A Book of the Seasons, Signs of the Spring: the Spring Note of the Nuthatch.

No mortal is alert enough 

to be present at the first dawn of the spring. 

Henry Thoreau, March 17, 1857

Is what I have heard

as the earliest spring note that of the nuthatch?

March 5, 1859

The notes of the white-breasted nuthatch

are remarkable on account of their nasal sound.

Ordinarily they resemble the monosyllables

hank, hank, kank, kank;

but now and then in the spring,

they emit a sweeter kind of chirp,

whenever the sexes meet,

or when they are feeding their young.

J. J. Audubon

March 5.  Going down-town this forenoon, I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm within twenty feet, uttering peculiar notes and more like a song than I remember to have heard from it. There was a chickadee close by, to which it may have been addressed. 

It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker! (This is before I have chanced to see a bluebird, blackbird, or robin in Concord this year.)

It is the spring note of the nuthatch. 

It paused in its progress about the trunk or branch and uttered this lively but peculiarly inarticulate song, an awkward attempt to warble almost in the face of the chickadee, as if it were one of its kind. It was thus giving vent to the spring within it. 

If I am not mistaken, it is what I have heard in former springs or winters long ago, fabulously early in the season, when we men had but just begun to anticipate the spring, — for it would seem that we, in our anticipations and sympathies, include in succession the moods and expressions of all creatures. 

When only the snow had begun to melt and no rill of song had broken loose, a note so dry and fettered still, so inarticulate and half thawed out, that you might (and would commonly) mistake for the tapping of a woodpecker.

As if the young nuthatch in its hole had listened only to the tapping of woodpeckers and learned that music, and now, when it would sing and give vent to its spring ecstasy and it can modulate only some notes like that, that is its theme still. That is its ruling idea of song and music, — only a little clangor and liquidity added to the tapping of the woodpecker. 

It was the handle by which my thoughts took firmly hold on spring. This herald of spring is commonly unseen, it sits so close to the bark. 

March 5, 1859

*****

February 17. Hear this morning, at the new stone bridge, from the hill, that singular springlike note of a bird which I heard once before one year about this time (under Fair Haven Hill) . . . Can it be a jay? or a pigeon woodpecker? Is it not the earliest springward note of a bird? February 17, 1855

February 18. When I step out into the yard I hear that earliest spring note from some bird, perhaps a pigeon woodpecker (or can it be a nuthatch, whose ordinary note I hear?), the rapid whar whar, whar whar, whar whar, which I have so often heard before any other note. February 18, 1857

February 23.   I have seen signs of the spring.  February 23, 1857

February 24. Nuthatches are faintly answering each other, — tit for tat, — on different keys, — a faint creak. Now and then one utters a loud distinct gnah. February 24, 1854

February 25. I heard this morning a nuthatch on the elms in the street. I think that they are heard oftener and again at the approach of spring, just as the phoebe note of the chickadee is; and so their gnah gnah is a herald of the spring. February 25, 1859

March 13.  Excepting a few blue birds and larks, no spring birds have come, apparently . . . But what was that familiar spring sound from the pine wood across the river, a sharp vetter vetter vetter vetter, like some woodpecker, or possibly nuthatch? March 13, 1853

March 17.  It is only some very early still, warm, and pleasant morning in February or March that  I notice that woodpecker-like whar-whar-whar-whar-whar-whar, earliest spring sound. March 17, 1857

March 18. I hear the faint fine notes of apparent nuthatches coursing up the pitch pines, a pair of them, one answering to the other, as it were like a vibrating watch-spring. Then, at a distance, that whar-whar whar-whar-whar-whar, which after all I suspect may be the note of the nuthatch and not a woodpecker. March 18, 1857

March 20.  I hear now, at 7 A. M., from the hill across the water, probably the note of a woodpecker, I know not what species; not that very early gnah gnah, which I have not heard this year. March 20, 1858

March 22.  The phenomena of an average March . . .  About twenty-nine migratory birds arrive (including hawks and crows), and two or three more utter their spring notes and sounds, as nuthatch and chickadee, turkeys, and woodpecker tapping. March 22, 1860

March 25.  P. M.— To Clamshell. I heard the what what what what of the nuthatch this forenoon. Do I ever hear it in the afternoon ? It is much like the cackle of the pigeon woodpecker and suggests a relation to that bird. March 25, 1859

April 25. I hear still the what what what of a nuthatch, and, directly after, its ordinary winter note of gnah gnah, quite distinct. I think the former is its spring note or breeding-note. April 25, 1859 

So I came in and

shut the door and passed my first

spring night in the woods.

Walden, Spring

See also Signs of the Spring:

• A Change in the Air
• A Sunny Nook in Spring
• Alder and Willow Catkins Expanding
• Braided Ripples of Melting Snow Shine in the Ruts
• Bright Blue Water
• Buzzing Flies
• Ducks Afar, Sailing on the Meadow
• Frogs, and Turtles Stirring
• Geese Overhead
• Greening Grasses and Sedges
• I begin to think that my wood will last
• Insects and Worms Come Forth and are Active
• Listening for the Bluebird
• March is famous for its Winds
• Mosses Bright Green
• My Greatcoat on my Arm
• Perla-like Insects Appear
• Red Maple Sap Flows
• Ripples made by Fishes
• Skunks Active
• The Anxious Peep of the Early Robin
• The crowing of cocks, the cawing of crows
• The Days have grown Sensibly Longer
• The Eaves Begin to Run
• The Gobbling of Turkeys
• The Grackle Arrives
• The Hawks of March
• The New Warmth of the Sun
• The Note of the Dark-eyed Junco Going Northward
• The Red-Wing Arrives
• The Skunk Cabbage Blooms
• The Softened Air of these Warm February Days
• The Song Sparrow Sings
• The Spring Note of the Chickadee
• The Spring Note of the Nuthatch
• The Striped Squirrel Comes Out
• The Water Bug (Gyrinus)
• The Woodchuck Ventures Out
• Walking without Gloves
• Woodpeckers Tapping

  <<<<< Signs of Spring                                                                               Early Spring >>>>>

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring,  

The Spring Note of the Nuthatch

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2023

tinyurl.com/HDTnuthatch

A Book of the Seasons: February 17 (cold and wind, drifting snow, high water, muskrat season, springlike birdsong, western sky)

 

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

February 17

Hear first springlike note

from the hill at the stone bridge

in the misty air.

February 17, 1855 

One or two little 

cloud flecks in a clear sky gone

when I Iook again.

February 17, 1860

February 17, 2018

Was waked up last night by the tolling of a bell about 11 o’clock, as if a child had hold of the rope. Dressed and went abroad in the wet to see if it was a fire. It seems the town clock was out of order, and the striking part ran down and struck steadily for fifteen minutes. If it had not been so near the end of the week, it might have struck a good part of the night.  February 17, 1855

Some three or four inches of snow fallen in the night and now blowing.  February 17, 1856

Hear this morning, at the new stone bridge, from the hill, that singular springlike note of a bird which I heard once before one year about this time (under Fair Haven Hill). February 17, 1855

The jays are uttering their unusual notes, and this makes me think of a woodpecker. February 17, 1855

It reminds me of the pine warbler, vetter vetter vetter vetter vet, except that it is much louder, and I should say has the sound of l rather than t, — veller, etc., perhaps. February 17, 1855

Can it be a jay? or a pigeon woodpecker? February 17, 1855

Is it not the earliest springward note of a bird? In the damp misty air. February 17, 1855

I hear that some say they saw a bluebird and heard it sing last week!! It was probably a shrike.   February 17, 1860

The river very high, one inch higher than the evening of January 31st. The bridge at Sam Barrett’s caved in; also the Swamp Bridge on back road. Muskrats driven out. February 17, 1855

The river is fairly breaking up, and men are out with guns after muskrats, and even boats  . . .  It is as open as the 3d of April last year, at least.  February 17, 1857

Thermometer at 1 p.m., 60°. February 17, 1857

Some are apprehending loss of fruit from this warm weather. February 17, 1857

At noon begins to snow again, as well as blow. Several more inches fall.  February 17, 1856 

Cold and northwest wind, drifting the snow. February 17, 1860

I see on the Walden road that the wind through the wall is cutting through the drifts, leaving a portion adhering to the stones. February 17, 1852

It is hard for the traveller when, in a cold and blustering day, the sun and wind come from the same side. To-day the wind is northwest, or west by north, and the sun from the southwest.  February 17, 1852

At Gowing's Swamp I see where someone hunted white rabbits yesterday with a dog. The hunter has run round and round it on firm ground, while the hare and dog have cut across and circled about amid the blueberry bushes. February 17, 1854

The mice-tracks are very amusing. It is surprising how numerous they are, and yet I rarely ever see one. They must be nocturnal in their habits.  February 17, 1854

In the early part of winter there was no walking on the snow, but after January, perhaps, when the snow-banks had settled and their surfaces, many times thawed and frozen, become indurated, in fact, you could walk on the snow-crust pretty well.  February 17, 1854

3 P. M., thermometer 14º. A perfectly clear sky except one or two little cloud flecks in the southwest, which, when I look again after walking forty rods, have entirely dissolved.  February 17, 1860

When the sun is setting the light reflected from the snow-covered roofs is quite a clear pink, and even from white board fences. February 17, 1860

Perhaps the peculiarity of those western vistas was partly owing to the shortness of the days, when we naturally look to the heavens and make the most of the little light,

•  when we live an arctic life, 
• when the woodchopper's axe reminds us of twilight at 3 o'clock p. m., 
• when the morning and the evening literally make the whole day, 
• when I travelled, as it were, between the portals of the night,
•  and the path was narrow as well as blocked with snow.

February 17, 1852

Grows colder yet at evening, and frost forms on the windows.  February 17, 1860

February 17, 2019

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Ice-out

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Nuthatch

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Spring Note of the Nuthatch

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Signs of Spring

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February Belongs to Spring

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February is Mid-Winter

*****

December 11, 1854 (“The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely”)

December 18, 1859 ("I see three shrikes in different places to-day, — two on the top of apple trees, sitting still in the storm, on the lookout. They fly low to another tree when disturbed, much like a bluebird, and jerk their tails once or twice when they alight.")

December 20, 1854 ("in some places, where the sun falls on it, the snow has a pinkish tinge");  

December 21, 1854 ("The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color. ")

December 29, 1859 ("To-night I notice the rose-color in the snow and the green in the ice at the same time, having been looking out for them").

January 10, 1859 ("This is one of the phenomena of the winter sunset, this distinct pink light reflected from the brows of snow-clad hills on one side of you as you are facing the sun.").

January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset. The whole cope of heaven seen at once is never so elysian. Windows to heaven, the heavenward windows of the earth. “); 

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. . . .Those western vistas through clouds to the sky show the clearest heavens, clearer and more elysian than if the whole sky is comparatively free from clouds.”)

January 31, 1859 (" The pink light reflected from the low, flat snowy surfaces amid the ice on the meadows, just before sunset, is a constant phenomenon these clear winter days. . . . I also see this pink in the dust made by the skaters.") 

February 1, 1857 ("Thermometer at 42°.")

February 7, 1857("Another warm day, . . . The thermometer was at 52° when I came out at 3 p.m.") 

February 8, 1860 ("It will take a yet more genial and milder air before the bluebird's warble can be heard.")

February 8. 1860 ("40° and upward may be called a warm day in the winter. We have had much of this weather for a month past, reminding us of spring.")

February 10, 1852 (“We have none of those peculiar clear, vitreous, crystalline vistas in the western sky before sundown of late. There is perchance more moisture in the air. Perhaps that phenomenon does not belong to this part of the winter.”) 

February 12, 1860 ("That dark-eyed water, especially when I see it at right angles with the direction of the sun, is it not the first sign of spring?")

February 14, 1854 ("This greater liveliness of the birds methinks I have noticed commonly in warm, thawing days toward spring")

February 16, 1857 (“A wonderfully warm day (the third one); about 2 p.m., thermometer in shade 58.”)

February 18, 1857 (“When I step out into the yard I hear that earliest spring note from some bird, perhaps a pigeon woodpecker (or can it be a nuthatch, whose ordinary note I hear?), the rapid whar whar, whar whar, whar whar, which I have so often heard before any other note.”)

February 18, 1857 ("Thermometer at 1 p.m., 65.”)

February 18, 1857 ("I thought at one time that I heard a bluebird. . . . I am excited by this wonderful air and go listening for the note of the bluebird or other comer. . . . Here is the soft air and the moist expectant apple trees, but not yet the bluebird. They do not quite attain to song") 

February 19,1856 (“the snow has been deeper since the 17th than before this winter. I think if the drifts could be fairly measured it might be found to be seventeen or eighteen inches deep on a level.”)

February 22.

Such remarkably

pleasant weather, i  listen

for the first bluebird.

February 22, 1855

February 24, 1857 ("As I cross from the causeway to the hill, thinking of the bluebird, I that instant hear one's note from deep in the softened air. It is already 40°, and by noon is between 50° and 60°)

February 24, 1860  ("The river risen and quite over the meadows yesterday and to-day, and musquash begun to be killed. ")

February 25, 1857 ("The thermometer is at 65° at noon.")

March 5, 1859 ("I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm\ . . . It was something like to-what what what what what, rapidly repeated, and not the usual gnah gnah; and this instant it occurs to me that this may be that earliest spring note which I hear, and have referred to a woodpecker!. . . It is the spring note of the nuthatch") 

March 13, 1853 (“But what was that familiar spring sound from the pine wood across the river, a sharp vetter vetter vetter vetter,”)

April 3, 1856 ("The river is now generally and rapidly breaking up. It is surprising what progress has been made since yesterday. It is now generally open about the town.”);April 7, 1856 ("Surprised to find the river not broken up just above this [Hubbard] bridge and as far as we can see, probably through Fair Haven Pond. Probably in some places you can cross the river still on the ice. “) See also February 21, 1857 ("The river for some days has been open and its sap visibly flowing, like the maple.") 

February 17, 2019

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.

  April 7, 1853 

  February 16 <<<<< February 17  >>>>>  February 18   

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 17

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2023

tinyurl.com/HDTFeb17

“The History of Four-footed Beasts”

February 17.

P. M. — Cold and northwest wind, drifting the snow. 

3 P. M., thermometer 14º. A perfectly clear sky except one or two little cloud flecks in the southwest, which, when I look again after walking forty rods, have entirely dissolved. 

When the sun is setting the light reflected from the snow-covered roofs is quite a clear pink, and even from white board fences. 

Grows colder yet at evening, and frost forms on the windows. 

I hear that some say they saw a bluebird and heard it sing last week!! It was probably a shrike . 

Minott says that he hears that Heard's testimony in regard to Concord River in the meadow case was that “it is dammed at both ends and cursed in the middle,” i.e. on account of the damage to the grass there. 

We cannot spare the very lively and lifelike descriptions of some of the old naturalists.  They sympathize with the creatures which they describe. 

The artist too has done his part equally well.

Edward Topsell in his translation of Conrad Gesner, in 1607, called “The History of Four-footed Beasts” says of the antelopes that “they are bred in India and Syria , near the river Euphrates," and then — which enables you to realize the living creature and its habitat — he adds, "and delight much to drink of the cold water thereof." 

The beasts which most modern naturalists describe do not delight in anything, and their water is neither hot nor cold. Reading the above makes you want to go and drink of the Euphrates yourself, if it is warm weather. 

I do not know how much of his spirit he owes to Gesner, but he proceeds in his translation to say that "they have horns growing forth of the crown of their head, which are very long and sharp; so that Alexander affirmed they pierced through the shields of his soldiers, and fought with them very irefully: at which time his company slew as he travelled to India, eight thousand five hundred and fifty, which great slaughter may be the occasion why they are so rare and seldom seen to this day.” 

Now here something is described at any rate; it is a real account, whether of a real animal or not. You can plainly see the horns which "grew forth” from their crowns, and how well that word “irefully” describes a beast' s fighting! And then for the number which Alexander's men slew “as he travelled to India,” — and what a travelling was that, my hearers! - eight thousand five hundred and fifty, just the number you would have guessed after the thousands were given, and [an] easy one to remember too. 

He goes on to say that “their horns are great and made like a saw, and they with them can cut asunder the branches of osier or small trees , whereby it cometh to pass that many times their necks are taken in the twists of the falling boughs , whereat the beast with repining cry, bewrayeth him self to the hunters, and so is taken.” 

The artist too has done his part equally well, for you are presented with a drawing of the beast with serrated horns, the tail of a lion, a cheek tooth (canine?) as big as a boar's, a stout front, and an exceedingly “ireful” look, as if he were facing all Alexander's army. 

Though some beasts are described in this book which have no existence as I can learn but in the imagination  of the writers, they really have an existence there, which is saying not a little, for most of our modern authors have not imagined the actual beasts which they presume to describe.

The very frontispiece is a figure of “the gorgon,” which looks sufficiently like a hungry beast covered with scales, which you may have dreamed of, apparently just fallen on the track of you, the reader, and snuffing the odor with greediness. 


These men had an adequate idea of a beast, or what a beast should be, a very bellua (the translator makes the word bestia to be “a vastando”); and they will describe and will draw you a cat with four strokes, more beastly or beast - like to look at than Mr. Ruskin's favorite artist draws a tiger. They had an adequate idea of the wildness of beasts and of men, and in their descriptions and drawings they did not always fail when they surpassed nature. 

Gesner says of apes that “they are held for a subtil, ironical, ridiculous and unprofitable beast, whose flesh is not good for meat as a sheep, neither his back for burthen as an asses, nor yet commodious to keep a house like a dog, but of the Grecians termed geloto poios, made for laughter.” As an evidence of an ape's want of “discretion” he says: “A certain ape after a shipwreck, swimming to land, was seen by a country man, who thinking him to be a man in the water gave him his hand to save him, yet in the mean time asked him what countryman he was , to which he answered that he was an Athenian: Well, said the man, dost thou know Piræus (a port in Athens)? Very well, said the ape, and his wife, friends and children. Whereat the man being moved, did what he could to drown him. ”

 “They are best contented to sit aloft although tied with chains . . . . They bring forth young ones for the most part by twins, whereof they love the one and hate the other; that which they love they bear on their arms, the other hangeth at the dam' s back, and for the most part she killeth that which she loveth, by pressing it too hard: afterward, she setteth her whole delight upon the other.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 17, 1860

When the sun is setting the light reflected from the snow-covered roofs is quite a clear pink. See December 20, 1854 ("in some places, where the sun falls on it, the snow has a pinkish tinge");  December 21, 1854 ("The last rays of the sun falling on the Baker Farm reflect a clear pink color. "); January 10, 1859 ("This is one of the phenomena of the winter sunset, this distinct pink light reflected from the brows of snow-clad hills on one side of you as you are facing the sun.") January 31, 1859 (" The pink light reflected from the low, flat snowy surfaces amid the ice on the meadows, just before sunset, is a constant phenomenon these clear winter days. . . . I also see this pink in the dust made by the skaters.") and note to December 29, 1859 ("To-night I notice the rose-color in the snow and the green in the ice at the same time, having been looking out for them").

Some say they saw a bluebird and heard it sing last week! See February 8, 1860 ("It will take a yet more genial and milder air before the bluebird's warble can be heard.");  February 18, 1857 ("I thought at one time that I heard a bluebird. . . . I am excited by this wonderful air and go listening for the note of the bluebird or other comer. . . . Here is the soft air and the moist expectant apple trees, but not yet the bluebird. They do not quite attain to song") See also December 18, 1859 ("I see three shrikes in different places to-day, — two on the top of apple trees, sitting still in the storm, on the lookout. They fly low to another tree when disturbed, much like a bluebird, and jerk their tails once or twice when they alight.")

February 22.

Such remarkably

pleasant weather, i  listen

for the first bluebird.

February 22, 1855

Winter sky

February 17. 

February 17, 2018

Perhaps the peculiarity of those western vistas was partly owing to the shortness of the days, when we naturally look to the heavens and make the most of the little light, when we live an arctic life, when the woodchopper's axe reminds us of twilight at 3 o'clock p. m., when the morning and the evening literally make the whole day, when I travelled, as it were, between the portals of the night, and the path was narrow as well as blocked with snow. Then, too, the sun has the last opportunity to fill the air with vapor.

I see on the Walden road that the wind through the wall is cutting through the drifts, leaving a portion adhering to the stones. 

It is hard for the traveller when, in a cold and blustering day, the sun and wind come from the same side. To-day the wind is northwest, or west by north, and the sun from the southwest. 

The apothecium of lichens appears to be a fungus, — all fruit. 

I saw Patrick Riordan carrying home an armful of fagots from the woods to his shanty, on his shoulder. How much more interesting an event is that man's supper who has just been forth in the snow to hunt, or perchance to steal, the fuel to cook it with! His bread and meat must be sweet. 

It was something to hear that the women of Waltham used the Parmelia saxatilis ( ?) in dyeing. 

If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the science. Read Linnaeus at once, and come down from him as far as you please. I lost much time reading the florists. It is remarkable how little the mass of those  interested in botany are acquainted with Linnaeus. 

His "Philosophia Botanica," which Rousseau, Sprengel, and others praised so highly, — I doubt if it has ever been translated into English. It is simpler, more easy to understand, and more comprehensive, than any of the hundred manuals to which it has given birth. A few pages of cuts representing the different parts of plants, with the botanical names attached, is worth whole volumes of explanation. 

According to Linnaeus's classification, I come under the head of the Miscellaneous Botanophilists, — " Botanophili sunt, qui varia de vegetabilibus tradiderunt, licet ea non proprie de scientiam Botanicam spectant," — either one of the Biologi (Panegyrica plerumque exclamarunt) or Poetae.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 17, 1852

The peculiarity of those western vistas. See January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset. The whole cope of heaven seen at once is never so elysian. Windows to heaven, the heavenward windows of the earth. “); 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. . . .Those western vistas through clouds to the sky show the clearest heavens, clearer and more elysian than if the whole sky is comparatively free from clouds.”); February 10, 1852 (“We have none of those peculiar clear, vitreous, crystalline vistas in the western sky before sundown of late. There is perchance more moisture in the air. Perhaps that phenomenon does not belong to this part of the winter.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

The apothecium of lichens appears to be a fungus, — all fruit. See March 5, 1852 ("The minute apothecium of the pertusaria, which the woodchopper never detected, occupies so large a space in my eye at present”)

The morning and the evening literally make the whole day. See December 11, 1854 (“The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely”)

A few pages of cuts representing the different parts of plants, with the botanical names attached, is worth whole volumes of explanation. See March 12, 1852 (“I have learned in a shorter time and more accurately the meaning of the scientific terms used in botany from a few plates of figures at the end of the “Philosophia Botanica,” with the names annexed , than a volume of explanations or glossaries could teach .”)

I come under the head of the miscellaneous botanophilists:(“Lovers of botany are those who have handed down various things about plants although they look at these things not exclusively concerning the knowledge of botany." ) [On Feb 3 Thoreau had checked out Linnaeus' Philosophia botanica by Carl von Linnaeus from Harvard Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 290).]