It invites us to walk in the yard and inspect the springing plants.

April 17.

I hear this forenoon the soothing and simple, though monotonous, notes of the chip-bird, telling us better than our thermometers what degree of summer warmth is reached; adds its humble but very pleasant contribution to the steadily increasing quire of the spring. It perches on a cherry tree, perchance, near the house, and unseen, by its steady che-che-che-che-che che, affecting us often without our distinctly hearing it, it blends all the other and previous sounds of the season together. It invites us to walk in the yard and inspect the springing plants.

The evenings are very considerably shortened. We begin to be more out of doors, the less housed, think less, stir about more, are fuller of affairs and chores, come in chiefly to eat and to sleep.

The amelanchier flower-buds are conspicuously swollen.

Willows (Salix alba) probably (did not four or five days ago).

P. M. – Sail to Ball’s Hill.

It is quite warm — 67 at 2 P. M. — and hazy, though rather strong and gusty northwest wind.
We land at the Holt and walk a little inland. It is unexpectedly very warm on lee side of hilltop just laid bare and covered with dry leaves and twigs. See my first Vanessa Antiopa. 

Looking off on to the river meadow, I noticed, as I thought, a stout stake aslant in the meadow, three or more rods off, sharp at the top and rather light-colored on one side, as is often the case; yet, at the same time, it occurred to me that a stake-driver often resembled a stake very much, but I thought, nevertheless, that there was no doubt about this being a stake. I took out my glass to look for ducks, and my companion, seeing what I had, and asking if it was not a stake-driver, I suffered my glass at last to rest on it, and I was much surprised to find that it was a stake-driver after all. The bird stood in shallow water near a tussock, perfectly still, with its long bill pointed upwards in the same direction with its body and neck, so as perfectly to resemble a stake aslant. If the bill had made an angle with the neck it would have been betrayed at once.

Its resource evidently was to rely on its form and color and immobility solely for its concealment. This was its instinct, whether it implies any conscious artifice or not.

I watched it for fifteen minutes, and at length it relaxed its muscles and changed its attitude, and I observed a slight motion; and soon after, when I moved toward it, it flew. It resembled more a piece of a rail than anything else, — more than anything that would have been seen here before the white man came.

It is a question whether the bird consciously coöperates in each instance with its Maker, who contrived this concealment. I can never believe that this resemblance is a mere coincidence, not designed to answer this very end — which it does answer so perfectly and usefully.

The meadows are alive with purring frogs.

J. Brown says that he saw martins on his box on the 13th and 14th, and that his son saw one the 8th(?).

I notice now and of late holes recently dug, — woodchuck? or fox?

Lake grass was very long — a foot or two — and handsome, the 15th.

Heard a pigeon woodpecker on the 16th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1860

The soothing and simple, though monotonous, notes of the chip-bird, telling us better than our thermometers what degree of summer warmth is reached. See April 17, 1856 ("Hear a chip-bird high on an elm this morning,. . . You would not be apt to distinguish the note of the earliest."). See also  April 9, 1853 ("The chipping sparrow, with its ashy-white breast and white streak over eye and undivided chestnut crown, holds up its head and pours forth its che che che che che che.");   April 27, 1852  ("Heard also a chipping sparrow (F. socialis).") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Chipping Sparrow (Fringilla socialis ).

The amelanchier flower-buds are conspicuously swollen. See April 13, 1856  ("Also the amelanchier flower-buds are bursting."); April 18, 1855 ("The shad-bush flower-buds, beginning to expand, look like leaf-buds bursting now.")

Willows (Salix alba) probably. See April 29, 1855 ("For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other tree, —a pyramid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape.")

It is unexpectedly very warm on lee side of hilltop just laid bare and covered with dry leaves and twigs. See my first Vanessa Antiopa. See March 21, 1853 ("On the warm, dry cliff, looking south over Beaver Pond, I am surprised to see a large butterfly, black with buff-edged wings, so tender a creature to be out so early ."); March 28, 1857 ("The broad buff edge of the Vanessa Antiopa's wings harmonizes with the russet ground it flutters over,");   April 9, 1853 ("You see the buff-edged . . . in warm, sunny southern exposures on the edge of woods or sides of rocky hills and cliffs, above dry leaves and twigs."); April 16, 1855 ("A great many of the large buff-edged are fluttering over the leaves in wood-paths this warm afternoon."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Buff-edged Butterfly


It was a stake-driver after all. See October 26, 1858 ("[Minott] says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot. ” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, American Bittern (the Stake-Diver)

It is a question whether the bird consciously coöperates in each instance with its Maker, who contrived this concealment. See February 19, 1854 (''Each and all such disguises and other resources remind us that not some poor worm's instinct merely, as we call it, but the mind of the universe rather, which we share, has been intended upon each particular object. All the wit in the world was brought to bear on each case to secure its end. ")

The meadows are alive with purring frogs. See  April 17, 1855 ("To-day I see a Rana palustris — I think the first."  Rana palustris. Pickerel frog (Lithobates palustris) See also April 11, 1854 ("Hear a slight snoring of frogs on the bared meadows. Is it not the R. palustris? This the first moon to walk by.”); April 30, 1858 ('It is some what more softly purring, with frequently a low quivering, chuckling, or inquisitive croak, . . . I suspect it is the R. palustris, now breeding."); May 2, 1859  ("I heard yesterday, and perhaps for several days, the soft purring sound of what I take to be the Rana palustris, breeding, though I did not this time see the frog."); May 3, 1857 ("I hear the soft, purring, stertorous croak of frogs on the meadow. "); May 8. 1857 ("It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs (which I suspect to be Rana palustris). . . . Their croak is very fine or rapid, and has a soft, purring sound at a little distance."); May 8, 1857 ("The full moon rises, and I paddle by its light. It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs "); June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th, viz.: -• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.• Hylodes cease to peep.• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.")

J. Brown says that he saw martins on his box on the 13th and 14th, and that his son saw one the 8th(?). See April 17, 1854 ("Every shopkeeper makes a record of the arrival of the first martin or bluebird to his box. . . .: John Brown, merchant, tells me this morning that the martins first came to his box on the 13th, he "made a minute of it." Beside so many entries in their day-books and ledgers, they record these things")

I notice now and of late holes recently dug. See April 17, 1855 ("See a woodchuck. His deep reddish-brown rear, somewhat grizzled about, looked like a ripe fruit mellowed by winter. . . .They have several holes under Lee’s Cliff.")")

Heard a pigeon woodpecker on the 16th. Compare March 17, 1858 ("Ah! there is the note of the first flicker, a prolonged, monotonous wick-wick-wick-wick-wick-wick, etc.,); April 8, 1855 ("Hear and see a pigeon woodpecker, something like week-up week-up."); April 12. 1860 ("Hear a pigeon woodpecker' s prolonged cackle."); April 14, 1856 ("Hear the flicker’s cackle on the old aspen, and his tapping sounds afar over the water.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker).

Discovery of the male wood frog.

April 4. 

Male Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica) amplexing a female

P. M. —Go to the cold pond-hole south of J. P. Brown’s, to hear the croaking frogs. 

They are in full blast on the southwest side, where there have been some birches, etc., cut the past winter, and there is much brush fallen in the water, whose shelter they evidently like, and there they have dropped their spawn on the twigs. I stand for nearly an hour within ten feet on the bank overlooking them. 

You see them lying spread out, or swimming toward one another, sometimes getting on to the brush above the water, or hopping on to the shore a few feet. I see one or two pairs coupled, now sinking, now rising to the surface. 

The upper one, a male, quite dark brown and considerably smaller than the female, which is reddish--such part of her as I can see--and has quite distinct dark bars on its posterior extremities, while I cannot discern any on the male.

But the greatest commotion comes from a mass of them, five or six inches in diameter, where there are at least a dozen or fifteen clinging to one another and making a queer croaking. From time to time a newcomer adds himself to the mass, turning them over and over. [It was an incessantly struggling mass. You could have taken up a dozen or fifteen in your two hands.]The water is all alive with them for a couple of rods, and from time to time they croak much more generally than at others, evidently exciting one another to it, as do the R. halecina. 

Before I caught any of them I was only struck with the fact that the males were much smaller and very much darker, though I could see only one female partially. At length, when all the rest had been scared to the bottom by nearer approach, I got near to the struggling mass. They were continually dropping off from it, and when at length I reached out to seize it, there were left but two. 

Lifting the female, the male still clung to her with his arms about her body, and I caught them both, and they were perfectly passive while I carried them off in my hand. To my surprise the female was the ordinary light-reddish-brown wood frog (R. sylvatica), with legs distinctly barred with dark, while the male, whose note alone I have heard, methinks, was not only much smaller, but of a totally different color, a dark brown above with dark-slate colored sides, and the yet darker bars on its posterior extremities and the dark line from its snout only to be distinguished [on] a close inspection. Throat and beneath, a cream white, like but clearer than the female. 

In color, a small bullfrog which I had caught [probably R. fontinalis], and any other frog that I know, was more like the female than these males were. I have caught the female in previous years, as last spring in New Bedford, but could find no description of him and suspected it to be an undescribed frog. 

It seems they were all (of this mass) about one female, and I saw only one other in the pool, but apparently only one had possession of her. There was a good deal of spawn firmly attached to the brush close to the surface, and, as usual, in some lights you could not see the jelly, only the core. 

I brought these frogs home and put them in a pan of water.

Sophia has brought home the early large-catkinned willow, well out; probably some yesterday at least.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 4, 1858

Go to the cold pond-hole south of J. P. Brown’s, to hear the croaking frogs.See April 13, 1855 ("The small croaking frogs are now generally heard in all those stagnant ponds or pools in woods floored with leaves, which are mainly dried up in the summer. . . . We, hear them at J. P. Brown’s Pond, which is edged with ice still on the north.")

To my surprise the female was the ordinary light-reddish-brown wood frog (R. sylvatica), with legs distinctly barred with dark., while the male, . . .was not only much smaller, but of a totally different color, a dark brown above with dark-slate colored sides.  See April 4, 1857 ("Caught a croaking frog . . . Above it was a uniform (perhaps olive?) brown, without green, and a yellowish line along the edge of the lower jaws."); See also  May 27, 1852 ("Catch a wood frog the color of a dead leaf. "); June 29, 1852 ("The mud turtle is the color of the mud, the wood frog and the hylodes of the dead leaves, the bullfrogs of the pads, the toad of the earth, the tree-toad of the bark."); May 30, 1854 ("Wood frogs skipping over the dead leaves, whose color they resemble."). September 12, 1857 ("I brought it close to my eye and examined it. It was very beautiful seen thus nearly, not the dull dead-leaf color which I had imagined, but its back was like burnished bronze . . . and reddish-orange soles to its delicate feet. There was a conspicuous dark-brown patch along the side of the head,"); October 16, 1857 ("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,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)

~ According to Wikipedia female wood frogs are larger than males. Adult wood frogs are usually brown, tan, or rust-colored, and usually have a dark eye mask. The underparts of wood frogs are pale with a yellow or green cast. Individual frogs are capable of varying their color.

Females tended to be redder and bigger than the males, with the males being more brown and smaller. ~A Frog of a Different Color: Sexually Dimorphic Color in Wood Frogs by thelizardlog

The first sight of the blue water in the spring.

April 5. 

The April weather still continues. It looks repeatedly as if the sun would shine, and it rains five minutes after. 

I look out to see how much the river has risen. Last night there were a great many portions or islets visible, now they are engulfed, and it is a smooth expanse of water and icy snow. The water has been steadily deepening on Concord meadows all night, rising with a dimple about every stem and bush. 

P. M. —- To North River at Tarbell’s. 

Fair weather again. See half a dozen blackbirds, uttering that sign-like note, on the top of Cheney’s elm, but notice no red at this distance. Were they grackles? 

Hear after some red-wings sing baby-lee. Do these ever make the sign—like note? Is not theirs a fine shrill whistle ? 

The ice from the sides of the rivers has wheeled round in great cakes and lodged against each of the railroad bridges, i. e. over each stream. Near the town there is the firmest body of ice (in the river proper) above Hubbard’s Bridge. 

A warm and pleasant afternoon. The river not yet so high by four or five feet as last winter. 

Hear, on all sunny hillsides where the snow is melted, the chink clicking notes of the F. hyemalis flitting before me. I am sitting on the dried grass on the south hillside be hind Tarbell’s house, on the way to Brown’s. These birds know where there is a warm hillside as well as we. 

The warble of the bluebird is in the air. 

From Tarbell’s bank we look over the bright moving flood of the Assabet with many maples standing in it, the purling and eddying stream, with a hundred rills of snow water trickling into it.  

Further toward J. P. Brown’s, see two large ant-hills (red before, black abdomens), quite covered on all the sunny portion with ants, which appear to have come forth quite recently and are removing obstructions from their portals. Probably the frost is quite out there. Their black abdomens glisten in the sun. Each is bringing up some rubbish from beneath. The outlines of one of these hills is a very regular cone; both are graceful curves. 

Come out upon the high terrace behind Hosmer’s, whence we overlook the bright-blue flood alternating with fields of ice (we being on the same side with the sun). The first sight of the blue water in the spring is exhilarating. 

See half a dozen white sheldrakes in the meadow, where Nut Meadow Brook is covered with the flood. There are two or three females with them. These ducks swim together first a little way to the right, then suddenly turn together and swim to the left, from time to time making the water fly in a white spray, apparently with a wing. Nearly half a mile off I see their green crests in the sun. They are partly concealed by some floating pieces of ice and snow, which they resemble. 

On the hill beyond Clamshell scare up two turtle doves. 

It is that walking when we must pick the hardest and highest ground or ice, for we commonly sink several inches in the oozy surface.

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

Hear, on all sunny hillsides where the snow is melted, the chink clicking notes of the F. hyemalis flitting before me. See April 8, 1854 ("Methinks I do not see such great and lively flocks of hyemalis and tree sparrows in the morning since the warm days, the 4th, 5th, and 6th. Perchance after the warmer days, which bring out the frogs and butterflies, the alders and maples, the greater part of them leave for the north and give place to newcomers.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

The warble of the bluebird is in the air. See April 5, 1853 ("The bluebird comes to us bright in his vernal dress as a bridegroom."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bluebird in Early Spring.

The first sight of the blue water in the spring is exhilarating. See March 5, 1854 ("and for the first time I see the water looking blue on the meadows."); March 12, 1854 ("A new feature is being added to the landscape, and that is expanses and reaches of blue water. "); April 3, 1853 ("Looking up the river yesterday, in a direction opposite to the sun, not long before it set, the water was of a rich, dark blue.");  April 4, 1855 ("All the earth is bright; the very pines glisten, and the water is a bright blue."); April 5, 1856 ("We overlook the bright-blue flood alternating with fields of ice (we being on the same side with the sun). The first sight of the blue water in the spring is exhilarating. "); April 9, 1856  ("The water on the meadows now, looking with the sun, is a far deeper and more exciting blue than the heavens. "); April 9, 1856 ("The water on the meadows now, looking with the sun, is a far deeper and more exciting blue than the heavens."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blue Waters in Spring. 

See half a dozen white sheldrakes in the meadow, where Nut Meadow Brook is covered with the flood.  See April 7, 1855 ("In my walk in the afternoon of to-day, I see from Conantum, say fifty rods distant, two sheldrakes, male and probably female, sailing on A. Wheeler’s cranberry meadow. . . .I plainly see the vermilion bill of the male and his orange legs when he flies (but he appears all white above), and the reddish brown or sorrel of the neck of the female, and, when she lifts herself in the water, as it were preparatory to flight, her white breast and belly."); see also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)

Croaking frogs and peepers.

c

April 13

P. M. — To Second Division cowslips. 

A fair day, but a cool wind still, from the snow covered country in the northwest. It is, however, pleasant to sit in the sun in sheltered places. 

The small croaking frogs are now generally heard in all those stagnant ponds or pools in woods floored with leaves, which are mainly dried up in the summer. At first, perhaps, you hear but one or two dry croaks, but, if you sit patiently, you may hear quite a concert of them at last. — er-wah er-wah er-wah, with a nasal twang and twist. — and see them dimpling the surface here and there by their movements. But if you approach the pond-side,.they suddenly cease. 

We, hear them at J. P. Brown’s Pond, which is edged with ice still on the north. The water must be smooth and the weather pretty warm. 

There is still some icy snow in hollows under the north sides of woods. 

I see the feathers, apparently of a fox-colored sparrow, completely covering a stump, where some creature has devoured it. 

At a great ant-hill, the common half red, half-black ants are stirring, apparently clearing out rubbish from their nest. 

Great quantities of odoriferous sweetgale seed are collected with the scum at the outlet of Nut Meadow, for they float. The Alnus incana blossoms begin generally to show. The serrulata will undoubtedly blossom to-morrow in some places. 

The pine on the Marlborough road which I saw from my window has been sawed down the past winter. I try to count its circles; count sixty-one from centre to sap, but there the pitch conceals the rest completely. I guess there were fifteen more, at least. The tree was probably quite eighty years old. It was about two and a quarter feet in diameter. 

The common hazel just out. It is perhaps the prettiest flower of the shrubs that have opened. A little bunch of (in this case) half a dozen catkins, one and three quarters inches long, trembling in the wind, shedding golden pollen on the hand, and, close by, as many minute, but clear crystalline crimson stars at the end of a bare and seemingly dead twig. 

For two or three days in my walks, I had given the hazel catkins a fillip with my finger under their chins to see if they were in bloom, but in vain; but here, on the warm south side of a wood, I find one bunch fully out and completely relaxed. They know when to trust themselves to the weather. 

At the same time I hear through the wood the sharp peep of the first hylodes I have chanced to hear. 

Many cowslip buds show a little yellow, but they will not open there for two or three days. The road is paved with solid ice there. 

Returning by the steep side-hill just south of Holden’s wood-lot and some dozen or fourteen rods west of the open land, I saw, amid the rattlesnake-plantain leaves, what I suspect to be the Polygala paucifolia, -- some very beautiful oval leaves of a dull green (green turned dark) above, but beneath -- and a great many showed the under side -- a clear and brilliant purple (or lake?), growing and looking like checkerberry leaves, but more flaccid. It is three or four inches high, with the oval and revolute leaves at top and a few remote small bract-like leaves on the (three-sided) stern. This polygala is sometimes called flowering wintergreen, and, indeed, it is not only an evergreen but somewhat pyrola-like to the eye. 

See a sparrow without marks on throat or breast, running peculiarly in the dry grass in the open field beyond, and hear its song, and then see its white feathers in tail; the baywing. 

A small willow by the roadside beyond William Wheeler’s, to-morrow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1855

A fair day, but a cool wind still, from the snow covered country in the northwest. It is, however, pleasant to sit in the sun in sheltered places. See April 8, 1859 (" Cold as it is, and has been for several weeks, in all exposed places, I find it unexpectedly warm in perfectly sheltered places where the sun shines. And so it always is in April. The cold wind from the northwest seems distinct and separable from the air here warmed by the sun.")

Stars at the end of a seemingly bare twig. See March 27, 1853 ("So minute that only an observer of nature, or one who looked for them, would notice it.”); April 11, 1856 (You thread your way amid the rustling oak leaves on some warm hillside sloping to the south, detecting no growth as yet . . . when, glancing along the dry stems, in the midst of all this dryness, you detect the crimson stigmas of the hazel, like little stars peeping forth, and perchance a few catkins are dangling loosely in the zephyr and sprinkling their pollen on the dry leaves beneath); April 24,1852 (""Observed the interesting light-crimson star-like flowers of the hazel, the catkins being now more yellowish.) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the Hazel

Here, on the warm south side of a wood, I find one bunch fully out and completely relaxed. They know when to trust themselves to the weather. See May 7, 1854 ("Flowers are self-registering indicators of fairweather. I remember how I waited for the hazel catkins to become relaxed and shed their pollen, but they delayed, till at last there came a pleasanter and warmer day and I took off my greatcoat while surveying in the woods, and then, when I went to dinner at noon, hazel catkins in full flower were dangling from the banks by the roadside and yellowed my clothes with their pollen.”)

The small croaking frogs are now generally heard in all those stagnant ponds or pools in woods floored with leaves, which are mainly dried up in the summer. See March 31, 1857 ("The dry croaking and tut tut of the frogs (a sound which ducks seem to imitate, a kind of quacking...) is plainly enough down there in some pool in the woods, but the shrill peeping of the hylodes locates itself nowhere in particular."); April 8, 1852 ("To-day I hear the croak of frogs in small pond-holes in the woods, and see dimples on the surface, which I suppose that they make, for when I approach they are silent and the dimples are no longer seen. They are very shy.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)

At the same time I hear through the wood the sharp peep of the first hylodes I have chanced to hear. See  March 23, 1859 ("We hear the peep of one hylodes somewhere in this sheltered recess in the woods. And afterward, on the Lee side, I hear a single croak from a wood frog,");  March 31, 1855 ("I go listening for the croak of the first frog, or peep of a hylodes.");  April 18, 1855 ("Hylodes are peeping in a distant pool.") See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first frogs to begin calling

Still a cool wind but

pleasant to sit in the sun

in sheltered places.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Croaking frogs and peepers.

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550413

Though on the back track, I draw nearer to the fox – my thoughts grow foxy.

February 5. 

The fox that invaded the farmer's poultry-yard last night came from a great distance. 

At Hubbard's blueberry swamp woods, near the bathing-place, came across a fox's track, which I think was made last night or since. The tracks were about two inches long, or a little less, by one and a half wide, shaped thus where the snow was only half an inch deep on ice:

generally from nine to fifteen inches apart longitudinally and three to four inches apart transversely. It came from the west. 

I followed it back. At first it was difficult to trace, to investigate, it, amid some rabbit tracks, of which I did not know whether they had been made before or since. It soon led out of the woods on to the ice of the meadow to a slight prominence, then turned and followed along the side of the wood, then crossed the meadow directly to the riverside just below the mouth of Nut Meadow Brook, visited a muskrat- house there and left its mark, — watered, — for, dog-like, it turned aside to every muskrat-house or the like prominence near its route and left its mark there. You could easily scent it there. 

It turned into the meadow eastward once or twice as it went up the riverside, and, after visiting another muskrat's house, where it left its manure, large and light-colored, as if composed of fir, crossed the river and John Hosmer's meadow and potato-field and the road south of Nut Meadow Bridge. (If it had been a dog it would have turned when it reached the road.) 

It was not lost then, but led straight across, through J. Hosmer's field and meadow again, and over ditch and up side-hill in the woods; and there, on the side of the hill, I could see where its tail had grazed the snow. It was then mixed with rabbit-tracks, but was easily unravelled. Passed out of the wood into J. P. Brown's land, over some mice or mole tracks, then over the middle of Brown's meadows westward, to Tarbell's meadows, till at last, by the brook, I found that it had had a companion up to that point, which turned off. 

Then I saw the large tracks of hounds on the trail. Still it held on, from straight across the road again, some way on an old dog's trail; had trodden and nosed very much about some hardhacks in the field beyond, where were a few mice-tracks, as if for food, the hound's tracks numerous with it; and so I traced it into the Ministerial Swamp, where, the snow-storm increasing, I left it, having traced it back more than a mile westward in a pretty direct course.  

Here was one track that crossed the road, — did not turn in it like a dog, — track of a wilder life. How distinct from the others! Such as was made before roads were, as if the road were a more recent track. This traveller does not turn when he strikes the trail of man.

I followed on this trail so long that my thoughts grew foxy; though I was on the back track, I drew nearer and nearer to the fox each step.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 5, 1854

Though I was on the back track, I drew nearer and nearer to the fox each step. See January 27, 1855 ("Its route was for the most part a little below the edge of the Cliff, occasionally surmounting it. At length, after going perhaps half a mile, it turned as if to descend a dozen rods beyond the juniper, and suddenly came to end. Looking closely I find the entrance (apparently) to its hole, under a prominent rock . . . I had never associated that rock with a fox’s den, though perhaps I had sat on it many a time.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

Though on the back track

I draw nearer to the fox – 

my thoughts grow foxy.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, on the back track

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 © 2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt540205

A Bright November Day

November 11.

A bright, but cold day, finger-cold. One must next wear gloves, put his hands in winter quarters.

I am glad of the shelter of the thick pine wood on the Marlborough road, on the plain. The wind roars over the pines, and at intervals there is a certain resounding woodiness in the tone. How the wind roars among the shrouds of the wood! The sky looks mild and fair enough from this shelter.

There is a cold, silvery light on the white pines as I go through J.P. Brown's field near Jenny Dugan's. Every withered blade of grass and every dry weed, as well as pine-needle, reflects light. The lately dark woods are open and light; the sun shines in upon the stems of trees which it has not shone on since spring.

Around the edges of ponds the weeds are dead, and there, too, the light penetrates. The atmosphere is less moist and gross, and light is universally dispersed.

We are greatly indebted to these transition seasons or states of the atmosphere, which show us thus phenomena which belong not to the summer or the winter of any climate. The brilliancy of the autumn is wonderful, this flashing brilliancy, as if the atmosphere were phosphoric.

The fall of the year is over, and now let us see if we shall have any Indian summer.

White Pond is prepared for winter. Now that most other trees have lost their leaves, the evergreens are more conspicuous about its shores and on its capes. The view of the southern horizon from the lane this side still attracts me, but not so much as before I had explored those Wayland hills, which look so much fairer, perhaps, than they are. 

To-day you may write a chapter on the advantages of travelling, and to-morrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of not travelling. The horizon has one kind of beauty and attraction to him who has never explored the hills and mountains in it, and another, I fear a less ethereal and glorious one, to him who has. 

That blue mountain in the horizon is certainly the most heavenly, the most elysian, which we have not climbed, on which we have not camped for a night. But only our horizon is moved thus further off, and if our whole life should prove thus a failure, the future which is to atone for all, where still there must be some success, will be more glorious still. 

"Says I to myself " should be the motto of my journal. 

It is fatal to the writer to be too much possessed by his thought. Things must lie a little remote to be described.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 11, 1851

A bright, but cold day, finger-cold. One must next wear gloves, put his hands in winter quarters. See November 11, 1853 ("Bracing cold, and exhilarating sunlight . . .I wear mittens now.”); November 11, 1858 (“Coming home I have cold fingers, and must row to get warm.”)

Things must lie a little remote to be described. See July 23, 1851 ("Do not tread on the heels of your experience. Be impressed without making a minute of it. Poetry puts an interval between the impression and the expression, — waits till the seed germinates naturally.")

Sweeping waves of light and Shade

July 4, 2022

July 4, 2017

July 4 

Standing on J. P . Brown's land, south side,

 I observe his rich and luxuriant uncut grass-lands northward, now waving under the easterly wind. Sweeping waves of light and shade over the whole breadth of his land, imparting wonderful life to the landscape, waves of light and shade pursuing each other over the whole breadth of the landscape like waves hastening to break on a shore. 

We are wading and navigating at present in a sort of sea of grass, which yields and undulates under the wind like water; and so, perchance, the forest is seen to do from a favorable position.

None of his fields is cut yet. 

Early, there was that flashing light of waving pine in the horizon; now, the Camilla on grass and grain. 

In that hollow in the woods south of Ledum Swamp, the sedge is fresh and yellowish-green, falling every way like cow-licks on an unkempt head, a soft, dry bed to recline on. When we enter it from the west, with the sun shining between thundery clouds, it is all lit with a blaze of yellow light.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 4, 1860

Navigating a sea of grass... See July 6, 1859 ("Grass now for a week or more has been seriously in the way of the walker,... It requires skillful tacking, a good deal of observation, and experience to get across the country now.”) See also July 2, 1851 ("Miles of waving grass adorning the surface of the earth, inconceivably fine and silvery far away, - light reflects from the grass blades.”)

July 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 4

Rich uncut grass-lands 

now waving under the wind

waves of light and shade 

sweeping the breadth of the land

waves of light and shade

imparting life to the landscape

waves of light and shade 

over the breadth of the landscape

pursuing each other like 

waves hastening to break on a shore. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Sweeping waves of light and Shade

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 ©  2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt600704

Standing on J. P. Brown's land, south side, I observed his rich and luxuriant uncut grass-lands north ward, now waving under the easterly wind. It is a beautiful Camilla, sweeping like waves of light and shade over the whole breadth of his land, like a low steam curling over it, imparting wonderful life to the landscape, like the light and shade of a changeable garment, waves of light and shade pursuing each other over the whole breadth of the landscape like waves hastening to break on a shore.