The wildest sound I ever heard.

October 8

October 8, 2020

As I was paddling along the north shore, after having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly a loon, sailing toward the middle, a few rods in front, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself. I pursued with a paddle and he dived, but when he came up I was nearer than before. He dived again, but I miscalculated the direction he would take, and we were fifty rods apart when he came up, and again he laughed long and loud. He managed very cunningly, and I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. 

Sometimes he would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, as if he had passed directly under the boat. So long-winded was he, so unweariable, that he would immediately plunge again, and then no wit could divine where in the deep pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a fish, perchance passing under the boat. He had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in its deepest part. 

A newspaper authority says a fisherman – giving his name – has caught loon in Seneca Lake, N. Y., eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout. Miss Cooper has said the same. 

Yet he appeared to know his course as surely under water as on the surface, and swam much faster there than he sailed on the surface. It was surprising how serenely he sailed off with unruffled bosom when he came to the surface. It was as well for me to rest on my oars and await his reappearing as to endeavor to calculate where he would come up. 

When I was straining my eyes over the surface, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh behind me. But why, after displaying so much cunning, did he betray himself the moment he came to the surface with that loud laugh? His white breast enough betrayed him. He was indeed a silly loon, I thought.

Though he took all this pains to avoid me, he never failed to give notice of his whereabouts the moment he came to the surface. After an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as willingly, and swam yet farther than at first. 

Once or twice I saw a ripple where he approached the surface, just put his head out to reconnoitre, and instantly dived again. I could commonly hear the plash of the water when he came up, and so also detected him. 

It was commonly a demoniac laughter, yet somewhat like a water-bird, but occasionally, when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like a wolf than any other bird. This was his looning.

As when a beast puts his muzzle to the ground and deliberately howls; perhaps the wildest sound I ever heard, making the woods ring; and I concluded that he laughed in derision of my efforts, confident of his own resources. 

Though the sky was overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see where he broke the surface if I did not hear him. His white breast, the stillness of the air, the smoothness of the water, were all against [him]. At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged unearthly howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain. 

I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon and his god was angry with me. How surprised must be the fishes to see this ungainly visitant from another sphere speeding his way amid their schools! I have never seen more than one at a time in our pond, and I believe that that is always a male.

 H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 8, 1852

Today HDT records in his Journal the story of the loon diving and dodging him on Walden that is to be incorporated into "Walden." See also October 3, 1852 ("Hear the loud laughing of a loon on Flint's, apparently alone in the middle. A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake. "), The Maine Woods (" In the middle of the night, as indeed each time that we lay on the shore of a lake, we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. It is a very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place and the circumstances.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Perfect autumn. Walden

October 8.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 8

Maples by the shore

extending their red banners

over the water.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The wildest sound I ever heard

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-wild

Lycopodium dendroideum is just shedding pollen.

October 19.

October 19,2 019

C. says that he saw a loon at Walden the 15th. 

P. M.— To Lee's Cliff. 

The tupelo berries have all fallen; how long? 

Alternate cornel about bare. 

Hardhack half bare. 

Many witch-hazel nuts are not yet open. The bushes just bare. 

The slippery elm is nearly bare, like the common near it. 

Cedar berries, how long? 14th at least; probably by the time they lost their leaves. There is one sizable tree west by north of Lee's Cliff, near the wall. 

Lycopodium dendroideum (not variety) is just shedding pollen near this cedar. 

I see asparagus in the woods there near the cedar, four or five feet high! 

Find the seedling archangelica grown about two feet high and still quite green and growing, though the full-grown plants are long since dead, root and stalk. This suggests that no doubt much of the radical spring greenness is of this character, — seedlings of biennials, and perhaps more of them a persistent or late growth from a perennial root, as crowfoot, whiteweed, five-finger, etc. 

The scent of the archangelica root is not agreeable to me. The scent of my fingers after having handled it reminds me strongly of the musquash and woodchuck, though the root itself does not; so its odor must be allied to theirs. 

I find at Lee's Cliff, on the shelves and sides of the rocks, a new fern, apparently Cystopteris fragilis, more than half decayed or withered, though some fresher and shorter fronds at the base of the others are still quite green. It curls up so in my hat that I have difficulty in examining it. It is abundant thereabouts. 

Paddling up the river the other day, those (probably canoe) birches on Mt. Misery on the edge of the hill a mile in front looked like little dark clouds, for I could not distinguish their white trunks against the sky. 

Though the dark-blue, or ripe, creeping juniper berries are chiefly on the lower part of the branches, I see fresh green ones on old wood as big as a pipe-stem and often directly opposite to purple ones (!). They are strangely mixed up. I am not sure but some of this year's berries are already ripe. 

See a black and rusty hedgehog (?) caterpillar in the path.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 19, 1859

The tupelo berries have all fallen. See September 30, 1854 ("I find a fine tupelo near Sam Barrett’s now all turned scarlet. I find that it has borne much fruit — small oval bluish berries, . . .."); October 6, 1858 (“The tupelo at Wharf Rock is completely scarlet, with blue berries amid its leaves”)

Lycopodium dendroideum (not variety) is just shedding pollen near this cedar.  See September 24, 1857 ("I find the Lycopodium dendroideum, not quite out, just northwest of this pine grove, in the grass. It is not the variety obscurum, which grows at Trillium Wood, is more upright-branched and branches round."); October 12, 1859 ("Now for lycopodiums (the dendroideum not yet apparently in bloom), the dendroideum and lucidulum, etc., — how vivid a green ! — lifting their heads above the moist fallen leaves.") October 17, 1857 ("The Lycopodium lucidulum looks suddenly greener amid the withered leaves."); November 11, 1859 ("The flat variety of Lycopodium dendroideum shed pollen on the 25th of October."); November 17, 1858 ("It would seem that these lycopodiums, at least, which have their habitat on the forest floor and but lately attracted my attention there (since the withered leaves fell around them and revealed them by the contrast of their color and they emerged from obscurity), —it would seem that they at the same time attained to their prime, their flowering season. "); November 7, 1858 ("I see Lycopodium dendroideum which has not yet shed pollen."); November 11, 1859 ("The flat variety of Lycopodium dendroideum shed pollen on the 25th of October."); November 15, 1858 ("The Lycopodium dendroideum var. obscurum appears to be just in bloom in the swamp about the Hemlocks (the regular one (not variety) is apparently earlier)."); November 17, 1858 ("Lycopodium dendroideum . . .was apparently in its prime yesterday); December 7, 1853 ("In the latter part of November and now, before the snow, I am attracted by the numerous small evergreens on the forest floor, now most conspicuous, especially the very beautiful Lycopodium dendroideum, somewhat cylindrical") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums

Lycopodium dendroideum,  (now 

Dendrolycopodium dendroideum) ~Wikipedia

C. says that he saw a loon at Walden the 15th. See October 8, 1852 ("As I was paddling along the north shore, after having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly a loon, sailing toward the middle, a few rods in front, set up his wild laugh")

Many witch-hazel nuts are not yet open. The bushes just bare. See October 19, 1856 ("Witch-hazel is in prime, or probably a little past, though some buds are not yet open. Their leaves are all gone.")

Find the seedling archangelica grown about two feet high and still quite green and growing, though the full-grown plants are long since dead. See September 4, 1856 ("Measured an archangelica stem (now of course dry) in Corner Spring Swamp, eight feet eight inches high, and seven and a quarter inches in circumference at ground. It is a somewhat zigzag stem with few joints and a broad umbelliferous top, so that it makes a great show. One of those plants that have their fall early")

Waters waiting for ice.

November 11. 

Goodwin brings me this forenoon a this year’s loon, which he just killed on the river, — great northern diver, but a smaller specimen than Wilson describes and somewhat differently marked. It is twenty-seven inches long to end of feet by forty-four, and bill three and three-quarters to angle of mouth; above blackish-gray with small white spots (two at end of each feather). Beneath, pure white, throat and all, except a dusky bar across the vent. Bill chiefly pale bluish and dusky. You are struck by its broad, flat, sharp-edged legs, made to cut through the water rather than to walk with, set far back and naturally stretched out backward, its long and powerful bill, conspicuous white throat and breast. 

Dislodged by winter in the north, it is slowly travelling toward a warmer clime, diving in the cool river this morning, which is now full of light, the trees and bushes on the brink having long since lost their leaves, and the neighboring fields are white with frost. Yet this hardy bird is comfortable and contented there if the sportsman would let it alone.

 P. M. — To Island and J. P. Brown’s cold pond. 

A cold day. Now seek sunny and sheltered places as in early spring, the south side the island, for example. Certain localities are thus distinguished. And they retain this peculiarity permanently, unless it depends on a wood which may be cut. Thousands of years hence this may still be the warmest and sunniest spot in the spring and fall. 

I hear here a faint creaking of two or three crickets or locustae, but it is a steady sound, — not the common cricket’s,— long-continued, and when one pauses, generally another continues the strain, so that it seems absolutely continuous. They are either in the grass or on the bushes by the edge of the water, under this sunny wood-side. I afterward hear a few of the common cricket on the side of Clamshell. Thus they are confined now to the sun on the south sides of hills and woods. They are quite silent long before sunset. 

Snow-fleas are skipping on the surface of the water at the edge, and spiders running about. These become prominent now. 

The waters look cold and empty of fish and most other inhabitants now. Here, in the sun in the shelter of the wood, the smooth shallow water, with the stubble standing in it, is waiting for ice. Indeed, ice that formed last night must have recently melted in it. The sight of such water now reminds me of ice as much as of winter quarters. 

The flowering dogwood, though still leafy, is uninteresting and partly withered. 

Gossamer reflecting the light is another November phenomenon (as well as October). I see here, looking toward the sun, a very distinct silvery sheen from the cranberry vines, as from a thousand other November surfaces, though, looking down on them, they are dark purple. 

Speaking of twiggy mazes, the very stubble and fine pasture grasses unshorn are others reflecting the light, too, like twigs; but these are of a peculiar bleached brownish color, a principal ingredient in the russet of the earth’s surface. 

Going by the willow-row above railroad, scare up a small duck, —perhaps teal, —and, in the withered grass at Nut Meadow Brook, two black ducks, which rise black between me and the sun, but, when they have circled round to the east, show some silvery sheen on the under side of their wings. 

Am surprised to see a little ice in this brook in the shade, as I push far up it through a dense field of withered blue-joint,—a spot white with frost, a few inches over. Saw a small pool in the woods also skimmed over, and many ice-crystals heaved up in low ground. 

Scare up a bird which at first ran in the grass, then flew, —a snipe. 

See only a very few small water-bugs in the brook, but no large ones nor skaters.

As a general rule, the leaves hold on longest on our indigenous trees and shrubs which were the first to leaf out, e. g. aspen, white birch, meadow-sweet, gooseberry, roses, sallows. 

In the shade of the wood, on the hillside just west of the cold pond, am surprised to see the frost about the cistus not in the least melted. This, at least, is an evidence that cold weather is come. Looking closely at it, it reminds me by its form and position of the decodon bark half cracked open. It consists of four or five thin curled shavings of frost, so to speak horizontally grained, placed vertically; and based on the stem, one within another, and curling toward the same side, forming a sort of fool’s cap of different thicknesses, or cockles, or sugar-plums. It seems it is so cool that the frost about the cistus does not melt all day, in the shade. 

Coming home I have cold fingers, and must row to get warm. 

In the meadows the pitcher-plants are bright-red. 

This is the month of nuts and nutty thoughts, — that November whose name sounds so bleak and cheerless. Perhaps its harvest of thought is worth more than all the other crops of the year. Men are more serious now. 

I find, in the wood-path this side that pond, thirteen kernels of corn close together, and five of them have the germ uncovered, the thin husk that was over them torn off. This might have been done accidentally by the squirrel (?) in separating it from the ear or in transporting it. And this may be the origin of some accounts of their eating out the germ to prevent its sprouting. If they do eat it, perhaps it is because it is the softest (as it is) and perhaps the most savory part. These were at least a third of a mile from a corn-field.

The tail-coverts of the young hen-hawk, i. e. this year’s bird, at present are white, very handsomely barred or watered with dark brown in an irregular manner, somewhat as above, the bars on opposite sides of the midrib alternating in an agreeable manner. Such natural objects have suggested the “watered” figures or colors in the arts. Few mortals ever look down on the tail-coverts of a young hen-hawk, yet these are not only beautiful, but of a peculiar beauty, being differently marked and colored (to judge from Wilson’s account of the old) from those of the old bird. Thus she finishes her works above men’s sight.

The scarlet oak leaf! What a graceful and pleasing outline! a combination of graceful curves and angles.     These deep bays in the leaf are agreeable to us as the thought of deep and smooth and secure havens to the mariner. But both your love of repose and your spirit of adventure are addressed, for both bays and head lands are represented, — sharp-pointed rocky capes and rounded bays with smooth strands. To the sailor’s eye it is a much indented shore, and in his casual glance he thinks that if he doubles its sharp capes he will find a haven in its deep rounded bays. 

If I were a drawing master, I would set my pupils to copying these leaves, that they might learn to draw firmly and gracefully. It is a shore to the aerial ocean, on which the windy surf beats. 

How different from the white oak leaf with its rounded headlands, on which no lighthouse need be placed! Some white oak leaves retain a smothered inward crimson fire long after they have fallen very pure and complete, more interesting to me than their fresher glow, because more indestructible, — an evening glow. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 11, 1858

Now seek sunny and sheltered places as in early spring. See note to November 18, 1857 (“Now, as in the spring, we rejoice in sheltered and sunny places. ”)

Thousands of years hence this may still be the warmest and sunniest spot in the spring and fall. Compare August 19, 1852 (“Here is a recess apparently never frequented. Thus this rill flowed here a thousand years ago, and with exactly these environments. ”)

The month of nuts and nutty thoughts, — that November whose name sounds so bleak and cheerless. Perhaps its harvest of thought is worth more than all the other crops of the year. See 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.")

See only a very few small water-bugs in the brook, but no large ones nor skaters. See November 11, 1852 ("Did Harris call the water-bug Gyrinus to-day? ")

In the meadows the pitcher-plants are bright-red. See September 28, 1851 ("This swamp [the spruce swamp in Conant's Grove] contains beautiful specimens of the sidesaddle-flower (Sarracenia purpurea), better called pitcher-plant. . . . These leaves are of various colors from plain green to a rich striped yellow or deep red.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

 A pleasing outline

of graceful curves and angles –

the scarlet oak leaf!

I think that Ruskin is wrong about reflections

November 27. 

Mr. Wesson says that he has seen a striped squirrel eating a white-bellied mouse on a wall — had evidently caught it; also that the little dipper is not a coot, - but he appears not to know a coot, and did not recognize the lobed feet when I drew them. Says the little dipper has a bill like a hen, and will not dive at the flash so as to escape, as he has proved. 

Says that a loon can run but little way and very awkwardly, falling on its belly, and cannot rise from the ground. Makes a great noise running on the water before it rises. 

Standing before Stacy's large glass windows this morning, I saw that they were gloriously ground by the frost. I never saw such beautiful feather and fir like frosting. His windows are filled with fancy articles and toys for Christmas and New-Year's presents, but this delicate and graceful outside frosting surpassed them all infinitely.

I saw countless feathers with very distinct midribs and fine pinnae. The half of a trunk seemed to rise in each case up along the sash, and these feathers branched off from it all the way, sometimes nearly horizontally. Other crystals looked like pine plumes the size of life. If glass could be ground to look like this, how glorious it would be! You can tell which shopman has the hottest fire within by the frost being melted off. I was never so struck by the gracefulness of the curves in vegetation, and wonder that Ruskin does not refer to frostwork. 

P. M. – Rode to the kiln and quarry by William Farrar's, Carlisle, and to gorge behind Melvin's. 

The direction of the strata at this quarry is like that of Curly-pate and the Easterbrooks quarries, east-northeast by west-southwest, though the latter are very nearly two miles southeast. 

Was struck by the appearance of a small hickory near the wall, in the rocky ravine just above the trough. Its trunk was covered with loose scales unlike the hickories near it and as much as the shagbark; but probably it is a shaggy or scaly-barked variety of Carya glabra. [Carya glabra – pignut hickory]

It may be well to observe it next fall. The husk is not thick, like that of the shagbark, but quite thin, and splits into four only part way down. The shell is not white nor sharply four-angled like the other, but it is rather like a pignut. 

The stratification trends there as at Curly-pate, or perhaps more north and south. 

That trough placed on the side of the rocky valley to catch the trickling spring for the sake of the cattle, with a long slab cover to the trough that leads to it to fend off the feet of cattle that come to drink, is an agreeable object and in keeping with the circumstances, amid the hickories and perhaps ash trees. It reminds me of life sometimes in the pasture, — that other creatures than myself quench their thirst at this hillside. 

I think that Ruskin is wrong about reflections in his “Elements of Drawing,” page 181.* He says the reflection is merely the substance “reversed” or “topsy turvy,” and adds, “Whatever you can see from the place in which you stand, of the solid objects so reversed under the water, you will see in the reflection, always in the true perspective of the solid objects so reversed.”

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, November 27, 1857

Was struck by the appearance of a small hickory See November 25, 1851 ("Saw a tree on the turnpike full of hickory-nuts which had an agreeable appearance")

.

Ruskin is wrong about reflections . . .He says . . . 'Whatever you can see from the place in which you stand, of the solid objects so reversed under the water, you will see in the reflection.' See  November 30, 1853 ("Though frequently we could not see the real bush in the twilight against the dark bank, in the water it appeared against the sky");November 2, 1857 ("The water tells me how it looks to it seen from below.”) ; October 14, 1857 (“[T]he reflection is never a true copy or repetition of its substance, but a new composition”)

See also, on reading Ruskin, October 6, 1857 (“How much is written about Nature as somebody has portrayed her, how little about Nature as she is”); October 29, 1857 (“The love of Nature and fullest perception of the revelation which she is to man is not compatible with the belief in the peculiar revelation of the Bible which Ruskin entertains.”)

Note.  On November 16th HDT wrote Blake:

"Have you ever read Ruskin's books? If not, I would recommend you to try the second and third volumes (not parts) of his “Modern Painters.” I am now reading the fourth, and have read most of his other books lately. They are singularly good and encouraging, though not without crudeness and bigotry. The themes in the vol-umes referred to are Infinity, Beauty, Imagination, Love of Nature, etc., all treated in a very living manner. I am rather surprised by them."

* "If, after a little study from Nature, you get puzzled by the great differences between the aspect of the reflected image and that of the object casting it; and if you wish to know the law of reflection, it is simply this: Suppose all the objects above the water actually reversed (not in appearance, but in fact) beneath the water, and precisely the same in form and in relative position, only all topsy-turvy. Then, whatever you could see, from the place in which you stand, of the solid objects so reversed under the water, you will see in the reflection, always in the true perspective of the solid objects so reversed."

November 27. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  November 27

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."

The only hazel I saw in Maine

July 27

Monday. 

There were some yellow lilies (Nuphar), Scutellaria galericulata, clematis (abundant), sweet-gale, "great smilacina" (did I mean S. racemosa?), and beaked hazel, the only hazel I saw in Maine.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("Monday, July 27. Having rapidly loaded the canoe, which the Indian always carefully attended to, that it might be well trimmed, and each having taken a look, as usual, to see that nothing was left, we set out again descending the Caucomgomoc, and turning northeasterly up the Umbazookskus. . . . Having paddled several miles up the Umbazookskus, it suddenly contracted to a mere brook, narrow and swift, the larches and other trees approaching the bank and leaving no open meadow, and we landed to get a black spruce pole for pushing against the stream. . . .Having poled up the narrowest part some three or four miles, the next opening in the sky was over Umbazookskus Lake, which we suddenly entered about eleven o'clock in the forenoon. . . .We crossed the southeast end of the lake to the carry into Mud Pond. Umbazookskus Lake is the head of the Penobscot in this direction, and Mud Pond is the nearest head of the Allegash, one of the chief sources of the St. John. . . . Mud Pond is about halfway from Umbazookskus to Chamberlain Lake, into which it empties, and to which we were bound. . . . After a long while my companion came back, and the Indian with him. We had taken the wrong road, and the Indian had lost us. . . .We then entered another swamp, at a necessarily slow pace, where the walking was worse than ever, not only on account of the water, but the fallen timber, which often obliterated the indistinct trail entirely. . . .and, going back for his bag, my companion once lost his way and came back without it.. . . As I sat waiting for him, it would naturally seem an unaccountable time that he was gone. Therefore, as I could see through the woods that the sun was getting low, and it was uncertain how far the lake might be, even if we were on the right course, and in what part of the world we should find ourselves at night fall, I proposed that I should push through with what speed I could, leaving boughs to mark my path, and find the lake and the Indian, if possible, before night, and send the latter back to carry my companion's bag. . . . If he had not come back to meet us, we probably should not have found him that night, . . .We had come out on a point extending into . . .Chamberlain Lake, west of the outlet of Mud Pond, where there was a broad, gravelly, and rocky shore, encumbered with bleached logs and trees. . . . 

In the middle of the night, as indeed each time that we lay on the shore of a lake, we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. It is a very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place and the circumstances of the traveler, and very unlike the voice of a bird. I could lie awake for hours listening to it, it is so thrilling. When camping in such a wilderness as this, you are prepared to hear sounds from some of its inhabitants which will give voice to its wildness. . . This of the loon I do not mean its laugh , but its looning , is a long - drawn call , as it were , sometimes singularly human to my ear , hoo - hoo - ooooo , like the hallooing of a man on a very high key , having thrown his voice into his head . I have heard a sound exactly like it when breathing heavily through my own nostrils , half awake at ten at night , suggesting my affinity to the loon ; as if its language were but a dialect of my own , after all . Formerly , when lying awake at midnight in those woods , I had listened to hear some words or sylla- bles of their language , but it chanced that I listened in vain until I heard the cry of the loon . I have heard it occasionally on the ponds of my native town , but there its wildness is not enhanced by the surrounding scenery.

 I was awakened at midnight by some heavy, low- flying bird, probably a loon, flapping by close over my head, along the shore. So, turning the other side of my half-clad body to the fire, I sought slumber again.")

Yellow lilies. See July 27, 1856 ("The yellow lilies stand up seven or eight inches above the water")

In the middle of the night . . .we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. See June twenty-four two thousand two ("across the dusky lake / the voice of a loon / penetrates lost time")

far over the lake

in the middle of the night

the voice of the loon

July 27, 1857 

(The Maine Woods)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  July 27, 1857

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-570727

The howling of the wind.

October 5

The howling of the wind about the house just before a storm to-night sounds like a loon on the pond. How fit. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 5, 1853

Sounds like a loon on the pond. See October 3, 1852 ("Hear the loud laughing of a loon . . .A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake."); October 8, 1852 ("As I was paddling along the north shore, after having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly a loon, sailing toward the middle, a few rods in front, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself"); October 19, 1859 ("C. says that he saw a loon at Walden the 15th.")

Perfect autumn. Walden

October 8


The autumnal tints about the pond are now perfect.

Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 8, 1852

The autumnal tints about the pond are now perfect. See October 7, 1852 ("It is perfect autumn. It is the mellowing year"); October 7, 1857 ("I see, some fifty rods off, looking toward the sun, the top of the maple swamp just appearing over the sheeny russet edge of the hill . . . the most intensely brilliant scarlet, orange, and yellow, equal to any flowers or fruits or any tints ever painted."); October 9, 1853 ("The red maples are now red and also yellow and reddening.")

Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water. See  October 3, 1858 ("Some particular maple among a hundred will be of a peculiarly bright and pure scarlet, and, by its difference of tint and intenser color, attract our eyes even at a distance in the midst of the crowd")

Today, October 3, 1852, HDT also records in his Journal the story of the loon diving and dodging him that was to be incorporated into "Walden." See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The wildest sound I ever heard

October 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 8

Maples by the shore

extending their red banners

over the water.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Perfect autumn. Walden

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-521008

A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake.

October 3

Hear the loud laughing of a loon on Flint's, apparently alone in the middle. A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake. 

Many acorns strew the ground, and have fallen into the water. 

The Aster undulates is common and fresh, also the Solidago nemoralis of Gray. 

The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 3, 1852

Many acorns strew the ground, and have fallen into the water. See September 30, 1854 ("Acorns are generally now turned brown and fallen or falling; the ground is strewn with them and in paths they are crushed by feet and wheels."); October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit. . . .Now is the time for shrub oak acorns if not for others.")

A wild sound, heard far and suited to the wildest lake. See The Maine Woods ("Monday, July 27[,1857]. . .  we heard the voice of the loon, loud and distinct, from far over the lake. It is a very wild sound, quite in keeping with the place and the circumstances”); October 8, 1852 ("after having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly a loon, sailing toward the middle, a few rods in front, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself.”); October 5, 1853 ("The howling of the wind about the house just before a storm to-night sounds like a loon on the pond. How fit”)

The Aster undulates is common and fresh.  Compare October 3, 1857 ("Asters, and still more goldenrods, look quite rare now."); See October 6, 1858 (“The Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path.")

The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish.  See  October 3, 1856 ("The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall."); October 3, 1858 ("White pines fairly begin to change.") See also  October 1, 1857 ("The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast."); October 2, 1853 ("The white pines have scarcely begun at all to change here, though a week ago last Wednesday they were fully changed at Bangor ") See also November 9, 1850 (" I expect to find that it is only for a few weeks in the fall after the new leaves have done growing that there are any yellow and falling, — that there is a season when we may say the old pine leaves are now yellow, and again, they are fallen."); See also A Book of the Seasons, byHenry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

October 3. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 3

A wild sound heard far

suited to the wildest lake –

laughing of a loon.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A wild sound, heard far 

and suited to the wildest lake.

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-521003