Steel-blue in the shade, but, seen against the sun, it is a rich purple.

September 30. 

September 30, 2018

A large flock of grackles amid the willows by the riverside, or chiefly concealed low in the button bushes beneath them, though quite near me. There they keep up their spluttering notes, though somewhat less loud, methinks, than in spring. These are the first I have seen, and now for some time, I think, the red wings have been gone. These are the first arrivers from the north where they breed. 

I observe the peculiar steel-bluish purple of the nightshade, i. e. the tips of the twigs, while all beneath is green, dotted with bright berries, over the water. Perhaps this is the most singular color of any autumnal tint. It is almost black in some lights, distinctly steel-blue in the shade and contrasting with the green beneath, but, seen against the sun, it is a rich purple, its veins full of fire. The form of the leaf, too, is peculiar. 

The pearly everlasting is an interesting white at present. Though the stem and leaves are still green, it is dry and unwithering like an artificial flower. Its white flexuous cotton. Its amaranthine quality is instead of high color. Neither is there any scent to betray it. Its very brown centre now afiects us as a fresh and original color. It monopolizes a small circle, in the midst of sweet-fem perchance, on a dry hillside. 

I see undoubtedly the little dipper by the edge of the pads this afternoon, and I think I have not seen it before this season. It is much smaller than I have seen this season, and is hard to detect even within four or five rods. It warily dives and comes up a rod or two further off amid the pads, scarcely disturbing the surface. 

The wind is northerly these afternoons, blowing pretty strong early in the afternoon, so that I can sail up the stream; but later it goes down, leaving the river glassy smooth, and only a leaping fish or an insect dimples it or makes a sparkle on it. 

Some young black cherry leaves are completely changed some time to their deep cherry-red. Also they are rather dull, but beneath quite lively, like the juice of a freshly crushed cherry. 

In our late walk on the Cape, we entered Gloucester each time in the dark at mid-evening, travelling partly across lots till we fell into a road, and as we were simply seeking a bed, inquiring the way of villagers whom we could not see, the town seemed far more homelike to us than when we made our way out of it in the morning. It was comparatively still, and the inhabitants were sensibly or poetically employed, too, and then we went straight to our chamber and saw the moonlight reflected from the smooth harbor and lighting up the fishing vessels, as if it had been the harbor of Venice. 

By day we went remarking on the peculiar angles of the bevelled roofs, of which there is a remarkable variety there. There are also many large, square, three-story houses with short windows in the upper story, as if the third story were as good as a gig for respectability. 

When entering the town in the moonlight we could not always tell whether the road skirted the back yards or the front yards of the houses, and the houses did not so impertinently stare after the traveller and watch his coming as by day. 

Walking early in the day and approaching the rocky shore from the north, the shadows of the cliffs were very distinct and grateful and our spirits were buoyant. Though we walked all day, it seemed the days were not long enough to get tired in. Some villages we went through or by without communicating with any inhabitant, but saw them as quietly and distantly as in a picture.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, September 30, 1858

A large flock of grackles amid the willows by the riverside keep up their spluttering notes, See October 14, 1857 ("I see a large flock of grackles, probably young birds, quite near me on William Wheeler's apple trees, pruning themselves and trying to sing. They never succeed; make a sort of musical spluttering.”)

I observe the peculiar steel-bluish purple of the nightshade . . . against the sun, it is a rich purple, its veins full of fire. See September 26, 1859 ("The peduncle and its branches are green, the pedicels and sepals only that rare steel-blue purple, and the berries a clear translucent cherry red."); October 4, 1857 (“Some nightshade leaves are a very dark purple.”)

The pearly everlasting is an interesting white at present. It monopolizes a small circle, in the midst of sweet-fem perchance, on a dry hillside. See August 23, 1858 (“I see dense patches of the pearly everlasting, maintaining their ground in the midst of dense green sweet-fern, a striking contrast of snow-white and green.”)

What astronomer can calculate the orbit of my thistle-down?

September 29. 

Fine weather. P. M. — To White Pond. 

September 29, 2018

One or two myrtle-birds in their fall dress, with brown head and shoulders, two whitish bars on wings, and bright-yellow rump. 

Sit on Clamshell, looking up the smooth stream. Two blue herons, or “herns,” as Goodwin calls them, fly sluggishly up the stream. Interesting even is a stake, with its reflection, left standing in the still river by some fisherman. 

Again we have smooth waters, yellow foliage, and faint warbling birds, etc., as in spring. The year thus repeats itself. 

Catch some of those little fuzzy gnats dancing in the air there over the shelly bank, and these are black, with black plumes, unlike those last seen over the Cassandra Pond. 

Brushed a spectrum, ghost-horse, off my face in a birch wood, by the J. P. Brown cold Heart-Leaf Pond. Head somewhat like a striped snake. 

That pond is drier than I ever saw it, perhaps [No, have seen it so before.]—all but a couple of square rods in the middle, —and now covered with cyperus, etc. The mud is cracked into large polygonal figures of four to six sides and six to twelve inches across, with cracks a half to three quarters of an inch wide.

See what must be a solitary tattler feeding by the water’s edge, and it has tracked the mud all about. It cannot be the Tringa pectoralis, for it has no conspicuous white chin, nor black dashes on the throat, nor brown on the back and wings, and I think I see the round white spots on its wings. It has not the white on wing of the peetweet, yet utters the peetweet note!— short and faint, not protracted, and not the “sharp whistle” that Wilson speaks of. 

The lespedeza leaves are all withered and ready to fall in the frosty hollows near Nut Meadow, and [in] the swamps the ground is already strewn with the first maple leaves, concealing the springiness of the soil, and many plants are prostrate there, November-like.

High up in Nut Meadow, the very brook — push aside the half-withered grass which (the farmer disdaining to cut it) conceals it — is as cool as a spring, being near its sources. 

Take perhaps our last bath in White Pond for the year. Half a dozen F. hyemalis about. 

Looking toward the sun, some fields reflect a light sheen from low webs of gossamer which thickly cover the stubble and grass. 

On our way, near the Hosmer moraine, let off some pasture thistle-down. One steadily rose from my hand, freighted with its seed, till it was several hundred feet high, and then passed out of sight eastward. Its down was particularly spreading or open. Is not here a hint to balloonists? 

Astronomers can calculate the orbit of that thistle-down called the comet, now in the northwest sky, conveying its nucleus, which may not be so solid as a thistle’s seed, some whither, but what astronomer can calculate the orbit of my thistle-down and tell where it will deposit its precious freight at last? It may still be travelling when I am sleeping. 

Donati’s Comet 1858

Some Lobelia inflata leaves peculiar hoary-white.

September 29, 2018

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, September 29, 1858

One or two myrtle-birds in their fall dress, with brown head and shoulders, two whitish bars on wings, and bright-yellow rump. See September 23, 1855 (“A little wren-like (or female goldfinch) bird on a.willow at Hubbard’s Causeway, eating a miller: with bright-yellow rump when wings open, and white on tail. Could it have been a yellow-rump warbler?”); October 14, 1855 ("Black bill and feet, yellow rump, brown above, yellowish-brown on head, cream-colored chin, two white bars on wings, tail black, edged with white, — the yellow-rump warbler or myrtle-bird without doubt.”)

Half a dozen F. hyemalis about. See  September 29, 1854 ("I hear a very pleasant and now unusual strain on the sunny side of an oak wood from many — I think F. hyemalis, though I do not get a clear view of them. Even their slight jingling strain is remarkable at this still season.") See also September 24, 1854 (" Do I see an F. hyemalis in the Deep Cut? It is a month earlier than last yea"); October 5, 1857 ("It is evident that some phenomena which belong only to spring and autumn here . . . the myrtle-bird and F. hyemalis which breed there, but only transiently visit us in spring and fall.") 

The year thus repeats itself. See May 5, 1860 ("It takes us many years to find out that Nature repeats herself annually”)

Brushed a spectrum, ghost-horse, off my face in a birch wood. See ;  August 29, 1858 (“The ghost-horse (Spectrum) is seen nowadays, — several of them.”)

Take perhaps our last bath in White Pond for the year. See September 27, 1856 ("Bathed at Hubbard's Bath, but found the water very cold. Bathing about over”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

The comet, now in the northwest sky. See September 23 , 1858 (Saw the comet very bright in the northwest. "); October 5, 1858 ("The comet makes a great show these nights.")

Thistle-down See September 1, 1852 ("These white faery vessels are annually wafted over the cope of their sky. Bethink thyself, O man, when the first thistle-down is in the air. Buoyantly it floated high in air over hills and fields all day, and now, weighed down with evening dews, perchance, it sinks gently to the surface of the lake. Nothing can stay the thistle-down, but with September winds it unfailingly sets sail. The irresistible revolution of time. It but comes down upon the sea in its ship, and is still perchance wafted to the shore with its delicate sails. The thistle-down is in the air. Tell me, is thy fruit also there? Dost thou approach maturity? ")

tinyurl.com/HDT580929

Bluer than the bluest sky.

September 28. 

Tuesday. P. M. ——To Great Fields via Gentian Lane. 

September 28, 2018

The gentian (Andrewsii), now generally in prime, loves moist, shady banks, and its transcendent blue shows best in the shade and suggests coolness; contrasts there with the fresh green;—a splendid blue, light in the shade, turning to purple with age. They are particularly abundant under the north side of the willow-row in Merrick’s pasture. I count fifteen in a single cluster there, and afterward twenty at Gentian Lane near Flint’s Bridge, and there were other clusters below. Bluer than the bluest sky, they lurk in the moist an shady recesses of the banks. 

Acalypha is killed by frost, and rhexia.

Liatris done, apparently some time. 

When Gosnold and Pring and Champlain coasted along our shores, even then the small shrub oak grew on the mainland, with its pretty acorns striped dark and light alternately. [The black oak acorns also slightly marked thus.]

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 28, 1858

The gentian (Andrewsii), now generally in prime—a splendid blue, light in the shade, turning to purple with age. See August 29, 1858 ("Gentiana Andrewsii, one not quite shedding pollen."); September 25, 1858  ("The Gentiana Andrewsii are now in prime at Gentian Shore. Some are turned dark or reddish-purple with age.")

Liatris done, apparently some time. See August 1, 1856  ("Liatris will apparently open in a day or two.");August 26, 1858 ("The liatris is about (or nearly) in prime."); September 6, 1859 ("The liatris is, perhaps, a little past prime. It is a very rich purple in favorable lights and makes a great show where it grows.")

The small shrub oak with its pretty acorns striped dark and light alternately. See September 30, 1854 ("The conventional acorn of art is of course of no particular species, but the artist might find it worth his while to study Nature’s varieties again.")

The farmers digging potatoes on shore pause a moment to watch my sail and bending mast.

September 27. 

P. M. — By boat to Fair Haven Pond. Wind northeast. Sail most of the way. 

The river has gone down from its height on the 20th, and is now some eighteen inches lower, or within its banks. The front rank polygonum is uncovered and in bloom still, but its leaves generally turned a dull red. The P. hydropiperoides is apparently past prime. The P. amphibium spikes still in prime. 

When close to the bushes you do not notice any mark of the recent high water, but at a little distance you see a perfectly level line on the button-bushes and willows, about eighteen inches above the present surface, it being all dark below and warm sunny yellow above. The leaves that have been immersed are generally fallen or withered. Though the bushes may be loose and open, this water line is so perfectly level that it appears continuous. 

The farmers digging potatoes on shore pause a moment to watch my sail and bending mast. 

It is pleasant to see your mast bend in these safe waters. It is rare that the wind is so northeast that I can sail well from the railroad bridge to Clamshell Hill, as to-day.

Red maples now fairly glow along the shore. They vary from yellow to a peculiar crimson which is more red than common crimson. But these particular trees soon fade. It is the first blush which is the purest. 

See men raking cranberries now, or far away squatting in the meadows, where they are picking them. 

Grapes have begun to shrivel on their stems. They drop off on the slightest touch, and if they fall into the water are lost, going to the bottom. You see the grape leaves touched with frost curled up and looking crisp on their edges. 

The fisherman Haynes thinks that the large flock of peetweet-like birds which I saw on the meadow one fall were what he calls “black-backs.” 

What are those little birds in flocks in the garden and on the peach trees these mornings, about size of chip-birds, without distinct chestnut crowns? 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 27, 1858

The farmers digging potatoes on shore pause a moment to watch my sail and bending mast.See May 19, 1856 ("A traveller riding along the highway is watching my sail while he hums a tune.") Compare September 21, 1859 ("The farmers on all sides are digging their potatoes, so prone to their work that they do not see me going across lots.")

Red maples now fairly glow along the shore. See September 27, 1851 ("The maples by the riverside look very green yet, have not begun to blush, nor are the leaves touched by frost. Not so on the uplands"); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water."); September 27, 1857 ("Small red maples in low ground have fairly begun to burn for a week.")

Their harvest of panic seed.

September 26. 

Another smart frost, making dry walking amid the stiffened grass in the morning. 

The purple grass (Eragrostis pectinacea) done. Perhaps the first smart frost finished its purple.

I observe that the seeds of the Panicum sanguinale and filiforme are perhaps half fallen, evidently affected by the late frosts, as chestnuts, etc., will be by later ones; and now is the time, too, when flocks of sparrows begin to scour over the weedy fields, especially in the morning. Methinks they are attracted to some extent by this their harvest of panic seed. 

The spikes of P. Crus-galli also are partially bare.

Evidently the small granivorous birds abound more after these seeds are ripe. 

The seeds of pigweed are yet apparently quite green. Maybe they are somewhat peculiar for hanging on all winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 26, 1858


The seeds of the Panicum sanguinale and filiforme are perhaps half fallen.--This their harvest of panic seed. See September 4, 1858 ("P. sanguinale, crab grass, finger grass, or purple panic grass.");September 12, 1858 ("The Panicum filiforme is very abundant ... and, seen in the right light, where they stand thick, they give a purple gleam to the field. ")

The spikes of P. Crus-galli also are partially bare. See September 13, 1858 ("There is a man there mowing the Panicum Crus-galli, which is exceedingly rank and dense.")

Now is the time, too, when flocks of sparrows begin to scour over the weedy fields, especially in the morning. See September 17, 1858 (“Methinks, too, that there are more sparrows in flocks now about in garden”);  September 27, 1858 ("What are those little birds in flocks in the garden and on the peach trees these mornings, about size of chip-birds, without distinct chestnut crowns?”); October 3, 1860 ("I have seen and heard sparrows in flocks, more as if flitting by, within a week, or since the frosts began.") October 5, 1858 (“I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard.”); October 10, 1853 ("There are . . . large flocks of small sparrows, which make a business of washing and pruning themselves in the puddles in the road, as if cleaning up after a long flight and the wind of yesterday.”); 

The seeds of pigweed are somewhat peculiar for hanging on all winter. See February 13, 1853 ("I am called to window to see a dense flock of snowbirds, on and under the pigweed in the garden. "); February 10, 1855 ("t is worth the while to let some pigweed grow in your garden, if only to attract these winter visitors. "); January 2, 1856 ("I see, near the back road and railroad, a small flock of eight snow buntings feeding on the the seeds of the pigweed.")

Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies.

September 25. 

A smart white frost last night, which has killed the sweet potato vines and melons. 

P. M. — Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies. 

The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it? 

The Gentiana Andrewsii are now in prime at Gentian Shore. Some are turned dark or reddish-purple with age. 

There is a very red osier-like cornel on the shore by the stone-heaps. 

Edward Hoar says he found last year Datum Stramomlum in their garden. Add it, then, to our plants. 

In the evening Mr. Warren brings me a snipe and a pectoral sandpiper. This last, which is a little less than the snipe but with a longer wing, must be much like T. solitarius, and I may have confounded them. The shaft of the first primary is conspicuously white above. 

The catbird still mews occasionally, and the chewink is heard faintly. 

Melvin says he has found the pigeon hawk’s nest here (distinct from partridge hawk’s); also that he sometimes sees the larger yellow-legs here. Goodwin also says the last.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1858

Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies. See August 12, 1853 ("To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.")

The Gentiana Andrewsii are now in prime at Gentian Shore. See  August 29, 1858  ("Gentiana Andrewsii, one not quite shedding pollen.")

The catbird still mews occasionally, and the chewink is heard faintly. See October 4, 1857 ("Hear a catbird and chewink, both faint."); also September 21, 1854 ("Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher.");  September 25, 1855 ("Meanwhile the catbird mews in the alders by my side"); September 21, 1856 ("I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year."); ; September 19, 1858 ("Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately.")

Melvin says that he sometimes sees the large yellow-legs here. See September 14, 1854 ("A flock of thirteen tell tales, great yellow-legs, start up with their shrill whistle from the midst of the great Sudbury meadow")

At the East India Marine Hall

September 24. 

What that singular spiny plant, otherwise like chenopodium, which I found on a wharf in Salem?

Saw at the East India Marine Hall a bay lynx killed in Danvers July 21st (I think in 1827); another killed in Lynnfield in March, 1832. These skins were, now at any rate, quite light dirty-whitish or white wolfish color, with small pale-brown spots. The animals much larger than I expected. 

Saw a large fossil turtle, some twenty inches in diameter, with the plates distinct, in a slate colored stone from western New York; also a sword in its scabbard, found in the road near Concord April 19, 1775, and supposed to have belonged to a British officer. 

Cape Ann, from Beverly round to Squam, is bristling with little capes, projecting from the main one and similar to it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 24, 1858

Saw at the East India Marine Hall a bay lynx killed in Danvers. See September 13, 1860 ("Five [lynx] I have heard of (and seen three) killed within some fifteen or eighteen miles of Concord within thirty years past.");  September 29, 1856 ("Dr. Reynolds told me the other day of a Canada lynx (?) killed in Andover,. . . thought to be one of a pair, the other being killed or seen in Derry.")  and note to February 15, 1858 (' Saw, at a menagerie, a Canada lynx, said to have been taken at the White Mountains.")

Cape Ann and the comet

September 23. 

September 23, 2018

Another fair day and wind northwest, but rather warmer. 

We kept along the road to Rockport, some two miles or more, to a “thundering big ledge” by the road, as a man called it; then turned off toward the south shore, at a house with two very large and old pear trees before it. Part of the house was built by a Witham, one of the first settlers, and the place or neighborhood used to be called “the Farms.” Saw the F. hyemalis flitting along the walls, and it was cool enough for them on this cape. 

In a marsh by the shore, where was a very broad curving sandy beach, the shore of a cove, found the Ranunculus Cymbalaria, still in bloom, but mostly in fruit. Glaux maritima (?), nearly prostrate, with oblong leaves. Triglochin palustris in fruit. An eleocharis, apparently marine, with lenticular fruit and a wrinkled mitre-shaped beak. Spergularia rubra, etc., samphire, etc. 

The narrow road — where we followed it — wound about big boulders, past small, often bevel-roofed cottages where sometimes was a small flag flying for a vane. The number and variety of bevelled roofs on the Cape is surprising. Some are so nearly flat that they reminded me of the low brows of monkeys. 

We had already seen a sort of bare rocky ridge, a bare boulder-covered back of the Cape, running northeasterly from Gloucester toward Rockport and for some three miles quite bare, the eastern extremity of the Cape being wooded. That would be a good place to walk. 

In this marsh, saw what I thought the solitary tattler, quite tame. 

Having reached the shore, we sat under the lee of the rocks on the beach, opposite Salt Island. A man was carting seaweed along the shore between us and the water, the leather-apron kind, which trailed from his cart like the tails of oxen, and, when it came between us and the sun, was of a warm purple-brown glow. 

Half a mile further, beyond a rocky head, we came to another curving sandy beach, with a marsh between it and the Cape on the north. Saw there, in the soft sand, with beach-grass, apparently Juncus Balticus (?), very like but not so stout (!) as Juncus effusus. 

Met a gunner from Lynn on the beach, who had several pigeons which he had killed in the woods by the shore. Said that they had been blown off the mainland. Second, also a kingfisher. Third, what he called the “ox eye,” about size of peetweet but with a short bill and a blackish-brown crescent on breast, and wing above like peetweet’s, but no broad white mark below. Could it be Charadrius semipalmatus? Fourth, what he called a sandpiper, very white with a long bill. Was this Tringa arenaria? Fifth, what I took to be a solitary tattler, but possibly it was the pectoral sandpiper, which I have seen since. 

On the edge of the beach you see small dunes, with white or fawn-colored sandy sides, crowned with now  yellowish smilax and with bayberry bushes. Just before reaching Loblolly Cove, near Thatcher’s Island, sat on a beach composed entirely of small paving-stones lying very loose and deep. 

We boiled our tea for dinner on the mainland opposite Straitsmouth Island, just this side the middle of Rockport, under the lee of a boulder, using, as usual, dead bay berry bushes for fuel. This was, indeed, all we could get. They make a very quick fire, and I noticed that their smoke covered our dippers with a kind of japan which did not crock or come off nearly so much as ordinary soot. 

We could see the Salvages very plainly, apparently ex tending north and south, the Main Rock some fifteen or twenty rods long and east-northeast of Straitsmouth Island, apparently one and a half or two miles distant, with half-sunken ledges north and south of it, over which the sea was breaking in white foam. The ledges all together half a mile long. 

We could see from our dining-place Agamenticus, some forty miles distant in the north. Its two sides loomed so that about a third of the whole was lifted up, while a small elevation close to it on the east, which afterward was seen to be a part of it, was wholly lifted up. 

Rockport well deserves its name, — several little rocky harbors protected by a breakwater, the houses at Rockport Village backing directly on the beach. 

At Folly Cove, a wild rocky point running north, covered with beach—grass. See now a mountain on the east of Agamenticus. Isles of Shoals too low to be seen. Probably land at Boar’s Head, seen on the west of Agamenticus, and then the coast all the way from New Hampshire to Cape Ann plainly, Newburyport included and Plum Island. Hog Island looks like a high hill on the mainland. 

It is evident that a discoverer, having got as far west as Agamenticus, off the coast of Maine, would in clear weather discern the coast trending southerly beyond him as far round as Cape Ann, and if he did not wish to be embayed would stand across to Cape Ann, where the Salvages would be the outmost point. 

At Annisquam we found ourselves in the midst of boulders scattered over bare hills and fields, such as we had seen on the ridge northerly in the morning, i. e., they abound chiefly in the central and northwesterly part of the Cape. This was the most peculiar scenery of the Cape. 

We struck inland southerly, just before sundown, and boiled our tea with bayberry bushes by a swamp on the hills, in the midst of these great boulders, about half way to Gloucester, having carried our water a quarter of a mile, from a swamp, spilling a part in threading swamps and getting over rough places. 

Two oxen feeding in the swamp came up to reconnoitre our fire. We could see no house, but hills strewn with boulders, as if they had rained down, on every side, we sitting under a shelving one. When the moon rose, what had appeared like immense boulders half a mile off in the horizon now looked by contrast no larger than nutshells or buri-nut against the moon’s disk, and she was the biggest boulder of all. 

When we had put out our bayberry fire, we heard a squawk, and, looking up, saw five geese fly low in the twilight over our heads. We then set out to find our way to Gloucester over the hills, and saw the comet very bright in the northwest. 

Donati’s Comet 1858

After going astray a little in the moonlight, we fell into a road which at length conducted us to the town.

As we bought our lodging and breakfast, a pound of good ship-bread, which cost seven cents, and six herring, which cost three cents, with sugar and tea, supplied us amply the rest of the two days. The selection of suitable spots to get our dinner or supper led us into interesting scenery, and it was amusing to watch the boiling of our water for tea. There is a scarcity of fresh water on the Cape, so that you must carry your water a good way in a dipper.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1858

From Salem to Cape Ann on foot.

September 22.  

A clear cold day, wind northwest. 

Cape Ann

Leave Salem for the Cape on foot. Near Beverly Bridge, crossed over that low and flat part of Salem where the first settlement was made and Arabella Stewart is supposed to have been buried. 

Soon struck off to the shore in Beverly. See the discolor thistle on a sandy beach, and Phaseolus diversifolius (three-lobed bean vine), with pretty terete long pods, some ripe, but a few flowers still. Aster linifolius, perhaps still in prime, — though it has a flexuous stem, — in a marsh, and lyme-grass, apparently like ours, along edge of marsh. 

Dined on the edge of a high rocky clifl', quite perpendicular, on the west side of entrance of Manchester Harbor. 

One mile southeast of the village of Manchester, struck the beach of “musical sand,” just this side of a large, high, rocky point called Eagle Head. This is a curving sandy beach, maybe a third of a mile long by some twelVe rods wide. (We also found it on a similar but shorter beach on the east side of Eagle Head.) 

We first perceived the sound when we scratched with our umbrella or finger swiftly and forcibly through the sand; also still louder when we struck forcibly with our heels “scuffing” along. The wet or damp sand yielded no peculiar sound, nor did that which lay loose and deep next the bank, but only the more compact and dry. 

The sound was not at all musical, nor was it loud. Fishermen might walk over it all their lives, as indeed they have done, without noticing it. R., who had not heard it, was about right when he said it was like that made by rubbing on wet glass with your fingers. I thought it as much like the sound made in waxing a table as anything. It was a squeaking sound, as of one particle rubbing on another. I should say it was merely the result of the friction of peculiarly formed and constituted particles. 

The surf was high and made a great noise, yet I could hear the sound made by my companion’s heels two or three rods distant, and if it had been still, probably could have heard it five or six rods. 

We kept thence along the rocky shore to Kettle Cove, where, however, I did not find any rocks like Lewis’s.

Somewhere thereabouts Scirpus maritimus, with its great spikes now withered. In the marsh at Kettle Cove, Gerardia maritima, apparently in prime, four or five inches high; Euphorbia polygonifolia, six inches in diameter. Spartina glabra in the salt water of the cove.

The shore, thus far, from Beverly Bridge had been a succession of bold rocky points half a mile apart, with sometimes curving sandy beaches between, or else rocks. 

We now kept the road to Gloucester, leaving the shore a mile or more to the right, wishing to see the magnolia swamp. This was perhaps about a mile and a half beyond Kettle Cove. After passing over a sort of height of land in the woods, we took a path to the left, which within a few rods became a corduroy road in the swamp. Within three or four rods on the west side of this, and perhaps ten or fifteen from the highroad, was the magnolia. 

It was two to seven or eight feet high, but distinguished by its large and still fresh green leaves, which had not begun to fall. I saw last year's shoots which had died down several feet, and probably this will be the fate of most which has grown this year. 

The swamp was an ordinary one, not so wet but we got about very well. The bushes of this swamp were not generally more than six feet high. There was another locality the other side of the road. 

Cooked our supper in a salt marsh some two miles this side of Gloucester, in view of the town. We had cooked our tea for dinner with dead bayberry bushes; now we used the chips and bark which the tide had deposited in little parcels on the marsh, having carried water in our dippers from a brook, a quarter of a mile. 

There was a large patch of samphire turned a bright crimson, very conspicuous, near by on the flat marsh, the more conspicuous because large and in the midst of the liquid green of the marsh. 

We sat on some stones which we obtained flat in the marsh till starlight. 

I had seen in this day’s walk an abundance of Aster cordifolius (but no A. undulatus); also saw A. corymbosus, which is a handsome white wood aster; and, very common, what I called A. longifolius, with shorter thick, clasping leaves and growing in drier ground than ours, methinks; also, all along the road, the up-country hard, small, mulberry-shaped high blackberry, and many still holding on. This may be due to the cool air of the Cape. They were quite sweet and good. Vide a specimen. 

The foliage had but just fairly begun to change. Put up in Gloucester.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 22, 1858

September 22, 2018

Botanizing Marblehead and Salem

September 21. 

September 21, 2019

Go to Cape Ann. 

A very warm day. A. M.—Go with Russell to the rooms of the Essex Institute, — if that is the name. 

See some Indian pottery from the Cayuga Reservation, fragments, very pale brick-color three eighths of an inch thick, with a rude ornament (apparently made with the end of a stick) of this form and size: - the lines re presenting slight hollows in a row around it. Saw a stone, apparently slate, shaped like small “sinkers,” but six inches by three and a half with a small handle, found near here. Was it a sinker or pestle? 

(On the 24th, at the East India Marine Hall, saw a circular stone mortar about six inches in diameter, and a stone exactly like the above in it, described as pestle and mortar found in making Salem Turnpike. Were they together? Also, at the last place, what was called the blade of an Indian knife found on Governor Endicott’s farm, broken, three or four inches long, of a light colored kind of slate, quite thin, with a back. It might have been for skinning.) 

At the Essex Institute (?),—if that ’s the name, — the eggs of the Rallus Virginianus, labelled by Brewer, but much smaller than those I have seen, and nearly white, with dull-brown spots! Can mine be the egg of the R. crepitons, though larger than mine? 

Their eggs of the Sterna hirundo look like mine which I have so called; also do those of the black-headed gull, which do not perceive in Peabody. 

Looked over the asters. goldenrods, and willows in their herbarium, collected and named by Oakes, Lapham, Russell, and Cassi —— something. Oakes’s Salix sericea, also Marshall’s, and what O. calls grisea of Willdenow, is the same I so call,, by the white maple at Assabet. What O. calls S. phyllicifolia from White Mountains, having only sterile catkins, ——his specimen, ——is apparently the one I have from there together with the repent. 

P. M. — Walked with Russell to Marblehead above railroad. 

Saw, in Salem, Solidago Canadensis, considerably past prime; our three-ribbed one done; Spartina cynosuroides; (was that the S. juncea, seven feet high, with a broad leaf, which I mistook for the above? Very common on edge of marshes); apparently Scirpus pungens, two to four feet high; Polygonum aviculare, appearently peculiar; swamp thistle, still abundant; Trifolium procumbens, still abundant; Aster Nova-Anglia, dark violet or lilac-purple, in prime or a little past, three quarters of a mile down railroad; also by shore in Manchester, the 22d; Ruppia maritima, in a ditch. 

In Marblehead, Aster cordifolius, abundant, railroad; Woodsia Ivensis. R. pointed out Juncus bufonius (? ?) (but did not know it); it was tenuis-like and probably that. Juncus Green (?) (tenuis-like), dense-flowered, on high sea-bank, sea side of Marblehead. Herb robert, near shore, done. Datura Stramonium var. Tatula, done there, but out at Rockport; got seeds. Also various lichens. Got Parmelia parietina, elegans, and rubina on the rocks. Saw, but did not get, P. murorum. Cetraria Islandica. 

R. said that that I saw at the White Mountains was bitter. Endocarpon miniatum (which we have) on rocks. Peltigera polydactyla. Umbilicaria Muhlenbergii, rocks by sea. That common crustaceous lichen on rdcks, —black fruit prettily scattered on a white ground, —— which reminds me of maps, is Lecidea atroalba. 

R. thought that my small umbilicaria on Monadnock and Lafayette was Uerosa or hyperborea. He knew a Carex lupulina because the beaks were recurved.

Called Marblehead coast greenstone generally with dykes in sienite. Saw artichokes out in several places, at some time. Have a sort of Spouting Horn by shore. Returned by some very deep hollows in Salem (like the Truro ones) called the Dungeons ! ! as our Dunge Hole. 

R. gave me from his garden corns of the true [?] squirrel-corn corydalis, which I plant, and what Tracy gave him for Utricularia intermedia from —-—, not in flower, though he says that T. has examined the flowers. It looks like mine. 

What I have called the clustered blackberry he has raised from the seed he got here, and this second year (or third) it has run as long as the common, but, perhaps because in rich soil and the shade, no flowers or fruit. 

Saw no Aster Tradescanti in this walk, but an abundance of A. multiflorus in its prime, in Salem and Marblehead.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal , September 21, 1858

Hear warbling vireos still, in the elms.

September 20. 

The river probably reaches its highest since June to-day. 

The Maryland yellow-throat is here. Hear warbling vireos still, in the elms. 

Miss Pratt shows me a small luminous bug found on the earth floor of their shed (I think a month ago). Had two bright points in its tail, as bright or brighter than the glow-worm. 

Vide it in paper. It is now dried, three eighths of an inch long by somewhat more than one eighth wide, ovate-oblong with a broad and blunt head, dull straw-color, clear rose—red on the sides, composed of many segments, which give it a dentate appearance on the edges. A broad flattish kind of shield in front, also red and straw-color.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 20, 1858

The Maryland yellow-throat is here. See August 22, 1856 ("The faint warbling I hear nowadays is from apparently the young Maryland yellow- throats, as it were practicing against another spring, — half-finished strains. ")

Hear warbling vireos still, in the elms. See August 25, 1858 ("The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare");  September 6, 1858 ("Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect.); September 13, 1858 ("Hear many warbling vireos these mornings"

Miss Pratt shows me a small luminous bug. Compare June 25, 1852 ("Nature loves variety in all things, and so she adds glow-worms to fireflies. . ."); June 15, 1856 ("A Miss Martha Le Barron describes to me a phosphorescence on the beach at night in Narragansett Bay. They wrote their names with some minute creatures on the sand."}; September 16, 1857 (“Watson gave me three glow-worms which he found by the roadside in Lincoln last night. They exhibit a greenish light, only under the caudal extremity, and intermittingly, or at will. As often as I touch one in a dark morning, it stretches and shows its light for a moment, only under the last segment.”);

The indistinct trail of wild animals — foxes, etc. — and sportsmen.

September 19. 

Sunday. P. M. -— To Cassandra Ponds. 

We go through Sedge Hollow. See a small hole, perhaps a skunk’s, in that hollow, and, about the mouth, fragments of a hornets’ or wasps’ nest. I knew that foxes were said to tear in pieces these nests for the sake of the grubs or old hornets left in them. Perhaps the skunk does. 

These dry, sedgy hollows are peculiar and interesting to me. The fine, thick sedge makes a soft bed to recline on, and is recurved and lodging like a curly head. These dry hollows, side by side with the deeper and wet ones, are surrounded by hazel bushes and panicled andromeda instead of alders and willows. There is this sort of analogy to the wet ones, or ponds. In the lowest part, even here, I perceive that a different and coarser kind of sedge grows. 

Along the middle and bottom of the hollows is the indistinct trail of wild animals — foxes, etc. — and sportsmen. C. thinks this might be called Fox Path.

As I stand on the shore of the most westerly Cassandra Pond but one, I see in the air between me and the sun those interesting swarms of minute light-colored gnats, looking like motes in the sun. These may be allied to the winter gnat of Kirby and Spence. Do they not first appear with cooler and frosty weather, when we have had a slight foretaste of winter? Then in the clear, cool air they are seen to dance. These are about an eighth of an inch long, with a greenish body and two light-colored plumes in front; the wings not so long as the body. So I think they are different from those over the river in the spring. I see a dozen of these choirs within two or three rods, their centres about six feet above the surface of the water andromeda. These separate communities are narrow horizontally and long vertically, about eighteen inches wide and densest in the middle, regularly thinning to nothing at the edges. These individuals are constantly gyrating up and down, cutting figures of 8 like the water-bug, but keeping nearly about the same place. It is to me a very agreeable reminder of cooler weather. 

Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately. In spring it makes its due impression, and for a long time will not have done echoing, as it were, through our minds. It is even as if the atmosphere were in an unfavorable condition for this kind of music. Every musician knows how much depends on this. 

Going through low woods I see a white, dusty or mealy-looking mildew on the leaves, — oaks, etc., — the effects of the dog-days or mould season.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1858

These dry, sedgy hollows are peculiar and interesting to me. Surrounded by hazel bushes and panicled andromeda there is this sort of analogy to the wet ones, or ponds. See November 24, 1857 ("You have clear open water, but shallow; then, in course of time, a shallow lake with much sedge standing in it; then, after a while, a dense andromeda bed with blueberry bushes and perhaps a wet border of sedge (as here at present); and finally, a maple swamp.")

I see in the air between me and the sun those interesting swarms of minute light-colored gnats, looking like motes in the sun. These may be allied to the winter gnat. See October 19, 1856 ("I noticed, two or three days ago, after one of those frosty mornings, half an hour before sunset of a clear and pleasant day, a swarm, — were they not of winter gnats ? — between me and the sun like so many motes,. . .Each insect was acting its part in a ceaseless dance, rising and falling a few inches while the swarm kept its place. Is not this a forerunner of winter? "); March 19, 1858 ("Are not these the winter gnat? They keep up a circulation in the air like water-bugs on the water. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fuzzy Gnats (tipulidæ)

Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! See September 21, 1856 ("I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year.")

The earth is yellowing in the September sun

September 18. 

P. M. — Sail to Fair Haven Pond. 

It is a fine September day. The river is still rising on account of the rain of the 16th and is getting pretty well over the meadows. As we paddle westward, toward College Meadow, I perceive that a new season has come. 

The air is incredibly clear. The surface of both land and water is bright, as if washed by the recent rain and then seen through a much finer, clearer, and cooler air. The surface of the river sparkles. 

I am struck by the soft yellow-brown or brown-yellow of the black willows, stretching in cloud-shaped wreaths far away along the edges of the stream, of a so much mellower and maturer tint than the elms and oaks and most other trees seen above and beyond them. 

It is remarkable that the button-bushes beneath and mingling with them are of exactly the same tint and in perfect harmony with them. They are like two interrupted long brown-yellow masses of verdure resting on the water, a peculiarly soft and warm yellow. This is, perhaps, the most interesting autumnal tint as yet. 

Above the railroad bridge, with our sail set, wind north-northwest, we see two small ducks, dusky, —— perhaps dippers, or summer ducks, — and sail within four rods before they fly. They are so tame that for a while we take them for tame ducks. 

The pads are drowned by the flood, but I see one pontederia spike rising blue above the surface. Elsewhere the dark withered pontederia leaves show themselves, and at a distance look like ducks, and so help conceal them. For the ducks are now back again in numbers, since the storm and freshet. We can just go over the ammannia meadow. 

It is a wonderful day. 

As I look westward, this fine air — “gassy,” C. calls it — brings out the grain of the hills. I look into the distant sod. This air and sun, too, bring out all the yellow that is in the herbage. The very grass or sedge of the meadow is the same soft yellow with the willows, and the button-bush harmonizes with them. It is as if the earth were one ripe fruit, like a muskmelon yellowed in the September sun; i. e., the sedges, being brought between me and the sun, are seen to be ripe like the cucumbers and muskmelons in the garden. 

The earth is yellowing in the September sun. 

It occurs to me to put my knee on it, press it gently, and hear if it does not crack within as if ripe. Has it not, too, a musty fragrance, as a melon? 

At Clamshell we take the wind again, and away we glide. I notice, along the edge of the eastern meadow wood, some very light-colored and crisped-looking leaves, apparently on small maples, or else swamp white oaks, as if some vine ran over the trees, for the leaves are of a different color from the rest. This must be the effect of frost, I think. 

The sedge and wool-grass all slant strongly southward or up the stream now, which makes a strange impression on the sailor, but of late the wind has been north and stronger than the sluggish current of the river. 

The small white pines on the side of Fair Haven Hill now look remarkably green, by contrast with the surrounding shrubbery, which is recently imbrowned. You are struck by their distinct liquid green, as if they had but just sprung up there. 

All bright colors seem brighter now for the same reason, i. e. from contrast with the duller browns and russets. The very cows on the hill side are a brighter red amid the pines and the brown' hazels. 

The perfectly fresh spike of the Polygonum amphibium attracts every eye now. It is not past its prime. C. thinks it is exactly the color of some candy. 

Also the Polygala sanguiuea on the bank looks redder than usual. 

Many red maples are now partly turned dark crimson along the meadow-edge. 

Near the pond we scare up twenty or thirty ducks, and at the pond three blue herons. They are of a hoary blue. One flies afar and alights on a limb of a large white pine near Well Meadow Head, bending it down. I see him standing there with outstretched neck. 

Finding grapes, we proceeded to pluck them, tempted more by their fragrance and color than their flavor, though some were very palatable. We gathered many without getting out of the boat, as we paddled back, and more on shore close to the water’s edge, piling them up in the prow of the boat till they reached to the top of the boat, — a long sloping heap of them and very handsome to behold, being of various colors and sizes, for we even added green ones for variety. Some, however, were mainly green when ripe. You cannot touch some vines without bringing down more single grapes in a shower around you than you pluck in bunches, and such as strike the water are lost, for they do not float. But it is a pity to break the handsome clusters. Thus laden, the evening air wafting the fragrance of the cargo back to us, we paddled homeward. 

The cooler air is so clear that we see Venus plainly some time before sundown. The wind had all gone down, and the water was perfectly smooth. The sunset was uncommonly fair. 

Some long amber clouds in the horizon, all on fire with gold, were more glittering than any jewelry. An Orient city to adorn the plates of an annual could not be contrived or imagined more gorgeous. 

And when you looked with head inverted the effect was increased tenfold, till it seemed a world of enchantment. We only regretted that it had not a due moral effect on us scapegraces. 

Nevertheless, when, turning my head, I looked at the willowy edge of Cyanean Meadow and onward to the sober-colored but fine-grained Clamshell Hills, about which there was no glitter, I was inclined to think that the truest beauty was that which surrounded us but which we failed to discern, that the forms and colors which adorn our daily life, not seen afar in the horizon, are our fairest jewelry. The beauty of Clamshell Hill, near at hand, with its sandy ravines, in which the cricket chirps. This is an Occidental city, not less glorious than that we dream of in the sunset sky. 

It chanced that all the front-rank polygonum, with its rosaceous spikes, was drowned by the flood, but now, the sun having for some time set, with our backs to the west we saw the light reflected from the slender clear white spikes of the P. hydropiperoides (now in its prime), which in large patches or masses rise about a foot above the surface of the water and the other polygonum. Under these circumstances this polygonum was very pretty and interesting, only its more presentable part I rising above the water. 

Mr. Warren brings to me three kinds of birds which he has shot on the Great Meadows this afternoon, viz. two Totanus flavipes, such as I saw the 8th (there were eight in the flock, and he shot seven), one Rallus Carolinus, and one peetweet. I doubt if I have seen any but the T. flavipes here, since I have measured this.[Or very likely I have. Vide 25th.] Wilson says that this does not penetrate far inland, though he sees them near Philadelphia after a northeast storm. 

The above rail corresponds to the land rail or corn crake of Europe in form and habits. In Virginia is called the sora; in South Carolina, the coot. It is the game rail of the South, and the only species of the genus Crex in America. Note kuk kuk kuk. Go to Hudson’s Bay and thereabouts to breed. This was a male, having a black throat and black about base of bill. Peabody says that they are seen here only in the autumn on their return from the north, though Brewer thinks their nest may be found here. In the genus Crex, the bill is stout and shorter than the head. In Rallus (as in R. Virginianus), it is longer than the head and slender. In the latter, too, the crown and whole upper parts are black, streaked with brown; the throat, breast, and belly, orange-brown; sides and vent, black tipped with white; legs and feet, dark red-brown; none of which is true of the R. Carolinus. 

I notice that the wing of the peetweet, which is about two inches wide, has a conspicuous and straight-edged white bar along its middle on the under side for half its length. It is seven eighths of an inch wide and, being quite parallel with the darker parts of the wing, it produces that singular effect in its flying which I have noticed. This line, by the way, is not mentioned by Wilson, yet it is, perhaps, the most noticeable mark of the bird when flying! The under side of the wings is commonly slighted in the description, though it is at least as often seen by us as the upper. Wilson says that “the whole lower parts are beautifully marked with roundish spots of black, . . . but the young are pure white be low.” May I not have made the young the T. solitarius? But the young are white-spotted on wings. 

I think that I see a white-throated sparrow this after noon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 18, 1858

It is a fine September day. The air is incredibly clear. The surface of both land and water is bright. . .seen through a much finer, clearer, and cooler air. The surface of the river sparkles. . . .It is a wonderful day"); September 18, 1860 ("If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow."); September 22, 1854 ("As I look off from the hilltop, wonder if there are any finer days in the year than these. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

Finding grapes, we proceeded to pluck them, tempted more by their fragrance and color than their flavor,piling them up in the prow of the boat till they reached to the top of the boat, — the evening air wafting the fragrance of the cargo back to us, we paddled homeward . See September 8, 1854 ("As I paddle home with my basket of grapes in the bow, every now and then their perfume was wafted to me in the stern, and I think that I am passing a richly laden vine on shore."); September 13, 1856 ("The best are more admirable for fragrance than for flavor. Depositing them in the bows of the boat, they fill all the air with their fragrance, as we row along against the wind, as if we were rowing through an endless vineyard in its maturity. ")

Some long amber clouds in the horizon, all on fire with gold, were more glittering than any jewelry. And when you looked with head inverted the effect was increased tenfold, till it seemed a world of enchantment. See January 8, 1854 ("Gilpin, in his essay on the "Art of Sketching Landscape," says: "When you have finished your sketch . . . tinge the whole over with some light horizon hue." . . .I have often been attracted by this harmonious tint in his and other drawings, and sometimes, especially, have observed it in nature when at sunset I inverted my head.")

Nevertheless, when, turning my head, . . .I was inclined to think that the truest beauty was that which surrounded us but which we failed to discern, that the forms and colors which adorn our daily life, not seen afar in the horizon, are our fairest jewelry. See June 21, 1852 ("The perception of beauty is a moral test."); May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world"); May 17, 1853 ("Ah, the beauty of this last hour of the day — when a power stills the air and smooths all waters and all minds — that partakes of the light of the day and the stillness of the night");  ;December 11. 1855 ("It is only necessary to behold thus the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance."); Autumnal Tints ("There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate")

The cooler air is so clear that we see Venus plainly some time before sundown. See February 3, 1852 ("Venus is now like a little moon in the west,"); May 8, 1852 ("Venus is the evening star and the only star yet visible"); December 27, 1853 ("It is a true winter sunset, almost cloudless, clear, cold indigo-y along the horizon. The evening star is seen shining brightly, before the twilight has begun")

September 18. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, September 18

A wonderful day.  

The earth is yellowing in 

the September sun.

The air is so clear 

we see Venus plainly some 

time before sundown.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The earth yellowing in the September sun

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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/HDT-540918