 |
| Savannah sparrow |
Rode to Sconticut Neck or Point in Fairhaven, five or six miles, and saw, apparently, the F. Savanna near their nests (my seringo note), restlessly flitting about me from rock to rock within a rod. Distinctly yellow-browed and spotted breast, not like plate of passerina.
Audubon says that the eggs of the Savannah sparrow “are of a pale bluish color, softly mottled with purplish brown,” and those of the yellow-winged sparrow are “of a dingy white, sprinkled with brown spots.” The former is apparently my seringo’s egg of May 28th.
When R. decided to take another road home from the latter place, because it was less hilly, I said I had not observed a hill in all our ride.
I found on the rocky and rather desolate extremity of this point the common Oxalis stricta on the seashore, abundant, going to seed; apparently carrots (?) naturalized; atriplex not yet out; beach pea, still out and going to seed. An abundance of the small iris in the field near by.
It was thick weather, after a drizzling forenoon, and we could just see across Buzzard’s Bay from the point to Falmouth.
I had been expecting to find the aletris about New Bedford,
Heard of, and sought out, the hut of Martha Simons, the only pure-blooded Indian left about New Bedford. She lives alone on the narrowest point of the Neck, near the shore, in sight of New Bedford. Her hut stands some twenty-five rods from the road on a small tract of Indian land, now wholly hers . . .
We knocked and walked in, and she asked us to sit down. She had half an acre of the real tawny Indian face, broad with high cheek-bones, black eyes, and straight hair, originally black but now a little gray, parted in the middle. Her hands were several shades darker han her face. She had a peculiarly vacant expression, perhaps characteristic of the Indian, and answered our questions listlessly, without being interested or implicated, mostly in monosyllables, as if hardly present there. To judge from her physiognomy, she might have been King Philip’s own daughter.
She was born on that spot. Her grandfather also lived on the same spot, though not in the same house. He was the last of her race who could speak Indian.
The question she answered with most interest was, “What do you call that plant?” and I reached her the aletris from my hat. She took it, looked at it a moment, and said, “That’s husk-root. It ’s good to put into bitters for a weak stomach.”
The last year’s light-colored and withered leaves surround the present green star like a husk. This must be the origin of the name. Its root is described as intensely bitter.
I ought to have had my hat full of plants.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 26, 1856
Savannah sparrow no conspicuous yellow on shoulder, a yellow brow, and white crown line. . . Audubon says that the eggs “are of a pale bluish color, softly mottled with purplish brown,” See May 28, 1856 ("A seringo or yellow-browed (?) sparrow’s nest . . . Egg, bluish-white ground, thickly blotched with brown . . ..”); April 22, 1856 ("The seringo also sits on a post, with a very distinct yellow line over the eye,_and the rhythm of its strain is ker chick | ker che | ker-char—r-r-r-r | chick, the last two bars being the part chiefly heard."); October 22, 1855 ("I sit on a bank at the brook crossing, beyond the grove, to watch a flock of seringos, perhaps Savannah sparrows, which, with some F. hyemalis and other sparrows, are actively flitting about amid the alders and dogwood. "); July 16, 1854 ("Is it the yellow-winged or Savannah sparrow with yellow alternating with dark streaks on throat, as well as yellow over eye, reddish flesh-colored legs, and two light bars on wings?“). See also Guide to Thoreau’s Birds "(Thoreau frequently called the Savannah Sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis the seringo or seringo-bird, but he also applied the name to other small birds.)”
I had been expecting to find the aletris about New Bedford. . . See June 25 1856 ( “[i]n answer to my question what were the rare or peculiar plants thereabouts, [Green] named the Aletris farinosa, or star-grass”); See also November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, . . . In my botanical rambles I find that first the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, . . . expecting it unconsciously, and at length I surely see it . . . This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name.”)
The last year’s light-colored and withered leaves surround the present green star like a husk. This must be the origin of the name. Its root is described as intensely bitter.
I ought to have had my hat full of plants.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 26, 1856
Savannah sparrow no conspicuous yellow on shoulder, a yellow brow, and white crown line. . . Audubon says that the eggs “are of a pale bluish color, softly mottled with purplish brown,” See May 28, 1856 ("A seringo or yellow-browed (?) sparrow’s nest . . . Egg, bluish-white ground, thickly blotched with brown . . ..”); April 22, 1856 ("The seringo also sits on a post, with a very distinct yellow line over the eye,_and the rhythm of its strain is ker chick | ker che | ker-char—r-r-r-r | chick, the last two bars being the part chiefly heard."); October 22, 1855 ("I sit on a bank at the brook crossing, beyond the grove, to watch a flock of seringos, perhaps Savannah sparrows, which, with some F. hyemalis and other sparrows, are actively flitting about amid the alders and dogwood. "); July 16, 1854 ("Is it the yellow-winged or Savannah sparrow with yellow alternating with dark streaks on throat, as well as yellow over eye, reddish flesh-colored legs, and two light bars on wings?“). See also Guide to Thoreau’s Birds "(Thoreau frequently called the Savannah Sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis the seringo or seringo-bird, but he also applied the name to other small birds.)”
I had been expecting to find the aletris about New Bedford. . . See June 25 1856 ( “[i]n answer to my question what were the rare or peculiar plants thereabouts, [Green] named the Aletris farinosa, or star-grass”); See also November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, . . . In my botanical rambles I find that first the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, . . . expecting it unconsciously, and at length I surely see it . . . This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name.”)
Aletris / husk root . . .withered leaves surround the present green star like a husk. See April 5, 1857 ("See in many places the withered leaves of the aletris in rather low ground, about the still standing withered stems. It was well called husk-root by the squaw.")
I ought to have had my hat full of plants. See June 23, 1852 ("I am inclined to think that my hat, whose lining is gathered in midway so as to make a shelf, is about as good a botany-box as I could have and far more convenient. . ."); September 7, 1852 ("We reach . . . Concord . . . four hours from the time we were picking blueberries on the mountain, with the plants of the mountain fresh in my hat.”); December 4, 1856 ("About half a dozen years ago I found myself again attending to plants with more method, looking out the name of each one and remembering it. I began to bring them home in my hat, a straw one with a scaffold lining to it, which I called my botany- box. I never used any other, and when some whom I visited were evidently surprised at its dilapidated look, as I deposited it on their front entry table, I assured them it was not so much my hat as my botany-box.”)
No comments:
Post a Comment