I would make a chart of our life,
know why just this circle of creatures completes the world,
what kinds of birds come with what flowers.
Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852
How short their year! How early they sleep! . . .
That resounding life is now buried in the mud,
returned into Nature's womb.
Notice a large toad
amid dead leaves in the woods
colored like the leaves.
September 28, 2024
In an old pond
a frog grows old
among the fallen leaves
~ Buson
October 2. As I approached Perch Pool the other day, half a dozen frogs leaped into it and buried themselves in the mass of callitriche at the bottom. I stood looking for perch a minute or two, when one after another up came the frogs from out the callitriche, just as a piece of cork would rise by mere buoyancy to the surface; and then, by a distinct effort, they let go all, drop anchor, elevate or let float up their heels, and lie spread out on the surface. They were probably Rana fontinalis. October 2, 1858
October 2. Hear a hylodes in the swamp. October 2, 1859
October 3. I hear a hylodes (?) from time to time. October 3, 1852
October 3. Hear a hylodes peeping on shore. October 3, 1858
October 14. Within a couple of rods a single hyla peeps interruptedly, bird-like. October 14, 1857
October 16. I see a delicate pale brown-bronze wood frog. I think I can always take them up in my hand. They, too, vary in color, like the leaves of many species of plants at present, having now more yellow, now more red; and perhaps for the same reason. October 16, 1857
October 18. Saw a tree-toad on the ground in a sandy wood-path. It did not offer to hop away, may have been chilled by the rain (?). It is marked on the back with black, some what in the form of the hylodes. October 18, 1859
October 22. I hear a hyla. October 22, 1855
October 23. Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring . . . the peeping of the hylodes for some time. October 23, 1853
November 2. Are not the wood frogs the philosophers who walk (?) in these groves? Methinks I imbibe a cool, composed, frog-like philosophy when I behold them. November 2, 1857
November 8. Saw a frog at the Swamp Bridge on back road. November 8, 1851
November 11. Frogs are rare and sluggish, as if going into winter quarters. A cricket also sounds rather rare and distinct. November 11, 1855
November 12. There is no sound of a frog from all these waters and meadows which a few months ago resounded so with them; not even a cricket or the sound of a mosquito. I can fancy that I hear the sound of peeping hylodes ringing in my ear, but it is all fancy. How short their year! How early they sleep! Nature is desert and iron-bound; she has shut her door How different from the muggy nights of summer, teeming with life! That resounding life is now buried in the mud, returned into Nature's womb, and most of the birds have retreated to the warm belt of the earth. Yet still from time to time a pickerel darts away. And still the heavens are unchanged; the same starry geometry looks down on their active and their torpid state. And the first frog that puts his eye forth from the mud next spring shall see the same everlasting starry eyes ready to play at bo-peep with him, for they do not go into the mud. November 12, 1853
November 12. The hylodes, as it is the first frog heard in the spring, so it is the last in the autumn. I heard it last, me thinks, about a month ago. November 12, 1853
November 23. The Indian summer itself, said to be more remarkable in this country than elsewhere, no less than the reblossoming of certain flowers, the peep of the hylodes, and sometimes the faint warble of some birds, is the reminiscence, or rather the return, of spring, the year renewing its youth. November 23, 1853
November 26. Those pouts’ nests which I discovered in the spring are high and dry six feet from the water. I overhauled one, ripping up the frozen roof with my hands. The roof was only three inches thick, then a cavity and a bottom of wet mud. In this mud I found two small frogs, one apparently a Rana palustris less than an inch long. November 26, 1858
November 30. This has been a very pleasant month, with quite a number of Indian-summer days, - a pleasanter month than October was. It is quite warm today, and as I go home at dusk on the railroad causeway, I hear a hylodes peeping. November 30, 1859
December 3. At J. Hosmer's tub spring, I dug out a small bull frog (?) in the sandy mud at the bottom of the tub — it was lively enough to hop — and brought it home. Probably they lie universally buried in the mud now, below the reach of frost . . . The frogs then are especially to be looked for in the mud about springs. December 3, 1853
January 24. At Hosmer's tub spring a small frog is active! January 24, 1858
January 26. I suspect I may even have heard a frog drop into the water once or twice. January 26, 1858
January 29. I see a Rana palustris swimming, and much conferva greening all the water. January 29, 1858
February 18. When I approached the bank of a ditch this afternoon, I saw a frog diving to the bottom. February 18, 1857
See also:
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Frogs, and Turtles Stirring
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Late Season Frogs and Toads
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 © 2009-2026
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