A strange turtle at Long Pond

April 13. 

Monday. 

To Middleborough ponds. There was no boat on Little Quitticus; so we could not explore it. 

Set out to walk round it, but, the water being high,— higher than anciently even, on account of dams, — we had to go round a swamp at the south end, about Joe’s Rocks, and R. gave it up. 

I went to Long Pond and waited for him. 

Saw a strange turtle, much like a small snapping turtle or very large Sternothaerus odoratus, crawling slowly along the bottom next the shore. Poked it ashore with a stick. It had a peculiarly square snout, two hinges to the sternum and both parts movable. Was very sluggish; would not snap nor bite. Looked old, being mossy above on the edge, and the scales greenish and eaten beneath. The flesh slate colored.* 

I saw that it was new and wished to bring it away, but had no paper to wrap it in. So I peeled a white birch, getting a piece of bark about ten inches long. I noticed that the birch sap was flowing. This bark at once curled back so as to present its yellow side out ward. I rolled it about the turtle and folded the ends back and tied it round with a strip of birch bark, making a very nice and airy box for the creature, which would not be injured by moisture, far better than any paper, and so I brought it home to Concord at last. 

As my coat hung in R.’s shanty, over a barrel of paper, the morning that I came away the turtle made a little noise, scratching the birch bark in my pocket. R. observed, 

“ There is a mouse in that barrel. What would you do about it?”

“Oh, let him alone,” said I, “ he ’ll get out directly.”

“ They often get among my papers,” he added.

“ I guess I ’d better set the barrel outdoors.” 

I did not explain, and perhaps he experimented on the barrel after my departure.

As I sat on the shore there, waiting for R., I saw many mosquitoes flying low over the water close to the sandy shore. 

The turtle when I first saw him was slowly and tremblingly pacing along the bottom, rather toward the shore, with its large head far out on its outstretched neck. From its size and general color and aspect, I did not doubt at first that it was a snapping turtle, notwithstanding the season.

H  D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1857 

To Middleborough ponds. See June 30, 1856 ("To Middleborough ponds in the new town of Lakeville") and  June 24, 1856 ("To Sassacowen Pond and to Long Pond")

I rolled [the strip of birch bark]about the turtle and folded the ends back and tied it round with a strip of birch bark, making a very nice and airy box for the creature. . .and so I brought it home to Concord at last. See April 25, 1857 ("I find that I can very easily make a convenient box of the birch bark, at this season at least, when the sap is running") See also   April 23, 1856 ("Brought it [a beetle] home in a clam’s shells tied up, —a good insect-box."); June 23, 1852 ("I am inclined to think that my hat, whose lining is gathered in midway so as to make a shelf, is about as good a botany-box as I could have and far more convenient. . .").

* The Freetown Turtle compared with Storer’s Sternothoerus.

Answers to the generic description, except perhaps that the posterior valve of the sternum is movable.

Compared with the S. odoratus. 

There is no peculiar scent to it. The upper shell is flattened on the dorsal ridge for the width of the dorsal plates and is not carinated there. (I find one as flat, and others are not carinated.) Color out of water a dirty brown. The marginal plates are a little narrower. 

The sternum (as well as that of my S. odomtus) is apparently composed of 11 instead of 9 plates, the anterior portion being composed of 5 instead of 3 plates. The posterior portion is distinctly movable, much more than the odoratus, and it is quite rounded on the sides. 

Irides not distinct. It appears as if blind. No yellow lines what ever on the head or neck. Jaws not dark-brown, but bluish-slate, as is the skin generally.

My two S. odoratus are 3 3/5 inches long by 2 1/2 wide and 1 1/2 inches high, being highest behind. The Freetown turtle is 4 inches long by 2 3/4 and 1 5/8  high, being highest forward. It has much green moss (?) on the rear and marginal plates, and the scales of the sternum are greenish and worn or carious. It is quite sluggish. Otherwise it apparently answers to Storer’s S. odoratus.

This is the critical season of a river, when it is fullest of life.

April 11. 

Saturday. 8 P. M. —Went to the Head of the River to see them catch smelts. 

The water there is fresh when the tide is out. They use nets five or six feet square, stretched from the ends of crossed semicircular hoops, at the ends of poles about twelve feet long. The net bags down when raised. 

There were twenty or thirty fishermen standing close together, half on each side of the narrow river, each managing one of these nets, while a good part of the village appeared to be collected on the bridge. The tide was then coming in, but the best time is when it is going out. 

A fisherman told me that the smelt run up in the night only. These fishers stood just below a two-arched bridge. The tide was coming up between the arches, while the fresh water which the smelt preferred was running down next the shore on each side. The smelt were ascending in these streams of fresh water on each side. 

The shore for half a dozen rods on each side was lined with fishers, each wielding a single net. This man told me that the smelt had been running up about one month and were now about done. The herring had been seen for a fortnight. They will run this month and all the next. The former leave off when the latter begin. Shad have not been caught yet. They come after herring. Eels, too, are occasionally caught now, going up from the deeper river below. These fishes spawn in the little pond just above the bridge. 

They let the net rest on the bottom and every two ,or three minutes lift it up. They get thirty or many more smelt sometimes at one lift and catch other fish in the same way, even bass, sea perch, pickerel, eels, and sometimes a trout. The shad make a ripple like a harrow, and you know when to raise the net. 

The villagers were talking across the stream, calling each other by their Christian names. Even mothers mingled with the fishermen, looking for their children. 

It suggested how much we had lost out of Concord River without realizing it. This is the critical season of a river, when it is fullest of life, its flowering season, the wavelets or ripples on its surface answering to the scales of the fishes beneath. 

If salmon, shad, and alewives were pressing up our river now, as formerly they were, a good part of the villagers would thus, no doubt, be drawn to the brink at this season. Many inhabitants of the neighborhood of the ponds in Lakeville, Freetown, Fairhaven, etc., have petitioned the legislature for permission to connect Little Quitticus Pond with the Acushnet River by digging, so that the herring can come up into it. 

The very fishes in countless schools are driven out of a river by the improvements of the civilized man, as the pigeon and other fowls out of the air. I can hardly imagine a greater change than this produced by the influence of man in nature. 

Our Concord River is a dead stream in more senses than we had supposed. In what sense now does the spring ever come to the river, when the sun is not reflected from the scales of a single salmon, shad, or alewife? No doubt there is some compensation for this loss, but I do not at this moment see clearly what it is. 

That river which the aboriginal and indigenous fishes have not deserted is a more primitive and interesting river to me. It is as if some vital quality were to be lost out of a man’s blood and it were to circulate more lifelessly through his veins. We are reduced to a few migrating (?) suckers, perchance.

I saw the herring on sticks at the doors of many shops in New Bedford.

I saw the myrtle-bird here about a week ago.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 11, 1857

The very fishes in countless schools are driven out of a river by the improvements of the civilized man, as the pigeon and other fowls out of the air. See March 23, 1856 ("All the great trees and beasts, fishes and fowl are gone.")

The sun is not reflected from the scales of a single salmon, shad, or alewife ... See April 15, 1856 ("First salmon and shad at Haverhill to-day.");April 13, 1853 ("First shad caught at Haverhill to-day.")

Is not June the month when most of our fresh water fish are spawned?

June 30. Monday. 

June 30, 2019

A. M. — To Middleborough ponds in the new town of Lakeville (some three years old). 

What a miserable name! It should have been Assawampsett or, perchance, Sanacus, if that was the name of the Christian Indian killed on the pond.

By the roadside, Long Plain, North Fairhaven, observed a tupelo seven feet high with a rounded top, shaped like an umbrella, eight feet diameter, spreading over the wall, and the main stem divided suddenly at two feet only below the top, where it was six inches in diameter! 

On the right hand in the old orchard near the Quitticus Ponds, heard and at last saw my tweezer-bird, which is extremely restless, flitting from bough to bough and apple tree to apple tree. Its note like ah, zre zre zre, zritter zritter zrit’. Sylvia Americana, parti-colored warbler, with golden-green reflections on the back, two white bars on wings, all beneath white, large orange mark on breast, bordered broadly with lemon yellow, and yellow throat. These were making the woods ring in Concord when I left and are very common here abouts. 

Saw a haymaker with his suspenders crossed before as well as behind. A valuable hint, which I think I shall improve upon, since I am much troubled by mine slipping off my shoulders. 

Borrowed Roberts’s boat, shaped like a pumpkin seed, for we wished to paddle on Great Quitticus. We landed and lunched on Haskell’s Island, which contains some twenty-five or thirty acres. 

Just beyond this was Reed’s Island, which was formerly cultivated, the cattle being swum across, or taken over in a scow. A man praised the soil to me and said that rye enough had been raised on it to cover it six inches deep. 

At one end of Haskell’s Island was apparently a piece of primitive wood,—beech, hemlock, etc. Under the first I found some low, dry brown plants, perhaps beech drops and the like, two species, but saw none of this year. One who formerly owned Reed’s Island said that a man once lived on Haskell’s Island and had a hennery there. 

The tweezer-birds were lively in the hemlocks.

Rode on to the old Pond Meeting-house, whence there is a fine view of Assawampsett. It is probably the broadest lake in the State. Uriah (?) Sampson told me it was about eight or ten feet deep in the middle, but somewhat deeper about the sides. The main outlet of these ponds is northeast, by Taunton River, though there is some connection with the Mattapoisett River, and Assonet River drains the neighborhood of Long Pond on the west. 

Two men spoke of loon’s eggs on a rocky isle in Little Quitticus. I saw the Lobelia Dortmarma in bloom in the last.

A Southwest breeze springs up every afternoon at this season, comparatively cool and refreshing from the sea. 

As we were returning, a Mr. Sampson was catching perch at the outlet from Long Pond, where it emptied into Assawampsett with a swift current. The surface of the rippling water there was all alive with yellow perch and white ones, whole schools showing their snouts or tails as they rose for the young alewives which appeared to be passing out of the brook. These, some of which I have in spirits, were about an inch and a half long. Sampson fished with these for bait, trailing or jerking it along the surface exactly as for pickerel, and the perch bit very fast. 

He showed me one white perch. It was a broader fish than the yellow, but much softer-scaled and generally preferred. He said they would not take the hook after a certain season. He swept out some young alewives (herring) with a stick on to the shore, and among them were young yellow perch also an inch and a half long, with the transverse bands perfectly distinct. I have some in spirit. The large ones were devouring these, no doubt, together with the ale wives. 

Is not June the month when most of our fresh water fish are spawned?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 30, 1856

The new town of Lakeville (some three years old).Lakeville was incorporated as a separate town in 1853. The town's name comes from the system of lakes in the town, including Assawompset Pond, Great Quittacas Pond, Little Quittacas Pond, Pocksha Pond, and Long Pond. Long Pond is the source of the Acushnet River, and Assawompsett Pond is the source of the Nemasket River, which feeds the Taunton River ~ Wikipedia

The name of the Christian Indian killed on the pond. John Sassamon, also known as Wussausmon (c. 1620–1675), whose murdered body was discovered in Assawompset Pond on January 29, 1675. ~Wikipedia

Tweezer-bird, or Sylvia Americana, parti-colored warbler . . . were making the woods ring in Concord when I left. See June 22, 1856 ("The woods still resound with the note of my tweezer-bird, or Sylvia Americana."). See also note to May 13, 1856. and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the parti-colored warbler (Sylvia Americana)

Saw a haymaker with his suspenders crossed before as well as behind. See June 30,1851 ("The day has been so oppressively warm that some workmen have lain by at noon, and the haymakers are mowing now in the early twilight."); June 30, 1852 ("Haying has commenced.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

 We landed and lunched on Haskell’s Island . . . Rode on to the old Pond Meeting-house.  See Journal of Daniel Ricketson, June 30 ("Warm and clear. rode to the Middleboro’ Ponds with Thoreau. Visited Haskell’s Island, so-called, in Great Quittacus Pond, from where we bathed and ate our dinner upon the west shore of the Island, then rode to Assawampsett and visited the old meeting-house now fast falling to decay and abuse, and King Philip’s look-out, so called.")

A Southwest breeze springs up every afternoon at this season, comparatively cool and refreshing from the sea. See  June 30,1855 ("2 P. M. -- Thermometer north side of house, 95°");.June 30, 1857 ("Remarkably cool, with wind, it being easterly, and I anticipated a sea-turn."); June 30, 1859 ("Cooler, with a northerly wind."); See also April 28, 1856(" ...on our return the wind changed to easterly, and I felt the cool, fresh sea-breeze."); April 30, 1856 ("at one o’clock there was the usual fresh easterly wind and sea-turn . . .and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Sea-turn

June 30.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 30

 A haymaker with 

his suspenders crossed before 

as well as behind.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Suspenders

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

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