Under the Cliffs

November 19. 

P. M. – To Cliffs. 

In Stow's sprout-land west of railroad cut, I see where a mouse which has a hole under a stump has eaten out clean the insides of the little Prinos verticillatus berries. These may be the doubtful seeds of the 14th. What pretty fruit for the mice, these bright prinos berries! They run up the twigs in the night and gather this shining fruit, take out the small seeds, and eat their kernels at the entrance to their burrows. The ground is strewn with them there. 

Turning up a stone on Fair Haven Hill, I find many small dead crickets about the edges, which have endeavored to get under it and apparently have been killed by the frost; quite under it and alive, two or three small purplish-brown caterpillars; and many little ants, quite active, with their white grubs, in spacious galleries, somewhat semicylindrical, whose top often was the bottom of the stone. You would think they had been made by a worm. 

Going along close under the Cliffs, I see a dozen or more low blackberry vines dangling down a perpendicular rock at least eight feet high, and blown back and forth, with leaves every six inches, and one or two have reached the ground and taken firm root there. 

There are also many of the common cinquefoil with its leaves five inches asunder, dangling down five or six feet over the same rock.

I see many acorn and other nut shells which in past years have been tucked into clefts in the rocks.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 19, 1857

These may be the doubtful seeds of the 14th. See November 14, 1857 (“I have but little doubt that these seeds were placed there by a Mus leucopus, our most common wood mouse. ”)

I find many small dead crickets. See November 22, 1851 ("He turned over a stone, and I saw under it many crickets and ants still lively,"); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November (Listening for the Last Cricket)

Many little ants, quite active, with their white grubs, in spacious galleries. ee November 15, 1857 (“My walk is the more lonely when I perceive that there are no ants now upon their hillocks in field or wood. These are deserted mounds. They have commenced their winter's sleep.”); November 22, 1851 (", He turned over a stone, and I saw under it many crickets and ants still lively, which had gone into winter quarters there apparently. There were many little galleries leading under the stone, indenting the hardened earth like veins")

The common cinquefoil dangling down over the rock. See May 1, 1854 (“At Lee's Cliff find the early cinquefoil”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Cinquefoil in Autumn