Water milkweed flying.

October 4

P. M. — Down river. 

Wind from northeast. Some water milkweed flying. Its pods small, slender, straight, and pointed perfectly upright; seeds large with much wing. 

The hibiscus gone to seed, and pods opened showing the seed, opposite Ostrya Island (Burr's Island) or Rock below Battle-Ground. 

Helianthus tuberosus, apparently several days, in Reynolds's yard (the butcher's). 

October 4, 2017

In an article on the alligator in Harper's Magazine for December, 1854, it is said that mosquitoes "surround its head in clouds; and we have heard the negroes assert that the reptile opened its mouth until its interior was fully lined, and suddenly closing it up, would swallow the accumulated marauders, and then set its huge jaws as a trap for more." This reminds me of the swarms of mosquitoes about frogs and, I think, turtles. 

In another article, of May, 1855, on "The Lion and his Kind," the animals are placed in this order: the domestic cat, wildcat, the ocelot or tiger-cat of Peru and Mexico, the caracal of Asia and Africa, the lynx of North America, the chetah of India and Africa, the ounce of India (perhaps a rough variety of the leopard), the leopard, the jaguar, the cougar, the tiger, the lion. 

"The Cougar is the American lion — at least it bears a closer resemblance to that noble brute than any other of the feline family, for it is destitute of the stripes of the tiger, the spots of the leopard, and the rosettes of the jaguar; but when full-grown possesses a tawny-red color, almost uniform over the whole body, and hence the inference that it is like the lion." 

"Cougar is a corruption of the Mexican name." Ranges between Paraguay and the Great Lakes of North America. "In form it is less attractive than the generality of its species, there being an apparent want of symmetry; for it is observable that its back is hollow, its legs short and thick, and its tail does not gracefully taper; yet nature has invested the cougar with other qualities as a compensation, the most remarkable of which is an apparent power to render itself quite invisible; for so cunningly tinged is its fur, that it perfectly mingles with the bark of trees — in fact, with all subdued tints — and stretched upon a limb, or even extended upon the floor of its dimly lighted cage, you must prepare your eye by consider able mental resolution to be assured of its positive presence." Its flesh is eaten by some. 

Mrs. Jane Swisshelm kept one which grew to be nine feet long, and, according to her, in this writer's words, "If in exceeding good-humor he would purr; but if he wished to intimidate, he would raise his back, erect his hair, and spit like a cat. In the twilight of the evening the animal was accustomed to pace back and forth to the full extent of his limits, ever and anon uttering a short, piercing shriek, which made the valley reverberate for half a mile or more in every direction. Mrs. Swisshelm says these sounds were the shrillest, and at the same time the most mournful she ever heard. They might, perhaps, be likened to the scream of a woman in an agony of terror." He once sprang at her, but was brought up by his chain. When preparing to spring, his eyes were "green and blazing, and the tip of his tail moving from side to side." 

This paper describes "a full-grown royal tiger, measuring four feet seven inches from the nose to the insertion of the tail. . . . Unlike the miserable wretches we see in our menageries, etc." 

The Brattleboro paper makes the panther four feet eleven inches, so measured!! 

I hear that a Captain Hurd, of Wayland or Sudbury, estimates the loss of river meadow-hay this season in those two towns on account of the freshet at twelve hundred tons.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 4, 1856

Water milkweed flying. Its pods small, slender, straight, and pointed perfectly upright; seeds large with much wing. See July 11, 1856 ("The water milkweed, or Asclepias pulchra. "); July 16, 1851 ("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."); November 5, 1858 ("Water milkweed has been discounting some days, with its small upright pods.");   December 30, 1855 ("By the river are conspicuous the now empty and spread pods of the water milkweed, gray-brown without, silky—white within.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Milkweed

The hibiscus gone to seed, and pods opened showing the seed. See  August 17, 1852 ("It [the hibiscus] is so delicate and peculiar. I do not think of any flower just like it . . . It is a singular, large, delicate, high-colored flower with a tree-like leaf."); September 5, 1860  ("What further adds to the beauty of the bank is the hibiscus, in prime.")

The Brattleboro paper makes the panther four feet eleven inches. See September 9, 1856 ("The most interesting sight I saw in Brattleboro was the skin and skull of a panther (Felis concolor) (cougar, catamount, painter, American lion, puma) . . . The Brattleboro newspaper says its body was "4 feet 11 inches in length, and the tail 2 feet 9 inches; the animal weighed 108 pounds."

The loss of river meadow-hay this season. See September 30, 1856 "Speaking of the meadow-hay which is lost this year, Minott said that the little they had got since the last flood before this was good for nothing.")

Water milkweed pods –

small slender straight and upright.

Seeds large with much wing.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Water milkweed flying.

 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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-561004

The most interesting sight I saw in Brattleboro was the skin and skull of a panther.

September 9

Tuesday. 8 a.m. — Ascend the Chesterfield Mountain with Miss Frances and Miss MaryBrown. 

The Connecticut is about twenty rods wide between Brattleboro and Hinsdale. This mountain, according to Frost, 1064 feet high. It is the most remarkable feature here. The village of Brattleboro is peculiar for the nearness of the primitive wood and the mountain. 

Within three rods of Brown's house was excellent botanical ground on the side of a primitive wooded hillside, and still better along the Coldwater Path. But, above all, this everlasting mountain is forever lowering over the village, shortening the day and wearing a misty cap each morning. You look up to its top at a steep angle from the village streets. 

A great part belongs to the Insane Asylum. 

This town will be convicted of folly if they ever permit this mountain to be laid bare. Francis B. says its Indian name is Wantastiquet, from the name of West River above. 

Very abundant about B. the Gerardia tenuifolia, in prime, which I at first mistook for the purpurea. The latter I did not see. High up the mountain the Aster macrophyllus as well as corymbosus. The (apparently) Platanthera orbiculata (?) leaves, round and flat on ground (vide press); another by it with larger and more oblong leaves. 

Pine-sap. A tuft of five-divided leaves, fifteen or eighteen inches high, slightly fern-like (vide press). Galium circwzans var. lanceolatum. Top of the mountain covered with wood. 

Saw Ascutney, between forty and fifty miles up the river, but not Monadnock on account of woods. 

 P. M. — To and up a brook north of Brown's house. 

A large alternate cornel, four or five inches in diameter, a dark-gray stem. 

The kidney-shaped leaves of the Asarum Canadense common there. 

Panax quinquefolium, with peculiar flat scarlet fruit in a little umbel. 

Clinopodium vulgare, or basil, apparently flatted down by a freshet, rather past prime; and spearmint in brook just above. 

Close behind Brown's, Liparis liliifolia, or tway-blade, leaves and bulb. 

A very interesting sight from the top of the mountain was that of the cars so nearly under you, apparently creeping along, you could see so much of their course. 

The epigaea was very abundant on the hill behind Brown's and elsewhere in B. 

The Populus monilifera grows on West River, but I did not see it. 

The Erigeron Philadelphicus I saw pressed, with in numerable fine rays. 

Scouring-rush was common along the Coldwater Path and elsewhere. 

The most interesting sight I saw in Brattleboro was the skin and skull of a panther (Felis concolor) (cougar, catamount, painter, American lion, puma), which was killed, according to a written notice attached, on the 15th of June by the Saranac Club of Brattleboro, six young men, on a fishing and hunting excursion. 

This paper described it as eight feet in extreme length and weighing one hundred and ten pounds. The Brattleboro newspaper says its body was " 4 feet 11 inches in length, and the tail 2 feet 9 inches; the animal weighed 108 pounds." 

I was surprised at its great size and apparent strength. It gave one a new idea of our American forests and the vigor of nature here. It was evident that it could level a platoon of men with a stroke of its paw. 

I was particularly impressed by the size of its limbs, the size of its canine teeth, and its great white claws. 

I do not see but this affords a sufficient foundation for the stories of the lion heard and its skins seen near Boston by the first settlers. This creature was very catlike, though the tail was not tapering, but as large at the extremity as anywhere, yet not tufted like the lion's. It had a long neck, a long thin body, like a lean cat. Its fore feet were about six inches long by four or five wide, as set up. 

I talked with the man who shot him, a Mr. Kellogg, a lawyer. They were fishing on one of the Saranac Lakes, their guide being the Harvey Moody whom Hammond describes, when they heard the noise of some creature threshing about amid the bushes on the hillside. The guide suspected that it was a panther which had caught a deer. He reconnoitred and found that it was a panther which had got one fore paw (the left) in one of his great double-spring, long teethed or hooked bear- traps. He had several of these traps set (without bait) in the neighborhood. 

It fell to Kellogg's lot to advance with the guide and shoot him. They approached within six or seven rods, saw that the panther was held firmly, and fired just as he raised his head to look at them. The ball entered just above his nose, pierced his brain, and killed him at once. 

The guide got the bounty of twenty-five dollars, but the game fell to his employers. A slice had been sheared off one side of each ear to secure this with. 

It was a male. The guide thought it an old one, but Kellogg said that, as they were returning with it, the inhabitants regarded it as common; they only kicked it aside in the road, remarking that was a large one. 

I talked also with the Mr. Chamberlin who set it up. He showed me how sharp the edges of the broad grinders were just behind the canine teeth. They were zigzag,  and shut over the under, scraping close like shears and, as he proved, would cut off a straw clean. 

This animal looked very thin as set up, and probably in some states of his body would have weighed much more. Kellogg said that, freshly killed, the body showed the nerves much more than as set up. 

The color, etc., agreed very well with the account in Thompson's History of Vermont, except that there was, now at least, no yellow about the mouth or chin, but whitish. It was, in the main, the universal color of this family, or a little browner. According to Thompson, it is brown-red on the back, reddish-gray on the sides, whitish or light-ash on the belly; tail like the back above, except its extremity, which is brownish-black, not tufted; chin, upper lip, and inside of ears, yellowish-white. Hairs on back, short, brownish tipped with red; on the belly, longer, lighter, tipped with white; hairs of face like back with whitish hairs intermingled. Canines conical, claws pearly-white. Length, nose to tail, four feet eight inches; tail, two feet six inches; top of head to point of nose, ten inches; width across forehead, eight inches. Length of fore legs, one foot two inches ; hind, one foot four inches. Weight usually about one hundred pounds. 

The largest he ever knew was seven feet in extreme length and weighed one hundred and eighteen pounds. One had been known to leap up a precipice fifteen feet high with a calf in his mouth. Vide Lawson, Hunter, and Jefferson in Book of Facts. Hunter when near the Rocky Mountains says, "So much were they to be apprehended . . . that no one ever ventured to go out alone, even on the most trifling occasion." He makes two kinds.

Emmons makes the extreme length of one of the largest cougars nine feet four inches, and the greatest length of the canine tooth of the upper jaw from the gum nine tenths of an inch. I think that the teeth of the one I saw were much larger. 

Says it is cowardly and "rarely if ever attacks man;" that a hunter met five in St. Lawrence County, N. Y., and, with his dog and gun only, killed three that day and the other two the next. Yet he will follow a man's track a great distance. Scream at evening heard for miles. Thinks about 45° its northern range.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 9, 1856


It gave one a new idea of our American forests and the vigor of nature here. See October 25, 1856 ("Saw, at Barnum's Museum, the stuffed skin of a cougar that was found floating dead in the Hudson many years ago . . . a clergyman in Worcester the previous afternoon (at Higginson's) who told me of one killed near the head of the Delaware, in New York State, by an acquaintance of his. ") Compare March 23, 1856 ("But when I consider that the nobler animals have been exterminated here, — the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverene, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc., etc., — I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed, and, as it were, emasculated country.") See also Feds Declare Catamount Extinct and The Last Catamount in Vermont

The size of its limbs 

the size of its canine teeth

and its great white claws. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The most interesting sight 

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-cat

Women and children are already picking hops in the fields, in the shade of large white sheets, like sails.

September 5

Friday. To Brattleboro, Vt.

September 5

 Will not the prime of goldenrods and asters be just before the first severe frosts ? 

As I ride along in the cars, I think that the ferns, etc., are browned and crisped more than usual at this season, on account of the very wet weather. 

Found on reaching Fitchburg that there was an interval of three and a half hours between this and the Brattleboro train, and so walked on, on the track, with shouldered valise. Had observed that the Nashua River in Shirley was about one mile west of Groton Junction, if I should ever want to walk there. 

Observed by railroad, in Fitchburg, low slippery elm shrubs with great, rough, one-sided leaves. 

Solidago lanceolata past prime, a good deal. 

Aster puniceus in prime. 

About one mile from West Fitchburg depot, westward, I saw the panicled elderberries on the railroad but just beginning to redden, though it is said to ripen long before this. 

As I was walking through Westminster, I remembered that G. B. Emerson says that he saw a handsome clump of the Salix lucida on an island in Meeting-House Pond in this town, and, looking round, I saw a shrub of it by the railroad, about one mile west of West Fitchburg depot, and several times afterward within a mile or two. Also in the brook behind Mr. Alcott's house in Walpole, N. H. 

Took the cars again in Westminster. The scenery began to be mountainous and interesting in Royalston and Athol, but was more so in Erving. 

In Northfield first observed fields of broom-corn very common, Sorghum saccharatum, taller than corn. Alcott says they bend down the heads before they gather them, to fit them for brooms. 

Hereabouts women and children are already picking hops in the fields, in the shade of large white sheets, like sails.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 5, 1856

Aster puniceus in prime. See September 5, 1853 ("An island of Aster puniceus, one rod in diameter, - one mass of flowers five feet high.") See also October 7, 1857 ("Crossing Depot Brook, I see many yellow butterflies fluttering about the Aster puniceus, still abundantly in bloom there."); November 5. 1855 ("Crossing the Depot Field Brook, I observe the downy, fuzzy globular tops of the Aster puniceus.")

Hereabouts women and children are already picking hops. See September 6, 1852 ("Girls picking hops in Townsend. ")

September 5. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  September 5

 

Women and children 

in fields picking hops in the

shade of large white sheets. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Large white sheets, like sails.

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560905