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.
The window open
a burst of melody pours
into my slumber.
\
The longest days in the year have now come. June 18, 1852
The tumultuous singing of birds, a burst of melody, wakes me up (the window being open) these mornings at dawn. What a matinade to have poured into your slumber! June 18, 1860
Almost all birds appear to join the early morning chorus before sunrise on the roost, the matin hymn. I hear now the robin, the chip-bird, the blackbird, the martin, etc., etc., but I see none flying, or, at last, only one wing in the air, not yet illustrated by the sun. June 18, 1853
Every year men talk about the dry weather which has now begun as if it were something new and not to be expected. June 18, 1854
Every year men talk about the dry weather which has now begun as if it were something new and not to be expected. June 18, 1854
Small grasshoppers very abundant in some dry grass. June 18, 1854
The hornet's nest is built with many thin layers of his paper, with an interval of about an eighth of an inch between them, so that his wall is one or two inches thick. June 18, 1852
Methinks I saw and heard goldfinches. June 18, 1852
A yellowbird feigns broken wings. June 18, 1855
Observe in two places golden-crowned thrushes, near whose nests I must have been, hopping on the lower branches and in the underwood, — a somewhat sparrow-like bird, with its golden-brown crest and white circle about eye, carrying the tail somewhat like a wren, and inclined to run along the branches. June 18, 1854
Each had a worm in its bill, no doubt intended for its young. That is the chief employment of the birds now, gathering food for their young. June 18, 1854
I think I heard the anxious peep of a robin whose young have just left the nest. June 18, 1854
E. Bartlett has found three bobolinks’ nests. One or more of them he thinks has been covered by the recent flood. June 18, 1858
A boy climbs to the cat owl's nest and casts down what is left of it, — a few short sticks and some earthy almost turfy foundation, as if it were the accumulation of years. June 18, 1858
A little boy brings me an egg of Wilson's thrush, which he found in a nest in a low bush about a foot from the ground. June 18, 1858
To Walden to see a bird's nest, a red-eye's, in a small white pine; nest not so high as my head; still laying. June 18, 1858
I have scarcely seen a warbler for a fortnight, or since the leaves have been developed, though I hear plenty of them in the tree-tops. June 18, 1860
Pyrolas are beginning to blossom. June 18, 1852
The four-leaved loosestrife. June 18, 1852
St. John's-wort is beginning to blossom; looks yellow. June 18, 1852
And yellow lady’s-slipper near the Quarry. June 18, 1856
The Rosa lucida is pale and low on dry sunny banks like that by Hosmer's pines. June 18, 1854
With roses rose bugs have come. June 18, 1852
There are many strawberries this season, in meadows now, just fairly begun there. June 18, 1854
The meadows, like this Nut Meadow, are now full of the taller grasses, just beginning to flower. June 18, 1854
As I was going up the hill, I was surprised to see rising above the June-grass, near a walnut, a whitish object, like a stone with a white top, or a skunk erect, for it was black below. It was an enormous toadstool, or fungus, a sharply conical parasol in the form of a sugar loaf. June 18, 1853
Standing on Emerson's Cliff, I see very distinctly the redness of a luxuriant field of clover on the top of Fair Haven Hill, some two thirds of a mile off, the day being cloudy and misty, the sun just ready to break out. June 18, 1860
On this Emerson hill the sedge P. Pennsylvanica has shot up into large and luxuriant and densely set tufts, giving quite a grassy appearance to the spaces between the little oak sprouts. June 18, 1860
I notice huckleberry and blueberry, and those remarkable galls on a shrub oak, two or three together, each with a grub in it. June 18, 1860
There are many strawberries this season, in meadows now, just fairly begun there. June 18, 1854
The meadows, like this Nut Meadow, are now full of the taller grasses, just beginning to flower. June 18, 1854
As I was going up the hill, I was surprised to see rising above the June-grass, near a walnut, a whitish object, like a stone with a white top, or a skunk erect, for it was black below. It was an enormous toadstool, or fungus, a sharply conical parasol in the form of a sugar loaf. June 18, 1853
Standing on Emerson's Cliff, I see very distinctly the redness of a luxuriant field of clover on the top of Fair Haven Hill, some two thirds of a mile off, the day being cloudy and misty, the sun just ready to break out. June 18, 1860
On this Emerson hill the sedge P. Pennsylvanica has shot up into large and luxuriant and densely set tufts, giving quite a grassy appearance to the spaces between the little oak sprouts. June 18, 1860
I notice huckleberry and blueberry, and those remarkable galls on a shrub oak, two or three together, each with a grub in it. June 18, 1860
The swamp white oaks and red maples and willows, etc., now first begin to show a slight silveriness on the under edges of their flakes, where the under sides of the new leaves are shown. June 18, 1859
I see in the southerly bays of Walden the pine pollen now washed up thickly; only at the bottom of the bays, especially the deep long bay, where it is a couple of rods long by six to twenty-four inches wide and one inch deep; pure sulphur-yellow, and now has no smell. June 18, 1860
It has come quite across the pond from where the pines stand, full half a mile, probably washed across most of the way. June 18, 1860
I find a young Emys insculpta, apparently going to lay, though she had not dug a hole. It was four and a quarter inches long by three and a half wide, and altogether the handsomest turtle of this species, if not of any, that I have ever seen. June 18, 1858
[another insculpta ] all the claws but one of one hind foot were gone! Had not a bird pecked them off So liable are they to injury in their long lives. Then they are so well-behaved; can be taken up and brought home in your pocket , and make no unseemly efforts to escape. June 18, 1858
At 3 P. M., as I walk up the bank by the Hemlocks, I see a painted tortoise just beginning its hole; then another a dozen rods from the river on the bare barren field near some pitch pines, where the earth was covered with cladonias, cinquefoil, sorrel, etc. June 18, 1855
I stoop down over it, and, to my surprise, after a slight pause it proceeds in its work, directly under and within eighteen inches of my face. June 18, 1854
I retain a constrained position for three quarters of an hour or more for fear of alarming it. June 18, 1854
When it has done, it immediately starts for the river at a pretty rapid rate, pausing from time to time . . . It is not easy to detect that the ground had been disturbed there. June 18, 1854
From Traveller's Home to Small's in Truro. A mizzling and rainy day with thick driving fog; a drizzling rain, or "drisk," as one called it. June 18, 1857
As I walked on the top of the bank for a mile or two before I came to a hollow by which to descend, though it rained but little, the strong wind there drove that and the mist against my unprotected legs so as to wet me through and plaster over the legs of my pants with sand. June 18, 1857
It is remarkable how wet the grass will be there in a misty day alone; more so than after a rain with us. June 18, 1857
The waves ran pretty well on account of the easterly wind. June 18, 1857
I observed how merely undulatory was the motion of the waves. June 18, 1857
Rain again, and we take shelter under a bridge, and again under our boat, and again under a pine tree. June 18, 1859
It is worth the while to sit or lie through a shower thus under a bridge or under a boat on the bank, because the rain is a much more interesting and remarkable phenomenon under these circumstances.
I saw swarms of little gnats, light-winged, dancing over the water in the midst of the rain, though you would say any drop would end one's days. June 18, 1859
The surface of the stream betrays every drop from the first to the last, and all the variations of the storm, so much more expressive is the water than the comparatively brutish face of earth. June 18, 1859
We no doubt often walk between drops of rain falling thinly, without knowing it, though if on the water we should have been advertised of it. June 18, 1859
At last the whole surface is nicked with the rebounding drops as if the surface rose in little cones to accompany or meet the drops, till it looks like the back of some spiny fruit or animal, and yet the different-colored currents, light and dark, are seen through it all. June 18, 1859
The surface of the stream betrays every drop from the first to the last, and all the variations of the storm, so much more expressive is the water than the comparatively brutish face of earth. June 18, 1859
We no doubt often walk between drops of rain falling thinly, without knowing it, though if on the water we should have been advertised of it. June 18, 1859
At last the whole surface is nicked with the rebounding drops as if the surface rose in little cones to accompany or meet the drops, till it looks like the back of some spiny fruit or animal, and yet the different-colored currents, light and dark, are seen through it all. June 18, 1859
And then, when it clears up, how gradually the surface of the water becomes more placid and bright, the dimples growing fewer and finer till the prolonged reflections of trees are seen in it, and the water is lit up with a joy which is in sympathy with our own, while the earth is comparatively dead. June 18, 1859
Another round red sun of dry and dusty weather to-night, — a red or red-purple helianthus. June 18, 1854
I hear a man playing a clarionet far off. June 18, 1852
Another round red sun of dry and dusty weather to-night, — a red or red-purple helianthus. June 18, 1854
I hear a man playing a clarionet far off. June 18, 1852
No moon. June 18, 1852
Moon not quite full . . . The western sky is now a crescent of saffron inclining to salmon, a little dunnish, perhaps. The grass is wet with dew. The evening star has come out, but no other. There is no wind. I see a nighthawk in the twilight, flitting near the ground. June 18, 1853
Of what consequence whether I stand on London bridge for the next century, or look into the depths of this bubbling spring which I have laid open with my hoe? June 18, 1840
June 18, 2013
See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:
The tumultuous singing of birds, a burst of melody poured into my slumber . See June 4, 1852 (“What sounds to be awakened by! If only our sleep, our dreams, are such as to harmonize with the song, the warbling of the birds, ushering in the day!”)
I see very distinctly the redness of a luxuriant field of clover on the top of Fair Haven Hill. See June 15, 1853 (“What more luxuriant than a clover-field? . . . This is perhaps the most characteristic feature of June, resounding with the hum of insects. It is so massive, such a blush on the fields. The rude health of the sorrel cheek has given place to the blush of clover.”)
I see very distinctly the redness of a luxuriant field of clover on the top of Fair Haven Hill. See June 15, 1853 (“What more luxuriant than a clover-field? . . . This is perhaps the most characteristic feature of June, resounding with the hum of insects. It is so massive, such a blush on the fields. The rude health of the sorrel cheek has given place to the blush of clover.”)
Observe in two places golden-crowned thrushes, near whose nests I must have been . . . See June 10, 1855 ("Oven-bird’s nest with four eggs two thirds hatched, under dry leaves, composed of pine-needles and dry leaves and a hair or two for lining,”); June 19, 1858 ("See an oven-bird's nest with two eggs and one young one just hatched. The bird flits out low, and is, I think, the same kind that I saw flit along the ground and trail her wings to lead me off day before yesterday.")
I think I heard the anxious peep of a robin whose young have just left the nest. See June 10, 1853 ("We hear the cool peep of the robin calling to its young, now learning to fly.") See also May 13, 1853 ("A robin's nest, with young, on the causeway."): May 24, 1855 ("Young robins some time hatched");June 9, 1856 ("A young robin abroad. "); June 15, 1855 ("Robin’s nest in apple tree, twelve feet high — young nearly grown."): June 15, 1852 ("Young robins,speck dark-led,"); June 20, 1855 (" A robin’s nest with young, which was lately, in the great wind, blown down and somehow lodged on the lower part of an evergreen by arbor,—without spilling the young!")
A boy climbs to the cat owl's nest and casts down what is left of it, — a few short sticks and some earthy almost turfy foundation, as if it were the accumulation of years. Beside much black and white skunk-hair, there are many fishes scales (!) intimately mixed with its substance, and some skunk’s bones. See May 20, 1858 ("Saw in the street a young cat owl, one of two which Skinner killed in Walden Woods yesterday. . . .So I visited the nest. It was in a large white pine close . . . the nest is some thirty-five feet high on two limbs close to the main stem, and, according to Skinner, was not much more than a foot across, made of small sticks, nearly flat, “without fine stuff!” There were but two young. ")
E. Bartlett has found three bobolinks’ nests. See June 22, 1858 (“I have one of the nests. There is but little of it ...”); see also June 26, 1857 ("I must be near bobolinks' nests many times these days, — in E. Hosmer's meadow by the garlic and here in Charles Hubbard's, — but the birds are so overanxious, though you may be pretty far off, and so shy about visiting their nests while you are there, that you watch them in vain."); July 2, 1855 ("Young bobolinks are now fluttering over the meadow, but I have not been able to find a nest ..")
A little boy brings me an egg of Wilson's thrush. See June 2, 1852 ("Nest of Wilson's thrush with bluish-green eggs.")
A red-eye's, in a small white pine; nest not so high as my head; still laying. See June 12, 1855 ("In the thick swamp behind the hill I look at the vireo’s nest which C. found on the 10th, within reach on a red maple forked twig, eight feet from ground. He took one cowbird’s egg from it, and I now take the other, which he left. There is no vireo’s egg"); July 21, 1855 ("A red-eyed vireo nest on a red maple on Island Neck, on meadow-edge, ten feet from ground; one egg half hatched and one cowbird’s egg, nearly fresh, a trifle larger"); January 13, 1856 ("What a wonderful genius it is that leads the vireo to select the tough fibres of the inner bark, instead of the more brittle grasses, for its basket, the elastic pine-needles and the twigs, curved as they dried to give it form, and, as I suppose, the silk of cocoons, etc., etc., to bind it together with!")
all the claws but one of one hind foot were gone! See May 14, 1857 ("I see one with a large dent three eighths of an inch deep and nearly two inches long in the middle of its back, where it was once partially crushed. Hardly one has a perfect shell.")
all the claws but one of one hind foot were gone! See May 14, 1857 ("I see one with a large dent three eighths of an inch deep and nearly two inches long in the middle of its back, where it was once partially crushed. Hardly one has a perfect shell.")
Every year men talk about the dry weather which has now begun as if it were something new and not to be expected. See July 7, 1853 ("Now is that annual drought which is always spoken of as something unprecedented and out of the common course.")
A painted tortoise lays her eggs near the Leaning Hemlocks. . . .See June 16, 1855 ("A painted tortoise just burying three flesh-colored eggs in the dry, sandy plain near the thrasher’s nest. It leaves no trace on the surface. Find near by four more about this business. When seen they stop stock still in whatever position, and stir not nor make any noise, just as their shells may happen to be tilted up.”); June 10, 1856 ("A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road.”); June 10, 1858 ("See a painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M.”)
A mizzling and rainy day with thick driving fog; a drizzling rain, or "drisk," as one called it. See July 29, 1851 (“In the afternoon I sail to Plymouth, three miles, notwithstanding the drizzling rain, or “drisk” as Uncle Ned calls it.”)
The different-colored currents, light and dark, are seen through it all. See July 31, 1860 ("The differently shaded or lit currents of the river through it all; but anon it begins to rain very hard, and a myriad white globules dance or rebound an inch or two from the surface, where the big drops fall, and I hear a sound as if it rains pebbles or shot.")
I hear a man playing a clarionet far off. See June 16, 1852 ("A flute from some villager. How rare among men so fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening!"); June 25, 1852 (“Now his day's work is done, the laborer plays his flute, — only possible at this hour."); August 3, 1852 (" I hear the sound of a distant piano. . . . By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe"); August 5, 1851 ("I never see the man by day who plays that clarionet.")
June 18, 2013
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, June 18
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
https://tinyurl.com/HDT18June
No comments:
Post a Comment