I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden.

September 23

Notwithstanding the fog, the fences this morning are covered with so thick a frost that you can write your name anywhere with your nail.

The partridge and the rabbit, — they still are sure to thrive like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur. If the forest is cut off, many bushes spring up which afford them concealment, and they become more numerous than ever.

The sumach are among the reddest leaves at present.

The telegraph harp sounds strongly to-day, in the midst of the rain. I put my ear to the trees and I hear it working terribly within, and anon it swells into a clear tone, which seems to concentrate in the core of the tree, for all the sound seems to proceed from the wood. It is if you had entered some world - famous cathedral, resounding to some vast organ.

The fibres of all things have their tension, and are strained like the strings of a lyre. I feel the very ground tremble under my feet as I stand near the post. This wire vibrates with great power, as if it would strain and rend the wood.

What an awful and fateful music it must be to the worms in the wood! No better vermifuge were needed. No danger that worms will attack this wood; such vibrating music would thrill them to death.

I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1851

The partridge and the rabbit, — they still are sure to thrive like true natives of the soil, whatever revolutions occur. See  February 14, 1856 ("In all the little valleys in the woods and sprout-lands, and on the southeast sides of hills, the oak leaves which have blown over the crust are gathered in dry and warm-looking beds. . . No doubt they are of service to conceal and warm the rabbit and partridge and other beasts and birds."); March 17, 1860 ("The rabbit and partridge can eat wood; therefore they abound and can stay here all the year."); November 18, 1851 (".Here hawks also circle by day, and chickadees are heard, and rabbits and partridges abound. . . .You must be conversant with things for a long time to know much about them,. . . as the partridge and the rabbit are acquainted with the thickets and at length have acquired the color of the places they frequent."); Walden (" All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath”); December 1, 1856 ("Well named shrub oak. Low, robust, hardy, indigenous. Well known to the striped squirrel and the partridge and rabbit"); December 11, 1854 ("A gray rabbit scuds away over the crust in the swamp on the edge of the Great Meadows beyond Peter’s. A partridge goes off, and, coming up, I see where she struck the snow first with her wing,"); 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, simulating bare ground and helping to conceal the rabbit and partridge, etc"); December 31, 1855 ("I see many partridge-tracks in the light snow, where they have sunk deep amid the shrub oaks; also gray rabbit and deer mice tracks");

.

I scare up large flocks of sparrows in the garden. See August 25, 1859 ("I see, after the rain, when the leaves are rustling and glistening in the cooler breeze and clear air, quite a flock of (apparently) Fringilla socialis in the garden"); September 1, 1854 (" A still, cloudy, misty day, through which has fallen a very little rain this forenoon already. Now I notice a few faint-chipping sparrows, busily picking the seeds of weeds in the garden."); September 17, 1858 ("Methinks, too, that there are more sparrows in flocks now about in garden, etc");September 25, 1859 (" The very crab-grass in our garden is for the most part a light straw-color and withered. . . and hundreds of sparrows (chip-birds ?) find their food amid it. "); October 2, 1858 ("The garden is alive with migrating sparrows these mornings")

The scarlet of the dogwood is the most conspicuous and interesting of the autumnal colors at present.

September 25

September 25, 2020

Polygonum dumetorum, climbing false-buck wheat, still; also dodder.

The fall dandelions are a prevailing flower on low turfy grounds, especially near the river.

Ranunculus reptans still.

The small galium (trifidum).

A rose again, apparently lucida (?). This is always unexpected.

The scarlet of the dogwood is the most conspicuous and interesting of the autumnal colors at present. You can now easily detect them at a distance; every one in the swamps you overlook is revealed.

The smooth sumach and the mountain is a darker, deeper, bloodier red.

Found the Bidens Beckii (?) September 1st, and the fringed gentian November 7th, last year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1852

The scarlet of the dogwood is the most conspicuous and interesting of the autumnal colors at present. See September 23, 1853 ("I observe the rounded tops of the dogwood bushes, scarlet in the distance, on the edge of the meadow . . . more full and bright than any flower."); see also August 30, 1854 (“Dogwood leaves have fairly begun to turn”); August 31, 1853 ("I see the first dogwood turned scarlet in the swamp"): October 28, 1858 ("The dogwood on the island is perhaps in its prime, — a distinct scarlet, with half of the leaves green in this case."); November 11, 1858 ("The flowering dogwood, though still leafy, is uninteresting and partly withered.")

A rose again, apparently lucida (?). This is always unexpected. See June 12, 1854 ("Rosa lucida, probably yesterday, the 11th . . . A bud in pitcher the 13th.”); June 18, 1854 (“The Rosa lucida is pale and low on dry sunny banks like that by Hosmer's pines.”);  July 26, 1853 ("Saw one of the common wild roses (R. lucida?)."); September 8, 1853 ("Roses, apparently R. lucida, abundantly out on a warm bank on Great Fields by Moore's Swamp.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose

A cool, white, autumnal evening.

August 28. 

Sunday. P. M. – To Cliffs.

See many sparrows in flocks with a white feather in tail! 

The smooth sumach leaves are fast reddening. 

The berries of the dwarf sumach are not a brilliant crimson, but as yet, at least, a dull sort of dusty or mealy crimson. As they are later, so their leaves are more fresh and green than those of the smooth species. 

The acorns show now on the shrub oaks. 

A cool, white, autumnal evening.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 28, 1853

See many sparrows in flocks with a white feather in tail! See August 19, 1852 ("The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them."); September 3, 1857 ("A slate-colored snowbird back"); October 10, 1853 ("There are many small birds in flocks . . . and especially large flocks of small sparrows, which make a business of washing and pruning them selves in the puddles in the road, as if cleaning up after a long flight ");  October 12, 1859 ("I see scattered flocks of bay-wings amid the weeds and on the fences."); October 13, 1855 ("Larks in flocks in the meadows, showing the white in their tails as they fly, sing sweetly as in spring.")

The smooth sumach leaves are fast reddening. See August 27, 1852 ("Lower leaves of the smooth sumach are red."); August 31, 1858 ("The smooth sumach’s lower leaves are bright-scarlet on dry hills.")

The berries of the dwarf sumach are not a brilliant crimson. See August 25, 1851 ("Rhus copallina, mountain or dwarf sumach"); September 14, 1859 ("The mountain sumach . . . berries are a hoary crimson and not bright like those of the smooth."); October 2, 1856 ("The mountain sumach now a dark scarlet quite generally.")

The acorns show now on the shrub oaks. See September 13, 1859 ("I see some shrub oak acorns turned dark on the bushes and showing their meridian lines, but generally acorns of all kinds are green yet.") and note to October 21, 1859 ("A great many shrub oak acorns hold on, and are a darker brown than ever. ")

A cool, white, autumnal evening. See August 19, 1853 ("We have a cool, white, autumnal twilight, and as we pass the Hubbard Bridge, see the first stars."); September 11, 1854 ("This is a cold evening with a white twilight, and threatens frost, the first - in these respects- decidedly autumnal evening. It makes us think of wood for the winter."); September 29, 1854 ("This evening is quite cool and breezy, with a prolonged white twilight, quite Septemberish.")

So many men in the fields haying now. Yellow butterflies in the road.

July 22.

P. M. – To Annursnack.

The Chenopodium hybridum (?); at least its leaves are dark-green, rhomboidal, and heart-shaped.

The orchis and spikenard at Azalea Brook are not yet open.

The early roses are now about done, — the sweet briar quite, I think.

I see sometimes houstonias still.

The elodea out.

Boehmeria not yet.

On one account, at least, I enjoy walking in the fields less at this season than at any other; there are so many men in the fields haying now.

Observed, on the wild basil on Annursnack, small reddish butterflies which looked like a part of the plant. It has a singularly soft, velvety leaf.

Smooth sumach berries crimson there.

There is a kind of low blackberry which does not bear large fruit but very dense clusters, by wall-sides, shaded by the vine or other plants often, of clammy and strong-tasted berries.

Yellow butterflies in the road.

I find the Campanula Americana of the West naturalized in our garden.

Also a silene (?) without visibly viscid stem and with swollen joints; apparently the snapdragon catchfly otherwise. Leaves opposite, sessile, lanceolate.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 22, 1853

There are so many men in the fields haying now. Compare July 22, 1854 ("The hottest night, — the last. It was almost impossible to pursue any work out-of- doors yesterday. There were but few men to be seen out.") 

On the wild basil . . . small reddish butterflies which looked like a part of the plant. See July 22, 1852 ("Tansy is now conspicuous by the roadsides, covered with small red butterflies"): See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly

The orchis and spikenard at Azalea Brook are not yet open. See July 12, 1853 ("Spikenard, not quite yet.The green-flowered lanceolate-leafed orchis at Azalea Brook will soon flower.") The locally rare Spikenard (Aralia racemosa) that Thoreau saw near Azalea brook still persisted in 2007.~ Place Names of Henry David Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts(and in Lincoln, Massachusetts) & Other Botanical Sites in Concord compiled by Ray Angelo./ See also May 31, 1853 ("I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora")

Yellow butterflies in the road. See July 14, 1852 ("See to-day for the first time this season fleets of yellow butterflies in compact assembly in the road”); July 16, 1851 ("I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed");   July 19, 1856 ("Fleets of yellow butterflies on road."); July 26, 1854 ("Today I see in various parts of the town the yellow butterflies in fleets in the road, on bare damp sand, twenty or more collected within a diameter of five or six inches in many places."); September 3, 1854 ("Even at this season I see some fleets of yellow butterflies in the damp road after the rain, as earlier."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Butterflies

July 22. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 22

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

Two great devil’s-needles, as big as hummingbirds,

July 17.

The common amaranth.

Young toads not half an inch long at Walden shore.

The smooth sumach resounds with the hum of bees, wasps, etc., at Water target Pond.

I see two great devil’s-needles, three inches long, with red abdomens and bodies as big as hummingbirds, sailing round this pond, round and round, and ever and anon darting aside suddenly, probably to seize some prey.

Here and there the water targets look red, perhaps their under sides.

A duck at Goose Pond.

Rank weeds begin to block up low wood-paths, — goldenrods, asters, etc.

The pearly everlasting.

Lobelia inflata.

The Solidago nemoralis (?) in a day or two, - gray goldenrod.

I think we have no Hieracium Gronovii, though one not veined always and sometimes with two or more leaves on stem.

No grass balls to be seen.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  July 17, 1853

Young toads not half an inch long. See July 17, 1856 ("I see many young toads hopping about . . .not more than five eighths to three quarters of an inch long"); July 25, 1855 ("Many little toads about.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: Midsummer Toads ; Northland Nature: Tiny toad time in late July; What are these Tiny Toads? ("The tadpoles of many species of the genus Bufo (what most people consider to be the “true toads”) metamorphose at a very small size, often all at once, and then disperse. If you live near a pond or lake or stream where the tadpoles are common, you might all of a sudden see dozens or even hundreds of these tiny toadlets for a few days, and after that, see them only occasionally.); Mary Holland, Toadlets Dispersing (July 17, 2013)

The smooth sumach resounds with the hum of bees, wasps, etc, See July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

I see two great devil’s-needles, three inches long, with red abdomens and bodies as big as hummingbirds, sailing round this pond. See ; July 17, 1854 ("Meanwhile large yellowish devil's-needles, coupled, are flying about and repeatedly dipping their tails in the water. . . . great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore . . . about a foot above the water, some against a head wind; a. . . If devil's-needles cross Fair Haven, then man may cross the Atlantic. "); see also July 10, 1855 ("Great devil’s-needles above the bank, apparently catching flies ") July 27, 1856 ("A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle, between my hands. It is about three inches long and three and a half in spread of wings, without spots, black and yellow, with green eyes") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Devil's-needle

The pearly everlasting. See July 17, 1852 ("The Antennaria margaritacea, pearly everlasting, is out"); August 23, 1856 ("I see a bed of Antennaria margaritacea, now in its prime, by the railroad, and very handsome."); August 23, 1858 (“I see dense patches of the pearly everlasting, maintaining their ground in the midst of dense green sweet-fern, a striking contrast of snow-white and green.”)

Lobelia inflata. See  July 17, 1852 ("Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco""); July 19, 1856 ("Lobelia inflata, perhaps several days; little white glands (?) on the edges of the leaves. ") August 20, 1851 ("The Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco, meets me at every turn. At first I suspect some new bluish flower in the grass, but stooping see the inflated pods. Tasting one such herb convinces me that there are such things as drugs which may either kill or cure")

The Solidago nemoralis  in a day or two.See August 5, 1856 ("S. nemoralis, two or three days."); August 18, 1854 ("The solidago nemoralis is now abundantly out on the Great Fields.”); August 21, 1856 ("nemoralis, just beginning generally to bloom.")

I think we have no Hieracium Gronoviis See August 21, 1851 ("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.”);July 29, 1856 (“What I have called Hieracium Gronovii. . . has achenia like H . venosum; so I will give it up.”)---Hieracium gronovii  has not been recorded from Middlesex County, Massachusetts~ Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts

No grass balls to be seen See June 19, 1853 ("No grass balls yet.")

What a change there will be in a few years, this little forest of goldenrod giving place to a forest of pines!

December 17.

P. M. — To Walden.

The snow being some three or four inches deep, I see rising above it, generally, at my old bean-field, only my little white pines set last spring in the midst of an immense field of Solidago nemoralis, with a little sweet-fern (i.e. a large patch of it on the north side).

What a change there will be in a few years, this little forest of goldenrod giving place to a forest of pines!

By the side of the Pout's Nest, I see on the pure white snow what looks like dust for half a dozen inches under a twig. Looking closely, I find that the twig is hardhack and the dust its slender, light-brown, chaffy looking seed, which falls still in copious showers, dusting the snow, when I jar it; and here are the tracks of a sparrow which has jarred the twig and picked the minute seeds a long time, making quite a hole in the snow. The seeds are so fine that it must have got more snow than seed at each peck. But they probably look large to its microscopic eyes.

I see, when I jar it, that a meadow-sweet close by has quite similar, but larger, seeds.

This the reason, then, that these plants rise so high above the snow and retain their seed, dispersing it on the least jar over each successive layer of snow beneath them; or it is carried to a distance by the wind.

What abundance and what variety in the diet of these small granivorous birds, while I find only a few nuts still!

These stiff weeds which no snow can break down hold their provender. What the cereals are to men, these are to the sparrows. The only threshing they require is that the birds fly against their spikes or stalks.

A little further I see the seed-box (?) (Ludwigia) full of still smaller, yellowish seeds.

And on the ridge north is the track of a partridge amid the shrubs. It has hopped up to the low clusters of smooth sumach berries, sprinkled the snow with them, and eaten all but a few. Also, here only, or where it has evidently jarred them down — whether intentionally or not, I am not sure — are the large oval seeds of the stiff-stalked lespedeza, which I suspect it ate, with the sumach berries. There is much solid food in them. When the snow is deep the birds could easily pick the latter out of the heads as they stand on the snow.

I observe, then, eaten by birds to-day, the seed of hardhack and meadow-sweet, sumach, and probably lespedeza, and even seed-box.

Under the hill, on the southeast side of R. W. E.'s lot, where the hemlock stands, I see many tracks of squirrels. The dark, thick green of the hemlock (amid the pines) seems to attract them as a covert. The snow under the hemlock is strewn with the scales of its cones, which they (and perhaps birds?) have stripped off, and some of its little winged seeds. It is pleasant to see the tracks of these squirrels (I am not sure whether they are red or gray or both, for I see none) leading straight from the base of one tree to that of another, thus leaving untrodden triangles, squares, and polygons of every form, bounded by much trodden highways.

One, two, three, and the track is lost on the upright bole of a pine, — as if they had played at base-running from goal to goal, while pine cones were thrown at them on the way. The tracks of two or three suggest a multitude. You come thus on the tracks of these frisky and volatile (semivolitant) creatures in the midst of perfect stillness and solitude, as you might stand in a hall half an hour after the dancers had departed.

I see no nests in the trees, but numerous holes through the snow into the earth, whence they have emerged. They have loitered but little on the snow, spending their time chiefly on the trees, their castles, when abroad.

The snow is strewn not only with hemlock scales, but, under other trees, with the large white pine scales for rods together where there is no track, the wind having scattered them as they fell, and also the shells of hickory-nuts. It reminds me of the platform before a grocery where nuts are sold.

You see many places where they have probed the snow for these white pine cones, evidently those which they cut off green and which accordingly have not opened so as to drop the seeds. This was perhaps the design in cut ting them off so early, — thus to preserve them under the snow (not dispersed). Do they find them by the scent?

At any rate they will dig down through the snow and come right upon a pine cone or a hickory-nut or an acorn, which you and I cannot do.

Two or three acres of Walden, off the bar, not yet frozen.

Saw in [it] a good-sized black duck, which did not dive while I looked. I suspect it must have been a Fuligula, though I saw no white.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 17, 1859

What abundance and what variety in the diet of these small granivorous birds. These stiff weeds which no snow can break down hold their provender.  See January 16, 1860 ("Though you may have never noticed this shrub, the tree sparrow comes from the north in the winter straight to it, and confidently shakes its panicle, and then feasts on the fine shower of seed that falls from it. The bird understands how to get its dinner perfectly.")

Two or three acres of Walden, off the bar, not yet frozen. Saw in it a good-sized black duck. See December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. . . . A black and white duck on it, Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up.")

Like the fruits, when cooler weather and frosts arrive, we too are braced and ripened..

September 14. 

High, gusty winds, with dust and a little rain (more or less for two or three days). These powerful gusts fill all the air with dust, concealing the earth and sky. 

P. M. — To Cliffs via Hubbard's Bath. 

The Spiranthes cernua has a sweet scent like the clethra's. 

The mountain sumach appears to bear quite sparingly. Its berries are a hoary crimson and not bright like those of the smooth. Also they are in looser masses. They are, perhaps, a little later, but I think ripe now. 

I see in the swamp under the Cliffs the dark, decaying leaves of the skunk-cabbage, four or five spreading every way and so flat and decayed as to look like a fungus or mildew, making it doubtful at first what plant it is; but there is the sharp green bud already revealed in the centre between the leaf-stalks, ready to expand in the spring. 

This wind has strewn the Fair Haven Hill-side with apples. I think that fully three quarters of all are on the ground. Many trees are almost entirely stripped, the whole crop lying in a circular form beneath, yet hard and green. Others on the hillside have rolled far down. The farmers will be busy for some time gathering these windfalls. 

The winds have come to shake the apple trees prematurely, making fruit (for pies) cheap, I trust, against Thanksgiving or Cattle-Show. Not only apples and other fruit, but a great many green as well as withered leaves, strew the ground under almost all kinds of trees. 

I notice of late the green or ripe pods of the Orchidaceoe, — some for a long time, — including gymnodenia, lady's-slipper, etc.; pods full of a fine, dust-like seed. The dusty-seeded Orchidaceoe. 

The yellow lily (Nuphar advena) fruit, now green and purplish, is ripening under water, full of yellow seeds 

The white lily, when stripped of the blackened and decaying petals, etc., is of this form:  

Even the tough-twigged mocker-nut, yet green, is blown off in some places. I bring home a twig with three of its great nuts together, as big as small apples, and children follow and eye them, not knowing what kind of fruit it is. 

Like the fruits, when cooler weather and frosts arrive, we too are braced and ripened. When we shift from the shady to the sunny side of the house, and sit there in an extra coat for warmth, our green and leafy and pulpy thoughts acquire color and flavor, and perchance a sweet nuttiness at last, worth your cracking. 

Now all things suggest fruit and the harvest, and flowers look late, and for some time the sound of the flail has been heard in the barns. 

They are catching pigeons nowadays. Coombs has a stand west of Nut Meadow, and he says that he has    just shot fourteen hawks there, which were after the pigeons. 

I have one which he has shot within a day or two and calls a pigeon hawk.

Audubon's "Pigeon Hawk" [Merlin]
"Adult male with the cere greenish-yellow, the feet pale orange, the upper parts light bluish-grey, each feather with a black central line; lower parts reddish or yellowish-white, the breast and sides with large oblong brown spots; tibial feathers light red, streaked with blackish-brown. Female with the cere and legs greenish-yellow, the upper parts dark greyish-brown, the lower pale red, spotted as in the male."

•  It is about twenty inches in alar extent. 
• Above dark-slate or brownish with the edges, i. e. tips, of the feathers (especially of wing-coverts) rufous. 
• The primaries and secondaries dark or blackish brown, barred with black, and only  some white concealed on the inner vanes near the base. 
• Wings beneath white or whitish, thickly barred with dark. 
• Scapulars with white spots. 
• Head much mutilated, but no "black spots" visible, but apparently the dark brown mixed or edged with rufous. 
• Cere, etc., said to have been green.
•  Beneath brownish-white, centred with brown, with a darker line through that. 
• Femorals still more rustyish brown, with central dashes. 
• Legs yellowish. 
• Tail slate, with four black bars half an inch or more wide; the edge slate, with a very narrow edging of white; beneath the slate is almost white. 

What kind of hawk is this? 

I can learn nothing from Wilson and Nuttall. The latter thinks that neither the pigeon nor sparrow hawk is found here !! 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 14, 1859


The mountain sumach appears to bear quite sparingly. Its berries are a hoary crimson. See August 28, 1853 ("The berries of the dwarf sumach are not a brilliant crimson, but as yet, at least, a dull sort of dusty or mealy crimson"); October 2, 1856 ("The mountain sumach now a dark scarlet quite generally.")

Spiranthes  cernus
[nodding ladies' tressses orchid]

The Spiranthes cernua has a sweet scent like the clethra's. See September 2, 1856 ("Spiranthes cernua, apparently some days at least, though not yet generally; a cool, late flower, growing with fringed gentian"); September 15, 1856 ("Spiranthes cernua in prime.")

The farmers will be busy for some time gathering these windfalls. See September 3, 1859 ("A strong wind, which blows down much fruit."); September 13, 1852 ("Yesterday, it rained all day, with considerable wind, which has strewn the ground with apples and peaches, and, all the country over, people are busy picking up the windfalls"); September 17, 1858 ("The orchards are strewn with windfalls, mostly quite green.")

Like the fruits, when cooler weather and frosts arrive, we too are braced and ripened. . . . our green and leafy and pulpy thoughts acquire color and flavor, and perchance a sweet nuttiness at last.

The ripening year,

all my thoughts break out spotted

yellow, green and brown.

September 8, 1854 

See August 17, 1851 (" For a day or two it has been quite cool, a coolness that was felt even when sitting by an open window in a thin coat on the west side of the house in the morning, and you naturally sought the sun at that hour. The coolness concentrated your thought. . . I feel as if this coolness would do me good. If it only makes my life more pensive! . . . My life flows with a deeper current.");; August 7, 1854 ("Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen, to harden its seed within you? Do not your thoughts begin to acquire consistency as well as flavor and ripeness? . . .Already some of my small thoughts — fruit of my spring life — are ripe, like the berries which feed the first broods of birds."); January 30, 1854 ("It is for man the seasons and all their fruits exist. The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of his brain, to give tone and firmness and consistency to his thought. Then is the great harvest of the year, the harvest of thought.");  June 6, 1857 (“A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. Now I am ice, now I am sorrel. Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. ”) Compare July 30 1852 ("After midsummer we have a belated feeling . . ., just as in middle age man anticipates the end of life"); August 18, 1853 (“What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now? — now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit?)

Now all things suggest fruit and the harvest, and flowers look late, and for some time the sound of the flail has been heard in the barns. See  September 13,1858 ("From many a barn these days I hear the sound of the flail.") See also July 31, 1856 ("I hear the distant sound of a flail, and thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years."); August 18, 1856 ("It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy, like the sound of the flail");   October 31, 1860 ("I hear the sound of the flailing . . . and gradually draw near to it from the woods, thinking many things.");

A warbling vireo in the elm-tops

September 6. 

September 6, 2019

Hear the sounds nowadays — the lowing, tramp, and calls of the drivers — of cows coming down from up-country. 

Staghorn sumach berries probably some time, but ours are injured by worms. 

The fever-bush leaves are remarkably round and entire yet, as if by their odor defended from insects. 

The feverwort berries are apparently nearly in their prime, of a clear "corn yellow " and as large as a small cranberry, in whorls at the axils of the leaves of the half- prostrate plants. 

I hear occasionally a half-warbled strain from a warbling vireo in the elm-tops, as I go down the street nowadays. There is about as much life in their notes now as in the enfeebled and yellowing elm tree leaves at present. 

The liatris is, perhaps, a little past prime. It is a very rich purple in favorable lights and makes a great show where it grows. Any one to whom it is new will be surprised to learn that it is a wild plant. For prevalence and effect it may be put with the vernonia, and it has a general resemblance to thistles and knapweed, but is a handsomer plant than any of them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 6, 1859

Cows coming down from up-country. See August 24, 1853 ("I see cattle coming down from up-country. Why? "); September 20, 1852 ("Droves of cattle have for some time been coming down from up-country"); October 28, 1858 ("Cattle coming down from up country.") See also  April 30, 1860 ("Cattle begin to go up-country."); May 4, 1853 ("Cattle are going up country."); May 6, 1855 ("Road full of cattle going up country.”); May 7, 1856 ("For a week the road has been full of cattle going up country. "); May 8, 1854 ("I hear the voices of farmers driving their cows past to their up-country pastures now."); May 10, 1852 ("This Monday the streets are full of cattle being driven up-country, — cows and calves and colts.").

The feverwort berries are apparently nearly in their prime. See August 23, 1853 ("The feverwort berries are yellowing and yellowed.")

A half-warbled strain from a warbling vireo in the elm-tops. See  September 6, 1858 ("Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect. "); see also May 4, 1855 ("I think I hear a warbling vireo"); May 6, 1852 ("Hear the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer. "): May 10, 1858 ("The warbling vireo cheers the elms with a strain for which they must have pined. "); May 29, 1855 ("the warbling vireo, with its smooth-flowing, continuous, one-barred, shorter strain, with methinks a dusky side-head ). August 9, 1856 (“The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over.”);August 25, 1858 ("The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare"); September 4, 1853 ("Hear a warbling vireo, — something rare"); September 13, 1858 ("Hear many warbling vireos these mornings"); September 16, 1852 ("The jay screams; the goldfinch twitters; the barberries are red. The corn is topped. I hear a warbling vireo in the village, which I have not heard for long."); September 20, 1858 ("Hear warbling vireos still, in the elms");

The liatris is, perhaps, a little past prime. See August 1, 1856 ("Liatris will apparently open in a day or two.");August 26, 1858 ("The liatris is about (or nearly) in prime."); September 28, 1858 ("Liatris done, apparently some time."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Liatris

Eighty-four berries, size of peas, three to six sided, closely wedged together on peduncles three quarters of an inch long.

August 2. 

Hobblebush August 2, 2019

Heavy, long-continued, but warm rain in the night, raising the river already eight or nine inches and disturbing the meadow haymakers. 

John Legross brought me a quantity of red huckleberries yesterday. The less ripe are whitish. I suspect that these are the white huckleberries. 

Sundown. — To Nawshawtuct. 

The waxwork berries are yellowing. 

I am not sure but the bunches of the smooth sumach berries are handsomest when but partly turned, the crimson contrasting with the green, the green berries showing a velvety crimson cheek. 

Geum Virginianum, white avens (June to August, Gray), still in bloom by the sassafras hedge, south side of hill, looks as if it might be a white cinquefoil, with small hook-prickled burs. Put it in June.

Mulgedium out. 

The green fruit of the carrion-flower forms dense, firm, spherical umbels (?) at the end of stems five or six inches long; umbels two inches in diameter, formed, one of them, of eighty-four berries, size of peas, three to six sided, closely wedged together on peduncles three quarters of an inch long. The whole feels hard and solid in the hand.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 2, 1853

The waxwork berries are yellowing. See August 9, 1854 ("Waxwork yellowing.")

The smooth sumach berries are handsomest when but partly turned. See July 24, 1852 (“The smooth sumach berries are red.”): July 31,1856 (“The smooth sumach is pretty generally crimson-berried on the Knoll”);  August 1, 1852 ("Sumach berries now generally red."); August 23, 1858("Smooth sumach berries all turned crimson.")

Geum Virginianum, white avens still in bloom with small hook-prickled burs. See  June 28, 1857 (“Geum Virginianum some time, apparently, past its prime ”); July 16, 1856 (“Geum Virginianum, apparently two or three days.”)

Mulgeium out. See July 24, 1859 ("Mulgedium, how long?"); August 7, 1856 ("Mulgedium, perhaps a fortnight. . . .One mulgedium at Corner Spring is at least ten feet high and hollow all the way. "); August 11, 1856 ("Measured a mulgedium, eight feet three inches long and hollow all the way."); August 12, 1856 ("The mulgedium in that swamp is very abundant and a very stately plant, so erect and soldier-like, in large companies, rising above all else, with its very regular long, sharp, elliptic head and bluish-white flowers.")

The green fruit of the carrion-flower forms dense, firm, spherical umbels. See May 27, 1855 ("Carrion-flower a foot high."); June 11, 1859 ("Carrion-flower up a day or two."); June 16, 1858 ("Carrion-flower, how long? Not long."); August 24, 1858 ("Carrion flower fruit is blue; how long?"); September 3, 1856 ("One carrion-flower berry is turning blue in its dense spherical cluster.") ; September 8, 1852 ("Carrion-flower berries ripe for some days").

Skating in the roads.

January 3.

Having had rain within a few days on the four or five inches of snow there was, making slosh of it without melting the hard frozen ground, the slosh and surface water have now frozen, making it pretty good skating in the roads generally.

I walked to Acton, 

but might have skated well half 

or two thirds the way.

Many of the clusters of the smooth sumach are now a very dark crimson.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 3, 1859

The slosh and surface water have now frozen. See January 3, 1858 ("The slosh on Walden had so much water in it that it has now frozen perfectly smooth and looks like a semitransparent marble"); December 21, 1859 ("The incipient slosh of yesterday is now frozen, and makes good sleighing and a foundation for more.")

Many of the clusters of the smooth sumach are now a very dark crimson. See November 8, 1858 ("I admire again about this time the still bright red or crimson fruit of the sumach, now when not only its own but most other leaves have fallen and there are few bright tints,"); October 5, 1857 ("The smooth sumach is very important for its mass of clear red or crimson. Some of it is now a very dark crimson")

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

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

The earth is our ship.

January 2

January 2, 2019

P. M. — To Cliffs and Walden. 

Going up the hill through Stow’s young oak wood land, I listen to the sharp, dry rustle of the withered oak leaves. This is the voice of the wood now. 

It would be comparatively still and more dreary here in other respects, if it were not for these leaves that hold on. It sounds like the roar of the sea, and is enlivening and inspiriting like that, suggesting how all the land is seacoast to the aerial ocean. It is the sound of the surf, the rut of an unseen ocean, billows of air breaking on the forest like water on itself or on sand and rocks. It rises and falls, wells and dies away, with agreeable alternation as the sea surf does. Perhaps the landsman can foretell a storm by it. 

It is remarkable how universal these grand murmurs are, these backgrounds of sound, —the surf, the wind in the forest, waterfalls, etc.,-—which yet to the ear and in their origin are essentially one voice, the earth-voice, the breathing or snoring of the creature. 

The earth is our ship, and this is the sound of the wind in her rigging as we sail. 

Just as the inhabitant of Cape Cod hears the surf ever breaking on its shores, so we countrymen hear this kindred surf on the leaves of the forest. Regarded as a voice, — though it is not articulate, — (but this is nearer a consonant sound), labials, dentals, palatals, sibilants, mutes, aspirate, etc., so this may be called folial or frondal, produced by air driven against the leaves, and comes nearest to our sibilants or as pirate. 

The color of young oaks of different species is still distinct, but more faded and blended, becoming a more uniform brown. 

Michaux said that white oaks would be distinguished by their retaining their leaves in the winter, but as far as my observation goes they cannot be so distinguished. All our large oaks may retain a few leaves at the base of the lower limbs and about the trunks, though only a few, and the white oak scarcely more than the others, while the same trees when young are all alike thickly clothed in the winter, but the leaves of the white oaks are the most withered and shrivelled of them all. 

Why do young oaks retain their leaves while old ones shed them? Why do they die on the stem, having some life at the base in the one case, while they wither through at the base in the other case? Is it because in the former case they have more sap and vigor? 

There being some snow on the ground, I can easily distinguish the forest on the mountains (the Peterboro Hills, etc.) and tell which are forested, those parts and those mountains being dark like a shadow. I cannot distinguish the forest thus far in the summer. 

The white pines, etc., as I look down on them from this hill, are now darker, as becomes the sterner season, like a frost-bitten apple, — a sombre green.

When I hear the hypercritical quarrelling about grammar and style, the position of the particles, etc., etc., stretching or contracting every speaker to certain rules of theirs, — Mr. Webster, perhaps, not having spoken according to Mr. Kirkham’s rule, — I see that they forget that the first requisite and rule is that expression shall be vital and natural, as much as the voice of a brute or an interjection: first of all, mother tongue; and last of all, artificial or father tongue. 

Essentially your truest poetic sentence is as free and lawless as a lamb’s bleat. 

The grammarian is often one who can neither cry nor laugh, yet thinks that he can express human emotions. So the posture-masters tell you how you shall walk, — turning your toes out, perhaps, excessively, — but so the beautiful walkers are not made. 

Mediaeval, or law, Latin seems to have invented the word “forest,” not being satisfied with silva, nemus, etc. Webster makes it from the same root with “L. foris, Fr. hors, and the Saxon faran, to go, to depart.” The allied words “all express distance from cities and civilization, and are from roots expressing departure or wandering,” —as if this newer term were needed to describe those strange, wild woods furthest from the centres of civilization. 

The earth, where quite bare, is now, and for five or six weeks, russet without any lively red, —not golden-russet. 

I notice on the top of the Cliffs that the extremities of the smooth sumach are generally dead and withered, while those of the staghorn, which art so downy, are alive. Is this a prevailing difference? Which extends furthest north? 

The outside bark-scales of some large pitch pines in the midst of the woods having dropped off gives a peculiar flatness to the ridges, as if it had been shaved or scraped. 

Minott says that a fox will lead a dog on to thin ice in order that he may get in. Tells of Jake Lakin losing a hound so, which went under the ice and was drowned below the Holt; was found afterward by Sted Buttrick, his collar taken off and given to Lakin. They used to cross the river there on the ice, going to market, formerly. 

Looking from the southwest side of Walden toward Heywood's Peak before sunset, the brown light on the oak leaves is almost dazzling.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 2, 1859

I listen to the sharp, dry rustle of the withered oak leaves. See November 1, 1857 (“When I enter the woods I notice the drier crispier rustle of withered leaves on the oak trees, – a sharper susurrus”)

First of all, mother tongue; and last of all, artificial or father tongue. See December 16, 1859 (“How much better to describe your object in fresh English words rather than in conventional Latinisms!”); February 3, 1860 ("Any fool can make a rule /  And every fool will mind it.")

Minott says that a fox will lead a dog on to thin ice in order that he may get in. Compare January 30, 1855 ("Minott . . .told how Jake Lakin lost a dog, a very valuable one, by a fox leading him on to the ice on the Great Meadows and drowning him.")

January 2. See A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau,  January 2

The sharp dry rustle

of withered oak leaves is the

voice of the wood now –

The earth is our ship

and this is the sound of the

rigging as we sail.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The earth is our ship.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

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

tinyurl.com/hdt590102

Each humblest plant has sooner or later its peculiar autumnal tint

October 22. 

P. M. — To Cliffs and Walden. 

A thickly overcast yet thick and hazy day. 

October 22, 2018

I see a Lombardy poplar or two yellowing at last; many leaves clear and handsome yellow. They thus, like the balm-of-Gilead and aspens, show their relation to the willows. Horse-chestnuts are yellow and apparently in prime. I see locusts are generally yellow but thinly leaved, and those at extremities. 

Going by Farrar’s field bought of John Reynolds, I examined those singular barren spots produced by putting on too much meadow mud of a certain quality. In some places the sod was entirely gone; there was no grass and only a small sandy desert with the yellowish Fimbristylis capillaris and sorrel on it. In most places this sand was quite thickly covered with sarothra, now withered and making a dark show at a distance, and sorrel, which had not risen from the surface. These are both sour-juiced plants. It was surprising how completely the grass had been killed.

I see the small narrow leaves of the Aster dumosus and also the yet finer ones of the Diplopappus linariifolius in wood-paths, turned a clear light-yellow. The sagittate leaves of the Viola ovata, too, now flat in the path, and the prettily divided leaves or fingers of the V. pedata, with purple petioles (also fallen flatter than usual ?), are both turned a clear handsome light-yellow. Also the V. cucullata is turned yellow. These are far more conspicuous now than ever before, contrasted with the green grass; so that you do not recognize them at first on account of their very conspicuousness or brightness of color. 

Many other small plants have changed now, whose color we do not notice in the midst of the general changing. Even the Lycopodium complanatum (evergreen) is turned a light yellow (a part of it) in its season, like the pines (or evergreen trees).  

I go up the hill from the spring. Oaks (except the scarlet), especially the small oaks, are generally withered or withering, yet most would not suspect it at a little distance, they have so much color yet. Yet, this year at least, they must have been withered more by heat than frost, for we have had very hot weather and little if any frost since the oaks generally changed. Many of the small scarlet ones are withered too, but the larger scarlet appear to be in their prime now. Some large white, black, and red are still pretty fresh.

It is very agreeable to observe now from an eminence the different tints of red and brown in an oak sprout land or young woodland, the brownish predominating. The chocolate is one. Some will tell you that they prefer these more sober colors which the landscape wears at present to the bright ones it exhibited a few days ago, as some prefer the sweet brown crust to the yellow inside. It is interesting to observe how gradually but steadily the woods advance through deeper and deeper shades of brown to their fall. You can tell the young white oak in the midst of the sprout-land by its light brown color, almost like that of the russet fields seen beyond, also the scarlet by its brighter red, but the pines are now the brightest of them all. 

Apple orchards throughout the village, or on lower and rich ground, are quite green, but on this drier Fair Haven Hill all the apple trees are yellow, with a sprinkling of green and occasionally a tinge of scarlet, i. e. are russet. 

I can see the red of young oaks as far as the horizon on some sides. 

I think that the yellows, as birches, etc., are the most distinct this very thick and cloudy day in which there is no sun, but when the sun shines the reds are lit up more and glow. 

The oaks stand browned and crisped (amid the pines), their bright colors for the most part burnt out, like a loaf that is baked, and suggest an equal wholesomeness. The whole tree is now not only ripe but, as it were, a fruit perfectly cooked by the sun. That same sun which called forth its leaves in the spring has now, aided by the frost, sealed up their fountains for the year and withered them. The order has gone forth for them to rest. As each tree casts its leaves it stands careless and free, like a horse freed from his harness, or like one who has done his year’s work and now stands unnoticed, but with concentrated strength and contentment, ready to brave the blasts of winter without a murmur. 

You get very near wood ducks with a boat nowadays. 

I see, from the Cliffs, that color has run through the shrub oak plain like a fire or a wave, not omitting a single tree, though I had not expected it, — large oaks do not turn so completely,—and now is for the most part burnt out for want of fuel, i. e. excepting the scarlet ones. The brown and chocolate colors prevail there. 

That birch swamp under the Cliff is very interesting. The birches are now but thinly clad and that at top, its flame shaped top more like flames than ever now. At this distance their bare slender stems are very distinct, dense, and parallel, apparently on a somewhat smoky ground (caused by the bare twigs), and this pretty thicket of dense parallel stems is crowned or surmounted by little cones or crescents of golden spangles. 

Hear a cuckoo and grackles. 

The birches have been steadily changing and falling for a long, long time. The lowermost leaves turn golden and fall first; so their autumn change is like a fire which has steadily burned up higher and higher, consuming the fuel below, till now it has nearly reached their tops. These are quite distinct from the reddish misty maze below, fit if they are young trees, or the fine and close parallel white stems if they are larger. Nevertheless the topmost leaves at the extremities of the leaves [sic] are still green.

I am surprised to find on the top of the Cliff, near the dead white pine, some small staghorn sumachs. (Mother says she found them on the hill behind Charles Davis’s!) These are now at the height of their change,‘ as is ours in the yard, turned an orange scarlet, not so dark as the smooth, which is now apparently fallen. But ours, being in a shady and cool place, is probably later than the average, for I see that one at Flood’s cottage has fallen. I guess that they may have been at height generally some ten days ago.

Near by, the Aralia hispida, turned a very clear dark red.

I see Heavy Haynes fishing in his old gray boat, sinking the stern deep. It is remarkable that, of the four fishermen who most frequent this river, — Melvin, Goodwin, and the two Hayneses, — the last three have all been fishermen of the sea, have visited the Grand Banks, and are well acquainted with Cape Cod. These fishermen who sit thus alone from morning till night must be greater philosophers than the shoemakers. 

You can still pluck a variegated and handsome nosegay on the top of the Cliff. I see a mullein freshly out, very handsome Aster undulatus, and an abundance of the little blue snapdragon, and some Polygonum Persicaria, etc., etc. 

The black shrub oak on the hillside below the bear berry fast falling and some quite bare. Some chinquapin there not fallen. Notice a chestnut quite bare. The leaves of the hickory are a very rich yellow, though they may be quite withered and fallen, but they become brown. Looking to Conantum, the huckleberries are apparently fallen.  

The fields are now perhaps truly and most generally russet, especially where the blackberry and other small reddish plants are seen through the fine bleached grass and stubble, —-like a golden russet apple. This occurs to me, going along the side of the Well Meadow Field.

Apparently the scarlet oak, large and small (not shrubby), is in prime now, after other oaks are generally withered or withering. The clumps of Salix tristis, half yellow, spotted with dark-brown or blackish and half withered and turned dark ash-colored, are rather interesting. The S. humilis has similar dark spots. ’ 

Hornets’ nests are now being exposed, deserted by the hornets; and little wasp (?) nests, one and a half inches wide,on huckleberry (?) and sweet-fern (?).

White pines have for the most part fallen. All the underwood is hung with their brown fallen needles, giving to the woods an untidy appearance. _

C. tells of hearing after dark the other night frequent raucous notes which were new to him, on the ammannia meadow, in the grass. Were they not meadow-hens?  Rice says he saw one within a week. Have they not lingered to feed in our meadows the late warm and pleasant nights?

The haze is still very thick, though it is comparatively cool weather, and if there were no moon to-night, I think it would be very dark. Do not the darkest nights occur about this time, when there is a haze produced by the Indian-summer days, succeeded by a moonless night?

These bright leaves are not the exception but the rule, for I believe that all leaves, even grasses, etc., etc., — Panicum clandestinum, — and mosses, as sphagnum, under favorable circumstances acquire brighter colors just before their fall. When you come to observe faithfully the changes of each humblest plant, you find, it may be unexpectedly, that each has sooner or later its peculiar autumnal tint or tints, though it may be rare and unobserved, as many a plant is at all seasons. And if you undertake to make a complete list of the bright tints, your list will be as long as a catalogue of the plants in your vicinity.

Think how much the eyes of painters, both artisans and artists, and of the manufacturers of cloth and paper, and the paper-stainers, etc., are to be educated by these autumnal colors. The stationer’s envelopes may be of very various tints, yet not so various as those of the leaves of a single tree sometimes. If you want a different shade or tint of a particular color, you have only to look further within or without the tree, or the wood. The eye might thus be taught to distinguish color and appreciate a difference of tint or shade.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 22, 1858


It is interesting to observe how gradually but steadily the woods advance through deeper and deeper shades of brown to their fall. See October 22, 1857 ("Large oaks are already generally brown. Reddish brown is the prevailing color of deciduous woods")

The birches are now but thinly clad its flame shaped top more like flames than ever now surmounted by little cones or crescents of golden spangles.  See October 22, 1855; ("I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines"); October 26, 1860 ("This is the season of the fall when the leaves are whirled through the air like flocks of birds, the season of birch spangles, when you see afar a few clear-yellow leaves left on the tops of the birches.')

On the top of the Cliff I see a mullein freshly out, very handsome Aster undulatus, and an abundance of the little blue snapdragon. See October 22, 1851 ("the Canada snapdragon still blooms bluely by the roadside."); October 11, 1856 ("Here on the Cliffs are fresh poke flowers and small snapdragon and corydalis."); October 22, 1859 ("In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together.")

Hornets’ nests are now being exposed, deserted by the hornets. See October 15, 1855 ("The hornets’ nests are exposed, the maples being bare, but the hornets are gone");

White pines have for the most part fallen. See October 22, 1851 ("The pines, both white and pitch, have now shed their leaves, and the ground in the pine woods is strewn with the newly fallen needles.")