Two little dippers, one up-stream, the other down,

November 21.

P. M. — To Hubbard’s place. 

November 21, 2018

See small water-bugs in Nut Meadow Brook in one place. Probably they were not to be found in the late cold weather, 12th, 13th, etc. 

See from Clamshell apparently two little dippers, one up-stream, the other down, swimming and diving in the perfectly smooth river this still, overcast day. 

Probably the bulk of the scarlet oak leaves are fallen. I find very handsome ones strewn over the floor of Potter’s maple swamp. They are brown above, but still purple beneath. 

These are so deeply cut and the middle and lobes of the leaf so narrow that they look like the remnant of leafy stuff out of which leaves have been cut, or like scrap-tin. The lobes are remarkably sharp pointed and armed with long bristles. Yes, they lie one above another like masses of scrap-tin.

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

See small water-bugs in Nut Meadow Brook. See November 15, 1857 ("The water of the brook beyond Hubbard’s Grove, where it spreads out a little, though not frozen, is clear, cold, and deserted of life. There are no water-bugs nor skaters on it. Rennie, in “ Library of Entertaining Knowledge,” says they are seen all winter on some pools in England, i. e. the Gyrinus natator. . . . There is but little insect-life abroad now. . . . This cold blast has swept the water-bugs from the pools."); January 24, 1858 ("At Nut Meadow Brook the small-sized water-bugs are as abundant and active as in summer.")

See from Clamshell apparently two little dippers. See March 27, 1858 ("At length I detect two little dippers, as I have called them, though I am not sure that I have ever seen the male before. They are male and female close together, the common size of what I have called the little dipper.")

These are so deeply cut and the middle and lobes of the leaf so narrow. See November 11, 1858 ("The scarlet oak leaf! What a graceful and pleasing outline! a combination of graceful curves and angles. . . . If I were a drawing master, I would set my pupils to copying these leaves, that they might learn to draw firmly and gracefully. ")

Two little dippers

one up-stream, the other down –

still overcast day.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Two little dippers

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