How pleasant the sound of water flowing with a hollow sound under ice from which it has settled away, where great white air bubbles or hollows, seen through the ice and dark water, alternately succeed each other.
The curls of the yellow birch bark form more or less parallel straight lines up and down on all sides of the tree, like parted hair blown aside by the wind, or as when a vest bursts and blows open.
Rabbit-tracks numerous here, some times quite a highway of tracks over and along the frozen and snow-covered brook.
What a contrast between the upper and under side of many leaves. Many in which the contrast is finest are narrow, revolute leaves, like the delicate and beautiful Andromeda Polifolia: dark pure and uniform dull red above, strongly revolute, and delicate bluish white beneath. The handsome lanceolate leaves of the Andromeda Polifolia deserve to be copied on to works of art.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 18, 1854
The handsome lanceolate leaves of the Andromeda Polifolia. See January 10, 1855 ("Andromeda Polifolia, with its rich leaves turned to a mulberry-color above by the winter, with a bluish bloom and a delicate bluish white, as in summer, beneath, project above the ice, the tallest twigs recurved at top, with the leaves standing up on the upper side like teeth of a rake."); April 19 1852 ("That phenomenon of the andromeda seen against the sun cheers me exceedingly. . . . These little leaves are the stained windows in the cathedral of my world.”). Also note to May 5, 1855.
I see on ice by the riverside, front of N. Barrett's, very slender insects a third of an inch long, with grayish folded wings reaching far behind and two antennæ.
Somewhat in general appearance like the long wasps.
At the old mill - site, saw two pigeon woodpeckers dart into and out of a white oak. Saw the yellow under sides of their wings. It is barely possible I am mistaken, but, since Wilson makes them common in Pennsylvania in winter, I feel pretty sure.
Such sights make me think there must be bare ground not far off south.
It is a little affecting to walk over the hills now, looking at the reindeer lichens here and there amid the snow, and remember that ere long we shall find violets also in their midst.
What an odds the season makes! The birds know it.
Whether a rose - tinted water lily is sailing amid the pads, or Neighbor Hobson is getting out his ice with a cross - cut saw, while his oxen are eating their stalks.
I noticed that the ice which Garrison cut the other day contained the lily pads and stems within it.
How different their environment now from when the queenly flower, floating on the trembling surface, exhaled its perfume amid a cloud of insects!
Hubbard's wooded hill is now almost bare of trees.
Barberries still hang on the bushes, but all shrivelled.
I found a bird's nest of grass and mud in a barberry bush filled full with them.
It must have been done by some quadruped or bird.
The curls of the yellow birch bark form more or less parallel straight lines up and down on all sides of the tree, like parted hair blown aside by the wind, or as when a vest bursts and blows open.
Rabbit - tracks numerous there, sometimes quite a highway of tracks over and along the frozen and snow - covered brook.
How pleasant the sound of water flowing with a hollow sound under ice from which it has settled away, where great white air bubbles or hollows, seen through the ice and dark water, alternately succeed each other.
The Mitchella repens berries look very bright amid the still fresh green leaves.
In the birch swamp west of this are many red (?) squirrel nests high in the birches. They are composed within of fibres of bark. I see where the squirrels have eaten walnuts along the wall and left the shells on the snow.
Channing has some microscopic reading these days. But he says in effect that these works are purely material. The idealist views things in the large.
I read some of the speeches in Congress about the Nebraska Bill, - a thing the like of which I have not done for a year. What trifling upon a serious subject! while honest men are sawing wood for them outside. Your Congress halls have an ale-house odor, - a place for stale jokes and vulgar wit. It compels me to think of my fellow-creatures as apes and baboons.
What a contrast between the upper and underside of many leaves, — the indurated and colored upper side and the tender, more or less colorless under side, - male and female, even where they are almost equally exposed!
The underside is commonly white, however, as turned away from the light toward the earth.
Many in which the contrast is finest are narrow, revolute leaves, like the delicate and beautiful Andromeda Polifolia, the ledum, Kalmia glauca.
De Quincey says that “The ancients had no experimental knowledge of severe climates.”
Neither have the English at home as compared with us of New England, nor we, compared with the Esquimaux.
This is a common form of the birch scale, black, I think, — not white, at any rate.
The handsome lanceolate leaves of the Andromeda Polifolia, dark but pure and uniform dull red above, strongly revolute, and of a delicate bluish white beneath, deserve to be copied on to works of art.
Barberries still hang on the bushes, but all shrivelled.
I found a bird's nest of grass and mud in a barberry bush filled full with them.
It must have been done by some quadruped or bird.
The curls of the yellow birch bark form more or less parallel straight lines up and down on all sides of the tree, like parted hair blown aside by the wind, or as when a vest bursts and blows open.
Rabbit - tracks numerous there, sometimes quite a highway of tracks over and along the frozen and snow - covered brook.
How pleasant the sound of water flowing with a hollow sound under ice from which it has settled away, where great white air bubbles or hollows, seen through the ice and dark water, alternately succeed each other.
The Mitchella repens berries look very bright amid the still fresh green leaves.
In the birch swamp west of this are many red (?) squirrel nests high in the birches. They are composed within of fibres of bark. I see where the squirrels have eaten walnuts along the wall and left the shells on the snow.
Channing has some microscopic reading these days. But he says in effect that these works are purely material. The idealist views things in the large.
I read some of the speeches in Congress about the Nebraska Bill, - a thing the like of which I have not done for a year. What trifling upon a serious subject! while honest men are sawing wood for them outside. Your Congress halls have an ale-house odor, - a place for stale jokes and vulgar wit. It compels me to think of my fellow-creatures as apes and baboons.
What a contrast between the upper and underside of many leaves, — the indurated and colored upper side and the tender, more or less colorless under side, - male and female, even where they are almost equally exposed!
The underside is commonly white, however, as turned away from the light toward the earth.
Many in which the contrast is finest are narrow, revolute leaves, like the delicate and beautiful Andromeda Polifolia, the ledum, Kalmia glauca.
De Quincey says that “The ancients had no experimental knowledge of severe climates.”
Neither have the English at home as compared with us of New England, nor we, compared with the Esquimaux.
This is a common form of the birch scale, black, I think, — not white, at any rate.
The handsome lanceolate leaves of the Andromeda Polifolia, dark but pure and uniform dull red above, strongly revolute, and of a delicate bluish white beneath, deserve to be copied on to works of art.
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