An old stump by the wall.

November 22

In surveying Mr. Bigelow’s wood-lot to day I found at the northeasterly angle what in the deed from the Thayers in ’38 was called “an old stump by the wall.” It is still quite plain and may last twenty years longer. It is oak. 

This is quite a pleasant day, but hardly amounting to Indian summer. 

I see swarms of large mosquito-like insects dancing in the garden. They may be a large kind of Tipulidoe. Had slender ringed abdomens and no plumes. 

The river is quite low, — about as low as it has been, for it has not been very low. 

About the first of November a wild pig from the West, said to weigh three hundred pounds, jumped out of a car at the depot and made for the woods. The owner had to give up the chase at once, not to lose his passage, while some railroad employees pursued the pig even into the woods a mile and a half off, but there the pig turned and pursued them so resolutely that they ran for their lives and one climbed a tree. The next day being Sunday, they turned out in force with a gun and a large mastiff, but still the pig had the best of it, — fairly frightened the men by his fierce charges, — and the dog was so wearied and injured by the pig that the men were obliged to carry him in their arms. The pig stood it better than the dog. Ran between the gun man’s legs, threw him over, and hurt his shoulder, though pierced in many places by a pitchfork. At the last accounts, he had been driven or baited into a barn in Lincoln, but no one durst enter, and they were preparing to shoot him. Such pork might be called venison.[Caught him at last in a snare, and so conveyed him to Brighton.]

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

I see swarms of large mosquito-like insects dancing in the garden. See October 20, 1858 (“It is so warm that even the tipulidae appear to prefer the shade. There they continue their dance, balancing to partners, as it seems, and by a fine hum remind me of summer still, when now the air generally is rather empty of insect sounds.”)

A wild pig from the Westjumped out of a car at the depot and made for the woods. See February 15, 1857 (“How to catch a pig”)