To let the wind blow me also to other climes.

 

May 9. 

Tuesday.

To Boston and Cambridge.

Currant in garden, but ours may be a late kind.

Purple finch still here.

Looking at the birds at the Natural History Rooms, I find that I have not seen the crow blackbird at all yet this season.

Perhaps I have seen the rusty-black bird, though I am not sure what those slaty-black ones are, as large as the red-wings, nor those pure-black fellows, unless rusty blackbirds.

I think that my blackbirds of the morning of the 24th may have been cowbirds.

Sat on end of Long Wharf.

Was surprised to observe that so many of the men on board the shipping were pure countrymen in dress and habits, and the seaport is no more than a country town to which they come a-trading. I found about the wharves, steering the coasters and unloading the ships, men in farmer's dress.

As I watched the various craft successively unfurling their sails and getting to sea, I felt more than for many years inclined to let the wind blow me also to other climes.

Harris showed me a list of plants in Hovey's Magazine (I think for '42 or '43) not in Bigelow's Botany, -- seventeen or eighteen of them, among the rest a pine I have not seen, etc., etc., q. v.

Perla marginata

That early narrow curved-winged insect on ice and river which I thought an ephemera he says is a Sialis, or maybe rather a Perla. Thinks it the Donatia palmata I gave him. Says the shad-flies (with streamers and erect wings ) are ephemeræ. 

He spoke of Podura nivalis, I think meaning ours.

Planted melons.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 9, 1854

I think that my blackbirds of the morning of the 24th may have been cowbirds. See April 24, 1854 ("Saw a black blackbird without red, with a purplish-green-black neck, and somewhat less than a red-wing, in company with two smaller slaty black females (?). Can they be rusty grackles?")

As I watched the various craft successively unfurling their sails and getting to sea, I felt more than for many years inclined to let the wind blow me also to other climes See December 25, 1853 ("When I go to Boston, I go naturally straight through the city down to the end of Long Wharf and look off")

That early narrow curved-winged insect on ice and river which I thought an ephemera he says is a Sialis, or maybe rather a Perla. See March 22, 1856 ("On water standing above the ice under a white maple, are many of those Perla (?) insects, with four wings, drowned, though it is all ice and snow around the country over. Do not see any flying, nor before this"); March 24, 1857 ("I see many of those narrow four-winged insects (perla?) of the ice now fluttering on the water like ephemerae. They have two pairs of wings indistinctly spotted dark and light."); March 17, 1858 ("As usual, I have seen for some weeks on the ice these peculiar (perla?) insects with long wings and two tails."); March 7, 1859 ("I also see — but their appearance is a regular early spring, or late winter, phenomenon — a great many of those slender black-bodied insects from one quarter to (with the feelers) one inch long, with six legs and long gray wings, two feelers before, and two forks or tails like feelers for convenience Perla."); March 3, 1860 ("I see one of those gray-winged (long and slender) perla-like insects by the waterside this afternoon.")

Says the shad-flies (with streamers and erect wings ) are ephemeræ. See May 1, 1854 ("The water is strewn with myriads of wrecked shad-flies, erect on the surface, with their wings up like so many schooners all headed one way.”); ;June 2, 1854 "The whole atmosphere over the river was full of shad-flies.. . . It was a great flight of ephemera"); June 9, 1854 (" The air is now full of shad-flies, and there is an incessant sound made by the fishes leaping for their evening meal.”); May 4, 1856 ("Shad-flies on the water, schooner-like."); June 8, 1856 (“My boat being by chance at the same place where it was in ’54, I noticed a great flight of ephemera”); June 9, 1856 ("Again, about seven, the ephemera came out, in numbers as many as last night, ... and the fishes leap as before.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring 

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

On end of Long Wharf

inclined to let the wind blow

me to other climes.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Sat on end of Long Wharf.

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-540509

At Natural History Rooms

April 29. 

Return to Concord.

At Natural History Rooms in Boston.

Have I seen the least bittern? It is so brown above and yellowish, woolly, white beneath.

The American goshawk is slate above, gray beneath; the young spotted dark and white beneath, and brown above.

Fish hawk, white beneath.

Young of marsh hawk, reddish-brown above, iron-rusty beneath.

Summer duck with a crest.

Dusky duck, not black, but rather dark brown.

The velvet ducks I saw, hardly large enough for this.

My whiter ducks may be the Merganser castor, or the red breasted.

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

I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch.

April 11. 

I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch, somewhat like and nearly as loud as the robin, from the elm by Whiting's.

The maple which I think is a red one, just this side of Wheildon's, is just out this morning.

9 A. M. – To Haverhill via Cambridge and Boston.

Dr. Harris says that that early black-winged, buff edged butterfly is the Vanessa Antiopa, and is introduced from Europe, and is sometimes found in this state alive in winter.

The orange-brown one with scalloped wings, and smaller somewhat, is Vanessa Progne.

The early pestle-shaped bug or beetle is a cicindela, of which there are three species, one of them named from a semicolon-like mark on it.

Vide Hassley on spiders in Boston Journal of Natural History.

At Natural History Rooms, saw the female red-wing, striped white and ash; female cow-bird, ashy-brown.

First.

The swamp sparrow is ferruginous-brown (spotted with black) and ash above about neck; brownish-white beneath; undivided chestnut crown.

Second.

The grass-bird, grayish-brown, mingled with ashy-whitish above; light, pencilled with dark brown beneath; no marked crown; outer tail feathers whitish, perhaps a faint bar on wing.

Third.

Field sparrow, smaller than either; marked like first, with less black, and less distinct ash on neck, and less ferruginous and no distinct crown.

Fourth.

Savannah sparrow, much like second, with more black, but not noticeable white in tail, and a little more brown; no crown marked.

Emberiza miliaria Gmel* (What is it in Nuttall?) appears to be my young of purple finch.

One Maryland yellow-throat, probably female, has no black on side head, and is like a summer yellow bird except that the latter has ends of the wings and tail black.

The yellow-rump warbler (what is it in Nuttall?) is bluish-gray, with two white bars on wings, a bright yellow crown, side breasts, and rump. Female less distinct.

Blackburnian is orange-throated.

American redstart, male, is black forward, coppery orange beneath and stripe on wings and near base of tail. Female dark ashy and fainter marks.

American Redstart

J. E. Cabot thought my small hawk might be Cooper's hawk.

Says that Gould, an Englishman, is the best authority on birds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 11, 1853

I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch from the elm by Whiting's. See April 15, 1854 ("The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm, on whose blossom it feeds"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elms and the Purple Finch and note to April 10, 1861 ("Purple finch.")

The maple which I think is a red one, just this side of Wheildon's, is just out this morning. See April 10, 1853 (''The male red maple buds now show eight or ten (ten counting everything) scales, alternately crosswise, and the pairs successively brighter red or scarlet, which will account for the gradual reddening of their tops. They are about ready to open.");

Dr. Harris says that that early black-winged, buff edged butterfly is the Vanessa Antiopa. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Buff-edged Butterfly

The orange-brown one with scalloped wings, and smaller somewhat, is Vanessa Progne. See April 9, 1853 ("A middling-sized orange-copper butterfly on the mill road, at the clearing, with deeply scalloped wings. You see the buff-edged and this, etc., in warm, sunny southern exposures on the edge of woods or sides of rocky hills and cliffs, above dry leaves and twigs, where the wood has been lately cut and there are many dry leaves and twigs about.")

The grass-bird, grayish-brown, mingled with ashy-whitish above; light, pencilled with dark brown beneath; no marked crown; outer tail feathers whitish, perhaps a faint bar on wing.  [The Vesper Sparrow (Pooecetes gramineus).] See October 16, 1855 ("I look at a grass-bird on a wall in the dry Great Fields. There is a dirty-white or cream-colored line above the eye and another from the angle of the mouth beneath it and a white ring close about the eye. The breast is streaked with this creamy white and dark brown in streams, as on the cover of a book"); April 13, 1855 ("See a sparrow without marks on throat or breast, running peculiarly in the dry grass in the open field beyond, and hear its song, and then see its white feathers in tail; the bay-wing."); April 29, 1855 ("The bay on its wings is not obvious except when it opens them. The white circle about the eye is visible afar. . . . It is rather . . .concealed by its color . . . with its chestnut crown and light breast.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

Field sparrow, . . . marked like [swamp sparrow], with less  black, and less distinct ash on neck, and less ferruginous and no distinct crown. See  April 8, 1853 ("Heard the field sparrow again"); April 27, 1852 ("Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott's "huckleberry-bird." ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Field Sparrow

Savannah sparrow, much like [grass-bird], with more black, but not noticeable white in tail, and a little more brown; no crown marked. According to Guide to Thoreau’s Birds "Thoreau frequently called the Savannah Sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis the seringo or seringo-bird, but he also applied the name to other small birds."  See June 10, 1854 ("The bay-wing sparrow apparently is not my seringo, after all. What is the seringo? I see some with clear, dirty-yellow breasts, but others, as to-day, with white breasts, dark-streaked. Both have the yellow over eye and the white line on crown, and agree in size, but I have seen only one with distinct yellow on wings. Both the last, i. e. except only the bay-wing, utter the seringo note. Are they both yellow-winged sparrows? or is the white-breasted with streaks the Savannah sparrow?"); June 12, 1854 ("Do I not see two birds with the seringo note, — the Savannah (?) sparrow, larger with not so bright a yellow over eye, none on wing, and white breast, and beneath former streaked with dark and perhaps a dark spot, and the smaller yellow-winged, with spot on wing also and ochreous breast and throat ?"); July 16, 1854 ("Is it the yellow-winged or Savannah sparrow with yellow alternating with dark streaks on throat, as well as yellow over eye, reddish flesh-colored legs, and two light bars on wings?“); April 22, 1856 ("The seringo also sits on a post, with a very distinct yellow line over the eye,"); June 26, 1856 ("According to Audubon’s and Wilson’s plates, . . .the Savannah sparrow [has] no conspicuous yellow on shoulder, a yellow brow, and white crown line. . . .saw, apparently, the F. Savanna. . . Distinctly yellow-browed and spotted breast."); December 7, 1858  ("Dr. Bryant calls my seringo (i. e. the faint-noted bird) Savannah sparrow.”); April 27, 1859 (“Hear and see the seringo in fields next the shore. No noticeable yellow shoulder, pure whitish beneath, dashed throat and a dark-brown line of dashes along the sides of the body.”) 

One Maryland yellow-throat, probably female, has no black on side head, and is like a summer yellow bird. See May 18, 1856 ("I see. . .what you would call a Maryland yellow-throat, but less chubby, yellow throat, beneath, and vent, and dark under tail, black side; but hear no note."); May 17, 1860; ("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.")

The yellow-rump warbler is bluish-gray, with two white bars on wings, a bright yellow crown, side breasts, and rump. See October 14, 1855 ("Black bill and feet, yellow rump, brown above, yellowish-brown on head, cream-colored chin, two white bars on wings, tail black, edged with white, — the yellow-rump warbler or myrtle-bird without doubt.");September 29, 1858 ("One or two myrtle-birds in their fall dress, with brown head and shoulders, two whitish bars on wings, and bright-yellow rump.")

Female [redstart] dark ashy and fainter marks. See May 29, 1855 ("females of the redstart, described by Wilson, — very different from the full-plumaged black males."); September 12, 1857 ("Crossing east through the spruce swamp, I think that I saw a female redstart.")  See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

Cabot thought my small hawk might be Cooper's hawk. See April 7, 1853 ("A hawk above Ball’s Hill which, though with a distinct white rump, I think was not the harrier but sharp-shinned, from its broadish, mothlike form, light and slightly spotted beneath, with head bent downward, watching for prey");April 10, 1853 ("What was that smaller, broader-winged hawk with white rump of April 7th ? For, after all, I do not find it described."); December 7, 1858 ("Dr. Bryant . . . says Cooper’s hawk is just like the sharp-shinned, only a little larger commonly. He could not tell them apart.")

The pecuniary value of the book.

November 28. 

Monday. 

Saw boys skating in Cambridgeport, — the first ice to bear. 

Settled with J. Munroe & Co., and on a new account placed twelve of my books with him on sale. I have paid him directly out of pocket since the book was published two hundred and ninety dollars and taken his receipt for it. This does not include postage on proof-sheets, etc., etc. I have received from other quarters about fifteen dollars. This has been the pecuniary value of the book. 

Saw at the Natural History rooms the skeleton of a moose with horns. The length of the spinal processes (?) over the shoulder was very great. The hind legs were longer than the front, and the horns rose about two feet above the shoulders and spread between four and five, I judged. 

Dr. Harris described to me his finding a species of cicindela at the White Mountains this fall (the same he had found there one specimen of some time ago), supposed to be very rare, found at St. Peter's River and at Lake Superior; but he proves it to be common near the White Mountains.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 28, 1853

Boys skating in Cambridgeport, — the first ice to bear See December 6, 1854 ("I see thick ice and boys skating all the way to Providence, but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture."); December 14. 1851 ("The boys have been skating for a week, but I have had no time to skate for surveying. I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business."); December 15, 1855 ("The boys have skated a little within two or three days, but it has not been thick enough to bear a man yet.")

I have paid him directly out of pocket since the book was published two hundred and ninety dollars. See November 20, 1853 (“I was obliged to manufacture a thousand dollars' worth of pencils and slowly dispose of and finally sacrifice them, in order to pay an assumed debt of a hundred dollars.”); September 14, 1855 ("It costs so much to publish, would it not be better for the author to put his manuscripts in a safe?”)

The horns rose about two feet above the shoulders and spread between four and five, I judged. See July 23, 1857 ("[Mr. Leonard, of Bangor, a sportsman,] said that the horns of a moose would spread four feet, some times six; would weigh thirty or forty pounds")

The pigeon and sparrow hawks

October 6. 

October 6, 2023              October 6, 2022

A. M. — To Boston. 

Examine the pigeon and sparrow hawks in the Natural History collection. 

My wings and tail are apparently the pigeon hawk's. 

The sparrow hawks are decidedly red-brown with bluish heads and blue or slate sides; also are much more thickly barred with dark on wing-coverts, back, and tail than the pigeon hawk.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 6, 1859


The Natural History collection. See October 6, 1855 ("Return to Concord via Natural History Library.")

My wings and tail are apparently the pigeon hawk's. See  September 14, 1859 ("What kind of hawk is this? I can learn nothing from Wilson and Nuttall. The latter thinks that neither the pigeon nor sparrow hawk is found here !!") See also May 24, 1856 ("Pratt gave me the wing of a sparrow (?) hawk which he shot some months ago. . . .It must be a sparrow hawk, according to Wilson and Nuttall, for the inner vanes of the primaries and secondaries are thickly spotted with brownish white.”); July 2, 1856 (“Looked at the birds in the Natural History Rooms in Boston. Observed no white spots on the sparrow hawk’s wing, or on the pigeon or sharp-shinned hawk’s. Indeed they were so closed that I could not have seen them. Am uncertain to which my wing belongs.”) See also  A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Hawk (Merlin)

Eggs at Natural History Rooms.

December 7. 

To Boston. At Natural History Rooms. 

December 7, 2018

The egg of Turdus solitarius is light-bluish with pale brown spots. This is apparently mine which I call hermit thrush, though mine is redder and distincter brown spots. 

The egg of Turdus brunneus (called hermit thrush) is a clear blue. 

The rail’s egg (of Concord, which I have seen) is not the Virginia rail’s, which is smaller and nearly pure white, nor the clapper rail’s, which is larger. Is it the sora rail’s (of which there is no egg in this collection)? 

My egg found in R. W. E’s garden is not the white throated sparrow’s egg. 

Dr. Bryant calls my seringo (i. e. the faint-noted bird) Savannah sparrow. 

He says Cooper’s hawk is just like the sharp-shinned, only a little larger commonly. He could not tell them apart. 

Neither he nor Brewer can identify eggs always. Could match some gulls’ eggs out of another basket full of a different species as well as out of the same basket.

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

The egg of Turdus solitarius is apparently mine which I call hermit thrush, though mine is redder and distincter brown spots. See June 12, 1857 (“The egg of the Turdus solitarius is lettered "Swamp Robin."”); June 21, 1858 ("Talked with Mr. Bryant at the Natural History Rooms... The egg of the Turdus solitarius in the collection is longer, but marked very much like the tanager’s, only paler-brown");  June 22, 1858 ("[Edward Bartlett]Says the bird was a thrush of some kind. The egg is one inch by five eighths, rather slender, faint-blue, and quite generally spotted with distinct rather reddish brown, inclining to small streaky blotches, though especially at the larger end; not pale-brown like that described [June 21]. Can it be the Turdus solitarias? I have the egg.");

The egg of Turdus brunneus (called hermit thrush) is a clear blue. See June 21, 1858 ("Talked with Mr. Bryant at the Natural History Rooms . . .They have also the egg of the T. brunneus, the other hermit thrush, not common here."); September 29, 1855 ("At Natural History Library saw Dr. Cabot, who says that he has heard either the hermit, or else the olivaceous, thrush sing,—very like a wood thrush, but softer. Is sure that the hermit thrush sometimes breeds hereabouts.”).; June 12, 1857 ("At Natural History Rooms.. . . The wood thrush's is a slender egg, a little longer than a catbird's and uniform greenish-blue. . . . The egg of the hermit thrush [which variety?] is about as big as that of Wilson's thrush, but darker green.”) Also see note to April 24, 1856 ("Behold my hermit thrush, with one companion, flitting silently through the birches.")

The rail’s egg (of Concord, which I have seen) is not the Virginia rail’s, which is smaller and nearly pure white, nor the clapper rail’s, which is larger. Is it the sora rail’s? See September 7, 1858 ("Storrow Higginson brings from Deerfield this evening some eggs to show me, — among others apparently that of the Virginian rail. It agrees in color, size, etc., according to Wilson, and is like (except, perhaps, in form) to one which E. Bartlett brought me a week or ten days ago, which dropped from a load of hay carried to Stow’s barn! So perhaps it breeds here. Also a smaller egg of same form, but dull white with very pale dusky spots, which may be that of the Carolina rail."); September 18, 1858 (" Rallus Carolinus . . .in Virginia is called the sora"); September 21, 1858 (" the eggs of the Rallus Virginianus,labelled by Brewer, but much smaller than those I have seen, and nearly white, with dull-brown spots! Can mine be the egg of the R. crepitons [Clapper rail], though larger than mine?")

My egg found in R. W. E’s garden is not the white throated sparrow’s egg. See June 12 1857 ("At Natural History Rooms. — The egg found on ground in R. W. E.'s garden some weeks since cannot be the bobolink's, for that is about as big as a bay-wing's but more slender, dusky-white, with numerous brown and black blotches")

Dr. Bryant calls my seringo (i. e. the faint-noted bird) Savannah sparrow. See June 26, 1856 ("[S]aw, apparently, the F. Savanna near their nests (my seringo note), restlessly flitting about me from rock to rock within a rod."); April 22, 1856 ("The seringo also sits on a post, with a very distinct yellow line over the eye,_and the rhythm of its strain is ker chick | ker che | ker-char—r-r-r-r | chick, the last two bars being the part chiefly heard."); and note to August 11, 1858 (" I heard there abouts the seringo note."); See also Guide to Thoreau’s Birds "(Thoreau frequently called the Savannah Sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis the seringo or seringo-bird, but he also applied the name to other small birds.”); April 27, 1859 (“Hear and see the seringo in fields next the shore. No noticeable yellow shoulder, pure whitish beneath, dashed throat and a dark-brown line of dashes along the sides of the body.”)

He says Cooper’s hawk is just like the sharp-shinned, only a little larger . See May 17, 1860 ("J. Farmer sends me to - day what is plainly Cooper's hawk. . . .") .

In the Natural History Rooms talking of the myrtle-bird.

June 21. 

June 21, 2018

Vide at Cambridge, apparently in prime, Silene inflata; also, in a rich grass-field on Sacramento Street, what may be Turritis glabra (?), also in prime, the last three or four feet high. Both pressed. 

Talked with Mr. Bryant at the Natural History Rooms. He agrees with Kneeland in thinking that what I call the myrtle-bird’s is the white-throat sparrow’s note. Bryant killed one Down East in summer of ’56. He has lived the last fifteen years at Cohasset, and also knows the birds of Cambridge, but talks of several birds as rare which are common in Concord, such as the stake-driver, marsh hawk (have neither of their eggs in the collection), Savannah sparrow, the passerina much rarer, and I think purple finch, etc. Never heard the tea-lee note of myrtle-bird ( ?) in this State. 

Their large hawk is the red-shouldered, not hen-hawk. 

He thinks that the sheldrake of the Maine lakes is the merganser, the serrator belonging rather to the sea coast. 

Of the two little dippers or grebes, he thought the white-breasted one would be the commonest, which has also a slender bill, while the other has a brownish breast and a much thicker bill. 

The egg of the Turdus solitarius in the collection is longer, but marked very much like the tanager’s, only paler-brown. They have also the egg of the T. brunneus, the other hermit thrush, not common here.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 21, 1858

Mr. Bryant at the Natural History Rooms agrees with Kneeland in thinking that what I call the myrtle-bird’s is the white-throat sparrow’s note. See January 15, 1858 ("At Natural History Rooms, Boston. . . . Talked with Dr. Kneeland. . . . Speaking to him of my night warbler, he asked if it uttered such a note, making the note of the myrtle-bird, ah, te-te-te te-te-te te-te-te, exactly, and said that that was the note of the white throated sparrow, which he heard at Lake Superior, at night as well as by day.”)

The egg of the Turdus solitarius in the collection. See June 12, 1857 (“The egg of the Turdus solitarius is lettered "Swamp Robin."”)

At Natural History Rooms, Boston.

January 15.

January 15, 2018

At Natural History Rooms, Boston. 

Looked at the little grebe. Its feet are not webbed with lobes on the side like the coot, and it is quite white beneath. 

Saw the good-sized duck—velvet duck, with white spot on wing — which is commonly called “coot” on salt water. 

They have a living young bald eagle in the cellar. 

Talked with Dr. Kneeland. They have a golden eagle from Lexington, which K. obtained two or three years since, the first Dr. Cabot has heard of in Massachusetts. 

Speaking to him of my night warbler, he asked if it uttered such a note, making the note of the myrtle-bird, ah, te-te-te te-te-te te-te-te, exactly, and said that that was the note of the white throated sparrow, which he heard at Lake Superior, at night as well as by day. Vide his report, July 15, 1857. 

Same afternoon, saw Dr. Durkee in Howard Street. He has not seen the common glow-worm, and called his a variety of Lampyris noctiluca. Showed to Agassiz, Gould, and Jackson, and it was new to them. They thought it a variety of the above. His were luminous throughout, mine only in part of each segment. 

Saw some beautiful painted leaves in a shop window, - maple and oak.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 15, 1858

Looked at the little grebe. Its feet are not webbed with lobes on the side like the coot, and it is quite white beneath. See note to December 26, 1857 ("The little dipper must, therefore, be different from a coot. Is it not a grebe?”) Also November 27, 1857 (“Mr. Wesson . . . appears not to know a coot, and did not recognize the lobed feet when I drew them.”); April 24, 1856 (“Goodwin shot, about 6 P. M., and brought to me a cinereous coot . . .Lobes chiefly on the inner side of the toes.”); June 17, 1856 (“Went to Rev. Horace James’s reptiles (Orthodox). He had, set up, . . .a large lobe-footed bird which I think must have been a large grebe, killed in Fitchburg. ”);  December 26, 1853 ("Saw in it a small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, with the markings, as far as I saw, of the crested grebe, but smaller. It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail.”)


Speaking to him of my night warbler. According to Emerson,  the night warbler is "a bird he had never identified, had been in search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or bush.” See May 9, 1852 “Heard the night warbler.”); May 9, 1853 ("Again I think I heard the night-warbler.”); May 10, 1854("Heard the night-warbler. “); May 28, 1854 ("The night-warbler, after his strain, drops down almost perpendicularly into a tree-top and is lost.”); May 19, 1858 ("Heard the night-warbler begin his strain just like an oven-bird! I have noticed that when it drops down into the woods it darts suddenly one side to a perch when low.” See also May 12, 1855 (“We sit about half an hour, and it is surprising what various distinct sounds we hear there deep in the wood, as if the aisles of the wood were so many ear trumpets,-- the cawing of crows, the peeping of hylas in the swamp and perhaps the croaking of a tree-toad, the oven-bird, the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush, a distant stake-driver, the night-warbler and black and white creeper, the lowing of cows, the late supper horn, the voices of boys, the singing of girls, -- not all together but separately, distinctly, and musically, from where the partridge and the red-tailed hawk and the screech owl sit on their nests.”)

His glowworms were luminous throughout, mine only in part of each segment. See September 16, 1857 (“Watson gave me three glow-worms which he found by the roadside in Lincoln last night. They exhibit a greenish light, only under the caudal extremity, and intermittingly, or at will. As often as I touch one in a dark morning, it stretches and shows its light for a moment, only under the last segment.”) Also August 8, 1857 (“B. M. Watson sent me from Plymouth, July 20th, six glow-worms, . . . Knapp, in “Journal of a Naturalist,” speaks of “the luminous caudal spot” of the Lampyris noctiluca")

Looking at the birds' eggs in the Natural History Rooms in Boston./ botanizing Cape Cod

June 12. 

June 12, 2017

Friday. 8.30 a. m. — Set out for CAPE COD. 

Eggs. — 

     At Natural History Rooms. — 


The egg found on ground in R. W. E.'s garden some weeks since cannot be the bobolink's, for that is about as big as a bay-wing's but more slender, dusky-white, with numerous brown and black blotches. 

The egg of the Turdus solitarius is lettered "Swamp Robin." Is this what they so call at New Bedford? 

The wood thrush's is a slender egg, a little longer than a catbird's and uniform greenish-blue. 

The yellow-shouldered sparrow's egg is size of Maryland yellow-throat's, white with brown spots, sometimes in a ring at the larger end. 

The Savannah sparrow's is about the same size, dirty-white with thick brown blotches. 

I find that the egg Farmer gave me for the "chicklisee's " is enough like the yellow-throat's to be it. Can he be thinking of the note, whittichee ? Or is it the yellow-shouldered sparrow's egg? 

The egg of the hermit thrush [which variety?] is about as big as that of Wilson's thrush, but darker green. 

Some edible swallows' (?) nests, on a stick, side by side, shallow and small and shaped like oyster-shells, light-colored, but yet placed somewhat like the chimney swallows'. 

Among the frogs in alcohol I notice the Scaphiopus solitarius, Cambridge!! 

Michaux says that mocker-nuts are of various sizes and forms, some round, some oblong. So I have found them. He also says that "the red-flowering maple [Acer rubrum]  is the earliest tree whose bloom announces the return of Spring." This is a mistake, the white maple being much earlier. 

I have not found the white spruce yet. 

P. M. — At Watson's, Plymouth. 

W. has several varieties of the English hawthorn (oxyacantha), pink and rose-colored, double and sin gle, and very handsome now. 

His English oak is almost entirely out of bloom, though I got some flowers. The biggest, which was set out in '49, is about thirty feet high, and, as I measured, just twenty inches in circumference at four inches from the ground. A very rapid growth. 

I obtained there specimens of the plum-leaved willow, come well ditto, — because it comes on fast, — and Salix rosmarinifolia. Only some lingering bloom with the last. 

He has the foreign Betula alba (much like our populifolia), its bark loosened up like our papyracea, but not so white; and what was sent him for popvlifolia, much like our red birch, the bark much like that of alba loosened up, but more reddish, the limbs red, leaves like a balm-of-Gilead somewhat, large (vide press). The papyracea leaves are unusually wedge-shaped at base, methinks. 

The moosewood is chiefly fruiting, but some still in bloom. 

Cornus sanguinea, in its prime. Its bark is bright-red and greenish. That of C. sericea (not well named) is dark-purplish. The Oriental is later to bloom than ours or else smaller-fruited. 

The American mountain-ash not yet out (Cheney's in Concord, a day or two, June 25th). Nuttall says its leaves are at last very smooth. 

I have hitherto observed the Pyrus aucuparia, or European, at Prichard's, Whiting's, etc. 

W. has the Crataegus prunifolius, with its thorns (vide herbarium); Castanea vesca, Spanish chestnut, of which ours is made a variety merely; Populus monilifera, as he calls it, and another very like it.

Bayberry well out. Senecio vulgaris a common weed, apparently in prime. 

Honkenya and beach pea well out on Plymouth beach. 

W. has a very flourishing and large white maple of his setting, and they stand in Plymouth streets also, very pretty.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 12, 1857

The wood thrush's is a slender egg, a little longer than a catbird's and uniform greenish-blue. . . . The egg of the hermit thrush [which variety?] is about as big as that of Wilson's thrush, but darker green. See  May 22, 1852 ("On my way to Plymouth, looked at Audubon in the State-House. The female (and male?) wood thrush spotted the whole length of belly; the hermit thrush not so.”); Also see  note to April 24, 1856 ("Behold my hermit thrush, with one companion, flitting silently through the birches.")

W[atson] has several varieties of the English hawthorn (oxyacantha), pink and rose-colored, double and sin gle, and very handsome now. See June 12, 1855  ("A hawthorn grows near by, just out of bloom, twelve feet high — Crataegus Oxyacantha.")

Looked at the birds in the Natural History Rooms in Boston.

July 2. 

July 2, 2016

Return to Concord. Looked at the birds in the Natural History Rooms in Boston. 

Observed no white spots on the sparrow hawk’s wing, or on the pigeon or sharp-shinned hawk’s. Indeed they were so closed that I could not have seen them. Am uncertain to which my wing belongs. 

May I not have seen the white-crowned sparrow in company with the white-throated? They are much alike. Yet Wilson says they rarely associate. 

Hemlock Warbler

Pine Warbler

The hemlock and pine warbler are much alike. Is it possible I have confounded them?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 2, 1856

Am uncertain to which my wing belongs. See May 24, 1856 ("Pratt gave me the wing of a sparrow (?) hawk which he shot some months ago. . . .It must be a sparrow hawk, according to Wilson and Nuttall, for the inner vanes of the primaries and secondaries are thickly spotted with brownish white.”) See also May 4, 1855 (“I think that what I have called the sparrow hawk falsely, and latterly pigeon hawk, is also the sharp-shinned (vide April 26th and May 8th, 1854, and April 16th, 1855), for the pigeon hawk’s tail is white-barred.”); April 16, 1855 ( "What I call a pigeon hawk, probably sharp-shinned.”)   See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the sharp-shinned hawk.

Pine warbler.  See April 16, 1856 I(“See a pine warbler, much less yellow than the last. . . . “); April 9, 1856 ("Its bright yellow or golden throat and breast, etc., are conspicuous at this season.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, the Pine Warbler.

Looked at plants at the Natural History Rooms

Boston Society of Natural History 

(c. 1847-1863),

Mason Street, Boston

June 19.

Looked at a collection of the rarer plants made by Higginson and placed at the Natural History Rooms. 


Among which noticed:

• Ranunculus Purshii varieties a and b with no difference apparent, unless in upper leaves being more or less divided.

• Ribes lacustre, or swamp gooseberry, with a loose raceme such as I have not seen, from White Mountains. 

• A circaea, or enchanter’s-nightshade, with a very large raceme and with longer branchlets than I have seen, methinks. 

• Calla palustris, very different from the Peliandra Virginia. 

• Cerastium arvense, with linear leaves, quite new to me. 

• Smilacina stellata, from Dr. Harris, very different from the racemosa, being simple. 

• Ledum latifolium, from White Mountains, rather 'broader—leafed than mine from Maine. 

• Barbarea sativa, from Cambridge, apparently like my B. vulgaris. 

Is the Smilacina racemosa with such long lower branchlets peculiar, there in Worcester?  I saw several in woods. 


On way to Concord see mountain laurel out in Lancaster. Had seen none out in Worcester.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1856

June 19.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823- 1911) was educated at Harvard where he developed interests in botany and entomology. From 1840-1841, Higginson was corresponding secretary and entomological curator of the Harvard Natural History Society; he was a member of the Boston Society of Natural History and of the Cambridge Entomological Club. He shared HDT’s antislavery views and in 1856 had just moved to Worcester, where he joined gatherings at Blake's house to read the letters that HDT wrote to Blake throughout the 1850’s. Mapping Thoreau Country.


Ledum latifolium:  Rhododendron groenlandicum (Bog Labrador-tea) a diminutive shrub of cool, wet swamps, spruce forests, and muskeg recognized by its clusters of tiny white flowers and its folded-under leaves with brown hairs on the undersides. GoBotany

Smilacina racemosa with such long lower branchlets . . . See July 7, 1855 ("What that smilacina-like plant very common in the shrubbery, . . .?"); June 19, 1857 ("The Smilacina racemosa was just out of bloom on the bank. They call it the " wood lily " there. Uncle Sam called it "snake-corn," and said it looked like corn when it first came up").