The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
The moaning of the
wind on the rocks, you seem much
nearer to the moon.
Evening. 7 p.m.
A record of the sunset.
The moon more than half.
The sun not yet set.
Clouds in west edged with fiery red.
Robins faintly sing.
Now the sun is down.
A low mist close to the shore.
I hear the pea-wai
and the wood thrush and
now a whip-poor-will before
I have seen a star.
Now it is starlight.
Did that dark cloud conceal the
evening star before?
Starlight! Mark the hour.
When last daylight disappears
and night (nox) sets in.
One of Mr. Smith's men
thinks the wasps will not sting him
if he holds his breath.
I remember the moaning of the wind on the rocks, and that you seemed much nearer to the moon than on the plains. June 28, 1852
The light is then in harmony with the scenery. Of what use the sunlight to the mountain-summits? From the cliffs you looked off into vast depths of illumined air. June 28, 1852
Moon more than half. June 28, 1852
There are meteorologists, but who keeps a record of the fairer sunsets? June 28, 1852
While men are recording the direction of the wind, they neglect to record the beauty of the sunset or the rainbow. June 28, 1852
The sun not yet set. June 28, 1852
The bobolink sings descending to the meadow as I go along the railroad to the pond. June 28, 1852
The seringo-bird and the common song sparrow, — and the swallows twitter. June 28, 1852
The plaintive strain of the lark, coming up from the meadow, is perfectly adapted to the hour. June 28, 1852
There are meteorologists, but who keeps a record of the fairer sunsets? June 28, 1852
While men are recording the direction of the wind, they neglect to record the beauty of the sunset or the rainbow. June 28, 1852
The sun not yet set. June 28, 1852
The bobolink sings descending to the meadow as I go along the railroad to the pond. June 28, 1852
The seringo-bird and the common song sparrow, — and the swallows twitter. June 28, 1852
The plaintive strain of the lark, coming up from the meadow, is perfectly adapted to the hour. June 28, 1852
Veery and wood thrush not very lately, nor oven-bird. July 28, 1854.
When I get nearer the wood, the veery is heard, and the oven-bird, or whet-saw, sounds hollowly from within the recesses of the wood. June 28, 1852
The clouds in the west are edged with fiery red. A few robins faintly sing. June 28, 1852
The huckleberry-bird in more open fields in the woods. The thrasher? June 28, 1852
The sun is down. June 28, 1852
The night-hawks are squeaking in the somewhat dusky air and occasionally making the ripping sound; the chewinks sound; the bullfrogs begin, and the toads; also tree-toads more numerously. June 28, 1852
There is a very low mist on the water close to the shore, a few inches high. June 28, 1852
The moon is brassy or golden now, and the air more dusky; yet I hear the pea-wai and the wood thrush, and now a whip-poor-will before I have seen a star. June 28, 1852
The walker in the woods at this hour takes note of the different veins of air through which he passes. June 28, 1852
Now it is starlight; perhaps that dark cloud in the west has concealed the evening star before. Yet I hear a chewink, veery, and wood thrush. Nighthawks and whip-poor-wills, of course. June 28, 1852
Starlight! That would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise. That is an epoch, when the last traces of daylight have disappeared and the night (nox) has fairly set in June 28, 1852
The Rubus odorata, purple flowering raspberry, in gardens. June 28, 1852
Hear and see young golden robins which have left the nest, now peeping with a peculiar tone. June 28, 1855
I hear on all hands these days, from the elms and other trees, the twittering peep of young gold robins, which have recently left their nests, and apparently indicate their locality to their parents by thus incessantly peeping all day long. June 28, 1857
Mountain laurel on east side of the rocky Boulder Field wood is apparently in prime. I see in many places little barberry bushes just come up densely in the cow-dung, like young apple trees, the berries having been eaten by the cows. June 28, 1858
I meet to-day with a wood tortoise which is eating the leaves of the early potentilla, and, soon after, another in Hosmer's sandy bank field north of Assabet Bridge, deliberately eating sorrel. June 28, 1860
*****
*****
Starlight!. See August 8, 1851 ("Starlight! that would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise.”); May 8, 1852 (“Starlight marks conveniently a stage in the evening, i. e. when the first star can be seen.”); June 30, 1852 (“It is starlight about half an hour after sunset to-night; i. e. the first stars appear”); July 20, 1852("It is starlight. You see the first star in the southwest, and know not how much earlier you might have seen it had you looked.")
Young golden robins July 1, 1859 ("The peculiar peep of young tailless golden robins for a day or more"); July 2, 1860 ("Nowadays hear from my window the constant tittering of young golden robins.")
I see in many places little barberry bushes just come up densely in the cow-dung, like young apple trees, the berries having been eaten by the cows. See May 29, 1858 ("I mistook dense groves of little barberries in the droppings of cows in the Boulder Field for apple trees at first. So the cows eat barberries, and help disperse or disseminate them exactly as they do the apple! That helps account for the spread of the barberry, then."); August 6, 1858 ("I then looked for the little groves of barberries which some two months ago I saw in the cow-dung thereabouts, but to my surprise I found some only in one spot after a long search") See also November 3, 1857 ("I see on many rocks, etc., the seeds of the barberry, which have been voided by birds, – robins, no doubt, chiefly. How many they must thus scatter over the fields, spreading the barberry far and wide!"); February 4, 1856. ("It it now occurs to me that these and barberries, etc., may be planted by the crows, and probably other birds."). Also September 21, 1860 ("I suspect that such seeds as these will turn out to be more sought after by birds and quadrupeds, and so transported by them, than those lighter ones furnished with a pappus and transported by the wind; and that those the wind takes are less generally the food of birds and quadrupeds than the heavier and wingless seeds.")
Another in Hosmer's sandy bank field north of Assabet Bridge, deliberately eating sorrel. See July 6, 1856 ("On the sandy bank opposite [the bath place], see a wood tortoise voraciously eating sorrel leaves, under my face.”)
June 28, 2018
If you make the least correctobservation of nature this year,you will have occasion to repeat itwith illustrations the next,and the season and life itself is prolonged.A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 28A 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
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