A frail creature, rarely met with, though not uncommon.

June 27

I find that the tops of my stakes in Moore's Swamp are nearly two feet lower than a fortnight ago, or when Garfield began to fill it.

A frail creature, rarely met with

P. M. — To Walden. At the further Brister's Spring, under the pine, I find an Attacus luna, half hidden under a skunk-cabbage leaf, with its back to the ground and motionless, on the edge of the swamp. The underside is a particularly pale hoary green. It is somewhat greener above with a slightly purplish brown border on the front edge of its front wings, and a brown, yellow, and whitish eye-spot in the middle of each wing. 

It is very sluggish and allows me to turn it over and cover it up with another leaf, — sleeping till the night come. It has more relation to the moon by its pale hoary-green color and its sluggishness by day than by the form of its tail. A frail creature, rarely met with, though not uncommon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 27, 1859

At the further Brister's Spring, under the pine, I find an Attacus luna. See June 27, 1858 ("See an Attacus luna in the shady path, smaller than I have seen before. At first it appears unable or unwilling to fly, but at length it flutters along and upward two or three rods into an oak tree, and there hangs inconspicuous amid the leaves. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Luna Moth (Attacus luna)

A yellow spotted turtle digging her hole.

June 9.

P. M. – To Beck Stow's. 

June 9, 2018

High blackberry, not long. 

I notice by the roadside at Moore's Swamp the very common Juncus effusus, not quite out, one to two and a half feet high. 

See a yellow spotted turtle digging her hole at 5 P.M., in a pasture near Beck Stow's, some dozen rods off. It is made under one side like the picta’s.

Potamogetons begin to prevail in the river and to catch my oar. The river is weedy. 

White maple keys are abundantly floating.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 9, 1858

See a yellow spotted turtle digging her hole. See June 6, 1855(“I see a yellow-spotted tortoise twenty rods from river”); June 11, 1854 (“I saw a yellow-spotted tortoise come out, — undoubtedly to lay its eggs, — which had climbed to the top of a hill as much as a hundred and thirty feet above any water.”); June 15, 1857 (“From time to time passed a yellow-spot or a painted turtle in the path, for now is their laying-season.”); June 16, 1858 (“I see a yellow-spotted turtle digging its hole at mid afternoon, but, like the last of this species I saw, it changed its place after I saw it, and I did not get an egg; it is so wary.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)

White maple keys are abundantly floating. See May 29, 1854 ("The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream.”); May 30, 1853 ("The white maple keys falling and covering the river."); June 2, 1856 ("White maple keys conspicuous.”)

June 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 9

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

 

Such is November

November 18

P. M. — To Dam Meadows.

November 18, 2023

such is november

Going along the Bedford road at Moore's Swamp, I hear the dry rustling of seedy rattlesnake grass in the wind, a November sound, within a rod of me. 

The sunlight is a peculiarly thin and clear yellow, falling on the pale-brown bleaching herbage of the fields at this season. There is no redness in it. This is November sunlight. 

Much cold, slate-colored cloud, bare twigs seen gleaming toward the light like gossamer, pure green of pines whose old leaves have fallen, reddish or yellowish brown oak leaves rustling on the hillsides, very pale brown, bleaching, almost hoary fine grass or hay in the fields, akin to the frost which has killed it, and flakes of clear yellow sunlight falling on it here and there, — such is November. 

The fine grass killed by the frost, withered and bleached till it is almost silvery, has clothed the fields for a long time. 

Now, as in the spring, we rejoice in sheltered and sunny places. 

Some corn is left out still even. What a mockery to turn cattle out into such pastures! Yet I see more in the fields now than earlier. 

I hear a low concert from the edge of Gowing's Swamp, amid the maples, etc., - suppressed warblings from many flitting birds. With my glass I see only tree sparrows, and suppose it is they. 

What I noticed for the thousandth time on the 15th was the waved surface of thin dark ice just frozen, as if it were a surface composed of large, perhaps triangular pieces raised at the edges; i. e., the filling up between the original shooting of the crystals – the midribs of the icy leaves – is on a lower plane. 

Flannery is the hardest-working man I know. Before surrise and long after sunset he is taxing his unweariable muscles. The result is a singular cheerfulness. He is always in good spirits. He often overflows with his joy when you perceive no occasion for it. If only the gate sticks, some of it bubbles up and over flows in his passing comment on that accident. How much mere industry proves! There is a sparkle often in his passing remark, and his voice is really like that of a bird. 

Crows will often come flying much out of their way to caw at me. 

In one light, these are old and worn-out fields that I ramble over, and men have gone to law about them long before I was born, but I trust that I ramble over them in a new fashion and redeem them. 

I noticed on the 15th that that peculiar moraine or horseback just this side of J. P. Brown's extends southerly of Nut Meadow Brook in the woods, maybe a third or a half a mile long in all. The rocks laid bare here and there by ditching in the Dam Meadows are very white, having no lichens on them. 

The musquash should appear in the coat of arms of some of the States, it is so common. I do not go by any permanent pool but, sooner or later, I hear its plunge there. Hardly a bit of board floats in any ditch or pond hole but this creature has left its traces on it.

How singularly rivers in their sources overlap each other! There is the meadow behind Brooks Clark’s and at the head of which Sted Buttock’s handsome maple lot stands, on the old Carlisle road. The stream which drains this empties into the Assabet at Dove Rock. A short distance west of this meadow, but a good deal more elevated, is Boaz's meadow, whose water finds its way, naturally or artificially, northeast ward around the other, crossing the road just this side the lime-kiln, and empties into the Saw Mill Brook and so into the main river. 

There are many ways of feeling one's pulse. In a healthy state the constant experience is a pleasurable sensation or sentiment. For instance, in such a state I find myself in perfect connection with nature, and the perception, or remembrance even, of any natural phenomena is attended with a gentle pleasurable excitement. Prevailing sights and sounds make the impression of beauty and music on me. 

But in sickness all is deranged. I had yesterday a kink in my back and a general cold, and as usual it amounted to a cessation of life. I lost for the time my rapport or relation to nature. 

Sympathy with nature is an evidence of perfect health. You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind. 

The cheaper your amusements, the safer and saner. They who think much of theatres, operas, and the like, are beside themselves. 

Each man's necessary path, though as obscure and apparently uneventful as that of a beetle in the grass, is the way to the deepest joys he is susceptible of; though he converses only with moles and fungi and disgraces his relatives, it is no matter if he knows what is steel to his flint. 

Many a man who should rather describe his dinner imposes on us with a history of the Grand Khan.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 18, 1857

The sunlight is a peculiarly thin and clear yellow, falling on the pale-brown bleaching herbage of the fields at this season. There is no redness in it. This is November sunlight. See October 25, 1858 ("Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light.”); October 27, 1858 ("We have a cool, white sunset, Novemberish, and no redness to warm our thoughts."); November 11, 1851 (" Every withered blade of grass and every dry weed, as well as pine-needle, reflects light.”); November 11, 1853 ("Bracing cold, and exhilarating sunlight on russet and frosty fields. “); November 14, 1853 (" the clear, white, leafless twilight of November,"); November 25, 1857 (“[T]he thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of”)

Now, as in the spring, we rejoice in sheltered and sunny places. See October 26, 1852 ("At this season we seek warm sunny lees and hillsides, as that under the pitch pines by Walden shore, where we cuddle and warm ourselves in the sun as by a fire, where we may get some of its reflected as well as direct heat.”); April 26, 1857 (“At this season still we go seeking the sunniest, most sheltered, and warmest place. . . . In the winter we sit by fires in the house; in spring and fall, in sunny and sheltered nooks; in the summer, in shady and cool groves, or over water where the breeze circulates.”)

I hear a low concert . . . suppressed warblings from many flitting birds. With my glass I see only tree sparrows, and suppose it is they. See  November 4, 1860 ("To-day also I see distinctly the tree sparrows, and probably saw them, as supposed, some days ago. Thus the birch begins to shed its seed about the time our winter birds arrive from the north.”); November 20, 1857 ("The hardy tree sparrow has taken the place of the chipping and song sparrow, so much like the former that most do not know it is another. His faint lisping chip will keep our spirits up till another spring."); November 27, 1856 "Take a turn down the river . . .apparently tree sparrows along the shore.”)

Crows will often come flying much out of their way to caw at me. September 18, 1852 ("The crows congregate and pursue me through the half-covered woodland path, cawing loud and angrily above me . . .”)

Sympathy with nature is an evidence of perfect health. You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind. See August 23, 1853 (""Nature" is but another name for health, and the seasons are but different states of health.”); May 28, 1854 (“To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe”); June 5, 1854 (“I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. ”); July 14, 1854 ("Health is a sound relation to nature.”)

I had yesterday a kink in my back and a general cold, and as usual it amounted to a cessation of life. I lost for the time my rapport or relation to nature. See June 21, 1852 ("Nature has looked uncommonly bare and dry to me for a day or two. With our senses applied to the surrounding world we are reading our own physical and corresponding moral revolutions. Nature was so shallow all at once I did not know what had attracted me all my life. ")

Crows will often come 

flying much out of their way 

to caw at me.

November sunlight.

Thin and clear yellow sunlight –

no redness in it.

November 18, 1857

tinyurl.com/HDT571118

The navel of the universe

May 31. 

Gowing's Swamp
August 23, 1854

P. M. — To Gowing's Swamp and to Pinus resinosa.

In the ditches in Moore's Swamp on the new Bedford road, the myriads of pollywogs, now three quarters of an inch long, crowding close to the edge, make a continuous black edging to the pool a foot wide. I see where thousands have been left high and dry and are now trodden into the sand, yet preserving their forms, spotting it with black. The water looks too full of yellowish sediment to support them. 

That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp is its very navel, omphalos, where the umbilical cord was cut that bound it to creation's womb. Methinks every swamp tends to have or suggests such an interior tender spot. The sphagnous crust that surrounds the pool is pliant and quaking, like the skin or muscles of the abdomen; you seem to be slumping into the very bowels of the swamp. 

Some seem to have been here to collect sphagnum, either for wells, or to wrap plants in. 

There grow the white spruce and the larch. The spruce cones, though now erect, at length turn down. The sterile flowers on lower twigs around stand up now three quarters of an inch long, open and reddish-brown. 

Andromeda Polifolia, much past its prime. 

I detect no hairy huckleberry. 

The Vaccinium Oxycoccus is almost in bloom! and has grown three inches; is much in advance of the common. 

The Pinus resinosa not yet out; will be apparently with the rigida. It has no fertile flowers or cones. The sterile flower-buds are dark-purple, while those of the rigida there are light-green. The largest tree is about ten inches in diameter. It is distinguished, at a distance even, by its lighter-colored and smoother or flatter bark. It is also very straight and perpendicular, with its branches in regular whorls, and its needles are very long. 

Rhodora now in its prime. 

I see in open land a hollow circle of Lycopodium dendroideum, ten feet in diameter; some of the inner portion is dead. This too, then, like the flowering fern, grows or spreads in circles. 

Also the cinnamon fern grows in circles. 

See an ants' nest, just begun, which covers the grass with sand for more than ten feet in one direction and seven in the other and is thickly pierced with holes.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 31, 1857


In the ditches in Moore's Swamp on the new Bedford road, the myriads of pollywogs, now three quarters of an inch long . . . See note to May 19, 1857 ("See myriads of minute pollywogs, recently hatched, in the water of Moore's Swamp.")

That central meadow and pool in Gowing's Swamp . . . See  August 23, 1854 ("There is in the middle an open pool, twenty or thirty feet in diameter,. . .an abrupt edge next the water, this on a dense bed of quaking sphagnum, in which I sink eighteen inches in water, upheld by its matted roots, where I fear to break through. On this the spatulate sundew abounds."); August 30, 1856 ("Consider how remote and novel that swamp. Beneath it is a quaking bed of sphagnum, and in it grow Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, menyanthes (or buck -bean), Gaylussacia dumosa, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, — plants which scarcely a citizen of Concord ever sees.")

Andromeda Polifolia, much past its prime. See May 24, 1855 ("Andromeda Polifolia now in prime. . . . "); May 24, 1854 ("Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime. . .A timid botanist would never pluck it."); February 17, 1854 ("In the open part of Gowing's Swamp I find the Andromeda Polifolia. Neither here nor in Beck Stow's does it grow very near the shore. . . . in the middle or deepest part will be an open space not yet quite given up to water, where the Andromeda calyculata and a few A. Polifolia reign almost alone. These are pleasing gardens.”)

Note HDT first discoverd Andromeda Polifolia on July 14, 1853 at Beck Stow’s Swamp (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. This is another instance of a common experience. When I am shown from abroad, or hear of, or in any [way] become interested in, some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon. “) On February 17, 1854 he first records finding it at Gowing’s Swamp. On November 15,1857 he finds ‘plenty 'at Miles swamp [Ledum Swamp]. See Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts

The sterile flowers on lower twigs around stand up now three quarters of an inch long, open and reddish-brown. See May 25, 1857 ("The white spruce cones are cylindrical and have an entire firm edge to the scales, and the needles are longer."); June 10, 1855 (" The white spruce cones are now a rich dark purple, more than a half inch long.")")

May 31. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 31

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

The season of pollywogs at Moore's Swamp on Bedford Road.

May 19. 

A. M. — Surveying D. Shattuck's wood-lot beyond Peter's. 

See myriads of minute pollywogs, recently hatched, in the water of Moore's Swamp on Bedford road.

Digging again to find a stake in woods, came across a nest or colony of wood ants, yellowish or sand-color, a third of an inch long, with their white grubs, now squirming, still larger, and emitting that same pungent spicy odor, perhaps too pungent to be compared with lemon-peel. 

This is the second time I have found them in this way this spring (vide April 28th). Is not the pungent scent emitted by wasps quite similar? 

I see the ferns all blackened on the hillside next the meadow, by the frost within a night or two. 

That ant scent is not at all sickening, but tonic, and reminds me of a bitter flavor like that of peach-meats.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 19, 1857

See myriads of minute pollywogs, recently hatched, in the water of Moore's Swamp. See May 20, 1856 ("At Moore’s Swamp on Bedford road, myriads of pollywogs half an inch long darken or blacken the shore, chiefly head as yet.");  May 31, 1857 ("In the ditches in Moore's Swamp on the new Bedford road, the myriads of pollywogs, now three quarters of an inch long, crowding close to the edge, make a continuous black edging to the pool a foot wide. I see where thousands have been left high and dry and are now trodden into the sand, yet preserving their forms, spotting it with black."); June 15, 1855 ("To Moore’s Swamp. . . . Many pollywogs an inch long."); June 20, 1854 ("A cloud of minute black pollywogs in a muddy pool.")

This is the second time I have found them in this way this spring. See April 28, 1857 ("Looking for an "old pine stump" mentioned in a deed . . .we turned up. . .a large body of short, chunked, yellowish ants . . . a very strong penetrating scent, yet agreeable and very spicy . . .very strong lemon-peel.")

May 19.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 19

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

I see a deep full river on which vessels may float.

August 12. 

11 a. m. — To Hill. 

The Hypericum mutilum is well out at this hour. 

The river is now at a standstill, some three feet above its usual level. The pickerel-weed is all covered, and lilies, and much of the button-bush and mikania. It is as great an accident as can befall these flowers. It is novel to behold this great, full tide in which you perceive some current by the eddies, in which no snarl of weeds is seen. So different from that Potamogeton River, where you caught a crab at every stroke of the oar, and farmers drove their hay-carts across. Instead of watery gleaming fields of potamogetons in which the boatman was entangled, and drifting vallisneria on which the dragon-flies alighted, I see a deep full river on which vessels may float, and I feel at a distance from terra firma when on its bosom. 

P. M. — To Moore's Swamp.

Gerardia purpurea, two or three days. 

The mulgedium in that swamp is very abundant and a very stately plant, so erect and soldier-like, in large companies, rising above all else, with its very regular long, sharp, elliptic head and bluish-white flowers. 

Again I examine that very strict solidago, which perhaps I must call wand-stemmed. Perhaps it is only a swamp variety of S. stricta, yet the leaves are thicker and darker(?)-green, and the upper commonly broader, often elliptic, pointed, less recurved and not wavy. Stem and head is now commonly much more strict and branches more erect, and racemes less one-sided, but in larger and maturer ones they are at length recurving and forming a pyramid like S. stricta. Rays are fewer and broader, five or six; stem reddish, with apparently more branchlets or leafets in axils.

Am surprised to see still a third species or variety of helianthus (which may have opened near August 1st, say only a week). Only the first flowers out. At edge of the last clearing south of spring. I cannot identify it. It has very short but not margined petioles; leaves narrower than yesterday's, and rough beneath as well as above. The outer scales of involucre a little the longest; but I think this of little importance, for the involucre of the H. divaricatus is very variable, hardly two alike; rays about ten. In some respects it is most like H. strumosus, but not downy beneath. The bruised leaves of these helianthuses are rather fragrant. 

It is thick, smoky, dog-day weather again. 

Bradford speaks of the dog's-tooth violet as a plant which disappears early. 

The Aster patens is very handsome by the side of Moore's Swamp on the bank, — large flowers, more or less purplish or violet, each commonly (four or five) at the end of a long peduncle, three to six inches long, at right angles with the stem, giving it an open look. 

Snake-head, or chelone. 

On the edge of the ditch opposite the spring, Epilobium coloratum, and also what I must call E. palustre of Willdenow and Pursh and Eaton. It is smooth or smoothish, leaves somewhat toothed or subdenticulate, peduncle one inch long, flowers white. 

The most interesting domes I behold are not those of Oriental temples and palaces, but of the toadstools. On this knoll in the swamp they are little pyramids of Cheops or Cholula, which also stand on the plain, very delicately shaded off. They have burst their brown tunics as they expanded, leaving only a clear-brown apex, and on every side these swelling roofs or domes are patched and shingled with the fragments, delicately shaded off thus into every tint of brown to the edge. As if this creation of a night would thus imitate the weather-stains of centuries. Toads' temples. So charming is gradation! 

Gerardia pedicularia, how long? 

What a wilderness of weeds is Moore's Swamp now! Tall rough goldenrods, erechthites, poke, Aster Radula, dogwood, etc., etc. It looks as if the potatoes which grew there would be poisonous. 

An arrowhead in Peter's Path. How many times I have found an arrowhead by that path, as if that had been an Indian trail! Perchance it was, for some of the paths we travel are much older than we think, especially some which the colored race in our midst still use, for they are nearest to the Indian trails.

The Emerson children say that Aralia nudicaulis berries are good to eat. The leaves of Sericocarpus conyzoides are fragrant when bruised. Black cherries ripe. 

Saw the primrose open at sundown. The corolla burst part way open and unfolded rapidly; the sepals flew back with a smart spring. In a minute or two the corolla was opened flat and seemed to rejoice in the cool, serene light and air. 

Lespedeza capitata, not long. The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.

The late rains have tried the roofs severely. Tenants have complained to their landlords, and now I see carpenters setting up their staging and preparing to shingle on various sides.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 12, 1856

Gerardia purpurea, two or three days. See August 20, 1852 ("The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass.")
Saw the primrose open at sundown. . . . seemed to rejoice in the cool, serene light and air. See July 5, 1856 ("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. . . . freshly out in the cool of the evening at sundown, as if enjoying the serenity of the hour.”)

Snake-head, or chelone: The name of the genus Chelone comes from the Greek word meaning a tortoise, from the resemblance of the corolla to a tortoise-head. Snake-head. Turtle-head. Turtle-bloom. Shell flower. Not the snake-head arethusa of July 7, 1856.  See August 1, 1852  ("Chelone glabra [white turtlehead] just out.”)

Am surprised to see still a third species or variety of helianthus . . . See August 11, 1856 ("A new sunflower at Wheeler's Bank, . . ., which I will call the tall rough sunflower; opened say August 1st”); August 1, 1852 ("The small rough sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) tells of August heats; also Helianthus annuus, common sunflower.”); August 13, 1858 ("The broad-leaved helianthus on bank opposite Assabet Spring is not nearly out, though the H. divaricatus was abundantly out on the 11th.")  GoBotany lists:

Helianthus annuus, common sunflower
Helianthus divaricatus, woodland sunflower
Helianthus strumosus, pale-leaved sunflower

What a wilderness of weeds is Moore's Swamp now! See August 31, 1853 (The rank growth of flowers (commonly called weeds) in this swamp now impresses me like a harvest of flowers. . . .One would think that all the poison that is in the earth and air must be extracted out of them by this rank vegetation.")

The purple finch still sings over the street.

July 7. 

I see a difference now between the alder leaves near Island and edge of meadow westward, on Hill; the former slightly downy beneath, the latter (apparently Alnus serrulata) green and smooth but yet not pointed at base. 

Do I not see a taller kind of wool grass in that birch meadow east of Hill? 

P. M. — To Gowing’s Swamp. 

The purple finch still sings over the street. 

The sagittaria, large form, is out, roadside, Moore’s Swamp. 

The Vaccinium Oxycoccus is almost entirely out of bloom, and the berries are as big as small huckleberries (while the V. macrocarpon is in full bloom, and no berries appear on it). It must therefore have begun about the 1st of June. 

Saw the Kalmia glauca by the small cranberry, betrayed by its two-edged twig. 

Portsmouth Public Library

The snake-head arethusa is now abundant amid the cranberries there.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 7, 1856


. . .the latter (apparently Alnus serrulata) green and smooth but yet not pointed at base. See April 13, 1856 ("There were alders out at Well Meadow Head, as large bushes as any. Can they be A. serrulata?"): April 15, 1856 ("What I think the Alnus serrulata (?) will shed pollen to-day on the edge of Catbird Meadow.")


The purple finch still sings over the street. See  June 25, 1853 ("I think it must be the purple finch. . .which I see and hear singing so sweetly and variedly in the gardens, — one or two to-day. . . .It has a little of the martin warble and of the canary bird.") See also April 15, 1854 ("The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm, on whose blossom it feeds."; April 15, 1856 ("The purple finch is singing on the elms "); )

The sagittaria, large form, is out, roadside, Moore’s Swamp See July 28, 1852 ("The large shaped sagittaria out, a large crystalline-white three-petalled flower.")

Saw the Kalmia glauca by the small cranberry, betrayed by its two-edged twig. See January 9, 1855 ("Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots . . . the Kalmia glauca var.rosmarinifolia.")

The snake-head arethusa. (Pogonia ophioglossoides.) Snake-mouthed Arethusa, from which genus it was taken; stem nearly a foot high, with a single flower, nodding and pale-purple, and one oval-lanceolate leaf, and a leafy bract near the flower; lip fimbriate; swamps; July. The flower resembles a snake's head, whence its specific name. Reports on the herbaceous plants and on the quadrupeds of Massachusetts 199 (1840).  See July 7, 1852 ("The Arethusa bulbosa, "crystalline purple;" Pogonia ophioglossoides, snake-mouthed arethusa, "pale purple;" and the Calopogon pulchellus, grass pink, "pink purple," make one family in my mind, — next to the purple orchis, or with it, — being flowers par excellence, all flower, all color, with inconspicuous leaves, naked flowers, . . .the pogonia has a strong snaky odor."); See also June 21, 1852  ("The adder's-tongue arethusa smells exactly like a snake."); July 2, 1857 (“Pogonia ophioglossoides apparently in a day or two.”); July 8, 1857 (“Find a Pogonia ophioglossoides with a third leaf and second flower an inch above the first flower.”); August 1, 1856 ("Snake-head arethusa still in the meadow”)

Now abundant there

the snake-head arethusa

amid cranberries

The distant crashing of thunder.

May 20.

Fir-balsam (ours in grove) apparently two or three days, for it [is] almost entirely effete; cones white, one inch long nearly. 

Was awaked and put into sounder sleep than ever early this morning by the distant crashing of thunder, and now, — P. M. (to Beck Stow’s),— I hear it in mid-afternoon, muttering, crashing in the muggy air in mid-heaven, a little south of the village as I go through it, like the tumbling down of piles of boards, and get a few sprinkles in the sun. 

Nature has found her hoarse summer voice again, like the lowing of a cow let out to pasture. It is Nature’s rutting season. Even as the birds sing tumultuously and glance by with fresh and brilliant plumage, so now is Nature’s grandest voice heard, and her sharpest flashes seen. The air has resumed its voice, and the lightning, like a yellow spring flower, illumines the dark banks of the clouds. All the pregnant earth is bursting into life like a mildew, accompanied with noise and fire and tumult. Some oestrus stings her that she dashes headlong against the steeples and bellows hollowly, making the earth tremble. She comes dropping rain like a cow with overflowing udder. The winds drive her; the dry fields milk her. It is the familiar note of another warbler, just arrived, echoing amid the roofs.

I see, on a locust in the burying-ground, the Sylvia striata, or black-poll warbler, busily picking about the locust buds and twigs. Black head and above, with olive (green) wings and two white bars; white all beneath, with a very distinct black line from throat to shoulders; flesh-colored legs; bill, dark above, light beneath. Hear no note. Saw it well. 

At Moore’s Swamp on Bedford road, myriads of pollywogs half an inch long darken or blacken the shore, chiefly head as yet. 

Bank swallows are very lively about the low sand—bank just beyond, in which are fifty holes.

I now see distinctly the chestnut-sided warbler (of the 18th and 17th), by Beck Stow’s. It is very lively on the maples, birches, etc., over the edge of the swamp. Sings eech eech eech | wichy wichy | tchea or itch itch itch | witty witty |  tchea. Yet this note I represented on the 18th by tche tche tche | tchut tchutter we. 

The andromeda has apparently been out several days, but no buck-bean there yet, nor will for a day or two. 

See and hear a stake-driver in the swamp. It took one short pull at its pump and stopped. 

Two marsh hawks, male and female, flew about me a long time, screaming, the female largest, with ragged wings, as I stood on the neck of the peninsula. This induced me to climb four pines, but I tore my clothes, got pitched all over, and found only squirrel; yet they have, no doubt, a nest thereabouts. 

Haynes the carpenter calls that large glaucous puff that grows on the Andromeda paniculata, swamp-apple; says he has eaten as much as three bushels (!) of them when he was a boy, and likes them. That is what he was raised on. 

After I got him home, I observed a large leech on the upper shell of my great turtle. He stoutly resisted being turned over, by sinking his claws into the ground; was aware that that was his weak side, and, when turned, would instantly run out his head and turn himself back. No wonder the Orientals rested the world on such a broad back. 

Such broad health and strength underlies Nature.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  May 20, 1856

I hear it in mid-afternoon, muttering, crashing in the muggy air in mid-heaven. . . .Nature has found her hoarse summer voice again. Compare May 20, 1854 ("See the lightning, but can not hear the thunder.”);  May 17, 1853 ("Does not summer begin after the May storm?”)

At Moore’s Swamp on Bedford road, myriads of pollywogs . . .See note to May 19, 1857 ("See myriads of minute pollywogs, recently hatched, in the water of Moore's Swamp.”)

I see, on a locust in the burying-ground, the Sylvia striata, or black-poll warbler, busily picking about the locust buds and twigs. See  May 27, 1860 ("The Sylvia striata are the commonest bird in the street, as I go to the post-office, for several days past. I see six (four males, two females) on one of our little fir trees; are apparently as many more on another close by."); June 4,1860 ("The black-poll warblers (Sylvia striata) appear to have left, and some other warblers, if not generally, with this first clear and bright and warm, peculiarly June weather, immediately after the May rain. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Black-poll Warbler

The andromeda has apparently been out several days . . . .See May 24, 1854 ("Wade into Beck Stow's. . . . Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime at least a week or more.")

No wonder the Orientals rested the world on such a broad back. See May 4, 1852 ("...the Hindoos made the world rest on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and had nothing to put under the tortoise.")

A strange warbler in Moore's Swamp

June 

June 15.
To Moore’s Swamp. 






Robin’s nest in apple tree, twelve feet high — young nearly grown.

Hair-bird’s nest on main limb of an apple tree, horizontal, ten feet high. 

Many pollywogs an inch long.

In the swamp a catbird’s nest in the darkest and thickest part, in a high blueberry, five feet from ground, two eggs; bird comes within three feet while I am looking. 

Viburnum nudum, how long? Not long. 

Wool(?)-grass. 

I see a strange warbler still in this swamp. A chestnut and gray backed bird, five or six inches long, with a black throat and yellow crown; note, chit chit chill le le, or chut chut a wutter chut a wut, che che. 

Crimson frosting on maple leaves. 

The swamp pyrus twigs are in some places curving over and swollen, and curling up at ends, forming bunches of leaves.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 15, 1855

Robin’s nest in apple tree, twelve feet high — young nearly grown. See June 15, 1852 ("Young robins, dark-speckled,")

Viburnum nudum, how long? See June 10, 1854 ("The Viburnum lentago is just out of bloom now that the V. nudum is fairly begun.)

Wool-grass. See June 15, 1858 ("That coarse grass in the Island meadow which grows in full circles . . . is wool-grass. . . The peculiarly circular form of the patches, sometimes their projecting edges being the arcs of circles, is very obvious now that the lower and different grass around is under water”)

Hair-bird’s [chipping sparrow’s] nest on main limb of an apple tree, horizontal, ten feet high. See June 20, 1855 (“Two hair-birds’ nests fifteen feet high on apple trees at R.W.E.’s (one with two eggs).”)

Many pollywogs an inch long. See June 15, 1851 ("The pollywogs in the pond are now fulltailed")

A chestnut and gray backed bird, five or six inches long, with a black throat and yellow crown. See note to June 15, 1854 (“Saw there also, probably, a chestnut-sided warbler. A yellow crown, chestnut stripe on sides, white beneath, and two yellowish bars on wings.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chestnut-sided Warbler

The sequence of fall flowers

September 18.

Fringed gentian near Peter’s out a short time, but as there is so little, and that has been cut off by the mowers, and this is not the leading stem that blooms, it may after all be earlier than the hazel. 

Viburnum nudum in flower again.

I see the potatoes all black with frosts that have occurred within a night or two in Moore’s Swamp.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 18, 1854

The fringed gentian. See  October 19, 1852 ("It is a very singular and agreeable surprise to come upon this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories; the latest of all to begin to bloom.")  

Fringed gentian . . . may after all be earlier than the hazel. See September 18, 1856 ("The gentian is now far more generally out here than the hazel."); September 18, 1859 ("From the observation of this year I should say that the fringed gentian opened before the witch-hazel.”); October 2, 1853 ("The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively. As the witch-hazel is raised above frost and can afford to be later, for this reason also I think it is so.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau: The Fringed Gentian

Viburnum nudum in flower again. Compare September 3, 1856 ("Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime, attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit.") See also  September 16, 1859 ("So it is with flowers, birds, and frogs a renewal of spring."); September 28, 1852 ("This is the commencement, then, of the second spring. Violets, Potentilla Canadensis, lambkill, wild rose, yellow lily, etc., etc., begin again") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Viburnums

I see the potatoes all black with frosts that have occurred within a night or two in Moore’s Swamp. See September 18, 1860 ("Corn-stalk-tops are stacked about the fields; potatoes are being dug; smokes are seen in the horizon. It is the season of agricultural fairs.") See also August 12, 1856 ("What a wilderness of weeds is Moore's Swamp now! Tall rough goldenrods, erechthites, poke, Aster Radula, dogwood, etc., etc. It looks as if the potatoes which grew there would be poisonous."); September 11, 1854 ("This is a cold evening with a white twilight, and threatens frost"); September 15, 1851 ("The potato vines and the beans which were still green are now blackened and flattened by the frost."); September 15, 1859 ("This morning the first frost in the garden, killing some of our vines."); September 16, 1854 ("There have been a few slight frosts in some places.")

September 18. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, September 18

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The sequence of fall flowers

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

Furnace-like heats beginning and the locust days.

July 19

July 19, 2018

In Moore's Swamp I pluck cool, though not very sweet, large red raspberries in the shade. 

Wild holly berries, a day or two. Black choke-berry, several days. High blueberries scarce.   

Apparently a catbird's nest in a shrub oak, lined with root-fibres, with three green- blue eggs. 

Erigeron annuus perhaps fifteen rods or more beyond the Hawthorn Bridge on right hand - a new plant.

The white cotton-grass now (and how long ?) at Beck Stow's appears to be the Eriophorum gracile (?). I see no rusty ones.

In the maple swamp at Hubbard's Close, the great cinnamon ferns are very handsome now in tufts, falling over in handsome curves on every side. Some are a foot wide and raised up six feet long.

Clintonia berries in a day or two. 

I am surprised to see at Walden a single Aster patens with a dozen flowers fully open a day or more.

The more smothering, furnace-like heats are beginning, and the locust days.

A wood thrush to-night. Veery within two or three days. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 19, 1854

In Moore's Swamp I pluck cool, though not very sweet, large red raspberries in the shade. See July 2, 1851 (" Some of the raspberries are ripe, the most innocent and simple of fruits."); July 15, 1859 ("Raspberries, in one swamp, are quite abundant and apparently at their height."); July 17, 1852 ("I pick raspberries dripping with rain beyond Sleepy Hollow.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry

The white cotton-grass at Beck Stow's appears to be the Eriophorum gracile (?). I see no rusty ones. See October 14, 1852 (" It is apparently the Eriophorum Virginicum, Virginian cotton-grass, now nodding or waving with its white woolly heads over the greenish andromeda and amid the red isolated blueberry bushes in Beck Stow's Swamp.");July 4, 1853 (“The cotton-grass at Beck Stow's. Is it different from the early one?”) Compare August 23, 1854 ("Next comes [at Gowings Swamp], half a dozen rods wide, a dense bed of Andromeda calyculata , — the A. Polifolia mingled with it, — the rusty cotton grass, cranberries , — the common and also V . Oxyoccus , — pitcher-plants, sedges, and a few young spruce and larch here and there, — all on sphagnum" ) See also July 23, 1856 ("Russsell says] that the two white cotton-grasses (Eriophorum) were probably but one species, taller and shorter,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at Beck Stow's Swamp. Note:. a third cotton-grass, Eriophorum vaginatum, was known to HDT after May 28, 1858 only at Ledum Swamp See .. Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts compiled by Ray Angelo

The maple swamp at Hubbard's Close. (Clintonia Swamp, Clintonia Maple Swamp, E. Hubbard’s Clintonia Swamp, E. Hubbard’s Swamp, Hubbard’s Close Swamp) – a large swamp just to the northeast of Hubbard Close. ~ Ray Angelo, Thoreau's Place Names, Clintonia Swamp

Clintonia berries in a day or two. See July 24, 1853 ("The dark indigo-blue (Sophia says), waxy, and like blue china blue berries of the clintonia are already well ripe. For some time, then, though a few are yet green. They are numerous near the edge of Hubbard’s lower meadow. They are in clusters of half a dozen on brittle stems eight or ten inches high, oblong or squarish round, the size of large peas with a dimple atop"); August 27, 1856 ("Peculiar large dark blue indigo clintonia berries of irregular form and dark-spotted, in umbels of four or five on very brittle stems which break with a snap and on erectish stemlets or pedicels.) See also June 2, 1853 ("Clintonia borealis, a day or two. This is perhaps the most interesting and neatest of what I may call the liliaceous (?) plants we have. Its beauty at present consists chiefly in its commonly three very handsome, rich, clear dark-green leaves . . . arching over from a centre at the ground, sometimes very symmetrically disposed in a triangular fashion; and from their midst rises the scape [ a ] foot high, with one or more umbels of“green bell - shaped flowers,” yellowish-green, nodding or bent downward")

Great cinnamon ferns are very handsome now. See May 30, 1854 ("In this dark, cellar-like maple swamp are scattered at pretty regular intervals tufts of green ferns, Osmunda cinnamomea, above the dead brown leaves, broad, tapering fronds, curving over on every side from a compact centre, now three or four feet high"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cinnamon Fern

I am surprised to see at Walden a single Aster patens. See July 27, 1853 ("I notice to-day the first purplish aster... The afternoon of the year.”); see also August 12, 1856 ("The Aster patens is very handsome by the side of Moore's Swamp on the bank, — large flowers, more or less purplish or violet, each commonly (four or five) at the end of a long peduncle, three to six inches long, at right angles with the stem, giving it an open look.”)

The more smothering, furnace-like heats are beginning and the locust days.    See See note to July 18, 1851 ("I first heard the locust sing, so dry and piercing, by the side of the pine woods in the heat of the day."); July 18, 1854 ("Methinks the asters and goldenrods begin, like the early ripening leaves, with midsummer heats.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Locust Days, Dogdayish Days

A wood thrush to-night. Veery within two or three days. See July 17, 1856 ("It is 5 P. M. The wood thrush begins to sing"); July 24, 1853 ("I hear no veery."); July 27, 1852 ("The thrush, now the sun is apparently set, fails not to sing. Have I heard the veery lately?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Veery; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Thrush

July 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 19

The more smothering

furnace-like heats beginning –

and the locust days.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Furnace-like heats beginning and the locust days.

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/hdt-540719