Saw the grizzly bear near the Haymarket to-day.

February 9.

 At Cambridge to-day.

Dr. Harris thinks the Indians had no real hemp but their apocynum, and, he thinks, a kind of nettle, and an asclepias, etc.

He doubts if the dog was indigenous among them. Finds nothing to convince him in the history of New England.

Thinks that the potato which is said to have been carried from Virginia by Raleigh was the ground-nut (which is described, I perceived, in Debry (Heriot?) among the fruits of Virginia), the potato not being indigenous in North America, and the ground-nut having been called wild potato in New England, the north part of Virginia, and not being found in England.

Yet he allows that Raleigh cultivated the potato in Ireland.

Saw the grizzly bear near the Haymarket to-day, said (?) to weigh nineteen hundred, — apparently too much. He looked four feet and a few inches in height, by as much in length, not including his great head, and his tail, which was invisible.

He looked gentle, and continually sucked his claws and cleaned between them with his tongue. Small eyes and funny little ears; perfectly bearish, with a strong wild-beast scent; fed on Indian meal and water.

Hind paws a foot long. Lying down, with his feet up against the bars; often sitting up in the corner on his hind quarters.

Two sables also, that would not be waked up by day, with their faces in each other's fur.

An American chinchilla, and a silver lioness said to be from California.

 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 9, 1853

Dr. Harris ( the librarian of Harvard University and one of Thoreau's professors) See Clark A. Elliott, Thaddeus William Harris 1795-1856: Nature, Science, and Society in the Life of an American Naturalist . See also note to January 1, 1853 ("Agassiz told him that Harris was the greatest entomologist in the world.")

Indians had no real hemp but their apocynum, and, he thinks, a kind of nettle, and an asclepias.See note to September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain . . .”); January 19, 1856 ("Probably both the Indian and the bird discovered for themselves this same (so to call it) wild hemp. [milkweed fibre]")

February 9.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  February 9

Snowing all day but

just beginning to clear up –

blue sky visible.

February 9, 2021

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

Coldest day yet.

February  8. 

Coldest day yet; – 22 ° at least (all we can read), at 8 A. M., and, (so far) as I can learn, not above -6 ° all day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 8, 1861

So far as I can learn, not above -6 ° all day. See February 6, 1855 ("They say it did not rise above -6° to-day."); February 7, 1855 ("Thermometer at about 7.30 A. M. gone into the bulb, -19° at least. The cold has stopped the clock."); January 9, 1856 ("Probably it has been below zero for the greater part of the day.");January 11, 1859 ("At 6 A. M. -22° and how much more I know not, ours having gone into the bulb.") and note to January 23, 1857 ("I may safely say that -5° has been the highest temperature to-day.") 

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

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

Warm rains.

February  8. 

The warm rains have melted off the surface snow or white ice on Walden, down to the dark ice, the color of the water, only three or four inches thick; but I observe that still, for a rod or more in width around the shores, the ice is white as snow and apparently thicker, probably owing to the reflection from the bottom from the first filling it with air-bubbles.

H. D Thoreau, Journal, February 8, 1853

Rains have melted off the surface snow or white ice on Walden, down to the dark ice. See; February 8, 1854 ("Rain, rain, rain, carrying off the snow and leaving a foundation of ice. "); See also note to February 8, 1852 ("Night before last, our first rain for a long time.")

Ice is white as snow and apparently thicker, probably owing to the reflection from the bottom. See Walden ("In spring the sun . . .is reflected from the bottom in shallow water, and so also warms the water and melts the under side of the ice, at the same time that it is melting it more directly above, making it uneven, and causing the air bubbles which it contains to extend themselves upward and downward until it is completely honeycombed, and at last disappears suddenly in a single spring rain. . . .When a warm rain in the middle of the winter melts off the snow-ice from Walden, and leaves a hard, dark, or transparent ice on the middle, there will be a strip of rotten though thicker white ice, a rod or more wide, about the shores, created by this reflected heat.")

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

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

A gray screech owl.

 

February 5.

Horace Mann brings me a screech owl, which was caught in Hastings's barn on the meeting-house avenue. It had killed a dove there.

This is a decidedly gray owl, with none of the reddish or nut brown of the specimen of December 26, though it is about the same size, and answers exactly to Wilson's mottled owl.

Rice brings me an oak stick with a woodpecker's hole in it by which it reached a pupa.

The first slight rain and thaw of this winter was February 2d .

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 5, 1861

This is a decidedly gray owl, with none of the reddish or nut brown of the specimen of December 26 and answers exactly to Wilson's mottled owl. See December 26, 1860 ("Melvin sent to me yesterday a perfect Strix asio, or red owl of Wilson, - not at all gray. . . . This is, as Wilson says, a bright “nut brown" . . .. It is twenty-three inches alar extent by about eleven long.") See also July 10, 1856 ("I find myself suddenly within a rod of a gray screech owl sitting on an alder bough with horns erect, turning its head from side to side and up and down,. . .Another more red, also horned, repeats the same warning sound . . . I draw near and find a young owl a third smaller than the old, all gray without obvious horns --only four or five feet distant.")

 We hike to the fort via the rope trail making new tracks in compressed snow over a foot deep. At the lower view hear the spring note of the chickadee one seems to be calling another and then one carries on for quite some time hear the white breasted nuthatch as well I stay out of janes trail and for once keep up with her as it turns out because she is in excruciating pain with her right foot flopping to one side. But this is alleviated by a small adjustment to the padding after we get to the fort for the most part the dogs trail behind us 1, 2, 3 but as we near the Fort  acorn runs head crosses the stream and goes up there and waits. Loki meanwhile begins to trot and hunt through the deep snow. It was a good plan to leave the chair upside-down as I have a dry seat the temperature is a little over 30° perhaps over freezing and there is some sun in the woods and then in the tops of the trees and cliffs as dusk approaches we stop on porcupine ridge and look up at the pine tops glowing in the sun.

As dusk approaches

we look up at the pine tops

glowing in the sun. 

February 5, 2021

Three ducks in the river

February 3

Saw three ducks in the river. 

They resort to those parts necessarily which are open, which are near the houses. I always see them in the fall as long as the river and ponds are open, and, that being the case all this winter (almost), they have not all gone further south. 

The shallow and curving part of the river behind Cheney's being open all this winter, they are confined for the most part to this, in this neighborhood.

February 3, 2019

The thickest ice I have seen this winter is full nine inches.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 3, 1853

Saw three ducks in the river. See note to January 28, 1853 ("See three ducks sailing in the river behind Prichard's this afternoon, black with white on wings, though these two or three have been the coldest days of the winter, and the river is generally closed.");   January 29, 1853 (Melvin calls the ducks which I saw yesterday "sheldrakes""); February 1, 1853 ("Saw a duck in the river; different kind from the last")

The thickest ice I have seen this winter is full nine inches. See  January 18, 1856 ("I clear a little space in the snow, which is nine to ten inches deep over the deepest part of the pond, and cut through the ice, which is about seven inches thick.");  January 29, 1853 ("I saw a little grayish mouse frozen into Walden . . . The ice is eight inches thick."); See also February 8, 1858 ("The ice which J. Brown is now getting for his ice house from S. Barrett’s is from eight to nine plus inches thick, but I am surprised to find that Walden ice is only six inches thick, or even a little less, and it has not been thicker."); February 18, 1858 (“I find Walden ice to be nine and a half plus inches thick, having gained three and a half inches since the 8th”)

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 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

Frost-bitten blossoms

February 2

The Stellaria media is full of frost-bitten blossoms, containing stamens, etc., still and half-grown buds. Apparently it never rests.

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

See November 1, 1852 ("Stellaria media in Cheney's garden, as last spring,"); November 8, 1853 ("The Stellaria media still blooms in Cheney’s garden,"); March 5, 1860 ("Chickweed and shepherd's-purse in bloom in C.'s garden, and probably all winter, or each month."); March 22, 1860 ("Stellaria media and shepherd's-purse bloom;"); April 14, 1855 ("Most of the stellaria has been winter-killed, but I find a few flowers on a protected and still green sprig, probably not blossomed long.”); April 16, 1856 ("The Stellaria media is abundantly out. I did not look for it early, it was so snowy."); April 26, 1852 ("Chickweed (Stellaria media), naturalized, shows its humble star-like white flowers now")

The old window of diamond squares, set in lead,

February 1, 2023

February 1

Surveying the Hunt farm. 

Saw a duck in the river; different kind from the last. 

Dr. Bartlett tells me that it was Adam Winthrop, a grandson of the Governor, who sold this farm to Hunt in 1701. I saw the old window, some eighteen inches square, of diamond squares, four or five inches across, set in lead, on the back side the house.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 1, 1853

Saw a duck in the river; different kind from the last.  See January 29, 1853  ("Melvin calls the ducks which I saw yesterday sheldrakes; being small, then wood sheldrakes. [I judge from the plate they were velvet ducks, or white-winged coots.]")

Adam Winthrop, a grandson of the Governor sold this farm to Hunt in 1701. See March 18, 1857 ("It is to be observed that in the old deed of the Hunt farm, written in 1701, though the whole, consisting of something more than one hundred and fifty acres, is minutely described in thirteen different pieces, no part is described as woodland or wood-lot, only one piece as partly unimproved.")

 I saw the old window on the back side the house. See  February 17, 1857 ("To the old Hunt house . . .This house is about forty-nine feet on the front by twenty."); December 20, 1857 ("The cellar stairs at the old Hunt house are made of square oak timbers "); February 9, 1858 ("The stairs of the old back part are white pine or spruce, each the half of a square log");  March 11, 1859 ("To Hunt house. I go to get one more sight of the old house which Hosmer is pulling down, but I am too late to see much of it."); March 13, 1859 ("The Hunt house, to draw from memory . . . looked like this :

March 14, 1859 ("I judge by my eye that the house is fifteen feet high to the eaves. The posts are remarkably sawn and hewn away on account of the projection of the upper story, so that they are more than twice as large above as below."); March 18, 1859 ("I, with others, saw by the frame of the old Hunt house that an addition had been made to its west end in 1703."); March 27, 1859 ("Those chalk-marks on the chamber-floor joists and timbers of the Hunt house, one of which was read by many "Feb. 1666,""); September 22, 1859 ("I went past the Hunt cellar, where Hosmer pulled down the old house in the spring.)