The Salix purpurea in prime; began, say, 18th.
A warm day. Now begin to sit without fires more commonly, and to wear but one coat commonly.
Moore tells me that last fall his men, digging sand in that hollow just up the hill, dug up a parcel of snakes half torpid. They were both striped and black together, in a place somewhat porous, he thought where a horse had been buried once.
The men killed them, and laid them all in a line on the ground, and they measured several hundred feet. This seems to be the common practice when such collections are found; they are at once killed and stretched out in a line, and the sum of their lengths measured and related.
It is a warm evening, and I hear toads ring distinctly for the first time.
C. sees bluets and some kind of thrush to-day, size of wood thrush, — he thought probably hermit thrush.
H. D.. Thoreau, Journal, April 20, 1860
The Salix purpurea in prime; began, say, 18th. See April 10, 1860 ("Salix purpurea apparently will not open for four or five days");. See also April 22, 1859 ("The Salix purpurea in prime, out probably three or four days; say 19th.")
Now begin to sit without fires more commonly, and to wear but one coat commonly. See April 16, 1855 ("A perfectly clear and very warm day, . . . and I have not got far before, for the first time, I regret that I wore my greatcoat"); April 17, 1855 ("I leave off my greatcoat, though the wind rises rather fresh before I return. It is worth the while to walk so free and light, having got off both boots and greatcoat.");. April 19, 1855 ("Warm and still and somewhat cloudy. Am without greatcoat"); April 25, 1854 (" I swelter under my greatcoat. . . . (I have not left it at home yet),. . . For some time we have done with little fire, nowadays let it go out in the afternoon."); April 26, 1854 ("It is now so warm that I go back to leave my greatcoat for the first time.");April 30, 1859 (" The warmest afternoon yet. Sat in sun without fire this forenoon."); May 2, 1858 ("Sit without fire to-day and yesterday."); May 3, 1857 ("To-day we sit without fire.")
The men killed them. See note to April 26, 1857 ("I have the same objection to killing a snake that I have to the killing of any other animal, yet the most humane man that I know never omits to kill one.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Striped Snake
I hear toads ring distinctly for the first time. See April 20, 1853 ("Saw a toad and a small snake.") See also April 5, 1860 ("I hear, or think that I hear, a very faint distant ring of toads, which, though I walk and walk all the afternoon, I never come nearer to. . . .. Thus gradually and moderately the year begins. It creeps into the ears so gradually that most do not observe it, and so our ears are gradually accustomed to the sound, and perchance we do not perceive it when at length it has become very much louder and more general. "); April 25, 1859 ("[A] new season has arrived. . . . It begins when the first toad is heard. Methinks I hear through the wind to-day . . . a very faint, low ringing of toads, as if distant and just begun. It is an indistinct undertone, and I am far from sure that I hear anything. It may be all imagination"). Also see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Ring of Toads.
C. sees bluets and some kind of thrush to-day, size of wood thrush, — he thought probably hermit thrush. See April 19, 1858 ("Hear of bluets found on Saturday, the 17th; how long? "); April 21, 1855 ("At Cliffs, I hear at a distance a wood [sic] thrush. It affects us as a part of our unfallen selves..") and note to April 24, 1856 ("Behold my hermit thrush, with one companion, flitting silently through the birches."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: The Arrival of the Hermit Thrush
See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 20
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 © 2009-2023
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