The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
At this season the
reflections grow more distinct
every moment –
Evening on river
fine full moon –
river smooth
a slight snoring
of frogs on the
bare meadows.
Awake, driving sleet
angled across the window –
ground white with snow.
April 11, 1855
And in the old place
hear the pleasant ringing note
of the pine warbler.
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| April 11, 2020 |
The reflections grow more distinct every moment. At last the outline of the hill is as distinct below as above. And every object appears rhymed by reflection. Maple in the swamp answers to maple, birch to birch. At this season the reflections of deciduous trees are more remarkable than when they are in leaf, because, the branches being seen, they make with their reflections a more wonderful rhyme. It is not mere mass or outline corresponding to outline but a kind of geometrical figure. My nature may be as still as this water, but it is not so pure, and its reflections are not so distinct. April 11, 1852
I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch, somewhat like and nearly as loud as the robin, from the elm by Whiting’s. The maple which I think is a red one, just this side of Wheildon's, is just out this morning . . . Dr. Harris says that that early black-winged, buff edged butterfly is the Vanessa Antiopa, and is introduced from Europe, and is sometimes found in this state alive in winter. The orange-brown one with scalloped wings, and smaller somewhat, is Vanessa Progne. April 11, 1853
wikipedia/commons-GreyComma (Polygonia progne)
Evening on river. Fine full moon; river smooth. Hear a slight snoring of frogs on the bared meadows. Is it not the R. palustris? This the first moon to walk by. April 11, 1854
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Awake to see the ground white with snow, and it is still snowing, the sleet driving from the north at an angle of certainly not more than thirty or thirty-five degrees with the horizon, as I judge by its course across the window panes. By midafternoon the rain has so far prevailed that the ground is bare. As usual, this brings the tree sparrows and F. hyemalis into the yard again. April 11, 1855
Awake, driving sleet
angled across the window –
ground white with snow.
April 11, 1855
And hear in the old place, the pitch pine grove on the bank by the river, the pleasant ringing note of the pine warbler. Its a-che, vitter 'vitter, m'tter 'vitter, vitter m'tter, m'tter m'tter, 'vet rings through the open pine grove very rapidly. I also heard it at the old place by the railroad, as I came along. It is remarkable that I have so often heard it first in these two localities, i.e. where the railroad skirts the north edge of a small swamp densely filled with tall old white pines and a few white oaks, and in a young grove composed wholly of pitch pines on the otherwise bare, very high and level bank of the Assabet. When the season is advanced enough, I am pretty sure to hear its ringing note in both those places. April 11, 1856
How much we had lost out of Concord River without realizing it. This is the critical season of a river, when it is fullest of life, its flowering season, the wavelets or ripples on its surface answering to the scales of the fishes beneath. If salmon, shad, and alewives were pressing up our river now, as formerly they were, a good part of the villagers would thus, no doubt, be drawn to the brink at this season . . .The very fishes in countless schools are driven out of a river by the improvements of the civilized man. . . I can hardly imagine a greater change than this produced by the influence of man in nature. Our Concord River is a dead stream in more senses than we had supposed. In what sense now does the spring ever come to the river, when the sun is not reflected from the scales of a single salmon, shad, or alewife? No doubt there is some compensation for this loss, but I do not at this moment see clearly what it is. April 11, 1857
The black spheres (rather dark brown) in the Rana sylvatica spawn by Hubbard's Grove have now opened and flatted out into a rude broad pollywog form. (This was an early specimen.) April 11, 1858
Rain all day. April 11, 1859
The hills are now decidedly greened as seen a mile off, and the road or street sides pretty brightly so. I have not seen any lingering heel of a snow-bank since April came in. Acer rubrum west side Deep Cut, some well out, some killed by frost; probably a day or two at least. Hazels there are all done; were in their prime, methinks, a week ago at least. The early willow still in prime. Salix humilis abundantly out, how long? Epigæa abundantly out (probably 7th at least). Stow's cold pool three quarters full of ice.
My early sedge, which has been out at Cliffs apparently a few days (not yet quite generally), the highest only two inches, is probably Carex umbellata.
April 11, 1860
I hear that Judge Minott of Haverhill once told a client, by way of warning, that two millers who owned mills on the same stream went to law about a dam, and at the end of the lawsuit one lawyer owned one mill and the other the other. April 11, 1861
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reflections
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Buff-edged Butterfly
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pickerel frog (Ranapalustris orLithobates palustris)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Epigaea
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Hazel
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pitch Pine.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch and note to April 10, 1861 ("Purple finch.")
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pine Warbler
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Dark-eyed Junco
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree Sparrow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.
April 11, 2022
If you make the least correct
observation of nature this year,
you will have occasion to repeat it
with illustrations the next--
and the season
and life itself is prolonged.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, April 11
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality.”
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022
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