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

A Book of the Seasons: October 8 (acorns, pine seed, milkweed, twittering sparrows, autumnal tints, a loon and a full moon)

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 

 October 8

Trees and weeds alive

this plesant afternoon with

twittering sparrows.

October 8, 1856.

Maples by the shore

extending their red banners

over the water.

October 8, 1852

The sun setting red

in haze at the same time as

the full moon rises.

October 8, 1851

October 8, 2014

Found my boat yesterday full of willow leaves after the rain.  October 8, 1855

The nights have been cool of late, so that a fire has been comfortable, but the last was quite warm. October 8, 1851

Strong northwest wind.  October 8, 1858 

A slight wind now fills the air with elm leaves. October 8, 1851

The milkweed seeds must be carried far, for it is only when a strong wind is blowing that they are loosened from their pods. October 8, 1851 

Find a bird's nest converted into a mouse's nest in the prinos swamp, while surveying on the new Bedford road to-day, topped over with moss, and a hole on one side, like a squirrel-nest.  October 8, 1853

Find a great many white oak acorns already sprouted, although they are but half fallen, and can easily believe that they sometimes sprout before they fall. It is a good year for them. October 8, 1860 

Filled my pockets with acorns. October 8, 1851

 

Find many checker-berries on Smith's hill beyond the chestnut grove, which appear to be just ripe, a lighter pink color, with two little white checks on the stem side, the marks of what I suppose are the two outer calyx-leaves. October 8, 1856 

At length I discover some white pine cones, a few, on Emerson Heater Piece trees. They are all open, and the seeds, all the sound ones but one, gone. So September is the time to gather them. October 8, 1856 

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 8, 1852 

See no tortoises now on the rocks and boards. It is too cold. October 8, 1855

The autumnal tints about the pond are now perfect.  October 8, 1852 

Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water.  October 8, 1852 

The changing red maples along the river are past their prime now, earlier than generally elsewhere. October 8, 1857

The hickory leaves are among the handsomest now, varying from green through yellow.  October 8, 1856

Those white maples that were so early to change in the water have more than half lost their leaves. October 8, 1857 

Hemlock leaves are copiously falling. They cover the hillside like some wild grain. October 8, 1857 

The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish. October 8, 1858 

Fine pasture grass seen in the sun, begins to.look faded and bleached like the corn October 8, 1858 

I smell the dry leaves like hay from the woods. October 8, 1851 

Some elms are already bare. October 8, 1851 

The basswood here is quite sere. October 8, 1851 

The pines are still shedding their leaves. October 8, 1851 

I notice a large toad amid the dead leaves in the woods at Chimaphila maculata, colored like the leaves, a much darker brown than usual, proving that they resemble the ground they occupy. October 8, 1856

Asters and goldenrods are now scarce; no longer that crowd along the low roadsides. October 8, 1856 

The following is the condition of the asters and goldenrods.  October 8, 1856 

• A. corymbosus, looks fresh! . . . Of asters, only corymbosus, undulatus, Tradescanti, and longifolius . . . are common. October 8, 1856 
• S. nemoralis, done, many hoary, though a very few flowers linger. October 8, 1856 
• S. casia, much the worse for the wear, but freshest of any [goldenrod] seen.October 8, 1856 
•  S. latifolia, far gone. October 8, 1856 

Fine pasture grass seen in the sun, begins to.look faded and bleached like the corn. October 8, 1858

The chipmunk, the wall-going squirrel, that will cross a broad pasture on the wall, now this side, now that, now on top, and lives under it, — as if it were a track laid for him expressly. October 8, 1857

Flocks of tree sparrows by river, slightly warbling. Hear a song sparrow sing. See apparently white-throated sparrows  hopping under covert of the button-bushes October 8, 1855 

The trees and weeds by the Turnpike are all alive this pleasant afternoon with twittering sparrows . . . I observe white-throated sparrows, song sparrows, I think some Fringilla juncorum, etc. (maybe tree sparrows ???). They are all together and keep up a faint warbling, apparently the white-throats and tree sparrows, — if the last are there. A song sparrow utters a full strain.  October 8, 1856 

I see and hear white-throated sparrows on the swamp white oaks by the river's edge, uttering a faint sharp cheep.  October 8, 1857

This warm day is a godsend to the wasps. I see them buzzing about the broken windows of deserted buildings, as Jenny Dugan's, -- the yellow-knotted. October 8, 1851 

The sun set red in haze . . . and the moon rose in like manner at the same time . . . The moon is full. October 8, 1851 

[Thoreau gave his lecture "Moonlight" to a small audience of friends, among them Bronson Alcott. James Spooner, Marston Watson and his wife Mary Russell Watson. on Sunday, October 8, 1854   See Thoreau's Lectures after Walden 259-255]

October 8, 2020

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, October

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau,  The Field Sparrow 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Aster Tradescanti

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Milkweed.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

A Book of the Seasons,    by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,the Striped Squirrel

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. Wasps

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, October Moonlight

October 8, 2015

October 1, 1851 ("At 8 o'clock the fogs have begun, which, with the low half-moon shining on them, look like cob webs or thin white veils spread over the earth. They are the dreams or visions of the meadow.)

October 2, 1851 ("At the Cliffs, I find the wasps prolonging their short lives on the sunny rocks, just as they endeavored to do at my house in the woods.")

October 3, 1852  ("The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish.")

October 4, 1856 ("Wind from northeast. Some water milkweed flying")

October 4, 1858 (" The hickories on the northwest side of this hill are in the prime of their color, of a rich orange; some intimately mixed with green, handsomer than those that are wholly changed.")

October 7, 1852 ("It is a warm Indian-summerish afternoon. The sun comes out of clouds, and lights up and warms the whole scene. It is perfect autumn. It is the mellowing year")

October 7, 1857 ("Crossing Depot Brook, I see many yellow butterflies fluttering about the Aster puniceus, still abundantly in bloom there")
October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall,and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape.")

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, 1851 ("As I return over the bridge, I hear a song sparrow singing on the willows exactly as in spring. ")

October 9, 1858 ("Cold and northwest wind still.")

October 9, 1859 ("Aster cordifolius abundant and commonly in bloom in Roxbury.")

October 11, 1856 ("The sprout-land and stubble behind the Cliffs are all alive with restless flocks of sparrows of various species. I distinguish F. hyemalis, song sparrow, apparently F. juncorum . . . and chip-bird")

October 8, 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 

October 7  <<<<<<<<<   October 8  >>>>>>>>  October 9

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

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/HDT08Oct 

Milkweed seeds carry far

October 8

Wednesday.

A slight wind now fills the air with elm leaves.

The nights have been cool of late, so that a fire has been comfortable, but the last was quite warm.

October 8, 2020

2 P. M.-To the Marlborough road.

This day is very warm, yet not bright like the last, but hazy.

Picked up an Indian gouge on Dennis's Hill.

The foliage has lost its very bright tints now; it is more dull, looks dry, or as if burnt, even.

The very ground or grass is crisped with drought, and yields a crispy sound to my feet.

The woods are brownish, reddish, yellowish merely, excepting of course the evergreens.

It is so warm that I am obliged to take off my neck-handkerchief and laborers complain of the heat.

By the side of J. P. Brown's grain-field I picked up some white oak acorns in the path by the wood-side, which I found to be unexpectedly sweet and palatable, the bitterness being scarcely perceptible. To my taste they are quite as good as chestnuts. No wonder the first men lived on acorns. 

Such as these are no mean food, such as they are represented to be. Their sweetness is like the sweetness of bread, and to have discovered this palatableness in this neglected nut, the whole world is to me the sweeter for it. I am related again to the first men.

What can be handsomer, wear better to the eye, than the color of the acorn, like the leaves on which they fall polished, or varnished? To find that acorns are edible, -- it is a greater addition to one's stock of life than would be imagined. I should be at least equally pleased if I were to find that the grass tasted sweet and nutritious. It increases the number of my friends; it diminishes the number of my foes.

How easily at this season I could feed myself in the woods! There is mast for me too, as well as for the pigeon and the squirrel. This Dodonean fruit.


The goldfinches are in the air.

I hear a blackbird also, and see a downy woodpecker, and see and hear a hairy one.

The seeds of the pasture thistle are not so buoyed up by their down as the milkweed.

In the forenoon commonly I see nature only through a window; in the afternoon my study or apartment in which I sit is a vale.

The farmers are ditching,-redeeming more meadow, – getting corn, collecting their apples, threshing, etc.

I cannot but believe that acorns were intended to be the food of man.
They are agreeable to the palate, as the mother's milk to the babe. The sweet acorn tree is famous and well known to the boys. There can be no question respecting the wholesomeness of this diet.

This warm day is a godsend to the wasps. I see them buzzing about the broken windows of deserted buildings, as Jenny Dugan's, -- the yellow-knotted.

I smell the dry leaves like hay from the woods.

Some elms are already bare.

The basswood here is quite sere.

The pines are still shedding their leaves.

This brook by Jenny's is always a pleasant sight and sound to me. In the spring I saw the sucker here. It is remarkable through what narrow and shallow brooks a sucker will be seen to dart, and a trout.

I perceive that some white oaks are quite red. The black oaks are yellowish. I know not surely whether the brighter red and more divided leaf is that of the red or the scarlet oak.

The jointed polygonum in the Marlborough road is an interesting flower, it is so late, so bright a red, — though inobvious from its minuteness, —  without leaves, above the sand like sorrel, mixed with other minute flowers and the empty chalices of the trichostema.

I saw one blue curl still adhering.

The puffballs are split open and rayed out on the sand like five or ten (!) fingers.

The milkweed seeds must be carried far, for it is only when a strong wind is blowing that they are loosened from their pods.

An arrowhead at the desert.

Spergula arvensis --  corn-spurry (some call it tares) -- at the acorn tree.

Filled my pockets with acorns.

Found another gouge on Dennis's Hill. To have found the Indian gouges and tasted sweet acorns, is it not enough for one afternoon?

The sun set red in haze, visible fifteen minutes before setting, and the moon rose in like manner at the same time.

This evening, I am obliged to sit with my door and window open, in a thin coat, which I have not done for three weeks at least. A warm night like this at this season produces its effect on the village.

The boys are heard at play in the street now, at 9 o'clock, in greater force and with more noise than usual. My neighbor has got out his flute.

There is more fog than usual.

The moon is full.

The tops of the woods in the horizon seen above the fog look exactly like long, low black clouds, the fog being the color of the sky.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 8, 1851

This brook by Jenny's is always a pleasant sight and sound to me. See December 28, 1851 ("Some one has cut a hole in the ice at Jenny's Brook, and set a steel trap under water"), March 25, 1855 ("Was it not a sucker I saw dart along the brook beyond Jenny’s?")

I picked up some white oak acorns in the path by the wood-side, which I found to be unexpectedly sweet and palatable, the bitterness being scarcely perceptible. See November 24, 1860 ("The bitter-sweet of a white oak acorn which you nibble in a bleak November walk over the tawny earth is more to me than a slice of imported pineapple.");  September 11, 1859 ("No fruit is handsomer than the acorn . . .Very pretty, especially, are the white oak acorns, three raying from one centre.") See also October 11, 1860 ("There is a remarkably abundant crop of white oak acorns this fall, also a fair crop of red oak acorns; but not of scarlet and black, very few of them. The acorns are now in the very midst of their fall."); October 12, 1858 ("Acorns, red and white (especially the first), appear to be fallen or falling. They are so fair and plump and glossy that I love to handle them, and am loath to throw away what I have in my hand."); October 13, 1859 ("I see no acorns on the trees. They appear to have all fallen before this.")

The milkweed seeds must be carried far, for it is only when a strong wind is blowing that they are loosened from their pods. See  October 23, 1852  ("The seeds spring out on the least jar, or when dried by the sun, and form a little fluctuating white silky mass or tuft, each held by the extremities of the fine threads, until a stronger puff of wind sets them free. ") See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Milkweed.

The moon is full. See  October 10, 1851 ("The elms in the village have lost many of their leaves, and their shadows by moonlight are not so heavy as last month"); See alsoA Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, October Nights and Moonlight

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

The white oak acorns

are unexpectedly sweet

and platable. 

Milkweed seeds loosen 

only when a strong wind blows –

they must carry far.

The sun setting red

in haze at the same time as

the full moon rises.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,   Milkweed seeds carry far

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

The artic three-toed woodpecker.

October 8.

P. M. – To Damon's wood-lot, part of the burnt district of the spring.

Am surprised to see how green the forest floor and the sprout-land north of Damon's lot are already again, though it was a very severe burn.

In the wood-lot the trees are apparently killed for twenty feet up, especially the smaller, then six or ten feet of green top, while very vigorous sprouts have shot up from the base below the influence of the fire. This shows that they will die, I think.

The top has merely lived for the season while the growth has been in their sprouts around the base. This is the case with oaks, maples, cherry, etc.

Also the blueberry (Vaccinium vacillans) has sent up very abundant and vigorous shoots all over the wood from the now more open and cleaned ground. These are evidently from stocks which were comparatively puny before.

The adjacent oak sprout-land has already sprung up so high that it makes on me about the same impression that it did before, though it  was  from six to ten feet high and was generally killed to the ground.

The fresh shoots from the roots are very abundant and three to five feet high, or half as high as before. So vivacious are the roots and so rapidly does Nature recover herself.

You see myriads of little shrub oaks and others in the woods which look as if they had just sprung from the seed, but on pulling one up you find it to spring from a long horizontal root which has survived perhaps several burnings or cuttings. Thus the stumps and roots of young oak, chestnut, hickory, maple, and many other trees retain their vitality a very long time and after many accidents, and produce thrifty trees at last.

In the midst of the wood, I noticed in some places, where the brush had been more completely burned and the ground laid bare, some fire-weed (Senecio), golden rods, and ferns.

Standing by a pigeon-place on the north edge of Damon's lot, I saw on the dead top of a white pine four or five rods off — which had been stripped for fifteen feet downward that it might die and afford with its branches a perch for the pigeons about the place, like the more artificial ones that were set up — two woodpeckers that were new to me.

They uttered a peculiar sharp kek kek on alighting (not so sharp as that of the hairy or downy woodpecker) and appeared to be about the size of the hairy woodpecker, or between that and the golden-winged. I had a good view of them with my glass as long as I desired.

With the back to me, they were clear black all above, as well as their feet and bills, and each had a yellow or orange (or possibly orange - scarlet?) front (the anterior part of the head at the base of the upper mandible). A long white line along the side of the head to the neck, with a black one below it.

The breast, as near as I could see, was gray specked with white, and the underside of the wing expanded was also gray, with small white spots. The throat white and vent also white or whitish.

Is this the arctic three-toed?

Probably many trees dying on this large burnt tract will attract many woodpeckers to it. 

I find a great many white oak acorns already sprouted, although they are but half fallen, and can easily believe that they sometimes sprout before they fall. It is a good year for them. 

It is remarkable how soon and unaccountably they decay. Many which I cut open , though though they look sound without, are discolored and decaying on one side or throughout within, though there is no worm in them. Perhaps they are very sensitive to moisture. 

Those which I see to-day are merely hazel and not nearly so black as what I saw yesterday. 

Trees that stand by themselves without the wood bear the most. 

The sugar maple seeds are now browned — the seed end as well as wing — and are ripe. 

The severe frosts about the first of the month ripened them. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 8, 1860

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The artic three-toed woodpecker.enry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

Black willows lose leaves and the shore begins to look quite Novemberish.

October 8. 

October 8, 2018

Fine pasture grass seen in the sun, begins to.look faded and bleached like the corn.  

Strong northwest wind. The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish. 

Mulberry leaves of ash are apparently dulled.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 8, 1858

Strong northwest wind.   See October 2, 1858 ("Sailed to Baker Farm with a strong northwest wind."); October 20, 1857 ("There is a very strong northwest wind, Novemberish and cool, raising waves on the river and admonishing to prepare for winter."); October 20, 1859 ("I see a large and very straggling flock of crows . . . contending with the strong and cold northwest wind. This is the annual phenomenon."); October 25, 1853 ("Sail down river to the pitch pine hill behind Abner Buttrick's, with a strong northwest wind, and cold. "); October 27, 1851 ("The strong northwest wind blows the damp snow along almost horizontally. The birds fly about as if seeking shelter. The cold numbs my fingers.")

The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish. See October 4, 1857 ("The button-bushes are generally greenish-yellow now; only the highest and most exposed points brown and crisp in some places. The black willow, rising above them, is crisped yellowish-brown, so that the general aspect of the river's brim now is a modest or sober ripe yellowish-brown"); October 4, 1858 ("Many white and red maple, bass, elm, and black willow leaves are strewn over the surface of the water, light, crisp colored skiffs."); October 9, 1853 ("The birch is yellow; the black willow brown; the elms sere, brown, and thin; the bass bare."); October 10, 1858 ("November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush, . . . letting in the autumn light to the water"); October 12, 1858 ("Most exposed button-bushes and black willows are two thirds bare, and the leaves which remain on the former are for the most part brown and shrivelled."); October 15, 1856 (“Banks begin to wear almost a Novemberish aspect. The black willow almost completely bare”); October 16, 1859 ("The button-bushes are just bare, and the black willows partly so"); October 22, 1857 (“The black willows along the river are about as bare as in November.”); October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry. The dead wool-grass, etc., characterizes the shore. The meadows look sere and straw-colored.”)

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,   the shore begins to look quite Novemberish.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

https://tinyurl.com/HDT581008

A tragedy in a quiet swamp

October 8. 

A quiet swamp. October 8, 2020

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Hemlock leaves are copiously falling. They cover the hillside like some wild grain. 

The changing red maples along the river are past their prime now, earlier than generally elsewhere. They are much faded, and many leaves are floating on the water. 

Those white maples that were so early to change in the water have more than half lost their leaves. 

Walking through the Lee farm swamp, a dozen or more rods from the river, I found a large box trap closed. I opened it and found in it the remains of a gray rabbit, -skin, bones, and mould, - closely fitting the right-angled corner of one side. It was wholly inoffensive, as so much vegetable mould, and must have been dead some years. None of the furniture of the trap remained, but the box itself, with a lid which just moved on two rusty nails; the stick which held the bait, the string, etc., etc., were all gone. The box had the appearance of having been floated off in an upright position by a freshet. It had been a rabbit’s living tomb. He had gradually starved to death in it. What a tragedy to have occurred within a box in one of our quiet swamps! The trapper lost his box, the rabbit its life. The box had not been gnawed. After days and nights of moaning and struggle, heard for a few rods through the swamp, increasing weakness and emaciation and delirium, the rabbit breathes its last. They tell you of opening the tomb and finding by the contortions of the body that it was buried alive. This was such a case. Let the trapping boy dream of the dead rabbit in its ark, as it sailed, like a small meeting-house with its rude spire, slowly, with a grand and solemn motion, far amid the alders. 

Four dark-colored ducks (white beneath), maybe summer, or teal (??), with a loud creaking note of alarm, flew away from near the shore and followed the bend of the river upward. 

I see and hear white-throated sparrows on the swamp white oaks by the river's edge, uttering a faint sharp cheep. 

The chipmunk, the wall-going squirrel, that will cross a broad pasture on the wall, now this side, now that, now on top, and lives under it, — as if it were a track laid for him expressly.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 8, 1857

The changing red maples along the river are past their prime now. . . Compare October 8, 1852 (“Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the [Walden] shore and extend their red banners over the water.”)

White-throated sparrows on the swamp white oaks by the river's edge. . . See October 8, 1856 (“The trees and weeds by the Turnpike are all alive this pleasant afternoon with twittering sparrows . . .”); October 8, 1855 (" Hear a song sparrow sing. See apparently white-throated sparrows . . .”)

I found a large box trap closed. I opened it and found in it the remains of a gray rabbit . See  December 5, 1853 ("Two other boys asked leave to ride, with four large empty box-traps which they were bringing home from the woods. It was too cold and late to follow box-trapping longer. They had caught five rabbits this fall, baiting with an apple.")

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A tragedy in a quiet swamp

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025