It is quite Novemberish.

October 9. 

Cold and northwest wind still. 

The maple swamps begin to look smoky, they are already so bare. Their fires, so faded, are pale-scarlet or pinkish. 

Some Cornus sericea looks quite greenish yet. 

Huckleberry leaves falling fast. 

I go to the Cliffs. 

The air is clear, with a cold northwest wind, and the trees beginning to be bare. 

The mountains are darker and distincter, and Walden, seen from this hill, darker blue. It is quite Novemberish. 

People are making haste to gather the remaining apples this cool evening.

Bay-wings flit along road. 

Crows fly over and caw at you now. 

Methinks hawks are more commonly seen now, — the slender marsh hawk for one. I see four or five in different places. 

I watch two marsh hawks which rise from the woods before me as I sit on the Cliff, at first plunging at each other, gradually lifting themselves as they come round in their gyrations, higher and higher, and floating toward the southeast. Slender dark motes they are at last, almost lost to sight, but every time they come round eastward I see the light of the westering sun reflected from the undersides of their wings. 

Those little bits of phosphorescent wood which I picked up on the 4th have glowed each evening since, but required wetting to get the most light out of them. This evening only one, about two inches long, shows any light. This was wet last evening, but is now apparently quite dry. If I should wet it again, it would, no doubt, glow again considerably.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 9, 1858


Bay-wings flit along road.  See April 15, 1859 (“The bay-wing now sings — the first I have been able to hear ”); October 9, 1858 (“Bay-wings flit along road.”); October 11, 1856 ("Bay-wing sparrows numerous"); ;October 12, 1859 ("I see scattered flocks of bay-wings amid the weeds and on the fences.") October 16, 1855 ("I look at a grass-bird on a wall in the dry Great Fields. There is a dirty-white or cream-colored line above the eye and another from the angle of the mouth beneath it and a white ring close about the eye. The breast is streaked with this creamy white and dark brown in streams, as on the cover of a book.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

Crows fly over and caw at you now. See September 18, 1852 ("The crows congregate and pursue me through the half-covered woodland path, cawing loud and angrily above me, and when they cease, I hear the winnowing sound of their wings."); November 18, 1857 ("Crows will often come flying much out of their way to caw at me.")

Methinks hawks are more commonly seen now. See   September 16, 1852 (What makes this such a day for hawks?"); September 27, 1857 (“As I sit there I see the shadow of a hawk flying above and behind me. I think I see more hawks nowadays.”); October 9, 1860 ("See one crow chasing two marsh hawks over E. Hosmer's meadow. Occasionally a hawk dives at the crow, but the crow perseveres in pestering them.. . .The crow is at length joined by an other.")

The mountains are darker and distincter. See May 17, 1858 ("I doubt if in the landscape there can be anything finer than a distant mountain-range. They are a constant elevating influence."); May 24, 1854 ("As I return down the hill, my eyes are cast toward the very dark mountains in the northwest horizon."); August 14, 1854(“I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon.— to behold and commune with something grander than man. “); September 12, 1858 ("The mountains are of a darker blue. "); October 13, 1852 (" The air is singularly fine-grained; the mountains are more distinct from the rest of the earth and slightly purple."); October 17, 1857 ("The mountains are more distinct in the horizon "); October 20, 1852 (“I see the mountains in sunshine, all the more attractive from the cold I feel here, with a tinge of purple on them”); October 22, 1857 (" Look from the high hill, just before sundown, over the pond. The mountains are a mere cold slate-color. But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it?"); November 4, 1857 ("The mountains north . . . stand out grand and distinct, a decided purple.").; November 11, 1851 ("The horizon has one kind of beauty and attraction to him who has never explored the hills and mountains in it, and another ... to him who has.")

Walden, seen from this hill, darker blue. Compare August 27, 1852 ("Viewed from a hilltop, it is blue in the depths and green in the shallows, but from a boat it is seen to be a uniform dark green."); September 1, 1852 ("Viewed from the hilltop, [Walden] reflects the color of the sky. Beyond the deep reflecting surface, near the shore, it is a vivid green.").  See also Walden ("Walden is blue at one time and green at another ...")

Bleached and faded corn stands quite white in the twilight.

October 6. 

October 6, 2018

P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook and Flint’s Pond. 

Now, methinks, the autumnal tints are brightest in our streets and in the woods generally. 

In the streets, the young sugar maples make the most show. The street is never more splendid. As I look up the street from the Mill-Dam, they look like painted screens standing before the houses to celebrate a gala-day. One half of each tree glows with a delicate scarlet. 

But only one of the large maples on the Common is yet on fire. The butternuts on the street are with, or a little later than, the walnuts. The three-thorned acacias have turned (one half) a peculiarly clear bright and delicate yellow, peculiar also for the smallness of the leaf. 

Asparagus-beds are a soft mass of yellow and green. Buttonwoods have no bright colors, but are a brownish and yellowish green, some what curled and crisp and looking the worse for the wear. 

Stand where half a dozen large elms droop over a house. It is as if you stood within a ripe pumpkin rind, and you feel as mellow as if you were the pulp.

In Saw Mill Brook Path, and in most wood-paths, 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 Rhus Toxicodendron leaves are completely changed and of very various colors, pale yellow to deep scarlet and delicate. The leaf-stalks are commonly drooping, being bent short downward near the base in a peculiar manner. 

Several species of ferns are faded quite white in the swamp, — dicksonia and another, and some brakes, — for in moist woods and swamps they are preserved longer than in dry places. 

Solidago latifolia in bloom still, but always sparingly. 

Cinnamon ferns are generally crisped, but in the swamp I saw some handsomely spotted green and yellowish, and one clump, the handsomest I ever saw, perfect in outline, falling over each way from the centre, of a very neat drab color, quaker-like, fit to adorn an Oriental drawing-room. 

The evergreens seem positively greener, owing to the browning of other leaves. 

I should not suspect that the white birches had changed so much and lost so many leaves, if I did not see them against the unchanged pitch pines on the hillside. 

I notice Hieracium paniculatum and scabrum in dark, low wood-paths, turned a hoary white. 

The medeola leaves are a pale straw-color with a crimson centre; perhaps getting stale now. 

The tupelo at Wharf Rock is completely scarlet, with blue berries amid its leaves. 

Leaves now have fairly begun to rustle under foot in wood-paths, especially in chestnut woods, scaring the ducks as you approach the ponds. And what is that common scent there so much like fragrant everlasting? 

The smooth sumachs, which are in their prime, or perhaps a little past, are, methinks, the most uniform and intense scarlet of any shrub or tree. They stand perfectly distinct amid the pines, with slender spreading arms, their leafets drooping and somewhat curled though fresh. Yet, high-colored as they are, from their attitude and drooping, like scarfs, on rather bare and dark stems, they have a funereal effect, as if you were walking in the cemetery of a people who mourned in scarlet. 

Most S. nemoralis, and most other goldenrods, now look hoary, killed by frost. 

The corn stands bleached and faded — quite white in the twilight — in the fields. No greenness there has the frost and sun left. Seen against the dark earth. 

My phosphorescent wood still glows a little, though it has lain on my stove all day, and, being wet, it is much improved still.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 6, 1858

Autumnal tints are brightest in our streets and in the woods generally. See October 6, 1857 (“We are not prepared to believe that the earth is now so parti-colored, and would present to a bird's eye such distinct masses of bright color. A great painter is at work.”); October 23, 1857 ("I can find no bright leaves now in the woods.")

The Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. See September 20, 1852 ("Aster undulatus, or variable aster, with a large head of middle-sized blue flowers."); October 2, 1859 ("The A. undulatus looks fairer than ever, now that flowers are more scarce."); October 4, 1853 ("Bumblebees are on the Aster undulatus"); October 25, 1858 ("The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides."); November 3, 1858 ("Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom");November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet.") 
 

Most S. nemoralis, and most other goldenrods, now look hoary, killed by frost. See October 3, 1857 ("Asters, and still more goldenrods, look quite rare now.") Compare  October 3, 1852 ("The Aster undulates is common and fresh, also the Solidago nemoralis of Gray.”)

Cinnamon ferns are generally crisped, but in the swamp I saw some handsomely spotted green and yellowish. See  October 2, 1859 ("I perceive in various places, in low ground, this afternoon, the sour scent of cinnamon ferns decaying. It is an agreeable phenomenon, reminding me of the season and of past years.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

Where half a dozen large elms droop over a houseit is as if you stood within a ripe pumpkin rind. See October 9, 1857 ("As I look down our street, which is lined with them, now clothed in their very rich brownish-yellow dress, they remind me of yellowing sheaves of grain, as if the harvest had come to the village itself”)

The medeola leaves are a pale straw-color with a crimson centre; perhaps getting stale now.. See May 25, 1852 ("Medeola or cucumber-root in bud, with its two-storied whorl of leaves. "); July 24, 1853 ("The medeola is still in flower, though with large green berries"); August 27, 1851 ("The Medeola Virginica, cucumber-root, the whorl-leaved plant, is now in green fruit"); September 2, 1853 ("The medeola berries are now dull glossy and almost blue-black; about three, on slender threads one inch long, arising in the midst of the cup formed by the purple bases of the whorl of three upper leaves.");October 14, 1859 (" Medeola probably fallen several weeks.")See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Cucumber Root (medeola)

The tupelo at Wharf Rock is completely scarlet, with blue berries amid its leaves. See August 31, 1857 ("At Flint's Pond I wade along the edge eight or ten rods to the wharf rock, carrying my shoes and stockings"); September 11, 1859 ("I see tall tupelos, all dotted with the now ripe (apparently in prime) small oval purple berries, two or three together on the end of slender peduncles, amid the reddening leaves. This fruit is very acid and has a large stone, but I see several robins on the trees, which appear to have been attracted by it."); 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 19, 1859 ("The tupelo berries have all fallen") [Nyssa sylvatica, commonly known as the Black Tupelo, is a medium-sized deciduous tree native to eastern North America, from New England and southern Ontario south to central Florida and eastern Texas. ~ iNaturalist]

Leaves now have fairly begun to rustle under foot in wood-paths, scaring the ducks as you approach the ponds. See October 10, 1851 ("You make a great noise now walking in the woods.”); October 22, 1857 (“As I go through the woods now, so many oak and other leaves have fallen the rustling noise somewhat disturbs my musing. However, Nature in this may have intended some kindness to the ducks, which are now loitering hereabouts on their migration south ward, mostly young and inexperienced birds, for, as they are feeding [in] Goose Pond, for instance, the rustling of the leaves betrays the approach of the sports man and his dog, or other foe; so perhaps the leaves on the ground protect them more than when on the trees. ”); and note to October 22, 1854 ("Now they rustle as you walk through them in the woods.”)

I notice Hieracium paniculatum and scabrum in dark, low wood-paths, turned a hoary white. See August 6, 1856 ("Hieracium scabrous.”) See July 21, 1851 ("The rough hawkweed, too, resembling in its flower the autumnal dandelion.”); August21, 1851 ("Hieracium paniculatum, a very delicate and slender hawkweed. I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense.”)

The corn stands bleached and faded — quite white in the twilight . . . seen against the dark earth. See October 1, 1851 ("I go through Wheeler's corn-field in the twilight, where the stalks are bleached almost white, and his tops are still stacked along the edge of the field. The moon is not far up above the southwestern horizon. Looking west at this hour, the earth is an unvaried, undistinguishable black in contrast with the twilight sky. It is as if you were walking in night up to your chin.") See also September 17, 1852 ("The corn-stalks are stacked like muskets along the fields."); October 8, 1858 ("Fine pasture grass seen in the sun, begins to.look faded and bleached like the corn."); October 10, 1857 ("See the heaps of apples in the fields and at the cider mill, of pumpkins in the fields, and the stacks of cornstalks and the standing corn."); October 12, 1858 ("The coarse grass of the riverside . . . is bleached as white as corn."); October 28, 1853 ("Just saw in the garden, in the drizzling rain, little sparrow-sized birds flitting about amid the dry corn stalks and the weeds.")

My phosphorescent wood.  See October 4, 1858 ("I saw on the sidewalk something bright like fire.");
October 5, 1858 ("My phosphorescent wood of last night still glows somewhat, but I improve it much by putting it in water. The little chips which remain in the water or sink to the bottom are like so many stars in the sky.")

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

Medeola leaves 

 are a pale straw-color with 

a crimson centre;

Bleached and faded corn

stands quite white in the twilight

against the dark earth.

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

 Bleached and faded corn stands quite white in the twilight.

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-581006 

The comet makes a great show these nights.

October 5

Donati's Comet, Oxford, 7:30 p.m., 5 Oct. 1858

I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard; without very distinct chestnut crowns, and they are divided by a light line. They are eating seeds of the Amaranthus hybridus, etc. 

8 A. M. — I go to Hubbard’s Close to see when the fringed gentians open. They begin to open in the sun about 8.30 A. M., or say 9. 

Chewink note still. Grackles in flocks. Phebe note of Chickadee often these days. 

Much green is indispensable for maples, hickories, birches, etc., to contrast with, as of pines, oaks, alders, etc. The former are fairest when seen against these. The maples, being in their prime, say yesterday, before the pines, are conspicuously parti-colored. 

P. M. — To Easterbrooks Country. 

White pines in low ground and swamps are the first to change. Some of these have lost many needles. Some on dry ground have so far changed as to be quite handsome, but most only so far as to make the misty glaucous (green) leaves more soft and indefinite. 

The fever-bush is in the height of its change and is a showy clear lemon yellow, contrasting with its scarlet berries. The yellow birch is apparently at the height of its change, clear yellow like the black. I think I saw a white ash which was all turned clear yellowish, and no mulberry, in the Botrychium Swamp. 

Looking on the Great Meadows from beyond Nathan Barrett’s, the wool-grass, where uncut, is very rich brown, contrasting with the clear green of the portions which are mown; all rectangular. The staghorn sumach apparently in the prime of its change. 

In the evening I am glad to find that my phosphorescent wood of last night still glows somewhat, but I improve it much by putting it in water. The little chips which remain in the water or sink to the bottom are like so many stars in the sky. 

The comet makes a great show these nights. Its tail is at least as long as the whole of the Great Dipper, to whose handle, till within a night or two, it reached, in a great curve, and we plainly see stars through it. [It finally reaches between one fourth and one third from the horizon to the zenith.]

Huckleberry bushes generally red, but dull Indian red, not scarlet. 

The red maples are generally past their prime (of color). They are duller or faded. Their first fires, like those of genius, are brightest. In some places on the edges of swamps many of their tops are bare and smoky. 

October 5, 2019

The dicksonia fern is for the most part quite crisp and brown along the walls.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 5, 1858

The comet makes a great show these nights. See September 23 , 1858 (Saw the comet very bright in the northwest. "); November 1, 1858 ("Here are all the friends I ever had or shall have . . .They see the comet from the northwest coast just as plainly as we do, and the same stars through its tail. ") see also Comet Donali (first observed it on June 2, 1858. After the Great Comet of 1811, it was the most brilliant comet that appeared in the 19th century. It was also the first comet to be photographed.)

I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard; without very distinct chestnut crowns.  See August 25, 1859 ("quite a flock of (apparently) Fringilla socialis in the garden"); September 1, 1854 ("Now I notice a few faint-chipping sparrows, busily picking the seeds of weeds in the garden"); September 16, 1854 (“I see little flocks of chip-birds along the roadside and on the apple trees, showing their light under sides when they rise.”); September 27, 1858 ("What are those little birds in flocks in the garden and on the peach trees these mornings, about size of chip-birds, without distinct chestnut crowns?”); October 7, 1860 (“Now and for a week the chip-birds in flocks; the withered grass and weeds, etc., alive with them.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chipping Sparrow

8 A. M. — I go to Hubbard’s Close to see when the fringed gentians open. See September 12, 1854 (" I cannot find a trace of the fringed gentian."); September 14, 1855 ("To Hubbard's Close. I see no fringed gentian yet.");  September 14, 1856 (" To Hubbard's Close. Fringed gentian well out (and some withered or frost-bitten ?), say a week, though there was none to be seen here August 27th.");  September 28, 1853 ("The fringed gentian was out before Sunday; was (some of it) withered then, says Edith Emerson."); October 1, 1858 ("The fringed gentians are now in prime. . . .They who see them closed, or in the afternoon only, do not suspect their beauty.”); October 2, 1857 ("The fringed gentian at Hubbard's Close has been out some time, and most of it already withered"); .October 2, 1853 ("The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively"); October 18, 1857 ("The fringed gentian closes every night and opens every morning in my pitcher.");  October 19, 1852 ("It is too remarkable a flower not to be sought out and admired each year, however rare. It is one of the errands of the walker, as well as of the bees, for it yields him a more celestial nectar still. It is a very singular and agreeable surprise to come upon this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories; the latest of all to begin to bloom"); November 4, 1853 (“To Hubbard's Close. I find no traces of the fringed gentian here, so that in low meadows I suspect it does not last very late”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The Fringed Gentian

 

Phebe note of Chickadee often these days. See  October 4, 1859 (" I hear. . . the sweet phe-be of the chickadee"); October 6, 1856 ("The common notes of the chickadee, so rarely heard for a long time, and also one phebe strain from it, amid the Leaning Hemlocks, remind me of pleasant winter days, when they are more commonly seen.”);  October 10, 1856 ("The phebe note of the chickadee is now often heard ");  October 20, 1856  ("The chickadees are more numerous and lively and familiar and utter their phebe note.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

The fever-bush is in the height of its change and is a showy clear lemon yellow, contrasting with its scarlet berries. See September 24, 1859 ("Fever-bush berries are scarlet now, and also green. They have a more spicy taste than any of our berries, carrying us in thought to the spice islands. Taste like lemon-peel."); October 4, 1857 (“Fever-bush has begun to yellow.”); October 15, 1859 ("The fever-bush is for the most part bare, and I see no berries.")

The dicksonia fern is for the most part quite crisp and brown along the walls. See October 4, 1859 ("How interesting now, by wall-sides and on open springy hillsides, the large, straggling tufts of the dicksonia fern . . .. Long, handsome lanceolate green fronds, pointing in every direction, recurved and full of fruit, intermixed with yellowish and sere brown and shrivelled ones. . . .Their lingering greenness so much the more noticeable now that the leaves (generally) have changed. They affect us as if they were evergreen, such persistent life and greenness in the midst of their own decay") See also September 30, 1859 (" The evergreen ferns have been growing more and more distinct amid the fading and decaying and withering ones,")

https://tinyurl.com/HDT581005

Witch-hazel in prime – Yellow leaves by their color conceal the flowers.

October 4

October 4, 2018

 

P. M.  Paddled up the Assabet. Strong north wind, bringing down leaves. 

Many white and red maple, bass, elm, and black willow leaves are strewn over the surface of the water, light, crisp colored skiffs. The bass is in the prime of its change, a mass of yellow. 

See B a-fishing notwithstanding the wind. A man runs down, fails, loses self-respect, and goes a-fishing, though he were never seen on the river before. Yet methinks his “misfortune” is good for him, and he is the more mellow and humane. Perhaps he begins to perceive more clearly that the object of life is something else than acquiring property, and he really stands in a truer relation to his fellow-men than when he commanded a false respect of them. There he stands at length, per chance better employed than ever, holding communion with nature and himself and coming to understand his real position and relation to men in this world. It is better than a poor debtors’ prison, better than most successful money-getting. 

I see some rich-weed in the shade of the Hemlocks, for some time a clear, almost ivory, white, and the boehmeria is also whitish. 

Rhus Toxicodendron in the shade is a pure yellow; in the sun, more scarlet or reddish. 

Grape leaves apparently as yellow as ever.

Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime. The leaves are often richly spotted reddish and greenish brown. 

The white maples that changed first are about bare. 

The brownish-yellow clethra leaves thickly paint the bank. 

Salix lucida leaves are one third clear yellow. 

The Osmunda regalis is yellowed and partly crisp and withered, but a little later than the cinnamon, etc. 

Scare up two ducks, which go off with a sharp creaking ar-r-week, ar-r-week, ar-r-week. Is not this the note of the wood duck? 

Hornets are still at work in their nests. 

Ascend the hill. 

The cranberry meadows are a dull red. 

See crickets eating the election-cake toadstools.

The Great Meadows, where not mown, have long been brown with wool-grass. 

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. The outmost parts and edges of the foliage are orange, the recesses green, as if the outmost parts, being turned toward the sunny fire, were first baked by it.

Going by Dr. Barrett’s, just at the edge of evening, I saw on the sidewalk something bright like fire, as if molten lead were scattered along, and then I wondered if a drunkard’s spittle were luminous, and proceeded to poke it on to a leaf with a stick. It was rotten wood. I found that it came from the bottom of some old fence-posts which had just been dug up near by and there glowed for a foot or two, being quite rotten and soft, and it suggested that a lamp-post might be more luminous at bottom than at top. 

I cut out a handful and carried it about. It was quite soft and spongy and a very pale brown — some almost white — in the light, quite soft and flaky; and as I withdrew it gradually from the light, it began to glow with a distinctly blue fire in its recesses, becoming more universal and whiter as the darkness increased. Carried toward a candle, it is quite a blue light. 

One man whom I met in the street was able to tell the time by his watch, holding it over what was in my hand. 

The posts were oak, probably white. 

Mr. Melvin, the mason, told me that he heard his dog barking the other night, and, going out, found that it was at the bottom of an old post he had dug up during the day, which was all aglow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 4, 1858

Rhus Toxicodendron in the shade is a pure yellow; in the sun, more scarlet or reddish. See September 30, 1857 (“Rhus Toxicodendron turned yellow and red, handsomely dotted with brown.”); October 3, 1857 ("The Rhus radicans also turns yellow and red or scarlet, like the Toxicodendron."); October 11, 1857 ("I see some fine clear yellows from the Rhus Toxicodendron on the bank by the hemlocks and beyond.")

Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime.  See September 24, 1853 ("Witch-hazel well out."); September 27, 1857 ("Witch-hazel two thirds yellowed. "); September 29, 1853 ("The witch-hazel . . .has but begun to blossom . . . Its leaves are yellowed."); October 9, 1851 ("The sunlight from over the top of the hill lights up its top-most sprays and yellow blossoms. Its spray, so jointed and angular, is not to be mistaken for any other. I lie on my back with joy under its bough. While its leaves fall, its blossoms spring.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

Osmunda regalis is yellowed and partly crisp and withered, but a little later than the cinnamon. See  October 1, 1858 ("The cinnamon ferns are crisp and sour in open grounds"); October 11, 1857 ("The osmunda ferns are generally withered and brown except where very much protected from frost. The O. regalis is the least generally withered of them"); October 12, 1858 ("The Osmunda regalis . . . in and about the swamps, are generally brown and withered, though with green ones intermixed. They are still, however, interesting, with their pale brown or cinnamon-color and decaying scent.")

Hornets are still at work in their nests. See October 24, 1858 ("That large hornets’ nest which I saw on the 4th is now deserted, and I bring it home. But in the evening, warmed by my fire, two or three come forth and crawl over it, and I make haste to throw it out the window.")

See crickets eating the election-cake toadstools. See October 2, 1859 ("Nowadays I see most of the election-cake fungi, with crickets and slugs eating them. ") See note to October 20, 1856 (“I notice, as elsewhere of late, a great many brownish-yellow (and some pink) election-cake fungi, eaten by crickets; about three inches in diameter.") See also note  to September 21, 1859 ("And now at last I see a few toadstools, — the election-cake (the yellowish, glazed over.")

Holding communion with nature and himself and coming to understand his real position and relation to men in this world. See June 26, 1853 ("They might go there a thousand times, perchance, before the sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure, — before they began to angle for the pond itself."); December 2, 1856 ("There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i. e. a wilder experience than the town affords.") 

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. See October 8, 1856 ("The hickory leaves are among the handsomest now, varying from green through yellow, more or less broadly green-striped on the principal veins, to pure yellow, at first almost lemon-yellow, at last browner and crisped. This mingling of yellow and green on the same leaf, the green next the veins where the life is most persistent, is very pleasing."); October 15, 1858 ("Small hickories are the clearest and most delicate yellow in the shade of the woods. ");  October 22, 1858 ("The leaves of the hickory are a very rich yellow, though they may be quite withered and fallen, but they become brown.");  October 24, 1853 ("Some hickories bare, some with rich golden-brown leaves. "); October 24, 1858 ("Hickories are two thirds fallen, at least."); November 13, 1858 ("One hickory at least (on the hill) has not lost its leaves yet, i. e., has a good many left. So they are a month falling.") See also AA Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau. The Hickory

I saw on the sidewalk something bright like fire.  See October 5, 1858 ("My phosphorescent wood of last night still glows somewhat, but I improve it much by putting it in water. The little chips which remain in the water or sink to the bottom are like so many stars in the sky."); October 6, 1858 ("My phosphorescent wood still glows a little, though it has lain on my stove all day, and, being wet, it is much improved still.") See also July 24, 1857 and The Maine Woods ("Getting up some time after midnight to collect the scattered brands together, while my companions were sound asleep, I observed, partly in the fire, which had ceased to blaze, a perfectly regular elliptical ring of light . . . phosphorescent wood, which I had so often heard of, but never chanced to see . . . I did not regret my not having seen this before, since I now saw it under circumstances so favorable. I was in just the frame of mind to see something wonderful, and this was a phenomenon adequate to my circumstances and expectation, and it put me on the alert to see more like it.")

October 4. See A Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, October 4

Witch-hazel in prime –

Yellow leaves by their color

conceal the flowers.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Yellow leaves by their color

conceal the flowers.

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-581004 

A phosphorescent coincidence.

August 8. 

Saturday. Get home at 8.30 A. M. 

I find that B. M. Watson sent me from Plymouth, July 20th, six glow-worms, of which two remain, the rest having escaped. He says they were found by his family on the evenings of the 18th and 19th of July. “ They are very scarce, these being the only "ones we have found as yet. They were mostly found on the way from the barn to James’s cottage, under the wild cherry trees on the right hand, in the grass where it was very dry, and at considerable distance from each other. We have had no rain for a month.” 

Examining them by night, they are about three quarters of an inch long as they crawl. Looking down on one, it shows two bright dots near together on the head, and, along the body, nine transverse lines of light, succeeded by two more bright dots at the other extremity, wider apart than the first. There is also a bright dot on each side opposite the transverse lines. It is a greenish light, growing more green as the worm is brought into more light. A slumbering, glowing, inward light, as if shining for itself inward as much as outward. 

The other worm, which was at first curled up still and emitted a duller light, was one and one twentieth inches in length and also showed two dots of light only on the forward segment. When stretched out, as you look down on them, they have a square-edged look, like a row of buns joined together. Such is the ocular illusion. But whether stretched out or curled up, they look like some kind of rare and precious gem, so regularly marked, far more beautiful than a uniform mass of light would be. 

Examining by day, I found the smallest to be seven eighths to one inch long, and the body about one sixth of an inch wide and from one thirteenth to one twelfth of an inch deep, convex above, pointed at head, broader at tail; head about one twentieth of an inch wide. Yet these worms were more nearly linear, or of a uniform breadth (being perhaps broadest at forward extremity), than the Lampyre represented in my French book, which is much the broadest behind and has also two rows of dots down the back. They have six light-brown legs within a quarter of an inch of the forward extremity. The worm is composed of twelve segments or overlap ping scales, like the abdominal plates of a snake, and has a slight elastic projection (?) beneath at tail. It has also six short antennae-like projections from the head, the two outer on each side the longest, the two inner very short. 

The general color above was a pale brownish yellow or buff; the head small and dark brown; the antenna: chestnut and white; white or whitish on sides and beneath. You could see a faint dorsal line. They were so transparent that you could see the internal motions when looking down on them. 

I kept them in a sod, supplying a fresh one each day. They were invariably found underneath it by day, next the floor, still and curled up in a ring, with the head within or covered by the tail. Were apt to be restless on being exposed to the light. One that got away in the yard was found again ten feet off and down cellar. 

What kind are these? 

In the account of the Glow-worm in Rees’s Cyclopaedia it is said, “The head is small, flat, hard, and black, and sharp towards the mouth; it has short antennae, and six moderately long legs; the body is flat and is composed of twelve rings, whereas the body of the male consists only of five; it is of a dusky color, with a streak of white down the back.” 

Knapp, in “Journal of a Naturalist,” speaks of “the luminous caudal spot” of the Lampyris noctiluca." 

Speaking with Dr. Reynolds about the phosphorescence which I saw in Maine, etc., etc., he said that he had seen the will-o'-the-wisp, a small blue flame, like burning alcohol, a few inches in diameter, over a bog, which moved when the bog was shaken.

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

Six glow-worms, of which two remain, the rest having escaped . .  See June 25, 1852 ("Nature loves variety in all things, and so she adds glow-worms to fireflies. . ."); October 28, 1852 ("The dew in the withered grass reflects the moonlight like glow-worms.")

The phosphorescence which I saw in Maine. See July 24, 1857 (". . . a perfectly regular elliptical ring of light . . . phosphorescent wood, which I had so often heard of, but never chanced to see.")

August 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 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 © 2009-2021

How unexplored still are the realms of nature -- what we know and have seen is always an insignificant portion.

July 24. 

Friday. 

As we paddled along, we saw many peetweets, also the common iris or blue flag, along the rocky shore, and here and afterwards great fields of epilobium or fire-weed, a mass of color. . . . 

P. said that Bematinichtik meant high land generally and no particular height. . . .

Near this island, or rather some miles southwest of it, on the mainland, where we stopped to stretch our legs and look at the vegetation, I measured a canoe birch, five and a half feet in circumference at two and a half from the ground. . . . 

I was disappointed to find my clothes under my india-rubber coat as completely wetted by perspiration as they could have been by rain, and that this would always be the consequence of working in such a garment, at least in warm weather. . . . 

We looked down on the unpretending buildings and grounds of the Kineo House, as on a little flat map, oblong-square, at our feet. . . . 

It [the phosphorescent wood] suggested to me how unexplored still are the realms of nature, that what we know and have seen is always an insignificant portion. We may any day take a walk as strange as Dante's imaginary one to L' Inferno or Paradiso.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 24, 1857

See The Maine Woods ("About four o'clock the next morning (July 24), though it was quite cloudy, accompanied by the landlord to the water's edge, in the twilight, we launched our canoe from a rock on the Moosehead Lake. . . . Think of our little eggshell of a canoe tossing across that great lake, a mere black speck to the eagle soaring above it! . . . [We] were soon partly under the lee of the mountain, about a mile north of the Kineo House, having paddled about twenty miles. It was now about noon. . . . The clouds breaking away a little, we had a glorious wild view, as we ascended, of the broad lake with its fluctuating surface and numerous forest-clad islands, extending beyond our sight both north and south, and the boundless forest undulating away from its shores on every side . . . From the summit of the precipice which forms the southern and eastern sides of this mountain peninsula, and is its most remarkable feature, being described as five or six hundred feet high, we looked, and probably might have jumped, down to the water, or to the seemingly dwarfish trees on the narrow neck of land which connects it with the main. It is a dangerous place to try the steadiness of your nerves. . . . Getting up some time after midnight to collect the scattered brands together, while my companions were sound asleep, I observed, partly in the fire, which had ceased to blaze, a perfectly regular elliptical ring of light . . . phosphorescent wood, which I had so often heard of, but never chanced to see. . . .I did not regret my not having seen this before, since I now saw it under circumstances so favorable. I was in just the frame of mind to see something wonderful, and this was a phenomenon adequate to my circumstances and expectation, and it put me on the alert to see more like it. . . . I let science slide, and rejoiced in that light as if it had been a fellow creature. . . . It suggested to me that there was something to be seen if one had eyes. It made a believer of me more than before.")

The common iris or blue flag. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Flag Iris (Versicolor)

Phosphorescent wood, which I had so often heard of, but never chanced to see. See August 8, 1857 ("Speaking with Dr. Reynolds about the phosphorescence which I saw in Maine, etc., etc., he said that he had seen the will-o'-the-wisp, a small blue flame, like burning alcohol, a few inches in diameter, over a bog, which moved when the bog was shaken.")

What we know and have seen is always an insignificant portion. We may any day take a walk as strange as Dante's imaginary one . . . See March 29, 1853 (“ a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to...appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature.”); June 14, 1853(". . . that favorable frame of mind described by De Quincey, open to great impressions”); December 11, 1855; (" It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance. .”); September 2, 1856 and note ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, . . . My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things.") and note to July 2, 1857 ("We find only the world we look for.")

To some woods southwest of Worcester

June 15. 

Mrs. Brown reads a letter from John Downs in Philadelphia to Mr. Brown, in which he remembers his early youth in Shrewsbury and the pout accompanied by her young. 

A Miss Martha Le Barron describes to me a phosphorescence on the beach at night in Narragansett Bay. They wrote their names with some minute creatures on the sand. 

7:45 AM June 15, 2026

P. M. — To some woods southwest of Worcester. 

The moist bass bark just stripped from a sapling smells very like a cucumber. All three of us were struck by it. 

A night-flowering cereus opens three or four times at a Mrs. Newton’s while I am there. Once it opened at about 9 P. M., and closed and drooped and came to an end like a wet rag wrung out, at daylight. Transient as my mushroom. Was about a foot in diameter, but an ordinary stem, like the turkey’s feet. 

Diervilla well out.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 15, 1856

A Miss Martha Le Barron describes to me a phosphorescence on the beach at night in Narragansett Bay. They wrote their names with some minute creatures on the sand."}; See The Maine Woods ((July 24, 1857) (" Getting up some time after midnight to collect the scattered brands together, while my companions were sound asleep, I observed, partly in the fire, which had ceased to blaze, a perfectly regular elliptical ring of light . . . phosphorescent wood, which I had so often heard of, but never chanced to see."); September 16, 1857 (“Watson gave me three glow-worms which he found by the roadside in Lincoln last night. They exhibit a greenish light, only under the caudal extremity, and intermittingly, or at will.")

June 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 15

Moist bass bark just stripped 

from a sapling smells very

like a cucumber.

The moon, the stars, the trees, the snow

March 7.

A very pleasant, spring-promising day. Yet I walk up the river on the ice to Fair Haven Pond. As I cross the snow (2 P.M.) where it lies deepest in hollows, its surface honeycombed by the sun, I hear it suddenly sink under and around me with a crash, and look about for a tree or roof from which it may have fallen. It has melted next the earth, and my weight makes it fall. In one instance, when I jump over a wall on to snow nearly three feet deep, I hear this loud and startling crash and look round in vain to discover the cause of it. I hear it settle over many rods. 

At 9 o'clock P.M to the woods by the full moon. 

It is rather mild to-night. I can walk without gloves. There is no snow on the trees. The ground is thinly covered with a crusted snow, through which the dead grass and weeds appear, telling the nearness of spring. 

Going through the high field beyond the lone graveyard, I see the track of a boy's sled before me, and his footsteps shining like silver between me and the moon.

Though the snow-crust between me and the moon reflects the moon at a distance, westward it is but a dusky white; only where it is heaped up into a drift, or a steep bank occurs, is the moonlight reflected to me as from a phosphorescent place. I distinguish thus large tracts an eighth of a mile distant in the west, where a steep bank sloping toward the moon occurs, that glow with a white, phosphorescent light, while all the surrounding snow is comparatively dark, as if shaded by the woods. I look to see if these white tracts in the distant fields correspond to openings in the woods, and find that they are places where the crystal mirrors are so disposed as to reflect the moon's light to me.

As I look down the railroad, standing on the west brink of the Deep Cut, I see a promise or sign of spring in the way the moon is reflected from the snow covered west slope,-- a sort of misty light as if a fine vapor were rising from it. The stillness is more impressive than any sound, - the moon, the stars, the trees, the snow, --a monumental stillness, whose void must be supplied by thought. 

The student of lichens has his objects of study brought to his study on his fuel without any extra expense. 

What a man does abroad by night requires and implies more deliberate energy than what he is encouraged to do in the sunshine. 


The moon appears to have waned a little, yet, with this snow on the ground, I can plainly see the words I write. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 7, 1852

The stillness is more impressive than any sound, - the moon, the stars, the trees, the snow. See January 7, 1857 ("The stillness and solitude of nature, with rocks, trees, weeds, snow about me. ")

I look to see if these white tracts in the distant fields correspond to openings in the woods, and find that they are places where the crystal mirrors are so disposed as to reflect the moon's light to me. See February 3, 1852 (I can tell where there is wood and where open land for many miles in the horizon by the darkness of the former and whiteness of the latter.")