Birch lice.

September 9. 

Half a bushel of handsome pears on the ground under the wild pear tree on Pedrick's land; some ripe, many more on tree. 

September 9, 2023

J. Wesson, who is helping me survey to-day, says that, when they dug the cellar of Stacy's shop, he saw where they cut through (with the spade) birches six inches in diameter, on which the Mill-Dam had been built; also that Nathan Hosmer, Sr., since dead, told him that he had cut meadow-grass between the bakehouse and the Middlesex Hotel. 

I find myself covered with green and winged lice from the birches.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 9, 1853

Half a bushel of handsome pears on the ground. See August 29, 1852 ("The ground in orchards is covered with windfalls; imperfect fruits now fall"); September 3, 1859 ("A strong wind, which blows down much fruit. R. W. E. sits surrounded by choice windfall pears."); September 3, 1860 ("See on the two pear trees by the Boze cellar ripe pears, some ripe several days . . . one was quite sweet and good")

I find myself covered with green and winged lice from the birches. See May 21, 1852 ("The latter [birches] are covered with green lice, which cover me."): May 30, 1855 ("Green lice from birches (?) get on my clothes. "); August 11, 1854 ("Green lice on birches."); August 13, 1852 ("There are green lice now on the birches, but I notice no cotton on them."); September 27, 1852 ("Green lice are still on the birches. "); October 15, 1859 ("I think I see myrtle-birds on white birches, and that they are the birds I saw on them a week or two ago, — apparently, or probably, after the birch lice.")

J. Wesson, who is helping me survey. See October 20, 1857 ("Wesson is so gouty that he rarely comes out-of-doors, and is a spectacle in the street; but he loves to tell his old stories still! "); November 25, 1857 ("Mr. Wesson says that he has seen a striped squirrel eating a white-bellied mouse"); November 27, 1857 ("Mr. Wesson says . . .that the little dipper is not a coot. . - but he appears not to know a coot”)

A familiar warbler not recognized for some years.

May 30. 

See bird’s nest on an apple by roadside, seven feet high; one egg. Cherry-bird on a cherry; also pecking at the apple blossoms. 

Buttonwood flowers now effete; fertile flowers were not brown on the 24th, but were the 28th; say, then, about the 26th. 

Lepidium virginicum, roadside bank at Minott’s.

The myrica, bayberry, plucked on the 23d, now first sheds pollen in house, the leaf being but little more expanded on the flowering shoot. Gray says, “ somewhat preceding the flowers.” The catkins about a quarter of an inch long, erect, sterile, oval, on the sides of last year’s twigs. 

P. M. — Up railroad. 

A strong west wind and much haze. Silvery potentilla, four or five days at least. 

In the thick of the wood between railroad and Turnpike, hear the evergreen forest note, and see probably the bird, — black throat, greenish-yellow or yellowish-green head and back, light-slate (?) wings with two white bars. Is it not the black-throated green warbler? 

I find close by a small fresh egg on the forest floor, with a slight perforation, white (with perhaps a tinge of flesh-color (?) when full), and brown spots and black marks at the larger end. In Brewer’s synopsis the egg of the black throat is described as “light flesh-color with purple spots.” But these spots are not purple. I could find no nest. 

Senecio in open meadows, say yesterday. 

See a small black snake run along securely through thin bushes (alders and willows) three or four feet from the ground, passing intervals of two feet easily,—very readily and gracefully, —ascending or descending. 

Cornus Canadensis out, how long? 

Green lice from birches (?) get on my clothes. 

Is it not summer now when the creak of the crickets begins to be general? 

Poison-dogwood has grown three or four inches at ends of last year’s shoots, which are three to six feet from ground. 

Black & Yellow Warbler

or

Magnolia Warbler

(Sylvia maculosa) 

Hear a familiar warbler not recognized for some years, in the thick copse in Dennis’s Swamp, south of railroad; considerably yellowbird-like (the note) — tshe tshe tshar tshar tchit, tchit tit te vet. It has apparently a yellow head, bluish or slaty wings with two white bars, tail even, wings dusky at tips, legs light, bill dark, beneath all bright-yellow, remarkably striped lengthwise with dusky, more or less dark in different specimens. Can it be the S. maculosa, or black and yellow warbler, seen formerly? I did not see the black - —— nor indeed the back at all well. It may have been a female, not described by Wilson. Frequents the tops of trees. 

Ladies’ slipper, apparently.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1855

In the thick of the wood between railroad and Turnpike, hear the evergreen forest note, and see probably the bird  See May 11, 1854 ("Hear the evergreen-forest note"); June 1, 1854 ("Hear my evergreen-forest note, sounding rather raspingly as usual, where there are large oaks and pines mingled. It is very difficult to discover now that the leaves are grown, as it frequents the tops of the trees. But I get a glimpse of its black throat and, I think, yellow head "); May 6, 1855 (“the er er twe, ter ter twe, evergreen-forest note”); May 7, 1856 ("I hear the evergreen-forest note close by; and hear and see many myrtle-birds, at the same time that I hear what I have called the black and white creeper’s note. Have I ever confounded them?”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Black-throated Green Warbler

Can it be the S. maculosa, or black and yellow warbler? See May 22, 1860 ("C. . . . appears , by his account , to have seen the Sylvia maculosa . "); July 25, 1860 ("He has the Sylvia maculosa , shot near his house . Bluish - ash above , I believe , head or crown the same , yellow throat and beneath , with many blackish spots and marks [ ? ] on sides and breast , and white spots on inner vanes of tail - feathers , the tail being blackish .")

Ladies’ slipper, apparently. See note to May 30, 1856 ("The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side.”)

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

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