Tracing a musquash-trail.

August 2. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Landed at the Bath-Place and walked the length of Shad-bush Meadow. 

I noticed meandering down that meadow, which is now quite dry, a very broad and distinct musquash-trail, where they went and came continually when it was wet or under water in the winter or spring. These trails are often nine or ten inches wide and half a dozen deep, passing under a root and the lowest overhanging shrubs, where they glided along on their bellies underneath everything. 

I traced one such trail forty rods, till it ended in a large cabin three feet high, with blueberry bushes springing still from the top; and other similar trails led off from it on opposite sides. Near the cabin they had burrowed or worn them out nine or ten inches deep, as if this now deserted castle had been a place of great resort. 

Their skins used to be worth fifty cents apiece. 

I see there what I take to be a marsh hawk of this year, hunting by itself. It has not learned to be very shy yet, so that we repeatedly get near it. What a rich brown bird! almost, methinks, with purple reflections. 

What I have called the Panicum latifolium has now its broad leaves, striped with red, abundant under Turtle Bank, above Bath-Place.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 2, 1858

A distinct musquash-trail. See August 23, 1854 ("I improve the dry weather to examine the middle of Gowing's Swamp. . . . This is marked by the paths of muskrats, which also extend through the green froth of the pool. ")

Panicum latifolium has now its broad leaves, striped with red. See June 25, 1858 ("Just south the wall at Bittern Cliff, the Panicum latifolium, hardly yet, with some leaves almost an inch and a half wide.")

A marsh hawk of this year, not learned to be very shy yet, so that we repeatedly get near it. What a rich brown bird! almost, methinks, with purple reflections. See August 8, 1858. ("Saw yesterday a this year’s (?) marsh hawk, female . . .I took it to be a young bird, it came so near and looked so fresh. It is a fine rich-brown, full-breasted bird, with a long tail.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

The green bitterns are leaving the nest now.

August 1. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

August 1, 2019

The radical or immersed leaves of the pontederia are linear and grass-like, and I see that I have mistaken them for vallisneria just springing from the bottom. The leaves of new plants are just reaching and leaving the surface now, like spoons on the end of long handles. 

Edward Bartlett and another brought me a green bittern, this year’s bird, apparently full grown but not full plumaged, which they caught near the pool on A. Heywood’s land behind Sleepy Hollow. They caught it in the woods on the hillside. 

It had not yet acquired the long feathers of the neck. The neck was bent back on itself an inch or more,— that part being bare of feathers and covered by the long feathers from above, — so that it did not appear very long until stretched out. This doubling was the usual condition and not apparent, but could be felt by the hand. 

So the green bitterns are leaving the nest now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 1, 1858

So the green bitterns are leaving the nest now. See July 29, 1859 ("Heard from a bittern, a peculiar hoarse, grating note, lazily uttered as it flew over the meadows."); July 30, 1856 ("A green bittern. . .with heavy flapping flight, ts legs dangling"); August 2, 1856 ("A green bittern comes, noiselessly flapping, with stealthy and inquisitive looking to this side the stream and then that, thirty feet above the water. ")

I see tobacco-pipes now in the path.

July 31.

 P. M. — To Flint’s Pond.

I see much eriocaulon floating, with its mass of white roots uppermost, near the shore in Goose Pond. I suspect it may have been loosened up by the musquash, which either feeds on it, or merely makes its way through its dense mats. 

I also see small fishes, apparently shiners, four or five inches long, in this pond. Yet I have seen this almost all dried up.

I have smelled fungi in the thick woods for a week, though they are not very common. I see tobacco-pipes now in the path. 

You are liable to be overtaken by a thunder-shower these afternoons. 

The anychia already shows green seed-vessels on its lower branches. 

Petty morel has begun to bloom in shady swamps, how long?

Got the wood thrush’s nest of June 19th (now empty). It was placed between many small upright shoots, against the main stem of the slender maple, and measures four and a half to five inches in diameter from outside to outside of the rim, and one and three quarters deep within. 

It is quite firm (except the external leaves falling off) the rim about three quarters of an inch thick,  and it is composed externally of leaves, apparently chiefly chestnut, very much decayed, beneath which, in the place of the grass and stubble of which most nests are composed, are apparently the midribs of the same leaves, whose whole pulp, etc., is gone, arranged as compactly and densely (in a curving manner) as grass or stubble could be, upon a core, not of mud, but a pale-brown composition quite firm and smooth (within), looking like inside of a cocoanut-shell, and apparently composed of decayed leaf pulp (?) which the bird has perhaps mixed and cemented with its saliva. This is about a quarter of an inch thick and about as regular as a half of a cocoanut-shell. 

Within this, the lower part is lined with considerable rather coarse black root-fibre and a very little fine stubble. From some particles of fine white sand, etc., on the pale brown composition of the nest, I thought it was obtained from the pond shore. This composition, viewed through a microscope, has almost a cellular structure.

H. D. Thoreau Journal, July 31, 1858

I see tobacco-pipes now in the path. See July 30, 1854 ("I have seen a few new fungi within a week. The tobacco-pipes are still pushing up white amid the dry leaves, sometimes lifting a canopy of leaves with them four or five inches."); August 10, 1858 ("I see many tobacco-pipes, now perhaps in their prime, ... bursting up through the dry leaves, which, elevated around, may serve to prop them. Springing up in the shade with so little color, they look the more fragile and delicate.")

You are liable to be overtaken by a thunder-shower these afternoons.  See July 31, 1860 ("At mid-afternoon I am caught in a deluging rain as I stand under a maple by the Assabet shore ")

The wood thrush’s nest of June 19th. See June 19, 1858 ("Storrow Higginson and other boys. . . showed me one of five eggs, far advanced, they found there [at Flint's Pond] in a nest some fourteen feet high in a slender maple sapling, placed between many upright shoots, many dry leaves outside.") See also  August 10, 1858 ("The wood thrush’s was a peculiarly woodland nest, made solely of such materials as that unfrequented grove afforded.")

Looking for the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum berries.

July 29. 

P. M. — To Pine Hill, looking for the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum berries. 

I find plenty of bushes, but these bear very sparingly. They appear to bear but one or two years before they are overgrown. Also they probably love a cool atmosphere, for they bear annually on mountains, as Monadnock. Where the woods have been cut a year or two they have put forth fresh shoots of a livelier green. 

The V. vacillans berries are in dense clusters, raceme-like, as huckleberries are not. 

I see nowadays young martins perched on the dead tops of high trees; also young swallows on the telegraph wire. 

In the Chinese novel “ Ju-Kiao-Li, or The Two Fair Cousins,” I find in a motto to a chapter (quoted):

“He who aims at success should be continually on his guard against a thousand accidents. How many preparations are necessary before the sour plum begins to sweeten! . . . But if supreme happiness was to be attained in the space of an hour, of what use would be in life the noblest sentiments ?” (Page 227.)

Also these verses on page 230: —

“Nourished by the study of ten thousand dififerent works,
The pen in hand, one is equal to the gods.
 Let not humility take its rank amongst virtues:
Genius never yields the palm that belongs to it.” 

Again, page 22, vol. ii: — 

“If the spring did not announce its reign by the return of the leaves,
The moss, with its greenish tints, would find favor in men’s eyes.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 29, 1858 

Looking for the Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum berries. See note to July 16, 1857(“I hear of the first early blueberries brought to market.”)

The V. vacillans berries are in dense clusters, raceme-like, as huckleberries are not. See July 29,, 1859 (“Vaccinium vacillans begin to be pretty thick and some huckleberries.”); July 31, 1856 (“How thick the berries — low blackberries, Vaccinium vacillans, and huckleberries — on the side of Fair Haven Hill! ”)

I see nowadays young martins perched on the dead tops of high trees. See July 14, 1856 (“See and hear martins twittering on the elms by riverside.”); July 28, 1859 ("Saw young martins being fed on a bridge-rail yesterday.")

Young swallows on the telegraph wire. See July 5, 1854 ("One hundred and nine swallows on telegraph-wire at bridge within eight rods, and others flying about."); July 12, 1852 ("I observed this morning a row of several dozen swallows perched on the telegraph-wire by the bridge, and ever and anon a part of them would launch forth as with one consent, circle a few moments over the water or meadow, and return to the wire again."); July 12, 1859 (" They take their broods to the telegraph-wire for an aerial perch, where they teach them to fly.")

Note on blueberries: The difference between the often confused Huckleberry (Gaylussacia) and Lowbush Blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium and vacillans) is inside the berry. Huckleberries have 10 hardened seeds inside each berry, compared the numerous softer seeds in the lowbush blueberry. The plants also differ in the texture of their stems. Huckleberry stems are smooth and lowbush blueberry are "warty". The two species of Lowbush Blueberry (angustifolium and vacillans) are distinguished by their leaves. Angustifolium has leaves which are a uniform green above and below; vacillans has leaves which are noticeably more pale beneath. ` Voyageur Country

July 29. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 29

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

A pinkish patch on side-hill.

July 28. 

July 28, 2018

P. M.—-To Conantum. 

From wall corner saw a pinkish patch on side-hill west of Baker Farm, which turned out to be epilobium, a rod across. Through the glass it was as fine as a moss, but with the naked eye it might have been mistaken for a dead pine bough. This pink flower was distinguished perhaps three quarters of a mile.

Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off. 

The under sides of maples are very bright and conspicuous nowadays as you walk, also of the curled panicled andromeda leaves. Some grape leaves, also, are blown up.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 28, 1858

A pinkish patch on side-hill  west of Baker Farm, which turned out to be epilobium, distinguished perhaps three quarters of a mile. See July 28, 1852 ("Epilobium coloratum, roadside just this side of Dennis's"); August 21, 1858 ("I still see the patch of epilobium on Bee Tree Hill as plainly as ever, though only the pink seed-vessels and stems are left"): See also July 24, 1857 (“Great fields of epilobium or fire-weed, a mass of color.); July 31, 1856 (“Dense fields of the great epilobium now in its prime, like soldiers in the meadow, resounding with the hum of bees.”)

Heard a kingfisher, which had been hovering over the river, plunge forty rods off. See June 12, 1854 (“As he flies off, he hovers two or three times thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last dives ”); August 6, 1858 ("The kingfisher is seen hovering steadily over one spot, or hurrying away with a small fish in his mouth, sounding his alarum nevertheless.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Kingfisher

July 28. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 28

From wall corner saw 

a pinkish patch on side-hill 

west of Baker Farm

turned out to be 

epilobium

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

A broad egg, white with large reddish and purplish brown spots.

July 26.

Yellow-winged sparrow

Fringilla passerina

Grasshopper Sparrow

Ammodramus savannarum

Button-bush in prime. 

Edward Bartlett shows me a nest in the Agricultural ground which had four eggs, yet pretty fresh, but the bird has now deserted it. (Vide one.) It is like Farmer’s seringo.

It is a broad egg, white with large reddish and purplish brown spots chiefly about large end. 

The nest is small and deep and low in the grass of this pasture. (Vide nest out of order.)

Could not see the bird; only saw bay-wings and huckleberry-birds. I suspect it may be the Fringilla passerina? He says the bird had a clear yellowish-white breast!

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

Bay-wings and Huckleberry-birds. See A Book of the Seasons, the Bay-Wing [Vesper] Sparrow; also April 27, 1852 ("Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott's "huckleberry-bird." "); April 9, 1856 ("Wandering over that high huckleberry pasture, I hear the sweet jingle of the Fringilla juncorum."); ; April 15, 1856 ("I hear the note of the Fringilla juncorum (huckleberry-bird) from the plains beyond. ")

A broad egg, white with large reddish and purplish brown spots chiefly about large end. I suspect it may be the Fringilla passerina? See June 26, 1856 ("According to Audubon’s and Wilson’s plates, the Fringilla passerina has for the most part clear yellowish-white breast .... Audubon says that the eggs . . .of the yellow-winged sparrow are “of a dingy white, sprinkled with brown spots.”); May 28, 1856 (“A seringo or yellow-browed (?) sparrow’s nest . . .Egg, bluish-white ground, thickly blotched with brown, yet most like a small ground bird’s egg, rather broad at one end, pretty fresh.”)

July 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 26

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

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

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

Northern slender ladies'-tresses,

July 23. 

Neottia gracilis, how long?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 23, 1858

Neottia gracilis,.  See August 20, 1851  ("The neottia, or ladies'-tresses, behind Garfield's house."); July 15, 1856 ("Spiranthes gracilis well out, in dry, slender grass by roadside."); August 27, 1856 ("On dry, open hillsides and fields the Spiranthes gracilis is very common of late, rising tall and slender, with its spiral of white flowers like a screw-thread at top; sometimes fifteen inches high.")

Note:  “Spiranthes gracilis” not distinguished from  “Neottia gracilis” in the manuals used by Thoreau. See Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts compiled by Ray Angelo

July 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 23

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.” 

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021