I see where the crickets are eating the wild strawberries.

June 20. 

 Tuesday. 

June 20, 2014

Motherwort to-morrow. 

Elder. 

A cloud of minute black pollywogs in a muddy pool. I see where the crickets are eating the wild strawberries. 

P. M. - To Shadbush Meadow. 

Heard a new bird –– chut-cheeter-varrer-chutter-wit ––on the low bushes, about the size of Wilson's thrush apparently. Apparently olivaceous (?) above, most so on head, yellow front, dark bill, dark wings with two white bars, all yellow or yellowish breast and beneath. Perhaps never heard it before. 

Cow-wheat, apparently two or three days.

A three-leaved Lysimachia stricta apparently, with reddish flower-buds, not open. 

Shad-berries almost, but scarce. 

There seems to be much variety in the Rosa lucida, some to have stouter hooked prickles than the R. Carolina.  

Upland haying begun, or beginning. 

Common nettle.

H. D Thoreau, Journal, June 20, 1854


Motherwort to-morrow. See June 29, 1852 ("Leonurus Cardiaca, motherwort, a nettle-like plant by the street-side.")

Elder. See June 21, 1852 ("Elder is blossoming; flowers opening now where black berries will be by and by.")

A cloud of minute black pollywogs in a muddy pool..See June 15, 1852 ("This half-stagnant pond-hole, drying up and leaving bare mud, with the pollywogs and turtles making off in it, is agreeable and encouraging to behold, as if it contained the seeds of life, the liquor rather, boiled down. The foulest water will bubble purely.");  See also June 15, 1851 ("The pollywogs in the pond are now fulltailed"); June 15, 1855 ("Many pollywogs an inch long.") and note to May 19, 1857 ("See myriads of minute pollywogs, recently hatched, in the water of Moore's Swamp.")

I see where the crickets are eating the wild strawberries. See June 22, 1851 ("Only in the quiet of evening do I so far recover my senses as to hear the cricket, which in fact has been chirping all day.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in Spring and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: Strawberries

Cow-wheat, apparently two or three days. See June 14, 1859 ("Cow-wheat, how long ?"); June 16, 1856 ("Cow-wheat numerously out."); June 19, 1853 ("Cow-wheat out"); August 6, 1851("After how few steps, how little exertion, the student stands in pine woods above the Solomon's-seal and the cow-wheat, in a place still unaccountably strange and wild to him, and to all civilization!") [Cow-wheat is a native annual hemiparasite (partially parasitic), using specialized root structures to invade the roots of its host and steal nutrients, while also performing photosynthesis. Its hosts may be several species of pine (Pinus) and poplar (Populus) ~ GoBotany].

Shad-berries almost, but scarce. See June 25, 1853. ("An unusual quantity of amelanchier berries, – I think of the two common kinds . . . Both these are now in their prime. These are the first berries after strawberries. . .I  never saw nearly so many before. It is a very agreeable surprise."); June 25, 1854 ("Shad-berry ripe.") 

The Rosa lucida . . . have stouter hooked prickles than the R. Carolina. See June 21, 1852 (" I observe a rose (called by some moss rose), with a bristly reddish stem; another, with a smooth red stem and but a few prickles; another, with many prickles and bristles."); July 24, 1853 ("The late rose, -- R. Carolina, swamp rose,-- I think has larger and longer leaves; at any rate they are duller above (light beneath). and the bushes higher.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose
Upland haying begun. See June 21, 1853 ("The farmers have commenced haying. With this the summer culminates.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

July 20. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 20

Rosa lucida –

stouter hooked prickles than the

R. Carolina.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Crickets are eating the Wild Strawberries

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-540620

Great numbers of pollywogs have apparently just changed into frogs.

July 20.

2 P. M. – To Walden.

Warm weather, — 86 at 2 P. M. (not so warm for a good while).

Emerson’s lot that was burnt, between the railroad and the pond, has been cut off within the last three months, and I notice that the oak sprouts have commonly met with a check after growing one or two feet, and small reddish leafets have again put forth at the extremity within a week or so, as in the spring.

Some of the oak sprouts are five to six feet high already. On his hill near by, where the wood was cut about two years ago, this second growth of the oaks, especially white oaks, is much more obvious, and commenced longer ago.

The shoots of this year are generally about two feet long, but the first foot consists of large dark green leaves which expanded early, before the shoot met with a check.

This is surmounted by another foot of smaller yellowish-green leaves. This is very generally the case, and produces a marked contrast. Dark green bushes surmounted by a light or yellowish-green growth.

Sometimes, in the first-mentioned sprout-land, you see where the first shoot withered, as if frost-bitten at the end, and often only some large buds have formed there as yet.

Many of these sprouts, the rankest of them, are fated to fall, being but slightly joined to the stump, riddled by ants there; and others are already prostrated.

Bathing on the side of the deep cove, I noticed just below the high-water line (of rubbish) quite a number of little pines which have just sprung up amid the stones and sand and wreck, some with the seed atop.

This, then, is the state of their coming up naturally. They have evidently been either washed up, or have blown across the ice or snow to this shore. If pitch pine, they were probably blown across the pond, for I have often seen them on their way across.

Both Scirpus subterminalis and debilis are now in bloom at the Pout’s Nest, the former the longest time, the water being very low and separated from the pond. The former out for some time, the latter not long.

Great numbers of pollywogs have apparently just changed into frogs.

At the pondlet on Hubbard’s land, now separated from the main pond by a stony bar, hundreds of small frogs are out on the shore, enjoying their new state of existence, masses of them, which, with constant plashing, go hopping into the water a rod or more before me, where they are very swift to conceal themselves in the mud at the bottom. Their bodies may be one and a half inches long or more.

I have rarely seen so many frogs together. Yet I hardly see one pollywog left in this pool.

Yet at the shore against Pout’s Nest I see many pollywogs, and some, with hind legs well grown beside tails tails, lie up close to the shore on the sand with their heads out like frogs, apparently already breathing air before losing their tails. They squat and cower there as I come by, just like frogs.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1860

Both Scirpus subterminalis [water bulrush]and debilis [weakstalk bulrush]are now in bloom at the Pout’s Nest. See July 19, 1859 ("Scirpus subterminalis, river off Hoar's and Cheney's, not long."); August 31,,1858 ("At the Pout’s Nest, Walden, I find the Scirpus debilis, apparently in prime, generally aslant");  September 15, 1858 ("I find, just rising above the target-weed at Pout’s Nest, Scirpus subterminalis, apparently recently out of bloom. The culms two to three feet along, appearing to rise half an inch above the spikes. The long, linear immersed leaves coming off and left below. ")

 "Pout’s Nest": HDT's name for Wyman's Meadow near Walden. See June 7, 1858 and note to July 26, 1860 (I see a bream swimming about in that smaller pool by Walden in Hubbard's Wood. . . So they may be well off in the Wyman meadow or Pout's Nest.") The pout referred to is the Brown Bullhead (Ameiurus nebulosus), also known as Horned Pout, Mud Pout or Mud Cat. See Place Names of Henry David Thoreau in Concord,

Singing and whistling at the same time.

March 30. 

March 30, 2016

6 a.m. — To Hill (across water). 

Hear a red squirrel chirrup at me by the hemlocks (running up a hemlock), all for my benefit; not that he is excited by fear, I think, but so full is he of animal spirits that he makes a great ado about the least event. 

At first he scratches on the bark very rapidly with his hind feet without moving the fore feet. He makes so many queer sounds, and so different from one another, that you would think they came from half a dozen creatures. I hear now two sounds from him of a very distinct character, — a low or base inward, worming, screwing, or brewing, kind of sound (very like that, by the way, which an anxious partridge mother makes) and at the same time a very sharp and shrill bark, and clear, on a very high key, totally distinct from the last, — while his tail is flashing incessantly. 

You might say that he successfully accomplished the difficult feat of singing and whistling at the same time. 

P. M. — To Walden via Hubbard's Close. 

The green-bodied flies out on sheds, and probably nearly as long as the other; the same size as the house-fly. 

I see numerous large skaters on a ditch. This may be the Gerris lacustris, but its belly is not white, only whitish in certain lights. It has six legs, two feelers (the two foremost legs being directed forward), a stout-ish body, and brown above. The belly looks whitish when you look at it edgewise, but turned quite over (on its back), it is brown. 

A very small brown grasshopper hops into the water. 

I notice again (in the spring-holes in Hubbard's Close) that water purslane, being covered with water, is an evergreen, — though it is reddish. 

Little pollywogs two inches long are lively there. 

See on Walden two sheldrakes, male and female, as is common. So they have for some time paired. They are a hundred rods off. The male the larger, with his black head and white breast, the female with a red head. With my glass I see the long red bills of both. They swim at first one way near together, then tack and swim the other, looking around incessantly, never quite at their ease, wary and watchful for foes. A man cannot walk down to the shore or stand out on a hill overlooking the pond without disturbing them. They will have an eye upon him. 

The locomotive-whistle makes every wild duck start that is floating within the limits of the town. I see that these ducks are not here for protection alone, for at last they both dive, and remain beneath about forty pulse-beats, — and again, and again. I think they are looking for fishes. Perhaps, therefore, these divers are more likely to alight in Walden than the black ducks are. 

Hear the hovering note of a snipe.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 30, 1859

Hear a red squirrel chirrup at me by the hemlocks (running up a hemlock), all for my benefit; not that he is excited by fear, I think, but so full is he of animal spirits that he makes a great ado about the least event. See October 5, 1857 (“I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel. . . .  It is evident that all this ado does not proceed from fear. There is at the bottom, no doubt, an excess of inquisitiveness and caution, but the greater part is make-believe and a love of the marvellous.) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

I see numerous large skaters on a ditch. See March 29, 1853 ("Tried several times to catch a skater. Got my hand close to him; grasped at him as quick as possible; was sure I had got him this time; let the water run out between my fingers; hoped I had not crushed him; opened my hand; and lo! he was not there. I never succeeded in catching one.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and  Skaters (Hydrometridae)

See on Walden two sheldrakes, male and female, as is common. . .  They swim at first one way near together, then tack and swim the other, looking around incessantly, never quite at their ease, wary and watchful for foes. See March 30, 1858 ("The full plumaged males, conspicuously black and white and often swimming in pairs, appeared to be the most wary, keeping furthest out. ").See also March 27, 1858 ("They are now pairing. . . .At first we see only a male and female quite on the alert, some way out on the pond, tacking back and forth and looking every way."); April 7, 1855 ("But they will let you come only within some sixty rods ordinarily. I observe that they are uneasy at sight of me and begin to sail away in different directions."). Also see A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)

Hear the hovering note of a snipe. See March 29, 1858 ("At the first pool I also scared up a snipe. It rises with a single cra-a-ckand goes off with its zigzag flight, with its bill presented to the earth, ready to charge bayonets against the inhabitants of the mud.”); April 1, 1853 ("Now, at early starlight, I hear the Snipe’s hovering note as he circles over Nawshawtuct Meadow. . . . It sounds very much like a winnowing-machine increasing rapidly in intensity for a few seconds.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

A pair of ravens 

now crossing in front of us

in erratic flight.

March 30, 2019

Walden is about one-third skimmed over.

December 11. 

P. M. — To Walden. 

An overcast afternoon and rather warm. The snow on the ground in pastures brings out the warm red in leafy oak woodlands by contrast. These are what Thomson calls “the tawny copse.” So that they suggest both shelter and warmth. All browns, indeed, are warmer now than a week ago. These oak woodlands half a mile off, commonly with pines intermingled, look like warm coverts for birds and other wild animals. How much warmer our woodlands look and are for these withered leaves that still hang on! Without them the woods would be dreary, bleak, and wintry indeed.  Here is a manifest provision for the necessities of man and the brutes. These leaves remain to keep us warm, and to keep the earth warm about their roots. 

While the oak leaves look redder and warmer, the pines look much darker since the snow has fallen (the hemlocks darker still). A mile or two distant they are dark brown, or almost black, as, still further, is all woodland, and in the most distant horizon have a blue tinge like mountains, from the atmosphere. The boughs of old and bare oak woods are gray and in harmony with the white ground, looking as if snowed on. 

Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust, simulating bare ground and helping to conceal the rabbit and partridge, etc. They are not equally diffused, but collected together here and there as if for the sake of society. 

I find at the Pout’s Nest, now quite frozen over, air-holes and all, twenty-two pollywogs frozen in and dead within a space of two and a half feet square, also a minnow — apparently a young shiner, but it has a dark longitudinal line along side (about an inch and a half long)—with the bream.

The terminal shoots of the small scarlet oaks are still distinctly red, though withered. 

A “swirl,” applied to leaves suddenly caught up by a sort of whirlwind, is a good word enough, methinks. 

Walden is about one-third skimmed over. It is frozen  nearly half the way out from the northerly shore, excepting a very broad open space on the northwest shore and a considerable space at the pines at the northeast end; but the ice, thin as it is, extends quite across from the northwest side to the southwest cape (west side of the railroad bay) by an isthmus only two or three rods wide in its narrowest part. 

It is evident that whether a pond shall freeze this side or that first depends much on the wind. If it is small and lies like Walden between hills, I should expect that in perfectly calm weather it would freeze soonest along the south shore, but in this case there was probably wind from the north or northwest, and the more sheltered and smooth north side froze first.

The warmth reflected from the pines at the northeast corner may account for the open water there, but I can not account for the open space of the northwest end. [It must be because it is there open to the rake of the north Wind. the shore being flat and gently sloping backward a long way, while the protection of Heywood‘s Peak may account for the ice isthmus being met by the break-wind of the west railroad cape.]

It is remarkable that the south edge of the ice projects southward in a cape corresponding to the deep triangular bay in the south side, though it is in the middle of the pond, and there is even a rude correspondence else where along the edge of the ice to the opposite shore.  This might seem to indicate that the ice to some extent formed first over deepest water. 

When the ice was melting and the trees dripping, on the morning of the 6th, I noticed that the snow was discolored, — stained yellow by this drip, — as if the trees were urinating. 

The large scarlet oak in the cemetery has leaves on the lower limbs near the trunk just like the large white oaks now. So has the largest black oak which I see. Others of both, and all, kinds are bare. 

Some, being offended, think sharp and satirical things, which yet they are not prepared consciously to utter. But in some unguarded moment these things escape from them, when they are as it were unconscious. They betray their thoughts, as it were by talking in their sleep, for the truth will out, under whatever veil of civility.

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

Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust. See December 9, 1856 ("Coming through the Walden woods, I see already great heaps of oak leaves collected in certain places on the snow-crust by the roadside, where an eddy deposited them."); January 28, 1857 ("Notice many heaps of leaves on snow on the hillside southwest of the pond, as usual.");  February 4, 1856 ("The oak leaves which have blown over the snow are collected in dense heaps on the still side of the bays at Walden, where I suspect they make warm beds for the rabbits to squat on.").. Also  January 7, 1857 ("Though the rest of the broad path is else perfectly unspotted white, each track of the fox has proved a trap which has caught from three or four to eight or ten leaves each."); January 8, 1852 ("almost every track which I made yesterday in the snow - perhaps ten inches deep - has got a dead leaf in it, though none is to be seen on the snow around.")

Walden is about one-third skimmed over. See December 9, 1856 ("There is scarcely a particle of ice in Walden yet, and that close to the edge, apparently, on the west and northwest sides. . . .This is, no doubt, owing solely to the greater depth of Walden."); December 19,1856 ("Walden froze completely over last night.This is very sudden, for on the evening of the 15th there was not a particle of ice in it. In just three days, then, it has been completely frozen over, and the ice is now from two and a half to three inches thick, a transparent green ice, through which I see the bottom where it is seven or eight feet deep."); December 20, 1858 (“Walden is frozen over, except two small spots, less than half an acre in all, in middle.”) December 21, 1855 (“Walden is skimmed over, all but an acre, in my cove.”); December 21, 1854 (“Walden is frozen over, apparently about two inches thick.”)


It is evident that whether a pond shall freeze this side or that first depends much on the wind. See December 29, 1855 ("Am surprised to find eight or ten acres of Walden still open, notwithstanding the cold of the 26th, 27th, and 28th and of to-day. It must be owing to the wind partly."); December 30, 1853 ("The pond [Walden] not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night.");

I walk with unbuttoned coat, taking in the influences of the hour.

December 3

December 3, 2011

P. M. — To Walden. 

A deliciously mild afternoon, though the ground is covered with snow. The cocks crowed this morning as of yore.

I carry hatchet and rake in order to explore the Pout’s Nest for frogs and fish, —the pond not being frozen. A small part of that chink of the 26th is not yet frozen, and is crowded with pollywogs, mostly of large size, and very many have legs more or less developed. 

With my small iron rake, about a foot long by four inches wide, I jerk on to the ice at one jerk forty five pollywogs, and more than as many more fall into the water. Many of the smallest pollywogs have bright copper-red bellies, prettily spotted, while the large are commonly pale-yellow, either clear or spotted. Many are dying. They have crowded so thickly along the open chink three or four inches wide by the side of a boat in the ice that, when I accidentally rock it, about a hundred are washed out on to the ice. 

One salamander among them, and four of the new breams, much larger, darker, and richer-colored than any I had found. 

I have often seen pollywogs in small numbers in the winter, in spring-holes, etc., but never such crowding to air-holes in the ice. All that is peculiar in this case is that this small pond has recently been cut off from the main pond by the falling of the water and that it is crowded with vegetable matter, chiefly target-weed, so that apparently the stagnant water has not only killed the breams and perch (of which last I find three dead) but many pollywogs, and compels others to seek the surface. 

As I return home by the Shanty Field and the railroad, I cannot help contrasting this evening with the 30th (on Fair Haven Hill-side). Now there is a genial, soft air, and in the west many clouds of purplish dove color. I walk with unbuttoned coat, taking in the influences of the hour. Coming through the pitch pines east of the Shanty Field, I see the sun through the pines very yellow and warm-looking, and every twig of the pines and every weed is lit with yellow light (not silvery). 

The other night the few cloudy islets about [the] setting sun (where it had set) were glitteringly bright afar through the cold air. Now (when I get to the causeway) all the west is suffused with an extremely rich, warm purple or rose-color, while the edges of what were dove-colored clouds have a warm saffron glow, finally deepening to rose or damask when the sun has set. The other night there was no reddening of the clouds after sunset, no afterglow, but the glittering clouds were almost immediately snapped up in the crisped air. 

I improve every opportunity to go into a grist-mill, any excuse to see its cobweb-tapestry. I put questions to the miller as an excuse for staying, while my eye rests delighted on the cobwebs above his head and per chance on his hat. 

The salamander above named, found in the water of the Pout’s Nest, is the Salamandra symmetrica It is some three inches long, brown (not dark-brown) above and yellow with small dark spots beneath, and the same spots on the sides of the tail; a row of very minute vermilion spots, not detected but on a close examination, on each side of the back; the tail is waved on the edge (upper edge, at least); has a pretty, bright eye. Its tail, though narrower, reminds me of the pollywog. Why should not it lose its tail as well as that?

The largest of the four breams (vide November 26th) two and nine twentieths inches long, by one inch broad and nine twentieths thick. The back, sides forward, tail, and anal fin black or blackish or very dark; the transverse dark bars few and indistinct except in middle of fish; sides toward tail yellowish-Olive. Rear of abdomen has violet reflections (and about base of anal fin). Operculums tinged, streaked, and spotted with golden, coppery, greenish, and violet reflections. A vertical dark mark or line, corresponding to the stripes, through the eye. Iris copper-color or darker. 

The others, about two inches long, are differently colored, not so dark, more olive, and distinctly barred. The smallest are the lightest-colored, but the larger on the whole richer, as well as darker. The fins, especially the dorsal, caudal, and anal, are remarkably pretty, in color a fine network of light and dark. The lower jaw extends about three fortieths of an inch beyond the upper. The rich dark, almost black, back, with dark-barred sides alternating with yellowish olive, and the fine violet purple reflections from the sides of the abdomen, like the nacre of a shell, as coin-like they lie flat in a basin, — such jewels they swam between the stems (clothed in transparent jelly) of the target-weed. 

R. W. E. saw quite a flock of ducks in the pond (Walden) this afternoon;

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 3, 1858

I have often seen pollywogs in small numbers in the winter, in spring-holes, etc., but never such crowding to air-holes in the ice. See December 21, 1857 ("They appear to keep in motion in such muddy pond-holes, where a spring wells up from the bottom till midwinter, if not all winter.”)

Four of the new breams, much larger, darker, and richer-colored than any I had found. See November 26, 1858 (" a great many minnows about one inch long . . . shaped like bream, but had the transverse bars of perch.”); November 27, 1858 ("I got seventeen more of those little bream of yesterday. “); November 30, 1858 (“How wild it makes the pond and the township to find a new fish in it!”)

The 30th (on Fair Haven Hill-side). . . .there was no reddening of the clouds after sunset, no afterglow, but the glittering clouds were almost immediately snapped up in the crisped air. See December 2, 1858 ("[November 30th] was at the same time the most brilliant of sunsets, the clearest and crispiest of winter skies."); November 30, 1858 ("At sunset, we saw a large, long, dusky cloud in the northwest horizon, apparently just this side of Wachusett, or at least twenty miles off, which was snowing, when all the rest was clear sky ") 

All the west is suffused with an extremely rich, warm purple or rose-color, while the edges of what were dove-colored clouds have a warm saffron glow, finally deepening to rose or damask when the sun has set. See December 14, 1852 ("Ah, who can tell the serenity and clarity of a New England winter sunset?"); See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets

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

This mild afternoon

I walk with unbuttoned coat

taking in the the hour.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Taking in the influences of the hour

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-581203

A new species?

November 26. 

The various evergreens, large and small, may be said generally to turn green or to have turned reddish about the middle of November. 

Got in boat on account of Reynolds’s new fence going up (earlier than usual). 

A good many leaves of the sweet-fern, though withered now, still hold on; so that this shrub may be put with the oaks in this respect. So far as I remember, it is peculiar among shrubs in this.

Walden is very low, compared with itself for some years. The bar between pond and Hubbard’s pond hole is four feet wide, but the main bar is not bare. There is a shore at least six feet wide inside the alders at my old shore, and what is remarkable, I find that not only Goose Pond also has fallen correspondingly within a month, but even the smaller pond-holes only four or five rods over, such as Little Goose Pond, shallow as they are. 

I begin to suspect, therefore, that this rise and fall extending through a long series of years is not peculiar to the Walden system of ponds, but is true of ponds generally, and perhaps of rivers, though in their case it may be more difficult to detect. Even around Little Goose Pond the shore is laid bare for a space even wider than at Walden, it being less abrupt. The Pout’s Nest, also, has lost ten feet on all sides. 

Those pouts’ nests which I discovered in the spring are high and dry six feet from the water. I overhauled one, ripping up the frozen roof with my hands. The roof was only three inches thick, then a cavity and a bottom of wet mud. In this mud I found two small frogs, one apparently a Rana palustris less than an inch long, the other apparently a young R. pipiens an inch and a half long. They were quite sluggish and had evidently gone into winter quarters there, but probably some mink would have got them. 

The Pout’s Nest was frozen just enough to bear, with two or three breathing-places left. The principal of these was a narrow opening about a rod long by eighteen inches wide within six feet of the southwest side of the pond-hole, and the immediately adjacent ice was darker and thinner than the rest, having formed quite recently. 

I observed that the water at this breathing-chink was all alive with pollywogs, mostly of large size, though some were small, which apparently had collected there chiefly, as the water-surface was steadily contracted, for the sake of the air (?). There [were] more than a hundred of them there, or ten or a dozen in a square foot, and many more under the ice. 

I saw one firmly frozen in and dead. One had legs, and his tail was half eaten off by some creature, yet he was alive. There were also one or two frogs stirring among them. Here was evidently warmer water, probably a spring, and they had crowded to it. 

Looking more attentively, I detected also a great many minnows about one inch long either floating dead there or frozen into the ice,—at least fifty of them. They were shaped like bream, but had the transverse bars of perch. 

There were more pollywogs in other parts of the pond-hole, and at the north end I saw two perch about seven inches long, dead, close to the shore, and turned a bright green,— which are commonly yellow, — as if poisoned by the water or something they had eaten. Perhaps the fishes had suffered by the falling of this pond-hole and consequent isolation from the main pond, which has left this part still more shallow and stagnant than before. It is full of the target-weed. 

If the pond continues to fall, undoubtedly all the fishes thus landlocked will die. I noticed at the above-named chink tracks which looked like those of an otter, where some animal had entered and come out of the water, leaving weeds and fragments of ice at the edge of the hole. No doubt several creatures, like otter and mink and foxes, know where to resort for their food at this season. This is now a perfect otter’s or mink’s preserve. 

Perhaps such a mass of decaying weeds is fatal to the fishes here. It is evident that those frogs would have been frozen stiff the first colder night in such a shallow retreat. It is very likely that that hole (i. e. pout’s hole) was under water when they took refuge there, and, the water going down, they were chilled. In such cases, then, pollywogs and fishes, and even frogs, resort to the last part to freeze, the warmest water, where it is open longest. 

Examining those minnows by day, I find that they are one and one sixth inches long by two fifths of an inch wide (this my largest); in form like a bream; of a very pale golden like a perch, or more bluish. Have but one dorsal fin and, as near as I can count, rays, dorsal 19 (first, 9 stouter and stiff and more distinctly pointed, then 10 longer and flexible, whole fin about three times as long as average height), caudal 17 [?], anal 13 or 14, ventral 6, pectoral 10 (?). They have about seven transverse dusky bars like a perch! Yet, from their form and single dorsal fin, I think they are breams. Are they not a new species? Have young breams transverse bars? A little narrower than this.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 26, 1858

Got in boat on account of Reynolds’s new fence going up (earlier than usual). See note to November 26, 1857 (“Got my boat up this afternoon. (It is Thanksgiving Day.) One end had frozen in. ”)

I find that not only Goose Pond also has fallen correspondingly within a month, but even the smaller pond-holes. See December 13, 1852 (“I judge from his account of the rise and fall of Flint's Pond that, allowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlet, it sympathizes with Walden. “)

The Pout’s Nest was frozen just enough to bear, with two or three breathing-places left. "Pout’s Nest": HDT's name for Wyman's Meadow near Walden. See note to July 26, 1860 (I see a bream swimming about in that smaller pool by Walden in Hubbard's Wood. . . So they may be well off in the Wyman meadow or Pout's Nest."); also June 7, 1858 ("Where do the Walden pouts breed when they have not access to this meadow?")

If the pond continues to fall, undoubtedly all the fishes thus landlocked will die. See August 28, 1854 (“The meadow is drier than ever, and new pools are dried up. The breams, from one to two and a half inches long, lying on the sides and quirking from time to time, a dozen together where there is but a pint of water on the mud, are a handsome but sad sight, — pretty green jewels, dying in the sun. I saved a dozen or more by putting them in deeper pools.”)

A new species? See November 30, 1858 ("When my eyes first rested on Walden the striped bream was poised in it, though I did not see it...I can only poise my thought there by its side and try to think like a bream for a moment. I can only see the bream in its orbit, as I see a star...The bream, appreciated, floats in the pond as the centre of the system, another image of God. Its life no man can explain more than he can his own."). The fish shaped like a bream but with markings like a perch.is presented at the next meeting of the Boston Natural History Society an later ridentified as the Pomotis obesus Girard 1854 (banded sunfish).

This makes the fifth kind of frog or toad spawn that I have detected this year..

May 9. 

P. M. – To Holden and to Ledum Swamp. 

See two Rana halecina. They have the green halo, but are plain brown between the spots on the back and not vivid light-green like the one of May 4th. 

See in Ludwigia palustris ditch on Hubbard’s land evidently toad-spawn already hatched, or flatted out. I distinguish the long strings, now straighter than usual and floating thin on the surface. It is less obvious than frog-spawn, and might easily be overlooked on a slimy surface. I can distinguish the little pollywog while yet in the ova by their being quite small and very black. 

This makes the fifth kind of frog or toad spawn that I have detected this year.

See, in the Holden Swamp wood, the bird of May 3d. It has sly and inquisitive ways, holding down its head and looking at me at some distance off. It has a distinct white line along the bill and about the eyes, and no yellow there, as is said of the white-eyed vireo, and I am now inclined to think it the solitary vireo (?), whose song is not described, and which is considered rare. I should say it had a blue-slate head, and, I note, a distinct yellowish vent, which none of the vireos are allowed to have!! The sides of the body are distinctly yellow, but there is none at all on the throat or breast. 

Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, – how long? — by owl nest tree. 

Sylvia Americana

The parti-colored warbler is very common and musical there, — my tweezer-bird, – making the screep screep screep note. It is an almost incessant singer and a very handsomely marked bird. It frequents the spruce trees, at regular intervals pausing as it flits, hops, and creeps about from limb to limb or up the main stem, and holding up its head, utters its humble notes, like ah twze twze twze, or ah twze twze twze twze.

I notice very large clams, apparently the Unio complanatus (vide two specimens in drawer), or common, in West Meadow Brook near the road, one more than four and a half inches long. I have before seen them very large in brooks. 

A dandelion perfectly gone to seed, a complete globe, a system in itself. 

My Rana palustris spawn, laid in house May 5th, in the sun this afternoon swells and rises to the surface in the jar, so that the uppermost ova project slightly above it.

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

The fifth kind of frog or toad spawn. See note to May 6, 1858 (Frogs of Massachusetts)

The parti-colored warbler — my tweezer-bird. See May 18, 1856 ("A Sylvia Americana, — parti-colored warbler, — in the Holden Wood, sings a, tshrea tshrea tshrea, tshre’ tshritty tshrit’." and note to May 13, 1856 ("The tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana. . . . the parti-colored warbler, and was that switter switter switter switter swit also by it?.”) See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Parti-Colored (Parula) Warbler (Sylvia Americana)

The bird of May 3d. . . . I am now inclined to think it the solitary vireo. See May 3, 1858.("See and hear a new bird to me. At first it was silent, and I took it for the common pewee, but, bringing my glass to bear on it, found it to be pure white throat and beneath, yellow on sides of body or wings, greenish-yellow back and shoulders, a white or whitish ring about eyes, and a light mark along side of head,
two white bars on wings, apparently black bill and dark or perhaps slate-colored (?) wings and above tail. It surprised me by singing in a novel and powerful and rich strain.")

I go at 8 A.M. to catch frogs to compare with the R. palustris.

April 24.

A cold northwest wind.

April 24, 2018

I go at 8 A.M. to catch frogs to compare with the R. palustris and bull frog which I have, but I find it too cold for them. Though I walk more than a mile along the river, I do not get sight of one, and only of one or two turtles. Neither do I find any more frogs (though many Emys picta) at 4 P. M., it being still cold. 

Yet the frogs were quite numerous yesterday. This shows how sensitive they are to changes of temperature. Hardly one puts its head out of the water, if ever he creeps out the grassy or muddy bottom this cold day. 

That proserpinaca deserves to be named after the frog, — ranunculus, or what-not, — it is so common and pretty at the bottom the shallow grassy pools where I go looking for spawn. 

It is remarkable that I see many E. picta dead along the shore, dead within a few weeks apparently, also a sternothaerus. One of the last, alive, emitted no odor to-day. 

I find washed up by the riverside part of a pale-greenish egg-shell bigger than a hen’s egg, which was probably the egg of a duck laid on the meadow last year or lately. 

There is an abundance of the R. halecina spawn near the elm at the hill shore north of Dodd's. It is now semiopaque, greenish, and flatted down and run together, mostly hatched; and a good deal has been killed, apparently by the cold. The water thereabouts is swarming with the young pollywogs for a rod about, but where have all the frogs hidden themselves? 

E. Hoar saw the myrtle-bird to-day. 

The pollywogs must be a long time growing, for I see those of last year not more than two inches long, also some much larger. 

The hatched frog-spawn is quite soft and apparently dissolving at last in the water. Yet possibly that mass of jelly once brought me on a stake was this jelly consolidated. 

I find that my fish ova were not all killed some weeks ago in the firkin, as I supposed, for many that were accidentally left in it have hatched, and they bore the cold of last night better than those hatched earlier and kept in the larger vessel (tub), which froze but thinly, while the firkin froze a quarter of an inch thick last night.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 24, 1858

Many Emys picta. See April 24, 1856 ("A young Emys Picta one and five eighths inches long and one and a half wide. . . . already covered with some kind of green moss."); See also March 28, 1857 ("The Emys picta, now pretty numerous . . .He who painted the tortoise thus, what were his designs?");  April 22, 1858 ("The Emys picta are evidently breeding also.") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

A sternothaerus emitted no odor to-day. See April 1, 1858 ("I see six Sternothaarus odoratus . . . and smelt of five of these, and they emitted none of their peculiar scent! It would seem, then, that this may be connected with their breeding, or at least with their period of greatest activity.");   June 16, 1858 ("Two sternothaerus which I smell of have no scent to-day.  ")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus )

That proserpinaca [palustris] deserves to be named after the frog:  Rana palustris, the pickerel frog; Proserpinaca is a genus of flowering plants found in aquatic or terrestrial wetland habitat  Palustris is a Latin word meaning swampy or marshy often used for species names to refer to the typical habitat of the species. ~ Wikipedia

There is an abundance of the R. halecina spawn near the elm at the hill shore north of Dodd's. The water thereabouts is swarming with the young pollywogs for a rod about. See April 14, 1858 (“My Rana halecina spawn in tumbler is now flatted out and begins to betray the pollywog form.”); 

I find that my fish ova were not all killed some weeks ago in the firkin, as I supposed. See note to April 16, 1858 ("I think that the spawn could not have been laid long when I found it April 3d, . . .My fish ova in a tumbler has gradually expanded ... (Some are still in the egg on the 18th.)")

Wood frog pollywogs.

April 11. 

P. M. – To Lee's Cliff. 

The black spheres (rather dark brown) in the Rana sylvatica spawn by Hubbard's Grove have now opened and flatted out into a rude broad pollywog form. (This was an early specimen.) 

Yesterday saw moles working in a meadow, throwing up heaps. 

I notice at the Conantum house, of which only the chimney and frame now stand, a triangular mass of rubbish, more than half a bushel, resting on the great mantel-tree against an angle in the chimney. It being mixed with clay, I at first thought it a mass of clay and straw mortar, to fill up with, but, looking further, I found it composed of corn-cobs, etc., and the excrement probably of rats,  and of pure clay, looking like the cells of an insect. Either the wharf rat or this country rat. They had anciently chosen this warm place for their nest and carried a great store of eatables thither, and the clay of the chimney, washing down, had incrusted the whole mass over. 

So this was an old rats’ nest as well as human nest, and so it is with every old house. The rats’ nest may have been a hundred and fifty years old. Wherever you see an old house, there look for an old rats’ nest. In hard times they had, apparently, been compelled to eat the clay, or it may be that they love it. It is a wonder they had not set the house on fire with their nest. 

Conant says this house was built by Rufus Hosmer's great-grandfather. 

Slippery elm. 

Crowfoot (Ranunculus fascicularis) at Lee's since the 6th, apparently a day or two before this. 

Mouse-ear, not yet. 

What that large frog, bullfrog-like but with brown spots on a dirty-white throat, in a pool on Conantum? 

See thimble-berry and rose bush leafing under the rocks.

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

The black spheres (rather dark brown) in the Rana sylvatica spawn. See April 4, 1857 "Caught a croaking frog . . .Nearby was its spawn, in very handsome spherical masses of transparent jelly, two and a half to three inches in diameter, suspended near the surface of some weed, as goldenrod or aster, and consisting of globules about a third of an inch in diameter, with a black or dark centre as big as a large shot. Only these black centres were visible at a little distance in the water, and so much the more surprising and interesting is the translucent jelly when you lift it to the light."); April 4, 1858 ("Go to the cold pond-hole south of J. P. Brown’s, to hear the croaking frogs.. ..[T]hey have dropped their spawn on the twigs.. . .. I see one or two pairs coupled, now sinking, now rising to the surface. The upper one, a male, quite dark brown and considerably smaller than the female, which is reddish--such part of her as I can see--and has quite distinct dark bars on its posterior extremities, while I cannot discern any on the male. .. . To my surprise the female was the ordinary light-reddish-brown wood frog (R. sylvatica), with legs distinctly barred with dark, while the male, whose note alone I have heard, methinks, was not only much smaller, but of a totally different color, a dark brown above with dark-slate colored sides, and the yet darker bars on its posterior extremities a. . . There was a good deal of spawn firmly attached to the brush close to the surface, and, as usual, in some lights you could not see the jelly, only the core.")

Pollywogs under ice.

December 21. 

December 21, 2017

Walking over the Andromeda Ponds between Walden and Fair Haven, which have only frozen just enough to bear me, I see in springy parts, where the ice is thin, good-sized pollywogs wiggling away, scared by the sound of my steps and cracking of the ice. 

They appear to keep in motion in such muddy pond-holes, where a spring wells up from the bottom till midwinter, if not all winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 21, 1857

Walking over the Andromeda Ponds between Walden and Fair Haven.  See December 21, 1856 ("I go across to the cliffs by way of the Andromeda Ponds."); December 21, 1855 ("to Fair Haven Pond. Return by Andromeda Ponds.")

Which have only frozen just enough to bear me. See December 21, 1855 ("I here take to the riverside. The broader places are frozen over, but I do not trust them yet. Fair Haven is entirely frozen over, probably some days.")

I see, where the ice is thin, good-sized pollywogs wiggling away. See March 13, 1855 ("I am surprised to see, not only many pollywogs through the thin ice of the warm ditches, but, in still warmer, stagnant, unfrozen holes in this meadow, half a dozen small frogs, probably Rana palustris.")

The poet has made the best roots in his native soil of any man, and is the hardest to transplant.

November 20. 

November 20, 1857

High wind in the night, shaking the house, apparently from the northwest.

About 9.30 A. M., though there is very little cloud, I see a few flakes of snow, two or three only, like flocks of gossamer, straggling in a slanting direction to the ground, unnoticed by most, in a rather raw air. 

At ten there is a little more. The children in the next yard have seen it and are excited. They are searching to see if any rests on the ground. 

In books, that which is most generally interesting is what comes home to the most cherished private experience of the greatest number. It is not the book of him who has travelled the farthest over the surface of the globe, but of him who has lived the deepest and been the most at home. If an equal emotion is excited by a familiar homely phenomenon as by the Pyramids, there is no advantage in seeing the Pyramids. It is on the whole better, as it is simpler, to use the common language. We require that the reporter be very permanently planted before the facts which he observes, not a mere passer-by; hence the facts cannot be too homely. 

A man is worth most to himself and to others, whether as an observer, or poet, or neighbor, or friend, where he is most himself, most contented and at home.

There his life is the most intense and he loses the fewest moments. Familiar and surrounding objects are the best symbols and illustrations of his life. If a man who has had deep experiences should endeavor to describe them in a book of travels, it would be to use the language of a wandering tribe instead of a universal language. 

The poet has made the best roots in his native soil of any man, and is the hardest to transplant. 

The man who is often thinking that it is better to be somewhere else than where he is excommunicates himself. If a man is rich and strong anywhere, it must be on his native soil. Here I have been these forty years learning the language of these fields that I may the better express myself. If I should travel to the prairies, I should much less understand them, and my past life would serve me but ill to describe them. Many a weed here stands for more of life to me than the big trees of California would if I should go there. We only need travel enough to give our intellects an airing. 

In spite of Malthus and the rest, there will be plenty of room in this world, if every man will mind his own business. I have not heard of any planet running against another yet.

P. M. — To Ministerial Swamp. 

Some bank swallows’ nests are exposed by the caving of the bank at Clamshell. The very smallest hole is about two and a half inches wide horizontally, by barely one high. All are much wider than high (vertically). One nest, with an egg in it still, is completely exposed. The cavity at the end is shaped like a thick hoe-cake or lens, about six inches wide and two plus thick, vertically. The nest is a regular but shallow one made simply of stubble, about five inches in diameter, and three quarters of an inch deep. 

I see many pollywogs in cold pools now. 

I enter the Ministerial Swamp at the road below Tarbell’s. The water andromeda leaves are brown now, except where protected by trees. In some places where many of the bright-crimson shoots of high blueberry are seen together, they have a very pretty effect, a crimson vigor to stand above the snow. 

Where the larches stand thick with their dark boles and stems, the ground is thickly strewn with their fine and peculiarly dark brown leaves, chaff-like, i. e. darker than those of other pines, perhaps like black walnut or cherry shavings. As where other evergreens stand thick, little or nothing grows beneath. 

I see where squirrels (apparently) have eaten and stripped the spruce cones. 

I distinguished where the earth was cast out in cutting ditches through this swamp long ago, and this earth is covered and concealed with a thick growth of cup and cockscomb lichens. 

In this light-lying earth, in one place, I see where some creature some time ago has pawed out much comb of some kind of bee (probably for the honey?), making a hole as big as my head, and this torn comb lies about. 

Returning through Harrington's land, I see, me thinks, two gentlemen plowing a field, as if to try an agricultural experiment, — for, it being cold and windy, both plowman and driver have their coats on, — but when I get closer, I hear the driver speak in a peculiarly sharp and petulant manner to the plow man as they are turning the land furrow, and I know at once that they belong to those two races which are so slow to amalgamate. Thus my little idyl is disturbed. 

I see a partridge on the ground under a white oak by Tarbell's black birches, looking just like a snag.This is the second time I have seen them in such a place. Are they not after acorns? 

In the large Tommy Wheeler field, Ranunculus bulbosus in full bloom! 

I hear again the soft rippling of the Assabet under those black birches, which Tappan once remarked on. It is not so steep a fall as to be hoarse. 

The hardy tree sparrow has taken the place of the chipping and song sparrow, so much like the former that most do not know it is another. His faint lisping chip will keep our spirits up till another spring. 

I observed this afternoon how some bullocks had a little sportiveness forced upon them. They were running down a steep declivity to water, when, feeling themselves unusually impelled by gravity downward, they took the hint even as boys do, flourished round gratuitously, tossing their hind quarters into the air and shaking their heads at each other, but what increases the ludicrousness of it to me is the fact that such capers are never accompanied by a smile. Who does not believe that their step is less elastic, their movement more awkward, for their long domesticity?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 20, 1857

High wind in the night, shaking the house. . . See October 17, 1857 ("Very high wind in the night, shaking the house. I feel it taking hold under the eaves, which project at the end of the house, each time with a jerk.") October 24, 1853 ("Just after dark, high southerly winds arise. . . blowing the rain against the windows and roof and shaking the house."); November 25, 1860 (“The house was shaken by wind last night, and there was a general deficiency of bedclothes.”); February 10, 1860 ("A very strong and a cold northwest wind to-day, shaking the house,. . . — consumes wood and yet we are cold, and drives the smoke down the chimney"); February 29, 1852 (“High winds last night and this morning. The house shakes, and the beds and tables rock.”); March 18, 1854 (“Never felt it shake the house so much”);  April 2, 1855 ("High winds all night, rocking the house, opening doors."); June 2, 1855 (“The wind shakes the house night and day.”)

About 9.30 A. M., I see a few flakes of snow. At ten there is a little more. The children in the next yard are searching to see if any rests on the ground. See November 8, 1853 (“Our first snow,. . . The children greet it with a shout when they come out at recess.”)

We only need travel enough to give our intellects an airing. See September 7, 1851 ("The discoveries which we make abroad are special and particular; those which we make at home are general and significant. The further off, the nearer the surface. The nearer home, the deeper."); May 6, 1854 ("It matters not where or how far you travel, — the farther commonly the worse, — but how much alive you are.");  March 11, 1856 ("Only that travelling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better");September 21, 1856 ("I have within a week found in Concord two of the new plants I found up-country. Such is the advantage of going abroad, — to enable to detect your own plants. I detected them first abroad, because there I was looking for the strange.")

I see a partridge on the ground under a white oak by Tarbell's black birches, looking just like a snag.See January 31, 1855 ("As I skate near the shore under Lee’s Cliff, I see what I take to be some scrags or knotty stubs of a dead limb lying on the bank beneath a white oak, close by me. Yet while I look directly at them I can not but admire their close resemblance to partridges. . . .")

I hear again the soft rippling of the Assabet under those black birches . . . It is not so steep a fall as to be hoarse. April 11, 1856 ("The current of the Assabet is so much swifter, and its channel so much steeper than that of the main stream, that, while a stranger frequently cannot tell which way the latter flows by his eye, you can perceive the declination of the channel of the former within a very short distance, even between one side of a tree and another. You perceive the waters heaped on the upper side of rocks and trees, and even twigs that trail in the stream.")

Bullocks had a little sportiveness forced upon them. . flourished round gratuitously, tossing their hind quarters into the air and shaking their heads at each other. See November 21, 1850 ("I saw a herd of a dozen cows and young steers and oxen on Conantum this afternoon, running about and frisking in unwieldy sport . . . shook their heads, raised their tails, and rushed up and down the hill.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 20

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 ©  2009-2022