These are afternoons when you expect a thunder-shower before night.

May 29

May 29, 2015

These last two days, with their sultry, hazy air, are the first that suggest the expression “the furnace-like heat.”

Bathing has begun.

In the evening and during the night the ring of the toads fills the air, so that some have to shut the windows toward the river, but when you awake in the morning not one is to be heard. As it grows warmer in the forenoon I hear a few again; but still I do not hear them numerously and loudly as earlier in the season at that hour, though far more numerously and loudly at night.

P. M. - To Hosmer's Holden place.

Thimble-berry two or three days.

Cattle stand in the river by the bridge for coolness.

Place my hat lightly on my head that the air may circulate beneath.

Wild roses budded before you know it — will be out often before you know they are budded.

Fields are whitened with mouse-ear gone to seed 

—a mass of white fuzz blowing off one side — and also with dandelion globes of seeds.

Some plants have already reached their fall.

How still the hot noon; people have retired behind blinds.

Yet the kingbird — lively bird, with white belly and tail edged with white, and with its lively twittering— stirs and keeps the air brisk.

I see men and women through open windows in white undress taking their Sunday-afternoon nap, overcome with heat.

At A. Hosmer's hill on the Union Turnpike I see the tanager hoarsely warbling in the shade; the surprising red bird, a small morsel of Brazil, advanced picket of that Brazilian army, — parrot-like. But no more shall we see; it is only an affair of outposts. It appears as if he loved to contrast himself with the green of the forest.

May 29, 2024

These are afternoons when you expect a thunder-shower before night; the outlines of cloudy cumuli are dimly seen through the hazy, furnace-like air, rising in the west.

Spergularia rubra, spurry sandwort, in the roadside ditch on left just beyond A. Hosmer's hill; also Veronica peregrina (?) a good while. The last also in Great Fields in the path.

Raspberry out.

That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention.

The barrenest pastures wear now a green and luxuriant aspect.

I see many of those round, white, pigeon-egg fungi in the grass since the rains. Do they become puffballs? 

The thyme-leaved veronica shows its modest face in little crescent-shaped regiments in every little hollow in the pastures where there is moisture, and around stumps and in the road ditches.

The Cratægus Crus-Galli this side the Holden place on left, probably yesterday, thorns three inches long, flowers with anthers not conspicuously red.

The Viola debilis near west end of Holden farm in meadow south side of road.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1853

Bathing has begun. See May 8, 1857 (“Summer has suddenly come upon us, and . . . Some boys have bathed in the river.") May 12, 1860 ("First bathe in the river. Quite warm enough."); May 15,1853 ("The weather has grown rapidly warm. I even think of bathing in the river .")

Fields are whitened with mouse-ear gone to seed — a mass of white fuzz blowing off one side — and also with dandelion globes of seeds. See May 29, 1854 ("Dandelions and mouse-ear down have been blowing for some time and are seen on water. These are interesting as methinks the first of the class of downy seeds which are more common in the fall.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Mouse-ear

That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention. See May 29, 1852 ("Blue-eyed grass [in bloom]."); May 29, 1856 (“Blue-eyed grass, probably to-morrow.”); See also May 31, 1854 (“Blue-eyed grass, apparently in pretty good season.”); June 6, 1855 (“Blue-eyed grass maybe several days in some places.”); June 15, 1851 (“The blue-eyed grass, well named, looks up to heaven.”); June 15, 1852 ("The fields are blued with blue-eyed grass, — a slaty blue. "); June 15, 1859 ("Blue-eyed grass at height."); June 17. 1853 ("The dense fields of blue-eyed grass now blue the meadows, as if, in this fair season of the year, the clouds that envelop the earth were dispersing, and blue patches began to appear, answering to the blue sky. The eyes pass from these blue patches into the surrounding green as from the patches of clear sky into the clouds. "); June 19, 1853 ("I see large patches of blue-eyed grass in the meadow across the river from my window"); July 6, 1851("Blue-eyed grass is now rarely seen. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, blue-eyed grass

 

In the evening and during the night the ring of the toads fills the air.  See May 20, 1854 ("The steadily increasing sound of toads and frogs along the river with each successive warmer night is one of the most important peculiarities of the season. Their prevalence and loudness is in proportion to the increased temperature of the day.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau: The Ring of Toads

I see the tanager hoarsely warbling in the shade; the surprising red bird, a small morsel of Brazil. . .as if he loved to contrast himself with the green of the forest. See May 23, 1853 ("That contrast of a red bird with the green pines and the blue sky!. . .this bird's colors and his note tell of Brazil. "); May 28, 1855 (" the most brilliant and tropical-looking bird we have, bright-scarlet with black wings, the scarlet appearing on the rump again between wing-tips. He brings heat, or heat him. A remarkable contrast with the green pines. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the  Scarlet Tanager

The Viola debilis near west end of Holden farm in meadow. See May 22, 1853 ("Found an abundance of the Viola Muhlenbergii (debilis of Bigelow), a stalked violet, pale blue and bearded"); May 22, 1856 ("To Viola Muhlenbergii, which is abundantly out; how long? A small pale-blue flower growing in dense bunches, but in spots a little drier than the V. cucullata and blanda.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

How still the hot noon; 

people retire behind blinds  –

 yet the kingbird stirs.

See men and women

through open windows undress,

overcome with heat. 

These are afternoons

when you expect a thunder-

shower before night.

Overtaken by a shower

August 17. 

Still hear the chip-bird early in the morning, though not so generally as earlier in the season. 

Minott has only lately been reading Shattuck’s “History of Concord,” and he says that his account is not right by a jugful, that he does not come within half a mile of the truth, not as he has heard tell. 

Some days ago I saw a kingbird twice stoop to the water from an overhanging oak and pick an insect from the surface. 

C. saw pigeons to-day. 

P. M. —To Annursnack via swimming-ford. 

The river is twelve to eighteen inches deeper there than usual at this season. Even the slough this side is two feet deep. There has been so much rain of late that there is no curling or drying of the leaves and grass this year. The foliage is a pure fresh green. The aftermath on early mown fields is a very beautiful green. 

Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour, and at length came home with a rainbow over arching the road before us. 

The dog-days, the foggy and mouldy days, are not over yet. The clouds are like a mildew which over  spreads the sky. It is sticky weather, and the air is filled with the scent of decaying fungi.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 17, 1858

Still hear the chip-bird early in the morning, though not so generally as earlier in the season.See August 1, 1853 ("I think that that universal crowing of the chip-bird in the morning is no longer heard.")

Being overtaken by a shower, we took refuge in the basement of Sam Barrett’s sawmill, where we spent an hour, and at length came home with a rainbow over arching the road before us. See July 22, 1858 (“C. and I took refuge from a shower under our boat at Clamshell; staid an hour at least. . . .Left a little too soon, but enjoyed a splendid rainbow for half an hour.”)

The beauty of willows

August 7. 

Saturday. 

P. M. —Up Assabet. 

The most luxuriant groves of black willow, as I recall them, are on the inside curves, or on sandy capes between the river and a bay, or sandy banks parallel with the firmer shore, e. g. between Lee’s and Fair Haven on north side, point of Fair Haven Island, opposite Clamshell and above, just below stone bridge, Lee Meadow or opposite house, below Nathan Barrett’s at Bay, sandy bank below Dove Rock. 

They also grow on both sides sometimes, where the river runs straight through stagnant meadows or swamps,—e.g. above Hollowell Bridge, —or on one side, though straight, along the edge of a swamp,—as above Assabet Spring,—but rarely ever against a firm bank or hillside, the positive male shore, e.g. east shore of Fair Haven Pond, east side above railroad bridge, etc. 

Measured the two largest of three below Dove Rock. The southernmost is three feet nine inches in circumference at ground, and it branches there. The westernmost is four feet two inches in circumference at ground and three feet two inches at three feet above ground. Or the largest is one foot and four inches in diameter at ground. 

They all branch at the ground, dividing within four or five feet into three or four main stems. The three here have the effect of one tree, seen from the water, and are twenty-five feet high or more, and, all together, broader than high. They are none of them upright, but in this case, close under a higher wood of maples and swamp white oak, slant over the stream, and, taken separately or viewed from the land side, are very imperfect trees. 

If you stand at their base and look upward or outward, you see a great proportion of naked trunk but thinly invested with foliage even at the summit, and they are among the most unsightly trees. The lower branches slant down ward from the main divisions so as commonly to rest on the water. 

But seen from the water side no tree of its height, methinks, so completely conceals its trunk. They meet with many hard rubs from the ice and from driftwood in freshets in the course of their lives, and whole trees are bent aside or half broken off by these causes, but they soon conceal their injuries. 

The Sternothaerus odoratus knows them well, for it climbs highest up their stems, three or four feet or more nowadays, sometimes seven or eight along the slanting branches, and is frequently caught and hung by the neck in its forks. They do not so much jump as tumble off when disturbed by a passer. 

The small black mud tortoise, with its muddy shell, eyes you motionless from its resting-place in a fork of the black willow. They will climb four feet up a stem not more than two inches in diameter, and yet undo all their work in an instant by tumbling off when your boat goes by. The trunk is covered with coarse, long, and thick upraised scales. It is this turtle’s castle and path to heaven. He is on the upward road along the stem of the willow, and by its dark stem it is partially concealed. 

Yes, the musquash and the mud tortoise and the bittern know it well. 

But not these sights alone are now seen on our river, but the sprightly kingbird glances and twitters above the glossy leaves of the swamp white oak. Perchance this tree, with its leaves glossy above and whitish beneath, best expresses the life of the kingbird and is its own tree. 

How long will it be after we have passed before the mud tortoise has climbed to its perch again? 

The author of the Chinese novel “Ju-Kiao-Li,” some eight hundred years ago, appears to have appreciated the beauty of willows. Pe, his principal character, moved out of the city late in life, to a stream bordered with willows, about twenty miles distant, in order to spend the rest of his days drinking wine and writing verses there. He describes the eyebrow of his heroine as like a willow leaf floating on the surface of the water. 

In the upper part of J. Farmer’s lane I find huckleberries which are distinctly pear-shaped, all of them. These and also other roundish ones near by, and apparently huckleberries generally, are dotted or apparently dusted over with a yellow dust or meal, which looks as if it could be rubbed off. Through a glass it looks like a resin which has exuded, and on the small green fruit is of a bright orange or lemon-color, like small specks of yellow lichens. It is apparently the same as that on the leaves. 

Monarda fistula is now apparently in prime, four and more, eight or ten rods behind red oak on Emerson’s Assabet field.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 7, 1858

The most luxuriant groves of black willow are on the inside curves, —but rarely ever against a firm bank or hillside, the positive male shore. See March 24, 1855 ("Rivers are continually changing their channels, -eating into one bank and adding their sediment to the other, - so that frequently where there is a great bend you see a high and steep bank or bill on one side, which the river washes, and a broad meadow on the other. ");August 15, 1858 (" I notice the black willows . . . to see where they grow, distinguishing ten places. In several instances they are on the concave or female side distinctly."); August 19, 1858 ("I noticed the localities of black willows as far up as the mouth of the river in Fair Haven Pond, but not so carefully as elsewhere, and from the last observations I infer that the willow grows especially and almost exclusively in places where the drift is most likely to lodge, as on capes and points and concave sides of the river") See also August 25, 1856 ("Why is the black willow so strictly confined to the bank of the river?"); May 14, 1852 (“Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing, Ah! willow, willow!”); May 10, 1854 (“I perceive the sweetness of the willows on the causeway. ”); February 14, 1856(“I was struck to-day by the size and continuousness of the natural willow hedge on the east side of the railroad causeway, at the foot of the embankment, next to the fence. Some twelve years ago, when that causeway was built through the meadows, there were no willows there or near there, but now, just at the foot of the sand-bank, where it meets the meadow, and on the line of the fence, quite a dense willow hedge has planted itself. ”); May 12, 1857 (“When I consider how many species of willow have been planted along the railroad causeway within ten years, of which no one knows the history, and not one in Concord beside myself can tell the name of one, so that it is quite a discovery to identify a single one in a year, and yet within this period the seeds of all these kinds have been conveyed from some other locality to this, I am reminded how much is going on that man wots not of”) and A Book of Seasons: the Propogation of the Black Willow.

Huckleberries generally are dotted or apparently dusted over with a yellow dust or meal, which looks as if it could be rubbed off. Through a glass it looks like a resin which has exuded, and on the small green fruit is of a bright orange or lemon-color. See August 8, 1858 ("I see there [at Ledum Swamp], especially near the pool, tall and slender huckleberry bushes of a peculiar kind. Some are seven feet high. They are, for the most part, three or four feet high, very slender and drooping, bent like grass to one side. The berries are round and glossy-black, with resinous dots, as usual, and in flattish-topped racemes, sometimes ten or twelve in a raceme, but generally more scattered. Call it, perhaps, the tall swamp huckleberry")

The Sternothaerus odoratus is frequently caught and hung by the neck in its forks. See August 6, 1855 ("Saw a Sternotherus odoratus, caught by the neck and hung in the fork between a twig and main trunk of a black willow, about two feet above water, — apparently a month or two, being nearly dry. Probably in its haste to get down had fallen and was caught. I have noticed the same thing once or twice before. ")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus )

The note of the wood pewee is now more prominent, while birds generally are silent.

August 6. 

P. M. —— Walk to Boulder Field. 

The broom is quite out of bloom; probably a week or ten days. It is almost ripe, indeed. I should like to see how rapidly it spreads. The dense roundish masses, side by side, are three or four feet over and fifteen inches high. They have grown from near the ground this year. The whole clump is now about eighteen feet from north to south by twelve wide. 

Within a foot or two of its edge, I detect many slender little plants springing up in the grass, only three inches high, but, on digging, am surprised to find that they are two years old. They have large roots, running down straight as well as branching, much stouter than the part above ground. Thus it appears to spread slowly by the seed falling from its edge, for I detected no runners. 

It is associated there with indigo, which is still abundantly in bloom. 

I then looked for the little groves of barberries which some two months ago I saw in the cow-dung thereabouts, but to my surprise I found some only in one spot after a long search. They appear to have generally died, perhaps dried up. These few were some two inches high; the roots yet longer, having penetrated to the soil beneath. Thus, no doubt, some of those barberry clumps are formed; but I noticed many more small barberry plants standing single, most commonly protected by a rock. 

Cut a couple of those low scrub apple bushes, and found that those a foot high and as wide as high, being clipped by the cows, as a hedge with shears, were about twelve years old, but quite sound and thrifty.

If our sluggish river, choked with potamogeton, might seem to have the slow-flying bittern for its peculiar genius, it has also the sprightly and aerial kingbird to twitter over and lift our thoughts to clouds as white as its own breast. 

Emerson is gone to the Adirondack country with a hunting party. Eddy says he has carried a double-barrelled gun, one side for shot, the other for ball, for Lowell killed a bear there last year. But the story on the Mill-Dam is that he has taken a gun which throws shot from one end and ball from the other! 

I think that I speak impartially when I say that I have never met with a stream so suitable for boating and botanizing as the Concord, and fortunately nobody knows it. I know of reaches which a single country seat would spoil beyond remedy, but there has not been any important change here since I can remember. The willows slumber along its shore, piled in light but low masses, even like the cumuli clouds above. 

We pass haymakers in every meadow, who may think that we are idlers. But Nature takes care that every nook and crevice is explored by some one. While they look after the open meadows, we farm the tract between the river’s brinks and behold the shores from that side. We, too, are harvesting an annual crop with our eyes, and think you Nature is not glad to display her beauty to us? 

Early in the day we see the dewdrops thickly sprinkled over the broad leaves of the potamogeton. These cover the stream so densely in some places that a web footed bird can almost walk across on them. 

Nowadays we hear the squealing notes of young hawks. 

The kingfisher is seen hovering steadily over one spot, or hurrying away with a small fish in his mouth, sounding his alarum nevertheless. 

The note of the wood pewee is now more prominent, while birds generally are silent. 

This is pure summer; no signs of fall in this, though I have seen some maples, as above the Assabet Spring, already prematurely reddening, owing to the water, and for some time the Cornus sericea has looked brownish red. 

Every board and chip cast into the river is soon occupied by one or more turtles of various sizes. The sternothaerus oftenest climbs up the black willows, even three or more feet.

I hear of pickers ordered out of the huckleberry-fields, and I see stakes set up with written notices forbidding any to pick there. Some let their fields, or allow so much for,the picking. Sic transit gloria ruris.

We are not grateful enough that we have lived part of our lives before these evil days came. What becomes of the true value of country life? What if you must go to market for it? Shall things come to such a pass that the butcher commonly brings round huckleberries in his cart? It is as if the hangman were to perform the marriage ceremony, or were to preside at the communion table. 

Such is the inevitable tendency of our civilization, — to reduce huckleberries to a level with beef-steak. The butcher’s item on the door is now “calf’s head and huckleberries.” 

I suspect that the inhabitants of England and of the Continent of Europe have thus lost their natural rights with the increase of population and of monopolies. The wild fruits of the earth disappear before civilization, or are only to be found in large markets. The whole country becomes, as it were, a town or beaten common, and the fruits left are a few hips and haws.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 6, 1858

If our sluggish river, choked with potamogeton, might seem to have the slow-flying bittern for its peculiar genius,... See August 2, 1856  ("This antediluvian bird, creature of the night, is a fit emblem of a dead stream like this Musketicook. This especially is the bird of the river. There is a sympathy between its sluggish flight and the sluggish flow of the stream, — its slowly lapsing flight, even like the rills of Musketicook and my own pulse sometimes.")

We pass haymakers in every meadow. We, too, are harvesting an annual crop with our eyes, and think you Nature is not glad to display her beauty to us? See July 30, 1856 ("I saw haymakers at work dressed simply in a straw hat, boots, shirt, and pantaloons, the shirt worn like a frock over their pants. The laborer cannot endure the contact with his clothes."); August 3, 1859 ("The haymakers are quite busy on the Great Meadows, it being drier than usual. It being remote from public view, some of them work in their shirts or half naked. "); August 5, 1854 ("I find that we are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season, and almost every meadow or section of a meadow has its band of half a dozen mowers and rakers, either bending to their manly work with regular and graceful motion.")

They appear to have generally died, perhaps dried up. See June 28, 1858 ("I see in many places little barberry bushes just come up densely in the cow-dung, like young apple trees, the berries having been eaten by the cows."); May 29, 1858 ("I mistook dense groves of little barberries in the droppings of cows in the Boulder Field for apple trees at first. So the cows eat barberries, and help disperse or disseminate them exactly as they do the apple! That helps account for the spread of the barberry, then.")

The note of the wood pewee is now more prominent, while birds generally are silent. See August 9, 1856 ("The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over"); August 18, 1860 ("The note of the wood pewee sounds prominent of late.”)

August 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 6

 

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 © 2009-2021 

Who saw the otter?

May 9. 

Another fine day. 

6 a. m. — On water. 

Maryland yellow-throat. Aspen leaves one inch over.

Hear stake-driver. Black and white creeper's fine note. Er-te-ter-twee, or evergreen-forest note. Golden-crowned thrush note. Kingbird. 

P. M. To Gilson's Mill, Littleton. 

George Brooks points to an old house of which one half the roof only has been shingled, etc., etc., and says he guessed it to be a widow's dower from this, and on inquiry found it so. 

Went to Gilson's tumble-down mill and house. He appeared, licking his chaps after dinner, in a mealy coat, and suddenly asked in the midst of a sentence, with a shrug of his shoulders, 

"Isn't there something painted on my back ?" 

There were some marks in red chalk they used to chalk the bags with, and he said he thought he had felt his son at the mill chalking his back. He feared he was making an exhibition before strangers. 

The boy speared fishes, chiefly suckers, pouts, etc. A fire in a hand-crate carried along the bank of the brook (Stony Brook). He had lately speared a sucker weighing five and a quarter pounds, which he sold; went back and forth some twenty-five rods and found the suckers less shy at last than at first. 

Saw otter there. 

I saw many perch at the foot of the falls. 

He said that they and trout could get up five or six feet over the rocks there into the pond, it being a much broken fall.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 9, 1857

Hear stake-driver. See May 9, 1853 ("At sundown paddled up the river. The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow."); April 24, 1854 ("I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself."); May 12, 1855 ("A distant stake-driver"); May 20, 1856 ("See and hear a stake-driver in the swamp. It took one short pull at its pump and stopped.")

Saw otter there. Consider. Did Thoreau, while visiting the falls at Littleton, see an otter? Or is he recounting a second-hand story about Gilson the miller's son? See March 31, 1857 ("The existence of the otter, our largest wild animal, is not betrayed to any of our senses (or at least not to more than one in a thousand)!"); April 6, 1855 ("it reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen."); February 20, 1855 (among the quadrupeds of Concord, the otter is "very rare."); January 30, 1854 ("How retired an otter manages to live! He grows to be four feet long without any mortal getting a glimpse of him,");  January 21, 1853 ("Otter are very rare here now.”); and the Natural History of Massachusetts (1842) ("The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten have disappeared ; the otter is rarely if ever seen here at present; and the mink is less common than formerly..")

At the railroad meadow this side the Brooks Crossing.

July 5. 

A. M. — To Loring’s Pond. 

July 5. 

Pink-colored yarrow.

Epilobium coloratum, a day or more. 

Young partridges (with the old bird), as big as robins, make haste into the woods from off the railroad. 

Plucked some large luscious purple pyrus berries. Lactuca some days out. 

Borrowed Witherell’s boat and paddled over Loring’s Pond. A kingbird’s nest in fork of a buttonbush five feet high on shore (not saddled on); three young just hatched and one egg. 

Much of this pond is now very shallow and muddy and crowded with pads, etc. I can hardly push through them. Yet I can see no more white lily pads shaped as that appears to have been which I found here a few weeks since. 

Many pickerel dart away from amidst the pads, and in one place I see one or two great snap-turtles. 

I notice two varieties (?), perhaps, of Asclepias Cornuti now out, one on the railroad meadow this side the Brooks Crossing, the other beyond the first mile-post above. The last has broader leaves and blunter and more decidedly mucronate, and pedicels and peduncles quite downy, the former little more than twice the length of the petals. The other has narrower and more pointed leaves, peduncles and pedicels but little downy comparatively, the latter more than three times the length of the petals and not so numerous as in the other. Vide their pods, if spiny, by and by. 

The Spergularia rubra was not open in the morning when I passed up, at 8 or 9 A. M., but was opened when I returned at noon, but closed again at 5 P. M.

The notes of barn swallows, perhaps with their young, are particularly loud now and almost metallic, like that of a mackerel gull. 

The large evening-primrose below the foot of our garden does not open till some time between 6.30 and 8 P. M. or sundown. It was not open when I went to bathe, but freshly out in the cool of the evening at sun down, as if enjoying the serenity of the hour.

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


Young partridges (with the old bird), as big as robins, make haste . . . See July 5, 1857 ("Partridges big as quails."); June 26, 1857( See a pack of partridges as big as robins at least.); July 1, 1860 (I see young partridges not bigger than robins . . .”) and note to August 24, 1855 ("Scare up a pack of grouse."). Also  A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge.

A kingbird’s nest in fork of a buttonbush five feet high. See July 9, 1859 ("See young kingbirds which have lately flown perched in a family on the willows, — the airy bird, lively, twittering"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird

Pink-colored yarrow. See August 27, 1859 ("I often see yarrow with a delicate pink tint, very distinct from the common pure-white ones. ")

Surrounded by whiteweed

June 24. 

June 24.

To Sassacowen Pond and to Long Pond. 

Common yellow thistle abundant about R’s; open a good while. 

Maryland yellow-throats very common in bushes behind his house; nest with young. 

American holly now in prime. 

The light-colored masses of mountain laurel were visible across Sassacowen. 

A kingbird’s nest just completed in an apple tree. 

Lunched by the spring on the Brady farm in Freetown, and there it occurred to me how to get clear water from a spring when the surface is covered with dust or insects. Thrust your dipper down deep in the middle of the spring and lift it up quickly straight and square. This will heap up the water in the middle so that the scum will run off. 

We were surrounded by whiteweed. The week before I had seen it equally abundant in Worcester (in many fields the flowers placed in one plane would more than cover the surface), and here as there each flower had a dark ring of small black insects on its disk. Think of the many dense white fields between here and there, aye and for a thousand miles around, and then calculate the amount of insect life of one obscure species! 

Went off to Nelson’s Island (now Briggs’s) in Long Pond by a long, very narrow bar (fifty rods as I paced it), in some places the water over shoes and the sand commonly only three or four feet wide. This is a noble island, maybe of eight or ten acres, some thirty feet high and just enough wooded, with grass ground and grassy hollows. 

There was a beech wood at the west end, where R.’s son Walton found an arrowhead when they were here before, and the hemlocks resounded with the note of the tweezer-bird (Sylvia Americana). 

There were many ephemerae half dead on the bushes. 

R. dreams of residing here.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 24, 1856

A kingbird’s nest just completed in an apple tree. See June 13, 1855 ("Two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside.") and note to June 8, 1858 ("A kingbird's nest with three eggs, lined with some hair, in a fork — or against upright part — of a willow, just above near stone bridge.")

Sassacowen Pond . . . See September 30, 1856 ("Rode with R. to Sassacowens Pond, in the north part of New Bedford on the Taunton road, called also Toby’s Pond . . .”)

The hemlocks resounded with the note of the tweezer-bird (Sylvia Americana). See June 30, 1856 ("The tweezer-birds were lively in the hemlocks")

A great flight of ephemera over the water.

June 8 

We have had six days either rain-threatening or rainy, the last two somewhat rainy or mizzling. 

P. M. -— To Cedar Swamp.

Pulled up a yellow lily root, four feet long and branching, two and a half inches diameter and about same size at each end where it had broken off, tree-like. Broken off, it floats. Great white rootlets put out all along it. 

I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. It is dead at top and slightly leafed below. Was it the severe winter, or cutting off the protecting evergreens? It grows four or five rods from knoll near a sawed stump between two large red maple clumps. 

The three-leaved Solomon’s-seal has almost entirely done, while the two leaved is quite abundant.

Stellaria longrfolia opposite Barbarea Shore not yet out. It is obviously different from what I call S. borealis, much more tall (one foot high) and upright, with branches ascending (not spreading) (the other grows in a dense mass at Corner Spring); leaves longer and more linear, and not at all ciliate like the other; stem much sharper-angled, almost winged; flower-buds more long and slender; and grows in high grass and is later. 

I observe in a mass of damp shavings and leaves and sand there, in the shade, a little prostrate willow just coming into flower, perhaps a black willow. Pulling it up, I find it to be a twig about sixteen inches long, two thirds buried in the damp mass. This was probably broken off by the ice, brought down, washed up, and buried like a layer there; and now, for two thirds its length, it has put out rootlets an inch or two long abundantly, and leaves and catkins from the part above ground. 

So vivacious is the willow, availing itself of every accident to spread along the river’s bank. The ice that strips it only disperses it the more widely. It never says die. May I be as vivacious as a willow.

Some species are so brittle at the base of the twigs that they break on the least touch, but they are as tough above as tender at base, and these twigs are only thus shed like seeds which float away and plant themselves in the first bank on which they lodge. I commonly litter my boat with a shower of these black willow twigs whenever I run into them. 

A kingbird’s nest on a black cherry, above Barbarea Shore. loosely constructed, with some long white rags dangling; one egg. 

At Cedar Swamp, saw the pe-pe catching flies like a wood pewee, darting from its perch on a dead cedar twig from time to time and returning to it. It appeared to have a black crown with some crest, yellowish (?) bill, gray-brown back, black tail, two faint whitish bars on wings, a dirty cream-white throat, and a gray or ash white breast and beneath, whitest in middle.

I had noticed when coming up the river two or three dead suckers, one with a remarkable redness about the anal fins; and this reminded me of the ephemera. It was the 2d of June, 1854, that I observed them in such numbers. 

When I returned to my boat, about five, the weather being mizzling enough to require an umbrella, with an easterly wind-and dark for the hour, my boat being by chance at the same place where it was in ’54, I noticed a great flight of ephemera over the water, though not so great as that. 

The greater part were flying down-stream against the wind, but if you watched one long enough you would see him suddenly turn at length and fly swiftly back up the stream. They advanced against the wind faster than I floated along. They were not coupled nor coupling, — I only noticed two coupled, — but flew, most of them, with their bodies curved, and from time to time each one descended to the water and touched it, or rested on it a second or two, sometimes several minutes. 

They were generally able to rise, but very often before it arose, or not being able to rise, it was seized by a fish. While some are flying down they are met by others coming up. The water was dimpled with the leaping fish. They reach about ten or fifteen feet high over the water, and I also saw a stream of them about as thick over a narrow meadow a dozen rods from the water in the woods. The weather was evidently unfavorable, what with the wind and the rain, and they were more or less confined to the shore, hovering high over the bushes and trees, where the wind was strong over the river. I had not noticed any on leaves.

At one place, against Dodge’s Brook, where they were driven back by a strong head wind at a bend, more than usual were wrecked on the water and the fishes were leaping more numerously than elsewhere. The river was quite alive with them, and I had not thought there were so many in it, — great black heads and tails continually thrust up on all sides of my boat. You had only to keep your eye on a floating fly a minute to see some fishy monster rise and swallow it with more or less skill and plashing. 

Some skillfully seized their prey without much plashing, rising in a low curve and just showing their backs; others rose up perpendicularly, half their length out of water, showing their black backs or white bellies or gleaming sides; others made a noisy rush at their prey and leaped entirely out of water, falling with a loud plash. You saw twenty black points at once. They seemed to be suckers; large fish, at any rate, and probably various kinds. What a sudden surfeit the fishes must have! 

They are of various sizes, but generally their solid bodies about three quarters of an inch long or less, yellowish tinge, transparent, with rows of brown spots; wings gauze-like, with a few opaque brown spots.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  June 8, 1856

I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. See April 24, 1854 ("New plant (Racemed andromeda) flower-budded at Cedar Swamp . . . — upright dense racemes of reddish flower-buds on reddish terminal shoots.”)   See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cedar Swamps

The three-leaved Solomon’s-seal has almost entirely done, while the two leaved is quite abundant. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Three-leaved  false Solomon's-seal (Smilacina trifolia);  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Two-leaved Solomon's Seal (Canada mayflower or false lily-of-the-valley)

Stellaria longrfolia opposite Barbarea Shore not yet out. It is obviously different from what I call S. borealis See May 15, 1856 ("Just on the brink of this Heywood Spring, I find what may be the Stellaria borealis [boreal starwort/stitchwort](if it is not the longifolia [long-leaved stitchwort], ”); See also June 6, 1854 ("The Stellaria longifolia has been out, apparently, a day or two.");  May 19, 1858  ("Stellaria borealis well out, apparently several days."); June 6, 1859 ("Stellaria longifolia, at Well Meadow Head, how long?")

So vivacious is the willow, availing itself of every accident to spread along the river’s bank.See  June 3, 1857 ("I see a large branch of S. lucida, which has been broken off probably by the ice in the winter and come down from far up-stream and lodged, butt downward, amid some bushes, where it has put forth pink fibres from the butt end in the water, and is growing vigorously. "); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Propogation of the Willow.

A kingbird’s nest on a black cherry . . . loosely constructed, with some long white rags dangling; one egg. See  June 8, 1858 ("A kingbird's nest with three eggs, lined with some hair, in a fork – or against upright part – of a willow") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird

At Cedar Swamp, saw the pe-pe catching flies like a wood pewee, darting from its perch on a dead cedar twig from time to time and returning to it.  See June 5, 1856. ("The Muscicapa Cooperi sings pe pe pe’, sitting on the top of a pine . . .”); May 15, 1855 ("I hear from the top of a pitch pine in the swamp that loud, clear, familiar whistle . . . I saw it dart out once, catch an insect, and return to its perch muscicapa-like. As near as I could see it had a white throat, was whitish, streaked with dark, beneath, darker tail and wings, and maybe olivaceous shoulders; bright yellow within bill. Probably M. Cooperi.”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Olive-sided flycatcher or pe-pe

I had noticed when coming up the river two or three dead suckers. See June 8, 1858 ("In several places I see where dead suckers have been at last partly devoured by some animal. "); May 23, 1854 ("How many springs shall I continue to see the common sucker (Catostomus Bostoniensis) floating dead on our river!"); May 30, 1853 ("Whence came all those dead suckers, a dozen at least, which we saw floating to-day.")

By chance at the same place where it was in ’54, I noticed a great flight of ephemera over the water . . . See June 2, 1854 ( "The whole atmosphere over the river was full of shad-flies."); May 9, 1854 (" [Professor Harris ] says . . . the shad-flies (with streamers and erect wings ) are ephemeræ. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring (millers, perla, shad-flies or ephemera)

June 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 8

Something reminds me

 of the ephemera – now I 

notice a great flight.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A great flight of ephemera 

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-560608

There, along with me in the deep, wild swamp, above the andromeda, amid the spruce.

MAY 17, 2016

May 17. Rain still or lowering. 

P. M. —To my boat at Cardinal Shore, thence to Lee’s Cliff.

Kingbird. 

The beech twigs I gathered the 15th show anthers to-day in chamber; so it probably blossoms to-day or to-morrow in woods. 

Vaccinium vacillans apparently a day or two at least.

Veronica serpylléfolia abundant now on banks, erected. 

Maryland yellow throat heard afar in meadows, as I go along the road towards Hubbard’s Bridge. 

It is warm, but still overcast and sprinkling occasionally, near the end of the rain, and the birds are very lively. A goldfinch twitters over. 

In the dry lupine bank pasture, about fifteen rods from the river, apparently travelling up the hill, I see a box tortoise, the first I have found in Concord. 

Beside being longer (its upper shell five and one half by four and one fourth inches), it is much flatter and more oblong, less oval, than the one I found on Cape Cod last July. Especially it is conspicuously broader and flatter forward. The two rear marginal plates have a triangular sinus between them while the Cape Cod ones come to a point.The fifth and sixth marginal plates do not project by their edges beyond the shell.

The yellow marks are much narrower, and more interrupted and like Oriental characters, than in the Cape Cod one. The sternum also is less oval, uniformly blackish-brown except a few slight bone-[?] or horn-colored blotches, while the Cape Cod one is light yellow with a few brown blotches. The scales of the sternum in this are much less sharp-angled than in the Cape Cod one. The sternum more hollow or depressed. 

The tail about three eighths of an inch long only, beyond the anus (?). The bill is very upright:  A beak like any Caesar's. Forelegs covered  with orange-colored scales. Hind ones mostly brown or bronze with a few orange spots. 

Beside the usual hiss, uttered in the evening as I was carrying it, a single, as it were involuntary, squeak much like a croaking frog. Iris, bright light red, or rather vermilion, remarkable. Head, brown above with yellow spots; orange beneath and neck. 

The river is about a foot lower than on the 13th, notwithstanding yesterday’s and to-day’s rain. 

At the Kalmia Swamp, see and hear the redstart, very lively and restless, flirting and spreading its reddish tail. 

The sylvias — S. Americana and redstart and summer yellowbird, etc. — are very lively there now after the rain, in the warm, moist air, amid the hoary bursting buds of maples, oaks, etc. 

I stand close on the edge of the swamp, looking for the kalmia. Nothing of its flower to be seen yet. The rhodora there will open in a day or two. 

Meanwhile I hear a loud hum and see a splendid male hummingbird coming zigzag in long tacks, like a bee, but far swifter, along the edge of the swamp, in hot haste. He turns aside to taste the honey of the Andromeda calyculata (already visited by bees) within a rod of me. This golden-green gem. Its burnished back looks as if covered with green scales dusted with gold. It hovers, as it were stationary in the air, with an intense humming before each little flower-bell of the humble Andromeda calyculata, and inserts its long tongue in each, turning toward me that splendid ruby on its breast, that glowing ruby. Even this is coal-black in some lights! 

There, along with me in the deep, wild swamp, above the andromeda, amid the spruce. Its hum was heard afar at first, like that of a large bee, bringing a larger summer. This sight and sound would make me think I was in the tropics, —in Demerara or Maracaibo. [Another on our cherry blossoms the next day. A long, slender black bill.]

Nemopanthes on that very swamp-edge. Vaccinium corymbosum (?) or the high blueberry. 

Hear the first veery note and doubtless the Muscicapa olivacea. 

The Sylvia Americana (parti-colored warbler, etc.) is very numerous there, darting about amid the hoary buds of the maples and oaks, etc. It seems the most restless of all birds, blue more or less deep above, with yellow dust on the back, yellow breast, and white beneath (the male with bright—orange throat, and some with a rufous crescent on breast); wings and tail, dark, black, with two white bars or marks, dark bill and legs. 

At Lee’s the Turritis stricta pods three inches long, and plant two and a half feet high by measure. Get some to press. Myosotis stricta above there, maybe several days. Ranunculus bulbosils a day or two at least. Arenaria serpyllifolia. 

Mrs. Ripley showed me, from her son Gore in Minnesota, a few days ago, the first spring flower of the prairie there, a hairy-stemmed, slender-divisioned, and hairy-involucred, six-petalled blue flower, probably a species of hepatica. No leaves with it. Not described in Gray. 

Yellow columbine well out at Lee’s, one rod from rock, one rod east of ash. 

How plainly we are a part of nature! For we live like the animals around us. All day the cow is cropping the grass of yonder meadow, appropriating, as it were, a part of the solid earth into herself, except when she rests and chews the end; and from time to time she wends her way to the river and fills her belly with that. Her food and drink are not scarce and precious, but the commonest elements of which nature is composed. The dry land in these latitudes, except in woods and deserts, is almost universally clothed with her food, and there are inland seas, ready mixed, of the wine that she loves. The Mississippi is her drink, the prairie grass her food.

The shrub oak and some other oak leafets, just expanding, now begin to be pretty. 

Within the shell of my box turtle, in the cavity be tween its thighs and its body, were small dry leaves and seeds, showing where it laid. From these I should say it had come from amidst the alders.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 17, 1856

I see a box tortoise, the first I have found in Concord.  See July 13, 1855 ("Caught a box tortoise. It appeared to have been feeding on insects, - their wing-cases, etc., in its droppings, - also leaves."); September 10, 1855 ("Thinking over the tortoises, I gave these names: rough tortoise, scented ditto, vermilion (rainbow, rail?), yellow box, black box, and yellow-spotted.")

A splendid male hummingbird coming zigzag . . . bringing a larger summer. See  May 15, 1855 ("Hear a hummingbird in the garden."); May 16, 1852 ("I hear a hummingbird about the columbines."); May 16, 1858 ("A hummingbird yesterday came into the next house and was caught."); May 17, 1858 ("When the hummingbird flew about the room yesterday, his body and tail hung in a singular manner between the wings, swinging back and forth ")

Kingbird. . . . Maryland yellow throat . . . S. Americana and redstart and summer yellowbird . . . the first veery note and doubtless the Muscicapa olivacea [red-eyed vireo]. See  May 10, 1853 (" New days, then, have come, ushered in by the warbling vireo, yellowbird, Maryland yellow-throat, and small pewee, and now made perfect by the twittering of the kingbird . . . and, in the woods, the veery note.");  May 12, 1854 ("Is not this the first day of summer, when first I sit with the window open . . .and hear the golden robin and kingbird, etc. , etc.? not to mention the bobolink, vireo, yellowbird."); May 13, 1860 ("At Holden Swamp, hear plenty of parti-colored warblers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts."); May 17, 1853 ("The sweetest singers among the birds are heard more distinctly now, as the reflections are seen more distinctly in the water, — the veery constantly now."); May 17, 1860; ("By Sam Barrett's meadow-side I see a female Maryland yellow-throat busily seeking its food amid the dangling fruit of the early aspen, in the top of the tree.");  May 27, 1854 ("The red-eye is an indefatigable singer, — a succession of short bars with hardly an interval long continued,")

This golden-green gem,

burnished back dusted with gold,

glowing ruby breast

hummingbird with me

in the deep wild swamp bringing

a larger summer.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, In the deep, wild swamp,

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-560517