For the first time I perceive this spring
that the year is a circle . . .
I would make a chart of our life,
know how its shores trend,
that butterflies reappear and when,
know why just this circle
of creatures completes the world.
Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852
Small red butterfly
and the distant note of a
solitary toad.
These days, when a soft west or
southwest wind blows and it is truly warm. . . —
these bring out the butterflies and the frogs,
and the marsh hawks which prey on the last.
Just so simple is every year.
March 22. The phenomena of an average March . . . Many insects and worms come forth and are active — and the perla insects still about ice and water, — as tipula, grubs, and fuzzy caterpillars, minute hoppers on grass at springs; gnats, large and small, dance in air; the common and the green fly buzz outdoors; the gyrinus, large and small, on brooks, etc., and skaters;spiders shoot their webs, and at last gossamer floats; the honey- bee visits the skunk-cabbage; fishworms come up, sow-bugs wireworms etc.; various larvæ are seen in pools; small green and also brown grasshoppers begin to hop, small ants to stir ( 25th ) Vanessa Antiopa out 29th; cicindelas run on sand; and small reddish butterflies are seen in wood-paths, etc., etc., etc. March 22, 1860
March 31, 2013
March 31. In the wood-paths now I see many small red butterflies, I am not sure of what species, not seeing them still. The earliest butterflies seem to be born of the dry leaves on the forest floor. March 31, 1858
March 31. The small red butterfly in the wood-paths and sprout-lands, and I hear at mid-afternoon a very faint but positive ringing sound rising above the susurrus of the pines, —of the breeze —which I think is the note of a distant and perhaps solitary toad. March 31, 1860
April 1. Saw the first bee of the season on the railroad causeway, also a small red butterfly and, later, a large dark one with buff-edged wings. April 1, 1852
April 8. The great buff-edged butterfly flutters across the river. Afterward I see a small red one over the shore. April 8, 1855
April 9. Small reddish butterflies common. April 9, 1861
April 24. That fine slaty-blue butterfly, bigger than the small red, in wood-paths. April 24, 1855
April 29. The butterflies are now more numerous, red and blue-black or dark velvety. April 29, 1852
May 15. A red butterfly goes by. Methinks I have seen them before. May 15, 1853
May 19. I have seen for a week a smaller and redder butterfly than the early red or reddish one. Its hind wings are chiefly dark or blackish. It is quite small. The forward wings, a pretty bright scarlet red with black spots. May 19, 1860
May 26 . I see the common small reddish butterflies. May 26, 1857
July 15. There are many butterflies, yellow and red, about the Asclepias incarnata now. July 15, 1854
July 16. I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed (Asclepias pulchra) by the roadside, a really handsome flower; also the smaller butterfly, with reddish wings, and a larger, black or steel-blue, with wings spotted red on edge, and one of equal size, reddish copper-colored. July 16, 1851
July 16. Many yellow butterflies and red on clover and yarrow. July 16, 1854
July 21. The forenoon is fuller of light. The butterflies on the flowers look like other and frequently larger flowers themselves. Now I yearn for one of those old, meandering, dry, uninhabited roads, which lead away from towns . . . which the kingbird and the swallow twitter over, and the song sparrow sings on its rails; where the small red butterfly is at home on the yarrow, and no boys threaten it with imprisoning hat. There I can walk. July 21, 1851
July 22. Tansy is now conspicuous by the roadsides, covered with small red butterflies. July 22, 1852
July 22. Observed, on the wild basil on Annursnack, small reddish butterflies which looked like a part of the plant. It has a singularly soft, velvety leaf. July 22, 1853
July 22. The butterflies at present are chiefly on the Canada thistle and the mayweed. I see on the last, in the road beyond Colburn Hill, a surprising number of the small reddish (small copper) butterflies, for a dozen rods. July 22, 1860
July 29. Butterflies of various colors are now more abundant than I have seen them before, especially the small reddish or coppery ones.
I counted ten yesterday on a single Sericocarpus conyzoides. They were in singular harmony with the plant, as if they made a part of it. The insect that comes after the honey or pollen of a plant is necessary to it and in one sense makes a part of it. Being constantly in motion and, as they moved, opening and closing their wings to preserve their balance, they presented a very lifesome scene. To-day I see them on the early goldenrod (Solidago stricta). July 29, 1853
August 30. Now that flowers are rarer, almost every one of whatever species has bees or butterflies upon it. August 30, 1859
September 6. Solidago nemoralis is apparently in prime on Lupine Hill; some of it past. It is swarming with butterflies, — yellow, small red, and large, — fluttering over it. September 6, 1858
September 14. Now for the Aster Tradescanti along low roads, like the Turnpike, swarming with butterflies and bees. September 14, 1856
September 25. I see numerous butterflies still, yellow and small red, though not in fleets. September 25, 1851
September 30. The first thing was to find some flowers and catch some honey- bees . . .We found a few of the Diplopappus linariifolius (savory-eaved aster ) and one or two small white (bushy?) asters, also A. undulatus and Solidago nemoralis rarely, on which they work in a sunny place; but there were only two or three bumblebees, wasps, and butterflies, yellow and small red, on them . . . Not a honey-bee could we find September 30, 1852
See also:
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Buff-edged Butterfly;
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Blue Butterfly in Spring;
Lewis Hyde, What Thoreau knew about Butterflies (Thoreau's "small
red butterfl[y], I am not sure of what species" – remains unidentified)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Small Red Butterfly
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 © 2009-2025
