Nests high in white pines.

May 29.

May 29, 2020

P. M. – After hawks with Farmer to Easterbrooks Country.

He tells me of a sterile bayberry bush between his house and Abel Davis, opposite a ledge in the road, say half a dozen rods off in the field, on the left, by a brook. Hearing a warbling vireo, he asked me what it was, and said that a man who lived with him thought it said, “Now I have caught it, О how it is sweet!” I am sure only of the last words, or perhaps, “Quick as I catch him I eat him. O it is very sweet.” 

Saw male and female wood tortoise in a meadow in front of his house,-- only a little brook anywhere near. They are the most of a land turtle except the box turtle.

We proceeded to the Cooper’s hawk nest in an oak and pine wood (Clark’s) north of Ponkawtasset.

I found a fragment of one of the eggs which he had thrown out. Farmer’s egg, by the way, was a dull or dirty white, i. e. a rough white with large dirty spots, perhaps in the grain, but not surely, of a regular oval form and a little larger than his marsh hawk’s egg.

I climbed to the nest, some thirty to thirty-five feet high in a white pine, against the main stem. It was a mass of bark-fibre and sticks about two and a half feet long by eighteen inches wide and sixteen high. The lower and main portion was a solid mass of fine bark-fibre such as a red squirrel uses. This was surrounded and sur mounted by a quantity of dead twigs of pine and oak, etc., generally the size of a pipe-stem or less. The concavity was very slight, not more than an inch and a half, and there was nothing soft for a lining, the bark fibres being several inches beneath the twigs, but the bottom was floored for a diameter of six inches or more with flakes of white oak and pitch pine bark one to two inches long each, a good handful of them, and on this the eggs had lain.

We saw nothing of the hawk. This was a dozen rods south of the oak meadow wall.

Saw, in a shaded swamp beyond, the Stellaria borealis, still out, — large, broadish leaves.

Some eighteen feet high in a white pine in a swamp in the oak meadow lot, I climbed to a red squirrel’s nest. The young were two-thirds grown, yet feeble and not so red as they will be. One ran out and along a limb, and finally made off into another tree. This was a mass of rubbish covered with sticks, such as I commonly see (against the main stem), but not so large as a gray squirrel’s.

We next proceeded to the marsh hawk’s nest from which the eggs were taken a fortnight ago and the female shot. It was in a long and narrow cassandra swamp northwest of the lime-kiln and some thirty rods from the road, on the side of a small and more open area some two rods across, where were few if any bushes and more [?] sedge with the cassandra.

The nest was on a low tussock, and about eighteen inches across, made of dead birch twigs around and a pitch pine plume or two, and sedge grass at bottom, with a small cavity in the middle. The female was shot and eggs taken on the 16th; yet here was the male, hovering anxiously over the spot and neighborhood and scolding at us. Betraying himself from time to time by that peculiar clacking note reminding you of a pigeon woodpecker.

We thought it likely that he had already got another mate and a new nest near by. He would not quite withdraw though fired at, but still would return and circle near us. They are said to find a new mate very soon.

In a tall pine wood on a hill, say southwest of this, or northwest of Boaz’s Lower Meadow, I climbed to a nest high in a white pine, apparently a crow’s just completed, as it were on a squirrel’s nest for a foundation, but finished above in a deep concave form, of twigs which had been gnawed off by the squirrel.

In another white pine nearby, some thirty feet up it, I found a gray squirrel’s nest, with young about as big as the red squirrels were, but yet blind. This was a large mass of twigs, leaves, bark-fibre, etc., with a mass of loose twigs on the top of it, which was conical. Perhaps the twigs are piled on the warmer part of the nest to prevent a hawk from pulling it to pieces.

I have thus found three squirrels’ nests this year, two gray and one red, in these masses of twigs and leaves and bark exposed in the tree-tops and not in a hollow tree, and methinks this is the rule and not the exception.

Farmer says that he finds the nests or holes or forms of the gray rabbit in holes about a foot or a foot and a half deep, made sideways into or under a tussock, especially amid the sweet-fern, in rather low but rather open ground. Has found seven young in one.

Has found twenty-four eggs in a quail’s nest.

In many places in the woods where we walk to-day we notice the now tender branches of the brakes eaten off, almost in every case, though they may be eighteen or more inches from the ground. This was evidently done by a rabbit or a woodchuck.

The wild asparagus beyond Hunt’s Bridge will apparently open in two days.

C. has seen to-day an orange-breasted bird which may be the female (?) Blackburnian warbler. The leaves now conceal the warblers, etc., considerably. You can see them best in white oaks, etc., not maples and birches.

I hear that there was some frost last night on Hildreth’s plain; not here.

On the 28th, the latest trees and shrubs start thus in order of leafing

1. Locust

2. Dangle-berry      21st

3. Mountain rhus     22d

4. Poison-dogwood 23d

5. Black spruce       23d

6. Black ash           24th

7. Button-bush       26^th

8. Hemlock            27^th

9. Bayberry           

10. Vaccinium dumosum

11. Holbrook aspens

I hear from vireos (probably red-eyes) in woods a fine harsh note, perhaps when angry with each other

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1860

Some eighteen feet high in a white pine in a swamp in the oak meadow lot, I climbed to a red squirrel’s nest. See April 1, 1858 ("I see a squirrel's nest twenty-three or twenty-four feet high in a large maple, and, climbing to it, — for it was so peculiar, having a basketwork of twigs about it."); April 23, 1859 ("The owl-hole contains a squirrel's nest . . This nest, which I suppose was that of a red squirrel, was at the bottom of a large hole some eighteen inches deep and twenty-five feet from the ground, where a large limb had been broken off formerly.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel.

We next proceeded to the marsh hawk’s nest from which the eggs were taken a fortnight ago and the female shot. See May 27, 1860 ("J. Farmer found a marsh hawk's nest on the 16th, — near the Cooper ' s hawk nest, — with three fresh eggs")

We thought it likely that he had already got another mate and a new nest near by. See June 4, 1860 ("I hear that the nest of that marsh hawk which we saw on the 29th (q. v.) has since been found with five eggs in it. So that bird (male), whose mate was killed on the 16th of May, has since got a new mate and five eggs laid.") See also  November 20, 1858 ("Martial Miles. . . says that a marsh hawk had his nest in his meadow several years, and though he shot the female three times, the male with but little delay returned with a new mate.") and see  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

I have thus found three squirrels’ nests this year, two gray and one red, in these masses of twigs and leaves and bark exposed in the tree-tops and not in a hollow tree, and methinks this is the rule and not the exception. See note to June 1, 1860 ("This makes three gray squirrels' nests that I have seen and heard of (seen two of them) this year, made thus of leaves and sticks open in the trees, and I hear of some more similar ones found in former years, so that I think this mode of nesting their young may be the rule with them here. Add to this one red squirrel's nest of the same kind.")

Yellow birches in bloom.

May 5. 

Thursday. P.M. — To Melvin's Preserve.

             May 5, 2018                                                               May 5, 2019

 

Red-wings fly in flocks yet. 

Near the oak beyond Jarvis land, a yellow butterfly, — how hot! this meteor dancing through the air. 

Also see a scalloped-edge dark- colored butterfly resting on the trunk of a tree, where, both by its form and color, its wings being closed, it resembles a bit of bark, or rather a lichen. Evidently their forms and colors, especially of the under sides of their wings, are designed to conceal them when at rest with their wings closed. 

Am surprised to find the Viola Muhlenbergii quite abundant beyond the bayberry and near the wall. According to my observation this year, it now stands thus with the violets : the V. ovata is the commonest, but not abundant in one spot; the V. Muhlenbergii is most abundant in particular spots, coloring the hummocks with its small pale flowers; the V. blanda and cucullata are, equally, less abundant than the former, or rather rare; V. pedata and lanceolata rarer yet, or not seen. 

I noticed lately where middle-sized ants, half black and half sorrel, had completely removed the pine-needles from the crown of their large hills, leaving them bare like a mountain-top. 

Am struck by the beauty of the yellow birches, now fairly begun to be in bloom, at Yellow Birch, or Borychium, Swamp. It is perhaps the handsomest tree or shrub yet in bloom (apparently opened yesterday), of similar character to the alders and poplars, but larger and of higher color. You see a great tree all hung with long yellow or golden tassels at the end of its slender, drooping spray, in clusters at intervals of a few inches or a foot. These are all dangling and incessantly waving in the wind, — a great display of lively blossoms (lively both by their color and motion) without a particle of leaf. 

Yet they are dense enough to reveal the outline of the tree, seen against the bare twigs of itself and other trees. The tassels of this one in bloom are elongated to two or three times the length of those of another not in bloom by its side. These dancing tassels have the effect of the leaves of the tremble. Those not quite open have a rich, dark, speckled or braided look, almost equally handsome. Golden tassels all trembling in the gentlest breeze, the only signs of life on the trees. A careless observer might not notice them at all. 

The reawakened springy life of the swamp, the product of its golden veins. These graceful pendants, not in too heavy or dense masses, but thinly dispersed with a noble moderation. Great vegetable chandeliers they stand in the swamps. The unopened catkins, some more golden, others brown or coppery, are like living worms ready to assume a winged life. These trees, which cannot stir their stumps, thus annually assume this lively color and motion. 

I see and am bitten by little black flies, — I should say the same with those of Maine, — here on the Melvin Preserve. One eighth of an inch long. 

Brakes are five inches high. 

Poa annua (small and flat spreading in Pratt's garden), say a week. 

May 5, 2023

The sun sets red (first time), followed by a very hot and hazy day. 

The wilderness, in the eyes of our forefathers, was a vast and howling place or space, where a man might roam naked of house and most other defense, exposed to wild beasts and wilder men. They who went to war with the Indians and French were said to have been "out," and the wounded and missing who at length returned after a fight were said to have "got in," to Berwick or Saco, as the case might be. 

Veronica peregrina, Pratt's garden.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 5, 1859

Near the oak beyond Jarvis land, 

a yellow butterfly,

 — how hot! this meteor 

dancing through the air. 

See May 5, 1860 ("Yellow butterflies."). and Buson:

     Butterfly

sleeping

                 on the temple bell.

See also  May 22, 1856 (“A yellow butterfly over the middle of the flooded meadow.”); May 25, 1852 (“Yellow butterflies one at a time. The large yellow woods violet (V. pubescens) by this brook now out.”); September 19, 1859 ("One flutters across between the horse and the wagon safely enough, though it looks as if it would be run down.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Butterflies

Am surprised to find the Viola Muhlenbergii quite abundant beyond the bayberry and near the wall. See May 12, 1858 ("Find the Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out (how long?), in the meadow southwest of Farmer's Spring.”); May 18, 1857 (“Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out, how long?”); May 22, 1856 (“Viola Muhlenbergii, which is abundantly out; how long? A small pale-blue flower growing in dense bunches, but in spots a little drier than the V. cucullata and blanda”); May 29, 1856 ("What a flowery place, a vale of Enna, is that [Painted Cup] meadow! Painted Cup, Erigeron bellidifolius, Thalictrum dioicum, Viola Muhlenbergii, fringed polygala, buck-bean, pedicularis, orobanche, etc., etc. Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more rare ones”)

The yellow birches, now fairly begun to be in bloom, at Yellow Birch, or Borychium, Swamp. See May 17, 1857 ("The yellow birch catkins, now fully out or a little past prime, are very handsome now, numerous clusters of rich golden catkins hanging straight down at a height from the ground on the end of the pendulous branches, amid the just expanding leaf-buds. It is like some great chandelier hung high over the underwood.”)

The sun sets red (first time), followed by a very hot and hazy day. See May 5, 1860 ("Sun goes down red."); May 4, 1860 (“The sun sets red, shorn of its beams.”); August 25, 1854 ("The sun is shorn of his beams by the haze before 5 o'clock P.M., round and red, and is soon completely concealed, apparently by the haze alone.”)

Veronica peregrina, Pratt's garden. See May 5, 1860 ("Veronica serpyllifolia, say yesterday.."). See also See May 22, 1856 ("Veronica peregrina, apparently several days.”);May 25, 1855 ("Veronica peregrina in Mackay’s strawberries, how long? “)

Nature is confident.

October 12. 

October 12, 2018

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Most exposed button-bushes and black willows are two thirds bare, and the leaves which remain on the former are for the most part brown and shrivelled. The balls stand out bare, ruddy or brown. The coarse grass of the riverside (Phalaris ?) is bleached as white as corn. 

The Cornus sericea begins to fall, though some of it is green; and the C. florida at Island shows some scarlet tints, but it is not much exposed. I believe that this was quite showy at Perth Amboy. 

There are many maple, birch, etc., leaves on the Assabet, in stiller places along the shore, but not yet a leaf harvest. Many swamp white oaks look crisp and brown. 

I land at Pinxter Swamp. The leaves of the azaleas are falling, mostly fallen, and revealing the large blossom-buds, so prepared are they for another year. 

With man all is uncertainty. He does not confidently look forward to another spring. But examine the root of the  savory-leaved aster, and you will find the new shoots, fair purple shoots, which are to curve upward and bear the next year’s flowers, already grown half an inch or more in earth. Nature is confident. 

The river is lower than before this year, or at least since spring, yet not remarkably low, and meadows and pools generally are drier. 

The oak leaves generally are duller than usual this year. I think it must be that they are killed by frost before they are ripe. 

Some small sugar maples are still as fair as ever. You will often see one, large or small, a brilliant and almost uniform scarlet, while another close to it will be perfectly green. 

The Osmunda regalis and some of the small or middle-sized ferns, not evergreens, in and about the swamps, are generally brown and withered, though with green ones intermixed. They are still, however, interesting, with their pale brown or cinnamon-color and decaying scent. 

Hickories are for the most part being rapidly browned and crisp. 

Of the oaks, the white is apparently the most generally red at present. I see a scarlet oak still quite green.

Brakes are fallen in the pastures. They lie flat, still attached to the ground by their stems, and in sandy places they blow about these and describe distinct and perfect circles there. The now fallen dark-brown brake lies on or across the old brake, which fell last year and is quite gray but remarkably conspicuous still. They have fallen in their ranks, as they stood, and lie as it were with a winding-sheet about them. 

Young sweet-fern, where it had been burned in the spring, is quite green. 

Exposed clethra is crisp and brown. 

Some bass trees are quite bare, others but partly. 

The hop hornbeam is in color and falling like the elm. 

Acorns, red and white (especially the first), appear to be fallen or falling. They are so fair and plump and glossy that I love to handle them, and am loath to throw away what I have in my hand. 

I land at Pinxter Swamp. The leaves of the azaleas are falling, mostly fallen, and revealing the large blossom-buds, so prepared are they for another year. 

With man all is uncertainty. He does not confidently look forward to another spring. But examine the root of the savory-leaved aster, and you will find the new shoots, fair purple shoots, which are to curve upward and bear the next year's flowers, already grown half an inch or more in earth. Nature is confident. 

I see a squirrel-nest of leaves, made now before the leaves are fallen. 

I have heard of judges, accidentally met at an evening party, discussing the efficacy of the laws and courts, and deciding that, with the aid of the jury system, “substantial justice was done.” But taking those cases in which honest men refrain from going to law, together with those in which men, honest and dishonest, do go to law, I think that the law is really a “humbug,” and a benefit principally to the lawyers.

This town has made a law recently against cattle going at large, and assigned a penalty of five dollars. I am troubled by an Irish neighbor’s cow and horse, and have threatened to have them put in the pound. But a lawyer tells me that these town laws are hard to put through, there are so many quibbles. He never knew the complainant to get his case if the defendant were a-mind to contend. However, the cattle were kept out several days, till a Sunday came, and then they were all in my grounds again, as I heard, but all my neighbors tell me that I cannot have them impounded on that day. Indeed, I observe that very many of my neighbors do for this reason regularly turn their cattle loose on Sundays. 

The judges may discuss the question of the courts and law over their nuts and raisins, and mumble forth the decision that “substantial justice is done,” but I must believe they mean that they do really get paid a “substantial” salary.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 12, 1858


The large blossom-buds, so prepared are they for another year. See January 10, 1856 ("the great yellow and red forward-looking buds of the azalea")

Examine the root of the savory-leaved aster, and you will find the new shoots, fair purple shoots, which are to curve upward and bear the next year's flowers, already grown half an inch or more in earth.  See October 10, 1858 ("Pulling up some Diplopappus linariifolius, now done, I find many bright-purple shoots, a half to three quarters of an inch long, freshly put forth underground and ready to turn upward and form new plants in the spring.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Savory-leaved aster

Some bass trees are quite bare. See October 4, 1858 ("The bass is in the prime of its change, a mass of yellow."); October 9, 1853 ("The birch is yellow; the black willow brown; the elms sere, brown, and thin; the bass bare.");    October 13, 1855 ("The maples now stand like smoke along the meadows. The bass is bare"); October 18, 1857 ("The bass and the black ash are completely bare; how long?"); October 19, 1856 ("The bass has lost, apparently, more than half its leaves.")October 22, 1854 ("Bass trees are bare.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

OCTOBER 12, 2018

The smooth sumach’s lower leaves are bright-scarlet on dry hills.

August 31. 

P. M. — To Flint’s Pond. 

A hot afternoon. We have had but few warmer. 

wood aster
August 31, 2018

I hear and see but few bobolinks or blackbirds for several days past. The former, at least, must be withdrawing. I have not heard a seringo of late, but I see to-day one golden robin. 

The birches have lately lost a great many of their lower leaves, which now cover and yellow the ground. Also some chestnut leaves have fallen. Many brakes inthe woods are perfectly withered. 

At the Pout’s Nest, Walden, I find the Scirpus debilis, apparently in prime, generally aslant; also the Cyperus dentatus, with some spikes changed into leafy tufts; also here less advanced what I have called Juncus acuminatus. 

Ludwigia alternifolia still. Sericocarpus about done. 

High blackberries are abundant in Britton’s field. At a little distance you would not suspect that there were any, — even vines, — for the racemes are bent down out of sight, amid the dense sweet-ferns and sumachs, etc. The berries still not more than half black or ripe, keeping fresh in the shade. Those in the sun are a little wilted and insipid. 

The smooth sumach’s lower leaves are bright-scarlet on dry hills. 

Lobelia Dortmanna is not quite done. 

Some ground-nuts are washed out. 

The Flint’s Pond rush appears to be Cladium mariscoides, twig rush, or, in Bigelow, water bog rush, a good while out of bloom; style three-cleft. It is about three feet high. This, with Eleocharis palustris, which is nearest the shore, forms the dense rushy border of the pond. It extends along the whole of this end, at least about four rods wide, and almost every one of the now dry and brown flower-heads has a cobweb on it. I perceive that the slender semicircular branchlets so fit to the grooved or flattened culm as still, when pressed against it, to make it cylindrical! —very neatly. 

The monotropa is still pushing up. Red choke-berry, apparently not long. 

At Goose Pond I scare up a small green bittern. It plods along low, a few feet over the surface, with limping flight, and alights on a slender water-killed stump, and voids its excrement just as it starts again, as if to lighten itself. 

Edward Bartlett brings me a nest found three feet from the ground in an arbor-vitae, in the New Burying Ground, with one long-since addled egg in it. It is a very thick, substantial nest, five or six inches in diameter and rather deep; outwardly of much coarse stubble with its fine root-fibres attached, loose and dropping off, around a thin casing of withered leaves; then finer stubble within, and a lining of fine grass stems and horse hair. 

The nest is most like that found on Cardinal Shore with an addled pale-bluish egg, which I thought a wood thrush’s at first, except that that has no casing of leaves. It is somewhat like a very large purple finch’s nest, or perchance some red-wing’s with a hair lining. 

The egg is three quarters of an inch long, rather broad at one end (or for length), greenish-white with brown dashes or spots, becoming a large conspicuous purple-brown blotch at the large end; almost exactly like — but a little greener (or bluer) and a little smaller — the egg found on the ground in R. W. E.’s garden. 

Do the nest and egg belong together? Was not the egg dropped by a bird of passage in another’s nest? Can it be an indigo-bird’s nest? I take it to be too large.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 31, 1858

The birches have lately lost a great many of their lower leaves, which now cover and yellow the ground.  See August 13, 1854 (“At Thrush Alley, I am surprised to behold how many birch leaves have turned yellow, — every other one, — while clear, fresh, leather-colored ones strew the ground with a pretty thick bed under each tree.”); August 31, 1856 (“The birches on Wheeler's meadow have begun to yellow, apparently owing to the [high] water.”)

High blackberries are abundant in Britton’s field. At a little distance you would not suspect that there were any. See note to August 31, 1857 (“An abundance of fine high blackberries behind Britton's old camp on the Lincoln road, now in their prime there, which have been overlooked.”)

Some ground-nuts are washed out. See August 31, 1857  (“Am surprised to see on the bottom and washing up on to the shore many little farinaceous roots or tubers like very small potatoes, in strings. . . . I never saw so many ground-nuts before.”)

A small green bittern plods along low, a few feet over the surface, with limping flight.  See  May 16, 1855  ("A green bittern with its dark-green coat and crest, sitting watchful, goes off with a limping peetweet flight.”); August 2, 1856 ("A green bittern comes, noiselessly flapping, with stealthy and inquisitive looking to this side the stream and then that, thirty feet above the water.") and note to July 30, 1856 ("A green bittern. . .with heavy flapping flight, its legs dangling")

They use this wood for coffins.

May 12. 

May 12, 2018

Chimney swallows. 

P. M. – Up Assabet. - 

On the 8th I noticed a little pickerel recently dead in the river with a slit in its upper lip three quarters of an inch long, apparently where a hook had pulled out. There was a white fuzzy swelling at the end of the snout accordingly, and this apparently had killed it. 

It rained last night, and now I see the elm seed or samarae generally fallen or falling. It not only strews the street but the surface of the river, floating off in green patches to plant other shores. The rain evidently hastened its fall. 

This must be the earliest of trees and shrubs to go to seed or drop its seed. The white maple keys have not fallen. The elm seed floats off down the stream and over the meadows, and thus these trees are found bordering on the stream. 

By the way, I notice that birches near meadows, where there is an exceedingly gentle inclination, grow in more or less parallel lines a foot or two apart, parallel with the shore, apparently the seed having been dropped there either by a freshet or else lodged in the parallel waving hollows of the snow. 

It clears off in the forenoon and promises to be warm in the afternoon, though it at last becomes cool. 

I see now, as I go forth on the river, the first summer shower coming up in the northwest, a dark and well defined cloud with rain falling sheaf-like from it, but fortunately moving off northeast along the horizon, or down the river. The peculiarity seems to be that the sky is not generally overcast, but elsewhere, south and northeast, is a fair-weather sky with only innocent cumuli, etc., in it. 

The thunder-cloud is like the ovary of a perfect flower. Other showers are merely staminiferous or barren. There are twenty barren to one fertile. It is not commonly till thus late in the season that the fertile are seen. In the thunder-cloud, so distinct and condensed, there is a positive energy, and I notice the first as the bursting of the pollen-cells in the flower of the sky. 

Waded through the west-of-rock, or Wheeler, meadow," but I find no frog-spawn there!! I do not even notice tadpoles. Beside that those places are now half full of grass, some pools where was spawn are about dried up (!), as that in Stow's land by railroad. Where are the tadpoles? 

There is much less water there than a month ago. Where, then, do the Rana palustris lay their spawn? I think in the river, because it is there I hear them, but I cannot see any. Perhaps they choose pretty deep water, now it is so warm. 

Now and for a week I have noticed a few pads with wrinkled edges blown up by the wind. 

Already the coarse grass along the meadow shore, or where it is wettest, is a luxuriant green, answering in its deep, dark color to the thunder-cloud, – both summer phenomena, – as if it too had some lightning in its bosom. 

Some early brakes at the Island woods are a foot high and already spread three or four inches. 

The Polygonatum pubescens is strongly budded. 

The Salix lucida above Assabet Spring will not open for several days. 

The early form of the cinquefoil is now apparently in prime and very pretty, spotting the banks with its clear bright yellow. 

See apparently young toad tadpoles now, -- judging from their blackness, -- now quite free from the eggs or spawn. If I remember rightly, the toad is colored and spotted more like a frog at this season when it is found in the water. 

Observed an Emys insculpta, as often before, with the rear edge on one side of its shell broken off for a couple of inches, as if nibbled by some animal. Do not foxes or musquash do this? In this case the under jaw was quite nervy. 

Found a large water adder by the edge of Farmer’s large mud-hole, which abounds with tadpoles and frogs, on which probably it was feeding. It was sunning on the bank and would face me and dart its head toward me when I tried to drive it from the water. It is barred above, but indistinctly when out of water, so that it then appears almost uniformly dark-brown, but in the water broad reddish-brown bars are seen, very distinctly alternating with very dark brown ones. 

The head was very flat and suddenly broader than the neck behind. Beneath it was whitish and red dish flesh-color.  It was about two inches in diameter at the thickest part. They are the biggest and most formidable-looking snakes that we have. The inside of its mouth and throat was pink. It was awful to see it wind along the bottom of the ditch at last, raising wreaths of mud, amid the tadpoles, to which it must be a very sea-serpent. 

I afterward saw another running under Sam Barrett’s grist-mill the same after noon. He said that he saw a water snake, which he distinguished from a black snake, in an apple tree near by, last year, with a young robin in its mouth, having taken it from the nest. There was a cleft or fork in the tree which enabled it to ascend. 

Find the Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out (how long?), in the meadow southwest of Farmer's Spring. 

The cinnamon and interrupted ferns are both about two feet high in some places. The first is more uniformly woolly down the stem, the other, though very woolly at top, being partly bare on the stem. The wool of the last is coarser. 

George, the carpenter, says that he used to see a great many stone-heaps in the Saco in Bartlett, near the White Mountains, like those in the Assabet, and that there were no lampreys there and they called them “snake-heaps.” 

Saw some unusually broad chestnut planks, just sawed, at the mill. Barrett said that they came from Lincoln; whereupon I said that I guessed I knew where they came from, judging by their size alone, and it turned out that I was right. I had often gathered the nuts of those very trees and had observed within a year that they were cut down. 

So it appears that we have come to this, that if I see any peculiarly large chestnuts at the sawmill, I can guess where they came from, even know them in the log. These planks were quite shaky, and the heart had fallen out of one. Barrett said that it was apt to be the case with large chestnut. 

They use this wood for coffins, instead of black walnut.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 12, 1858

George, the carpenter, says that he used to see a great many stone-heaps in the Saco and that there were no lampreys there and they called them “snake-heaps.” See May 8, 1858 ("Mr. Wright , an old fisherman, thinks the stone-heaps are not made by lamprey. May 4, 1858 ("I asked [a fisherman] if he knew what fish made the stone-heaps in the river. He said the lamprey eel.”)

Find the Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out (how long?), in the meadow southwest of Farmer's Spring. See May 22, 1856 ("Viola Muhlenbergii is abundantly out; how long?"); May 16, 1857 ("Viola Muhlenbergii abundantly out, how long?”)

The tree has its idea to be lived up to,

September 25. 

September 25, 2017

Friday. P. M. – To tupelo on Daniel B. Clark’s land.

Stopping in my boat under the Hemlocks, I hear singular bird-like chirruping from two red squirrels. One sits high on a hemlock bough with a nut in its paws. A squirrel seems always to have a nut at hand ready to twirl in its paws. Suddenly he dodges behind the trunk of the tree, and I hear some birds in the maples across the river utter a peculiar note of alarm of the same character with the hen’s (I think they were robins), and see them seeking a covert. Looking round, I see a marsh hawk beating the bushes on that side. 

You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank. 

Pushing by Carter’s pasture, I see, deep under water covered by the rise of the river, the cooper’s poles a-soak, held down by planks and stones. 

Fasten to the white maple and go inland. Wherever you may land, it would be strange if there were not some alder clump at hand to hide your oars in till your return. 

The red maple has fairly begun to blush in some places by the river. I see one, by the canal behind Barrett’s mill, all aglow against the sun. These first trees that change are most interesting, since they are seen against others still freshly green, — such brilliant red on green. I go half a mile out of my way to examine such a red banner. A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar. 

At the eleventh hour of the year, some tree which has stood mute and inglorious in some distant vale thus proclaims its character as effectually as it stood by the highway-side, and it leads our thoughts away from the dusty road into those brave solitudes which it inhabits. The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence. I am thrilled at the sight of it, bearing aloft its scarlet standard for its regiment of green-clad foresters around. The forest is the more spirited.

I remember that brakes had begun to decay as much as six weeks ago. 

Dogwood (Rhus venenata) is yet but pale-scarlet or yellowish. The R. glabra is more generally turned. 

Stopped at Barrett's mill. He had a buttonwood log to saw. 

In an old grist-mill the festoons of cobwebs revealed by the white dust on them are an ornament. Looking over the shoulder of the miller, I drew his attention to a mouse running up a brace. 

“Oh, yes,” said he, “we have plenty of them. Many are brought to the mill in barrels of corn, and when the barrel is placed on the platform of the hopper they scamper away.” 

As I came round the island, I took notice of that little ash tree on the opposite shore. It has been cut or broken off about two feet from the ground, and seven small branches have shot up from its circumference, all together forming a perfectly regular oval head about twenty-five feet high and very beautiful. With what harmony they work and carry out the idea of the tree, one twig not straying farther on this side than its fellow on that! 

That the tree thus has its idea to be lived up to, and, as it were, fills an invisible mould in the air, is the more evident, because if you should cut away one or all but one, the remaining branch or branches would still in time form a head in the main similar to this. 

Brought home my first boat-load of wood.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1857

You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank. See September 6, 1857 ("Soapwort gentian, out not long"); September 8, 1852 ("Gentiana saponaria out."); September 19, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises, -- solid bulbs of blue from the shade, the stale grown purplish. It abounds along the river, after so much has been mown"); September 22, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now.");  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Soapwort Gentian

A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar. See September 26, 1854 ("Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off. "); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water.")

Brought home my first boat-load of wood. See September 26, 1855 (Go up Assabet for fuel"); September 24, 1855 ("Brought home quite a boat-load of fuel . . . It would be a triumph to get all my winter’s wood thus")

With what harmony they work and carry out the idea of the tree,. . . has its idea to be lived up to, and, as it were, fills an invisible mould in the air. Compare February 12, 1859 ("You may account for that ash by the Rock having such a balanced and regular outline by the fact that in an open place their branches are equally drawn toward the light on all sides, and not because of a mutual understanding through the trunk.")

Idea of the tree.

Invisible mold in the 

air lived by each tree.

Late flowers, berries and changing leaves

October 2. 

P. M. — To Cliffs via Hubbard's meadow. 

Succory still, with its cool blue, here and there, and Hieracium Canadense still quite fresh, with its very pretty broad strap-shaped rays, broadest at the end, alternately long and short, with five very regular sharp teeth in the end of each. 

The scarlet leaves and stem of the rhexia, some time out of flower, makes almost as bright a patch in the meadow now as the flowers did, with its bristly leaves. Its seed-vessels are perfect little cream-pitchers of graceful form. 

The mountain sumach now a dark scarlet quite generally. 

The prinos berries are in their prime, seven sixteenths of an inch in diameter. They are scarlet, some what lighter than the arum berries. They are now very fresh and bright, and what adds to their effect is the perfect freshness and greenness of the leaves amid which they are seen. 

Gerardia purpurea still. 

Brakes in Hubbard's Swamp Wood are withered, quite dry. 

Solidago speciosa completely out, though not a flower was out September 27th, or five days ago; say three or four days. 

The river is still higher, owing to the rain of September 30th, partly covering the meadows; yet they are endeavoring to rake cranberries. After all, I perceive that in some places the greatest injury done by the water to these berries has probably been that it prevented their ripening, but generally it has been by softening them. They carry them home, spread, and dry them, and pick out the spoilt ones. One gets only fifty bushels where he would have had two hundred. 

Eupatorium purpureum is generally done. 

Now and then I see a Hypericum Canadense flower still. The leaves, etc., of this and the angulosum are turned crimson. 

I am amused to see four little Irish boys only five or six years old getting a horse in a pasture, for their father apparently, who is at work in a neighboring field. They have all in a row got hold of a very long halter and are leading him. All wish to have a hand in it. It is surprising that he obeys such small specimens of humanity, but he seems to be very docile, a real family horse. At length, by dint of pulling and shouting, they get him into a run down a hill, and though he moves very deliberately, scarcely faster than a walk, all but the one at the end of the line soon cut and run to right and left, without having looked be hind, expecting him to be upon them. They haul up at last at the bars, which are down, and then the family puppy, a brown pointer, about two-thirds grown, comes bounding to join them and assist. He is as youthful and about as knowing as any of them. The horse marches gravely behind, obeying the faint tug at the halter, or honestly stands still from time to time, as if not aware that they are pulling at all, though they are all together straining every nerve to start him. It is interesting to behold this faithful beast, the oldest and wisest of the company, thus implicitly obeying the lead of the youngest and weakest.

The second lechea radical shoots are one inch long. 

Solidago bicolor considerably past prime. Corydalis still fresh. 

Saw apparently two phoebes on the tops of the dry mulleins. Why so rarely seen for so many months?

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

The mountain sumach now a dark scarlet quite generally. See October 2, 1853 (“The smooth sumach is but a dull red.”)

The prinos berries are in their prime . . . See September 23, 1854 ("Very brilliant and remarkable now are the prinos berries, so brilliant and fresh when most things -- flowers and berries -- have withered.”);  September 28, 1851 ("The swamp is bordered with the red-berried alder, or prinos,")  

Prinos: Ilex verticillata (Prinos verticillatus) Black Alder. Winterberry. Feverbush.
Common winterberry is a shrub usually from 6 to 8 feet high (sometimes much higher) with grayish bark and smooth twigs. The leaves are from 2 to 3 inches long and about an inch wide. They are usually rather thick and sharply toothed. In autumn the leaves turn black. The flowers which appear from May to July, are small and white, the male clusters consisting of 2 to 10 flowers and the female clusters of only 1 to 3. The bright-red, shining fruits about the size of a pea and each containing about six seeds, are clustered around the stem. Branches and twigs of this plant with their bright-red berries are a familiar sight during the Christmas season when they are much used for decorative purposes.

Solidago bicolor considerably past prime. See August 12, 1852 ("Solidago bicolor, white goldenrod, apparently in good season>")

Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze.

August 13.

First marked dog-day; sultry and with misty clouds. 

For ten days or so we have had comparatively cool, fall-like weather. I remember only with a pang the past spring and summer thus far. 

I have not been an early riser. Society seems to have invaded and overrun me. I have drank tea and coffee and made myself cheap and vulgar. My days have been all noontides, without sacred mornings and evenings. I desire to rise early henceforth, to associate with those whose influence is elevating, to have such dreams and waking thoughts that my diet may not be indifferent to me. 

P. M. — To Bare Hill, Lincoln, via railroad. 

This is a quite hot day again, after cooler weather. 

I see where the pasture thistles have apparently been picked to pieces (for their seeds? by the goldfinch?), and the seedless down strews the ground. 

Huckleberries begin to be wormy, but are still sound on Bare Hill. 

August 13, 2023

Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze, and the view is of dark ridges of forest, one behind the other, separated by misty valleys. 

Squirrels have begun to eat hazelnuts, and I see their dry husks on the ground turned reddish-brown. 

The change, decay, and fall of the brakes in woods, etc., is perhaps more autumnal than any sight. Some are quite brown and shrivelled, others yellow, others yellow and brown, others yellow, brown, and green, making a very rich and parti-colored or checkered work, as of plaited straw, — bead or straw work or ivory; others are still green with brown spots. 

At Thrush Alley, I am surprised to behold how many birch leaves have turned yellow, — every other one, — while clear, fresh, leather-colored ones strew the ground with a pretty thick bed under each tree. So far as the birches go it is a perfect autumnal scene here.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 13, 1854

Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze. See August 14, 1852 (There is such a haze that I cannot see the mountains.); August 12, 1856 (“It is thick, smoky, dog-day weather again.”)

I remember only with a pang. See July 19, 1851 ("Yesterday it was spring, and to-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then? ");  December 1, 1852 ("The year looks back toward summer, and a summer smile is reflected in her face."); January 12, 1855 ("Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

I see where the pasture thistles have apparently been picked to pieces (for their seeds? by the goldfinch?) See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch

Squirrels have begun to eat hazelnuts, and I see their dry husks on the ground. See August 21, 1854 ("Now, say, is hazelnut time.");  August 29, 1858 ("The bushes have been completely stripped by squirrels already and the rich brown burs are strewn on the ground beneath . . .Take warning from the squirrel, which is already laying up his winter store.")

The change, decay, and fall of the brakes in woods, etc., is perhaps more autumnal than any sight. See August 23, 1859 ("The scarlet lower leaves of the choke-berry and some brakes are the handsomest autumnal tints which I see to-day")

Birch leaves have turned yellow, — every other one, — while clear, fresh, leather-colored ones strew the ground. See August 31, 1858 ("The birches have lately lost a great many of their lower leaves, which now cover and yellow the ground.")

August 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 13.

Cool fall-like weather –

with a pang I remember

spring and summer past.

First marked dog-day

 sultry and with misty clouds –

mountains now concealed.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, with a pang I remember

spring and summer past.

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540813