colored.")

The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside. See October 4, 1858 ("Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime. The leaves are often richly spotted reddish and greenish brown"); October 13, 1859 (" I perceive the peculiar scent of the witch-hazel in bloom for several rods around") See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

 The hoary cinquefoil in blossom. See October 9, 1852 ("Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies'-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque-foil, mayweed.") See also June 23, 1851 ("P. argentea, hoary cinquefoil, also is now in blossom.")

A large sassafras tree behind Lee's, two feet diameter at ground. See October 5, 1857 ("Am surprised to see a large sassafras tree, with its rounded umbrella-like top, without limbs beneath, on the west edge of the Yellow Birch Swamp, or east of Boulder Field. It is some sixteen inches in diameter"); March 3, 1859 ("Channing tells me he has met with a sassafras tree in New Bedford woods, which, according to a string which he put round it, is eleven and three quarters feet in circumference at about three feet from the ground.") See also September 28, 1854 ("The sassafras trees on the hill are now wholly a bright orange scarlet as seen from my window, and the small ones elsewhere are also changed.") September 30, 1854 ("I detect the sassafras by its peculiar orange scarlet half a mile distant.")

I hear a song sparrow singing on the willows exactly as in spring. See October 8, 1856 ("A song sparrow utters a full strain"); October 26, 1855 ("The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

Cut a stout purple cane of pokeweed. See August 23, 1853 ("Poke stems are now ripe. . . .Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn. . . .I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems"); August 26, 1856 ("I tie my bundle with the purple bark of the poke-weed."); October 5, 1857 ("There is a great abundance of poke [on Eb Hubbard's hill]. That lowest down the hill, killed by frost, drooping and withered, no longer purple-stemmed, but faded; higher up it is still purple.")

The circling hawk steers himself through the air, like the skater, without a visible motion. See September 17, 1839 ("The wise man. . . each moment abides there where he is, as some walkers actually rest the whole body at each step")

The witch-hazel here

is in full blossom on this

magical hillside.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Witch hazel in bloom

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/HDT511009

The alert and energetic man leads a more intellectual life in winter than in summer.

October 13.

October 13, 2021

Drizzling, misty showers still, with a little misty sunshine at intervals.

The trees have lost many of their leaves in the last twenty-four hours.

The sun has got so low that it will do to let his rays in on the earth; the cattle do not need their shade now, nor men. Warmth is more desirable now than shade.

The alert and energetic man leads a more intellectual life in winter than in summer.

• In summer the animal and vegetable in him are perfected as in a torrid zone; he lives in his senses mainly.
• In winter cold reason and not warm passion has her sway; he lives in thought and reflection; he lives a more spiritual, a less sensual, life.
• If he has passed a merely sensual summer, he passes his winter in a torpid state like some reptiles and other animals.
• The mind of man in the two seasons is like the atmosphere of summer compared with the atmosphere of winter.
• He depends more on himself in winter, — on his own resources, — less on outward aid.
• Insects, it is true, disappear for the most part, and those animals which depend upon them; but the nobler animals abide with man the severity of winter.
• He migrates into his mind, to perpetual summer.
• And to the healthy man the winter of his discontent never comes.

Mr. Pratt told me that Jonas? Melvin found a honey-bee's nest lately near Beck Stow's swamp with twenty-five pounds of honey in it, in the top of a maple tree which was blown down.

There is now a large swarm in the meeting-house chimney, in a flue not used.

Many swarms have gone off that have not been heard from.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 13, 1851

Man in winter. See December 8, 1850 ( "The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!"); October 27, 1851 ("The cold numbs my fingers. Winter, with its inwardness, is upon us. A man is constrained to sit down, and to think."); January 17, 1852 ("In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. That is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer ") April 1, 1852 ("We have had a good solid winter, which has put the previous summer far behind us; intense cold, deep and lasting snows, and clear, tense winter sky. It is a good experience to have gone through with."); January 30, 1854 ("The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of man's brain, to give tone and firmness and consistency to his thought. This harvest of thought the great harvest of the year. The human brain is the kernel which the winter itself matures. Now we burn with a purer flame like the stars."); December 5, 1856 ("I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold,"); December 11, 1855 ("The winter, with its snow and ice, . . . is as it was designed and made to be.")

Melvin found a honey-bee's nest lately. See February 10, 1852 ("I saw yesterday on the snow on the ice, on the south side of Fair Haven Pond, some hundreds of honey-bees,. . .. Pratt says he would advise me to remove the dead bees, lest somebody else should be led to discover their retreat, and I may get five dollars for the swarm, and perhaps a good deal of honey."); September 30, 1852 ("custom gives the first finder of the nest a right to the honey and to cut down the tree "). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bees

October 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 13

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

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

Perambulated the Lincoln line.

September 17.

Perambulated the Lincoln line.

Was it the small rough sunflower which I saw this morning at the brook near Lee's Bridge?

Saw at James Baker's a buttonwood tree with a swarm of bees now three years in it, but honey and all inaccessible.

John W. Farrar tells of sugar maples behind Miles's in the Corner.

Did I see privet in the swamp at the Bedford stone near Giles's house?

Swamp all dry now; could not wash my hands.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 17, 1851

Perambulated the Lincoln line. See September 15, 1851 ("Commenced perambulating the town bounds"); September 18, 1851 ("Perambulated Bedford line.") See also Septembeer 16, 1851 ("the inhabitants of Lincoln yield sooner than usual to the influence of the rising generation, and are a mixture of rather simple but clever with a well-informed and trustworthy people.")

Was it the small rough sunflower which I saw this morning at the brook near Lee's Bridge?  See July 29, 1853 (“The sight of the small rough sunflower about a dry ditch bank and hedge advances me at once further toward autumn.”); August 1, 1852 ("The small rough sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) tells of August heats”); August 13, 1858 ("H. divaricatus was abundantly out on the 11th."); August 19, 1851 ("Small rough sunflower by side of road between canoe birch and White Pond"); September 2, 1856 ("Also, a short time ago, I was satisfied that there was but one kind of sunflower (divaricatus) indigenous here.")


Sugar maples behind Miles's in the Corner. Charles Miles (1791- 864) resided at the corner of what is now Old-Road-to-Nine-Acre-Corner and Williams Road. ~ Place Names of Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts(and in Lincoln, Massachusetts) & Other Botanical Sites in Concord compiled by Ray Angelo; See August 11, 1852 ("Aster corymbosus, path beyond Corner Spring and in Miles Swamp."); March 24, 1853 ("The white pine wood, freshly cut, piled by the side of the Charles Miles road, is agreeable to walk beside."); February 4, 1858 ("To C. Miles Swamp. Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole."); May 17, 1858 ("What a pleasant sandy road, soaking up the rain, that from the woods to the Miles house! The house becomes a controlling feature in the landscape when there is but one or two in sight."); 

Two great devil’s-needles, as big as hummingbirds,

July 17.

The common amaranth.

Young toads not half an inch long at Walden shore.

The smooth sumach resounds with the hum of bees, wasps, etc., at Water target Pond.

I see two great devil’s-needles, three inches long, with red abdomens and bodies as big as hummingbirds, sailing round this pond, round and round, and ever and anon darting aside suddenly, probably to seize some prey.

Here and there the water targets look red, perhaps their under sides.

A duck at Goose Pond.

Rank weeds begin to block up low wood-paths, — goldenrods, asters, etc.

The pearly everlasting.

Lobelia inflata.

The Solidago nemoralis (?) in a day or two, - gray goldenrod.

I think we have no Hieracium Gronovii, though one not veined always and sometimes with two or more leaves on stem.

No grass balls to be seen.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  July 17, 1853

Young toads not half an inch long. See July 17, 1856 ("I see many young toads hopping about . . .not more than five eighths to three quarters of an inch long"); July 25, 1855 ("Many little toads about.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: Midsummer Toads ; Northland Nature: Tiny toad time in late July; What are these Tiny Toads? ("The tadpoles of many species of the genus Bufo (what most people consider to be the “true toads”) metamorphose at a very small size, often all at once, and then disperse. If you live near a pond or lake or stream where the tadpoles are common, you might all of a sudden see dozens or even hundreds of these tiny toadlets for a few days, and after that, see them only occasionally.); Mary Holland, Toadlets Dispersing (July 17, 2013)

The smooth sumach resounds with the hum of bees, wasps, etc, See July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

I see two great devil’s-needles, three inches long, with red abdomens and bodies as big as hummingbirds, sailing round this pond. See ; July 17, 1854 ("Meanwhile large yellowish devil's-needles, coupled, are flying about and repeatedly dipping their tails in the water. . . . great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore . . . about a foot above the water, some against a head wind; a. . . If devil's-needles cross Fair Haven, then man may cross the Atlantic. "); see also July 10, 1855 ("Great devil’s-needles above the bank, apparently catching flies ") July 27, 1856 ("A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle, between my hands. It is about three inches long and three and a half in spread of wings, without spots, black and yellow, with green eyes") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Devil's-needle

The pearly everlasting. See July 17, 1852 ("The Antennaria margaritacea, pearly everlasting, is out"); August 23, 1856 ("I see a bed of Antennaria margaritacea, now in its prime, by the railroad, and very handsome."); August 23, 1858 (“I see dense patches of the pearly everlasting, maintaining their ground in the midst of dense green sweet-fern, a striking contrast of snow-white and green.”)

Lobelia inflata. See  July 17, 1852 ("Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco""); July 19, 1856 ("Lobelia inflata, perhaps several days; little white glands (?) on the edges of the leaves. ") August 20, 1851 ("The Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco, meets me at every turn. At first I suspect some new bluish flower in the grass, but stooping see the inflated pods. Tasting one such herb convinces me that there are such things as drugs which may either kill or cure")

The Solidago nemoralis  in a day or two.See August 5, 1856 ("S. nemoralis, two or three days."); August 18, 1854 ("The solidago nemoralis is now abundantly out on the Great Fields.”); August 21, 1856 ("nemoralis, just beginning generally to bloom.")

I think we have no Hieracium Gronoviis See August 21, 1851 ("I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense.”);July 29, 1856 (“What I have called Hieracium Gronovii. . . has achenia like H . venosum; so I will give it up.”)---Hieracium gronovii  has not been recorded from Middlesex County, Massachusetts~ Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts

No grass balls to be seen See June 19, 1853 ("No grass balls yet.")

A kind of mining bee.

May 10.

River six and one eighth inches below summer level.

Thermometer at 2 P. M., 71°. The winds died away with April. 

In the midst of a remarkable drought. Hear of great fires in the woods up country the past week, it is so dry. Some farmers plowed around their houses to save them. 

P. M. – To Bateman’s Pond.

Salix alba flower in prime and resounding with the hum of bees on it. The sweet fragrance fills the air for a long distance. How much the planting of this willow adds to the greenness and cheerfulness of our landscape at this season! 

As I stand on Hunt’s Bridge, I notice the now comparatively dark green of the canary grass (Phalaris), the coarse grass vigorously springing up on the muddy islands and edges, the glaucous green of Carex stricta tufts, and the light yellowish green of the very coarse sedges of the meadow. 

Going over the hill behind S. Brown’s, when we crossed the triangular space between the roads beyond the pump-maker’s, I saw countless little heaps of sand like the small ant-hills, but, looking more closely, the size of the holes (a little less than a quarter of an inch) and the comparative irregularity of the heaps — as if the sand had been brought forth and dropped in greater quantity at once — attracted my attention and I found they were the work of bees.

The bees were hovering low over the surface, and were continually entering and issuing from the holes. They were about the size of a honey-bee, black bodied, with, I thought, yellow thighs, -- if it was not pollen. Many of the holes appeared to have been freshly stopped up with granules of moist sand. These holes were made close together in the dry and sandy soil there, with very little grass on it, sloping toward the west, between the roads, and covered a triangular space some seven rods by three. I counted twenty-four in a square foot. There must have been some twenty-five thousand of these nests in all. The surface was yellowed with them. Evidently a kind of mining bee. 

I see in roadside hard sward, by the brook beyond, a sedge darker than the stricta and not in tufts, quite short. Is it the C. vulgaris? Its leading spikes are effete. 

Evergreen-forest note.

Some very young oaks — white oak, etc. — in woods begin to leaf. 

Hear the first cricket. 

The red maples, fruiting now, are in the brick-red state. 

I heard yesterday one or two warblers. One’s note was, in rhythm, like a very feeble field sparrow. Was it the redstart? Probably one or two strange warblers now. Was it not the parti-colored warbler, — with bluish head and yellow beneath, but not the screeper note, but note ending with a jingle slightly like the field sparrow? 

Meadow fox-tail grass out several days.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 10, 1860

Salix alba flower in prime and resounding with the hum of bees. See May 10, 1853 ("At this season the traveller passes through a golden gate on causeways where these willows are planted, as if he were approaching the entrance to Fairyland."); May 10, 1854 ("I perceive the sweetness of the willows on the causeway."). See also May 3, 1853  ('The willows (Salix alba) where I keep my boat resound with the hum of bees and other insects"); May 9, 1852 ("I smell the blossoms of the willows, . . . a quarter of a mile to windward. "); May 11, 1854 ("The willows on the Turnpike now resound with the hum of bees,"); May 12, 1855 ("I perceive the fragrance of the Salix alba, now in bloom, more than an eighth of a mile distant. They now adorn the causeways with their yellow blossoms and resound with the hum of bumblebees,"); May 14, 1852 ("Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing,")

The glaucous green of Carex stricta tufts, and the light yellowish green of the very coarse sedges of the meadow. By the brook beyond, a sedge darker than the stricta and not in tufts, quite short. See May 10, 1858 ("That early glaucous, sharp-pointed, erect sedge, grass like, by the riverside is now apparently in prime.") See also June 19, 1859 ("The prevailing sedge of Heywood Meadow by Bartlett Hill-side, that which showed yellow tops in the spring, is the Carex stricta.")

One or two strange warblers now. See April 19, 1854 ("Within a few days the warblers have begun to come."); April 30, 1859 ("This first off-coat warmth just preceding the advent of the swamp warblers (parti-colored, red start, etc.) brings them out."); May 7, 1852 ("For now, before the leaves, they begin to people the trees in this warm weather."); May 11, 1853 ("How many little birds of the warbler family are busy now about the opening buds, while I sit by the spring! They are almost as much a part of the tree as its blossoms and leaves. They come and give it voice. "); May 15, 1859 (“Now, when the warblers begin to come in numbers with the leafing of the trees, the woods are so open that you can easily see them. ”);May 15, 1860 ("Deciduous woods now swarm with migrating warblers, especially about swamps.”);May 18, 1856 ("The swamp is all alive with warblers about the hoary expanding buds of oaks, maples, etc., and amid the pine and spruce."); May 23, 1857("This is the time and place to hear the new-arriving warblers, the first fine days after the May storm. When the leaves generally are just fairly expanding,")

May 10. SeeA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 10

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 ©  2009-2021

The river is but a long chain of flooded meadows.

April 7. 

April 7, 2020

6 A. M. — I did not notice any bees on the willows I looked at yesterday, though so many on the cabbage. 

The white-bellied swallows advertise themselves this morning, dashing up the street, and two have already come to disturb the bluebirds at our box. 

Saw and heard this morning, on a small elm and the wall by Badger’s, a sparrow (? ), seemingly somewhat slaty-brown and lighter beneath, whose note began loud and clear, twee-tooai, etc., etc., ending much like the field sparrow. Was it a female F. hyemalis? Or a field, or a swamp, sparrow? Saw no white in tail. 

Also saw a small, plain, warbler-like bird for a moment, which I did not recognize. 

10 A. M. — Down river in boat to Bedford, with C. 

A windy, but clear, sunny day; cold wind from north west. 

Notice a white maple with almost all the staminate flowers above or on the top, most of the stamens now withered, before the red maple has blossomed. Another maple, all or nearly all female. The staminiferous flowers look light yellowish, the female dark crimson. These white maples flower branches droop quite low, striking the head of the rower, and curve gracefully upward at the ends. 

Another sucker, the counterpart of the one I saw the other day, tail gone, but not purpled snout, being fresher. Is it the work of a gull or of the spearer? Do not the suckers chiefly attract the gulls at this season? 

River has risen from last rains, and we cross the Great Meadows, scaring up many ducks at a great distance, some partly white, some apparently black, some brownish (?). 

It is Fast-Day, and many gunners are about the shore, which makes them shy. I never cross the meadow at this season without seeing ducks. 

That is probably a marsh hawk, flying low over the water and then skirting the meadow’s copsy edge, when abreast, from its apparently triangular wings, reminding me of a smaller gull. Saw more afterward. 

A hawk above Ball’s Hill which, though with a distinct white rump, I think was not the harrier but sharp-shinned, from its broadish, mothlike form, light and slightly spotted beneath, with head bent downward, watching for prey. 

A great gull, though it is so fair and the wind northwest, fishing over the flooded meadow. He slowly circles round and hovers with flapping wings in the air over particular spots, repeatedly returning there and sailing quite low over the water, with long, narrow, pointed wings, trembling throughout their length. 

Hawks much about water at this season. 

If you make the least correct observation of nature this year, you will have occasion to repeat it with illustrations the next, and the season and life itself is prolonged. 

I am surprised to see how much in warm places the high blueberry buds are started, some reddish, some greenish, earlier now than any gooseberries I have noticed. 

Several painted tortoises; no doubt have been out a long time. 

Walk in and about Tarbell’s Swamp. Heard in two distinct places a slight, more prolonged croak, somewhat like the toad. This? Or a frog? It is a warmer sound than I have heard yet, as if dreaming outdoors were possible. 

Many spotted tortoises are basking amid the dry leaves in the sun, along the side of a still, warm ditch cut through the swamp. They make a great rustling a rod ahead, as they make haste through the leaves to tumble into the water. 

The flower-buds of the andromeda here are ready to open, almost. Yet three or four rods off from all this, on the edge of the swamp, under a north hillside, is a long strip of ice five inches thick for ten or twelve rods. 

The first striped snake crawling off through leaves in the sun. 

Crossed to Bedford side to see where [they] had been digging out ( probably ) a woodchuck. 

How handsome the river from those hills! The river southwest over the Great Meadows a sheet of sparkling molten silver, with broad lagoons parted from it by curving lines of low bushes; to the right or northward now, at 2 or 3 P. M., a dark blue, with small smooth, light edgings, firm plating, under the lee of the shore. 

Fly like bees buzzing about, close to the dry, barren hill side. 

The only large catkins I notice along the river side are on the recent yellow-green shoots from the stump of what looks like the ordinary early swamp willow, which is common, — nearby almost wholly grayish and stinted and scarcely opening yet. 

Small bee-like wasps (?) and flies are numerous on them, not flying when you stand never so close. 

A large leech in the water, serpentine this wise, as the snake is not. 

Approach near to Simon Brown’s ducks, on river. They are continually bobbing their heads under water in a shallow part of the meadow, more under water than above. I infer that the wild employ themselves likewise. You are most struck with the apparent ease with which they glide away, - not seeing the motion of their feet, - as by their wills. 

As we stand on Nawshawtuct at 5 P. M., looking over the meadows, I doubt if there is a town more adorned by its river than ours. Now the sun is low in the west, the northeasterly water is of a peculiarly ethereal light blue, more beautiful than the sky, and this broad water with innumerable bays and inlets running up into the land on either side and often divided by bridges and causeways, as if it were the very essence and richness of the heavens distilled and poured over the earth, contrasting with the clear russet land and the paler sky from which it has been subtracted, — nothing can be more elysian. Is not the blue more ethereal when the sun is at this angle? The river is but a long chain of flooded meadows.

I think our most distant extensive low horizon must be that northeast from this hill over Ball’s Hill, — to what town is it? It is down the river valley, partly at least toward the Merrimack, as it should be. 

What is that plant with a whorl of four, five, or six reddish cornel-like leaves, seven or eight inches from the ground, with the minute relics of small dried flowers left, and a large pink (?) bud now springing, just beneath the leaves? [Large cornel (Canadensis).] It is a true evergreen, for, it dries soon in the house, as if kept fresh by the root.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 7, 1853

If you make the least correct observation of nature this year, you will have occasion to repeat it with illustrations the next, and the season and life itself is prolonged. See August 24, 1852 (“The year is but a succession of days, and I see that I could assign some office to each da ywhich, summed up, would be the history of the year,”); October 26, 1853 ("You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show.")

The white-bellied swallows advertise themselves this morning, dashing up the street. See April 8, 1856 ("The white bellied swallows have paid us twittering visits the last three mornings. You must rush out quickly to see them,"); April 15, 1855 ("Many martins (with white—bellied swallows) are skimming and twittering above the water,"); April 15, 1856 ("The white-bellied swallows are circling about and twittering above the apple trees and walnuts on the hillside."); April 15, 1859 ("I see and hear white-bellied swallows as they are zigzagging through the air with their loud and lively notes")

Another sucker, the counterpart of the one I saw the other day, tail gone, but not purpled snout, being fresher. See April 4, 1853 (“Saw a sucker washed to the shore at Lee's Bridge, its tail gone, large fins standing out, purplish on top of head and snout”). See also May 23, 1854 ("How many springs shall I continue to see the common sucker (Catostomus Bostoniensis) floating dead on our river!”); and note to March 28, 1857 ("When I realize that the mortality of suckers in the spring is as old a phenomenon, perchance, as the race of suckers itself, I contemplate it with serenity and joy even, as one of the signs of spring.”)

The river is but a long chain of flooded meadows. See  April 16, 1852 ("A succession of bays it is, a chain of lakes.”); February 3, 1855 (“ It is all the way of one character, — a meadow river, or dead stream,—Musketicook,—the abode of muskrats, pickerel, etc., crossed within these dozen miles each way, —or thirty in all, —by some twenty low wooden bridges, connected with the mainland by willowy causeways. Thus the long, shallow lakes divided into reaches.”); July 30, 1859 (“It is a mere string of lakes which have not made up their minds to be rivers.”)

Many spotted tortoises are basking amid the dry leaves in the sun, along the side of a still, warm ditch. See April 7, 1856 ("See a yellow-spotted tortoise in a ditch."); See also February 23, 1857 ("See two yellow-spotted tortoises in the ditch south of Trillium Wood. . . .In your latest spring they still look incredibly strange when first seen, and not like cohabitants and contemporaries of yours. What mean these turtles, these coins of the muddy mint issued in early spring? The bright spots on their backs are vain unless I behold them. The spots seem brighter than ever when first beheld in the spring, as does the bark of the willow."); March 26, 1860 ("The yellow-spotted tortoise may be seen February 23, as in '57, or not till March 28, as in '55, — thirty-three days") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)