Birch lice.

September 9. 

Half a bushel of handsome pears on the ground under the wild pear tree on Pedrick's land; some ripe, many more on tree. 

September 9, 2023

J. Wesson, who is helping me survey to-day, says that, when they dug the cellar of Stacy's shop, he saw where they cut through (with the spade) birches six inches in diameter, on which the Mill-Dam had been built; also that Nathan Hosmer, Sr., since dead, told him that he had cut meadow-grass between the bakehouse and the Middlesex Hotel. 

I find myself covered with green and winged lice from the birches.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 9, 1853

Half a bushel of handsome pears on the ground. See August 29, 1852 ("The ground in orchards is covered with windfalls; imperfect fruits now fall"); September 3, 1859 ("A strong wind, which blows down much fruit. R. W. E. sits surrounded by choice windfall pears."); September 3, 1860 ("See on the two pear trees by the Boze cellar ripe pears, some ripe several days . . . one was quite sweet and good")

I find myself covered with green and winged lice from the birches. See May 21, 1852 ("The latter [birches] are covered with green lice, which cover me."): May 30, 1855 ("Green lice from birches (?) get on my clothes. "); August 11, 1854 ("Green lice on birches."); August 13, 1852 ("There are green lice now on the birches, but I notice no cotton on them."); September 27, 1852 ("Green lice are still on the birches. "); October 15, 1859 ("I think I see myrtle-birds on white birches, and that they are the birds I saw on them a week or two ago, — apparently, or probably, after the birch lice.")

J. Wesson, who is helping me survey. See October 20, 1857 ("Wesson is so gouty that he rarely comes out-of-doors, and is a spectacle in the street; but he loves to tell his old stories still! "); November 25, 1857 ("Mr. Wesson says that he has seen a striped squirrel eating a white-bellied mouse"); November 27, 1857 ("Mr. Wesson says . . .that the little dipper is not a coot. . - but he appears not to know a coot”)