Dense flocks of pigeons.

September 15.

Yesterday was very cold, with northwest wind, and this morning the first frost in the garden, killing some of our vines. 

W. Ricketson says that, when looking for insects this morning under the loose bark of an apple tree on Nawshawtuct, he found a bat hanging there which measured eleven feet [sic], alar extent.

P. M. — To Annursnack. 

Dense flocks of pigeons hurry-skurry over the hill. Pass near Brooks's pigeon-stands. There was a flock perched on his poles, and they sat so still and in such regular order there, being also the color of the wood, that I thought they were wooden figures at first.

They were perched not only in horizontal straight lines one above the other, which the cross-bars required, but at equal distances apart on these perches, which must be their own habit; and it struck me that they made just such a figure seen against the sky as pigeonholes cut in a doves' house do, i. e. a  more or less triangular figure, and possibly the seeing them thus perched might have originally suggested this arrangement of the holes. 

Pigeons dart by on every side, — a dry slate color, like weather-stained wood (the weather-stained birds), fit color for this aerial traveller, a more subdued and earthy blue than the sky, as its field (or path) is between the sky and the earth, — not black or brown, as is the earth, but a terrene or slaty blue, suggesting their aerial resorts and habits. 

The Emersons tell me that their Irishman, James, held his thumb for the calf to suck, after dipping it in a pitcher of milk, but, the milk not coming fast enough, [the calf] butted (or bunted) the pitcher to make the milk come down, and broke it. 

The grain of the wild rice is all green yet. 

I find that Temple raises his own tobacco. The great leaves were spread over the bottom and sides of a hayrigging in his barn, by the open door, to dry. He smokes them. He says that the season is rather short for it here, but I saw some still growing and in bloom abundantly. What kind is it? "Cuby, they call it." He smokes it and thinks it better than any he can buy.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 15, 1859

This morning the first frost in the garden, killing some of our vines. See September 7, 1857 ("Our first slight frost in some places this morning. Northwest wind to-day and cool weather "); September 14, 1852 ("This morning the first frost"); September 21, 1854 ("The first frost in our yard last night, the grass white and stiff in the morning. The muskmelon vines are now blackened in the sun.")

Pass near Brooks's pigeon-stands. There was a flock perched on his poles, and they sat so still and in such regular order there, being also the color of the wood, that I thought they were wooden figures at first. See September 12, 1851 (" Saw a pigeon-place on George Heywood's cleared lot, — the six dead trees set up for the pigeons to alight on, and the brush house close by to conceal the man. I was rather startled to find such a thing going now in Concord. The pigeons on the trees looked like fabulous birds with their long tails and their pointed breasts. I could hardly believe they were alive and not some wooden birds used for decoys, they sat so still; . . .Several men still take pigeons in Concord every year; by a method, methinks, extremely old and which I seem to have seen pictured in some old book of fables or symbols, and yet few in Concord know exactly how it is done. And yet it is all done for money and because the birds fetch a good price."); September 16, 1856 ("See a flock of pigeons dash by. From a stout breast they taper straightly and slenderly to the tail. They have been catching them a while."); September 13, 1858 ("A small dense flock of wild pigeons dashes by over the side of the hill, from west to east, — perhaps from Wetherbee’s to Brooks’s, for I see the latter’s pigeon place. They make a dark slate-gray impression")