The comet makes a great show these nights.

October 5. 

Donati's Comet, Oxford, 7:30 p.m., 5 Oct. 1858

I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard; without very distinct chestnut crowns, and they are divided by a light line. They are eating seeds of the Amaranthus hybridus, etc. 

8 A. M. — I go to Hubbard’s Close to see when the fringed gentians open. They begin to open in the sun about 8.30 A. M., or say 9. 

Chewink note still. Grackles in flocks. Phebe note of Chickadee often these days. 

Much green is indispensable for maples, hickories, birches, etc., to contrast with, as of pines, oaks, alders, etc. The former are fairest when seen against these. The maples, being in their prime, say yesterday, before the pines, are conspicuously parti-colored. 

P. M. — To Easterbrooks Country. 

White pines in low ground and swamps are the first to change. Some of these have lost many needles. Some on dry ground have so far changed as to be quite handsome, but most only so far as to make the misty glaucous (green) leaves more soft and indefinite. 

The fever-bush is in the height of its change and is a showy clear lemon yellow, contrasting with its scarlet berries. The yellow birch is apparently at the height of its change, clear yellow like the black. I think I saw a white ash which was all turned clear yellowish, and no mulberry, in the Botrychium Swamp. 

Looking on the Great Meadows from beyond Nathan Barrett’s, the wool-grass, where uncut, is very rich brown, contrasting with the clear green of the portions which are mown; all rectangular. The staghorn sumach apparently in the prime of its change. 

In the evening I am glad to find that my phosphorescent wood of last night still glows somewhat, but I improve it much by putting it in water. The little chips which remain in the water or sink to the bottom are like so many stars in the sky. 

The comet makes a great show these nights. Its tail is at least as long as the whole of the Great Dipper, to whose handle, till within a night or two, it reached, in a great curve, and we plainly see stars through it. [It finally reaches between one fourth and one third from the horizon to the zenith.]

Huckleberry bushes generally red, but dull Indian red, not scarlet. 

The red maples are generally past their prime (of color). They are duller or faded. Their first fires, like those of genius, are brightest. In some places on the edges of swamps many of their tops are bare and smoky. 

October 5, 2019

The dicksonia fern is for the most part quite crisp and brown along the walls.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 5, 1858

The comet makes a great show these nights. See September 23 , 1858 (Saw the comet very bright in the northwest. "); November 1, 1858 ("Here are all the friends I ever had or shall have . . .They see the comet from the northwest coast just as plainly as we do, and the same stars through its tail. ") see also Comet Donali (first observed it on June 2, 1858. After the Great Comet of 1811, it was the most brilliant comet that appeared in the 19th century. It was also the first comet to be photographed.)

I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard; without very distinct chestnut crowns.  See August 25, 1859 ("quite a flock of (apparently) Fringilla socialis in the garden"); September 1, 1854 ("Now I notice a few faint-chipping sparrows, busily picking the seeds of weeds in the garden"); September 16, 1854 (“I see little flocks of chip-birds along the roadside and on the apple trees, showing their light under sides when they rise.”); 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 7, 1860 (“Now and for a week the chip-birds in flocks; the withered grass and weeds, etc., alive with them.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chipping Sparrow

8 A. M. — I go to Hubbard’s Close to see when the fringed gentians open. See September 12, 1854 (" I cannot find a trace of the fringed gentian."); September 14, 1855 ("To Hubbard's Close. I see no fringed gentian yet.");  September 14, 1856 (" To Hubbard's Close. Fringed gentian well out (and some withered or frost-bitten ?), say a week, though there was none to be seen here August 27th.");  September 28, 1853 ("The fringed gentian was out before Sunday; was (some of it) withered then, says Edith Emerson."); October 1, 1858 ("The fringed gentians are now in prime. . . .They who see them closed, or in the afternoon only, do not suspect their beauty.”); October 2, 1857 ("The fringed gentian at Hubbard's Close has been out some time, and most of it already withered"); .October 2, 1853 ("The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively"); October 18, 1857 ("The fringed gentian closes every night and opens every morning in my pitcher.");  October 19, 1852 ("It is too remarkable a flower not to be sought out and admired each year, however rare. It is one of the errands of the walker, as well as of the bees, for it yields him a more celestial nectar still. It is a very singular and agreeable surprise to come upon this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories; the latest of all to begin to bloom"); November 4, 1853 (“To Hubbard's Close. I find no traces of the fringed gentian here, so that in low meadows I suspect it does not last very late”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The Fringed Gentian

 

Phebe note of Chickadee often these days. See  October 4, 1859 (" I hear. . . the sweet phe-be of the chickadee"); October 6, 1856 ("The common notes of the chickadee, so rarely heard for a long time, and also one phebe strain from it, amid the Leaning Hemlocks, remind me of pleasant winter days, when they are more commonly seen.”);  October 10, 1856 ("The phebe note of the chickadee is now often heard ");  October 20, 1856  ("The chickadees are more numerous and lively and familiar and utter their phebe note.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

The fever-bush is in the height of its change and is a showy clear lemon yellow, contrasting with its scarlet berries. See September 24, 1859 ("Fever-bush berries are scarlet now, and also green. They have a more spicy taste than any of our berries, carrying us in thought to the spice islands. Taste like lemon-peel."); October 4, 1857 (“Fever-bush has begun to yellow.”); October 15, 1859 ("The fever-bush is for the most part bare, and I see no berries.")

The dicksonia fern is for the most part quite crisp and brown along the walls. See October 4, 1859 ("How interesting now, by wall-sides and on open springy hillsides, the large, straggling tufts of the dicksonia fern . . .. Long, handsome lanceolate green fronds, pointing in every direction, recurved and full of fruit, intermixed with yellowish and sere brown and shrivelled ones. . . .Their lingering greenness so much the more noticeable now that the leaves (generally) have changed. They affect us as if they were evergreen, such persistent life and greenness in the midst of their own decay") See also September 30, 1859 (" The evergreen ferns have been growing more and more distinct amid the fading and decaying and withering ones,")

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