I hear one cricket this louring day.

November 5. 

November 5, 2018

Humphrey Buttrick says that he finds old and young of both kinds of small rails, and that they breed here, though he never saw their nests. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

The river has risen somewhat, on account of rain yesterday and the 30th. So it was lowest the 30th. That great fleet of leaves of the 21st October is now sunk to the bottom, near the shore, and are flatted out there, paving it thickly, and but few recently fallen are to be seen on the water; and in the woods the leaves do not lie up so crisp since the rain.

Saw Stewart shoot a Carolina rail, which was standing on the side of a musquash-cabin off Prichard’s, within two rods of him. This has no black throat and is probably the female. 

The large shallow cups of the red oak acorns look like some buttons I have seen which had lost their core. 

The Cornus florida on the Island is still full-leafed, and is now completely scarlet, though it was partly green on the 28th. It is apparently in the height of its color there now, or, if more exposed, perhaps it would have been on the 1st of November. This makes it the latest tree to change. The leaves are drooping, like the C. sericea, while those of some sprouts at its base are horizontal. Some incline to crimson. 

A few white maples are not yet bare, but thinly clothed with dull-yellow leaves which still have life in them. Judging from the two aspens, this tree, and the willows, one would say that the earliest trees to leaf were, perhaps, the last to lose their leaves. 

Little dippers were seen yesterday. 

The few remaining topmost leaves of the Salix sericea, which were the last to change, are now yellow like those of the birch. 

Water milkweed has been discounting some days, with its small upright pods. 

I hear one cricket this louring day. Since but one is heard, it is the more distinct and therefore seems louder and more musical. It is a clearer note, less creaking than before. 

A few Populus grandidentata leaves are still left on. 

The common smooth rose leaves are pretty conspicuously yellow yet along the river, and some dull-reddish high blackberry is seen by the roads. Also meadow sweet is observed yet with the rose. 

It is quite still; no wind, no insect hum, and no note of birds, but one hairy woodpecker. 

That lake grass, Glyceria fluitans, is, me thinks, more noticeable now than in summer on the surface of the fuller stream, green and purple. 

Meadow-sweet is a prominent yellow yet.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1858


Humphrey Buttrick says that he finds old and young of both kinds of small rails, and that they breed here, though he never saw their nests 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 9, 1858 ("Rice says he saw two meadow-hens when getting his hay in Sudbury some two months ago, and that they breed there. They kept up a peculiar note. My egg (named Sept. 7th) was undoubtedly a meadow-hen’s Rallus Virginiana."); September 18, 1858 ("Peabody says that they are seen here only in the autumn on their return from the north, though Brewer thinks their nest may be found here."); October 3, 1858 ("One brings me this morning a Carolina rail alive, this year’s bird evidently from its marks. . . . I suspect it may have been hatched here.");October 22, 1858 ("C. tells of hearing after dark the other night frequent raucous notes which were new to him, on the ammannia meadow, in the grass. Were they not meadow-hens? Rice says he saw one within a week."); June 1, 1859 ("Some boys found yesterday, in tussock of sedge amid some flags in a wet place in Cyrus Hosmer's meadow, west of the willow-row, six inches above the water, the nest evidently of a rail, with seven eggs."); July 16, 1860 ("Standing amid the pipes of the Great Meadow, I hear a very sharp creaking peep, no doubt from a rail quite near me, calling to or directing her young, who are meanwhile uttering a very faint, somewhat similar peep")


The Cornus florida on the Island is still full-leafed, and is now completely scarlet, though it was partly green on the 28th. See October 28, 1858 (“The dogwood on the island is perhaps in its prime, — a distinct scarlet, with half of the leaves green in this case. Apparently none have fallen.”)

A few white maples are not yet bare, but thinly clothed with dull-yellow leaves which still have life in them. See October 28, 1858 (“The majority of the white maples are bare, but others are still thickly leaved the leaves being a greenish yellow. It appears, then, that they hold their leaves longer than our other maples, or most trees.”) and note to October 14, 1858 ("The white maples are now apparently in their autumnal dress”)

The few remaining topmost leaves of the Salix sericea, which were the last to change, are now yellow like those of the birch. See November 5, 1855 (“The distant willow-tops are yellowish . . . in the right light. . . ..[B]irches, clear yellow at top”)

I hear one cricket this louring day. Since but one is heard, it is the more distinct and therefore seems louder and more musical. It is a clearer note. See November 1, 1858 ("I hear in the fields just before sundown a shriller chirping of a few crickets, reminding me that their song is getting thin and will soon be quenched"); November 3, 1858 ("Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. They then sounded peculiarly distinct, being but few here and there on a dry and warm hill, bird-like. Yet these seemed to be singing a little louder and in a little loftier strain, now that the chirp of the cricket generally was quenched.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November

That lake grass, Glyceria fluitans.  See September 3, 1858 (“That floating grass by the riverside whose lower leaves, so flat and linear, float on the surface of the water.”)

November 5. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 5

I hear one cricket 

more distinct this louring day  – 

and more musical. 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I hear one cricket this louring day. 

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/hdt05nov1858

At base of Annursnack I find one or two fringed gentians yet open.

November 3

November 3, 2014

Colder weather, true November weather, comes again to-night, and I must rekindle my fire, which I had done without of late. I must walk briskly in order to keep warm in my thin coat. 

P. M. — To Annursnack.

I am inclined to think that pignuts fall earlier than mocker-nuts, i. e. the leaves, and that the first are now about fallen (?). Those on Nawshawtuct are bare, but I see a great many hickories of some kind not nearly bare. 

Monroe’s arbor-vitae hedge has fallen. Put it with the white pine. 

The jay is the bird of October. I have seen it repeatedly flitting amid the bright leaves, of a different color from them all and equally bright, and taking its flight from grove to grove. It, too, with its bright color, stands for some ripeness in the bird harvest. And its scream! it is as if it blowed on the edge of an October leaf. It is never more in its element and at home than when flitting amid these brilliant colors. No doubt it delights in bright color, and so has begged for itself a brilliant coat. It is not gathering seeds from the sod, too busy to look around, while fleeing the country. It is wide awake to what is going on, on the qui vive. It flies to some bright tree and bruits its splendors abroad. 

By fall I mean literally the falling of the leaves, though some mean by it the changing or the acquisition of a brighter color. This I call the autumnal tint, the ripening to the fall. 

The only white birch leaves now seen are those lingering green terminal leaves of the 23d, now at last turned yellow, for they are now burnt upward to the last spark and glimmering. Methinks the birch ripens its leaves very perfectly though gradually. 

I should say that that tree which ripened its leaves well, like this, was better suited to the climate than one like the locust and most apples, —which was mostly killed by frost first annually. Perhaps this tells at last on the constitution of the tree, and that variety would be safest to cultivate which matured its leaves best. 

The pitch pine fallen and falling leaves now and for some time have not been bright or yellow, but brown. 

At base of Annursnack I find one or two fringed gentians yet open, but even the stems are generally killed. 

I notice that the cows lately admitted to the meadows and orchards have browsed the grass, etc., closely, on that strip between the dry hillside and the wet meadow, where it is undoubtedly sweetest and freshest yet, and where it chances that this late flower the gentian grows. There, too, grows the herbage which is now the most grateful to the cattle. 

Also Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom; yarrow, etc., etc. Much Lycopodium complanatum not open yet. 

Returning, I see at the very northwest end of the White Cedar Swamp a little elder, still quite leafy and green, near the path on the edge of the swamp. Its leafets are commonly nine, and the lower two or more are commonly divided. This seemed peculiarly downy beneath, even “sub-pubescent,” as Bigelow describes the Sambucus pubens to be. Compare it with the common. 

Also by it is Viburnum nudum, still quite fresh and green, the slender shoots from starting plants very erect and straight. 

The lower leaves of the water andromeda are now red, and the lambkill leaves are drooping (is it more than before?) and purplish from the effect of frost in low swamps like this. 

Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. They then sounded peculiarly distinct, being but few here and there on a dry and warm hill, bird-like. Yet these seemed to be singing a little louder and in a little loftier strain, now that the chirp of the cricket generally was quenched. 

November 3, 2024

How long we will follow an illusion! On meeting that one whom I call my friend, I find that I had imagined something that was not there. I am sure to depart sadder than I came. Nothing makes me so dejected as to have met my friends, for they make me doubt if it is possible to have any friends. I feel what a fool I am. I cannot conceive of persons more strange to me than they actually are; not thinking, not believing, not doing as I do; interrupted by me. My only distinction must be that I am the greatest bore they ever had. Not me single thought agreed; regularly balking one another. But when I get far away, my thoughts return to them. That is the way I can visit them. Perhaps it is unaccountable to me why I care for them. Thus I am taught that my friend is not an actual person. When I have withdrawn and am alone, I forget the actual person and remember only my ideal. Then I have a friend again. 

I am not so ready to perceive the illusion that is in Nature. I certainly come nearer, to say the least, to an actual and joyful intercourse with her. Every day I have more or less communion with her, as I think. At least, I do not feel as if I must withdraw out of nature. I feel like a welcome guest. Yet, strictly speaking, the same must be true of nature and of man; our ideal is the only real. It is not the finite and temporal that satisfies or concerns us in either case.

I associate the idea of friendship, methinks, with the person the most foreign to me. This illusion is perpetuated, like superstition in a country long after civilization has been attained to. We are attracted toward a particular person, but no one has discovered the laws of this attraction. When I come nearest to that other actually, I am wont to be surprised at my selection. It may be enough that we have met some time, and now can never forget it. Some time or other we paid each other  this wonderful compliment, looked largely, humanly, divinely on one another, and now are fated to be acquaintances forever. 

In the case of nature I am not so conscious of this unsatisfied yearning.

Some oak woods begin to look bare, and even smoky, after their fashion. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 3, 1858


By fall I mean literally the falling of the leaves. See November 11, 1851 (The fall of the year is over.")

Though I listen for them, I do not hear a cricket this afternoon. I think that I heard a few in the afternoon of November 1st. See November 8, 1853 ("Perchance I heard the last cricket of the season yesterday. They chirp here and there at longer and longer intervals, till the snow quenches their song."); Seee also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in November

At base of Annursnack I find one or two fringed gentians yet open, but even the stems are generally killed. See October 10, 1858 ("To Annursnack  . . . I find the fringed gentian abundantly open at 3 and at 4 P. M., — in fact, it must be all the afternoon, — open to catch the cool October sun and air in its low position. Such a dark blue! surpassing that of the male bluebird’s back, who must be encouraged by its presence."); October 12, 1857 ("To Annursnack . . . The fringed gentian by the brook opposite is in its prime.");  November 4, 1853 (“To Hubbard's Close. I find no traces of the fringed gentian here, so that in low meadows I suspect it does not last very late”); November 30, 1856 (“Minot Pratt tells me that he watched the fringed gentian this year, and it lasted till the first week in November..”) See allso A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The Fringed Gentian

Alone, I forget 

the real person – remember 

only my ideal.

New lieferungs of the fall.

August 4

August 4, 2018

To Walden by poorhouse road. 

Have had a gentle rain, and now with a lowering sky, but still I hear the cricket. He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn, new lieferungs of the fall. 

The singular thought-inducing stillness after a gentle rain like this. It has allayed all excitement. 

I hear the singular watery twitter of the goldfinch, ter tweeter e et or e ee, as it ricochets over, he and his russet ( ?) female. 

The chirp of the constant chip-bird and the plaintive strain of the lark, also. 

I must make a list of those birds which, like the lark and the robin, if they do not stay all the year, are heard to sing longest of those that migrate. 

The bobolink and thrasher, etc., are silent. 

English-haying is long since done, only meadow-haying going on now. 

I smell the fragrant life-everlasting, now almost out; another scent that reminds me of the autumn. 

The little bees have gone to sleep amid the clethra blossoms in the rain and are not yet aroused. 

What is that weed somewhat like wormwood and amaranth on the ditch by roadside here? 

What the vine now budded like clematis in the wall? 

Most huckleberries and blueberries and low blackberries are in their prime now. 

A pleasant time to behold a small lake in the woods is in the intervals of a gentle rain-storm at this season, when the air and water are perfectly still, but the sky still overcast; first, because the lake is very smooth at such a time, second, as the atmosphere is so shallow and contracted, being low-roofed with clouds, the lake as a lower heaven is much larger in proportion to it. With its glassy reflecting surface, it is somewhat more heavenly and more full of light than the regions of the air above it. 

There is a pleasing vista southward over and through a wide indentation in the hills which form its shore, where their opposite sides slope to each other so as to suggest a stream flowing from it in that direction through a wooded valley, toward some distant blue hills in Sudbury and Framingham, Goodman's and Nobscot; that is, you look over and between the low near and green hills to the distant, which are tinged with blue, the heavenly color. 

Such is what is fair to mortal eyes. In the meanwhile the wood thrush sings in the woods around the lake.

Pycnanthemum lanceolatum, probably as early as the other variety, Hypericum corymbosum. Spotted St. John's-wort, some time in July. 

History has not been so truthfully or livingly, convincingly, written but that we still need the evidence, the oral testimony of an eye-witness. Hence I am singularly surprised when I read of the celebrated Henry Jenkins (who lived to be some one hundred and sixty nine years old), who used to preface his conversation in this wise, "About a hundred and thirty years ago, when I was butler to Lord Conyers," etc. I am surprised to find that I needed this testimony to be convinced of the reality of Lord Conyers's existence.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 4, 1852

Hear the cricket. He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn, new lieferungs of the fall. See August 4, 1851 ("I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn.”); August 4, 1856 ("Have heard the alder cricket some days. The turning-point is reached.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

I smell the fragrant life-everlasting, now almost out; another scent that reminds me of the autumn.See August 4, 1851 (“ I scent the sweet-scented life-everlasting, which is half expanded.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Aromatic Herbs

The singular thought-inducing stillness after a gentle rain like this. See August 7, 1853 (“When I came forth it was cloudy and from time to time drizzling weather, . . .  soothing and inducing reflection. The river is dark and smooth these days, reflecting no brightness but dark clouds, and the goldfinch is heard twittering over; though presently a thicker mist or mizzle falls, and you are prepared for rain. The river and brooks look late and cool. The stillness and the shade enable you to collect and concentrate your thoughts.”)

A small lake in the woods. See Walden (“This small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals of a gentle rain storm in August, when, both air and water being perfectly still, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had all the serenity of evening, and the wood-thrush sang around, and was heard from shore to shore. A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the clear portion of the air above it being shallow and darkened by clouds, the water, full of light and reflections, becomes a lower heaven itself so much the more important. From a hill top near by, where the wood had recently been cut off, there was a pleasing vista southward across the pond, through a wide indentation in the hills which form the shore there, where their opposite sides sloping toward each other suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley, but stream there was none. That way I looked between and over the near green hills to some distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue.”) [a view from Heywood's Peak? ~ see walden pond a history p. 109]

As early as Hypericum corymbosum. Spotted St. John's-wort. See .July 9, 1854 ("Hypericum corymbosum, not yet ");July 11, 1854 ("Hypericum corymbosum in front of Lee's Cliff, a day or two"); July 21, 1856 ("Hypericum corymbosum, a day or two. The small hypericums are open only in the forenoon. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

August 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  August 4 

Most huckleberries

 blueberries and  blackberries 

are in their prime now.

Small lake in the woods

full of light and reflections

as the wood thrush sings.

 A gentle rain and 

a lowering sky, but still 

I hear the cricket.

The little bees sleep

amid clethra in the rain

yet are not aroused.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, New lieferungs of the fall.

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 © 2009-2025

Anticipation of Fall

August 6

To Tarbell Hills by boat. 

Rather cool with a strong wind, before which we glide. 

The rippled surface of the water and the light under sides of the white maples in rounded masses bordering the stream, and also the silvery tops of the swamp white oaks, give a pleasing breezy aspect to the shores. 

The sun is quite hot to-day, but the wind is cool and I question if my thin coat will be sufficient. Methinks that after this date there is commonly a vein of coolness in the wind. 

The Great Meadows are for the most part shorn. 

Small light-green sensitive ferns are springing up full of light on the bank. 

I see some smaller white maples turned a dull red, — crimsonish, — a slight blush on them. 

Grape-vines, are methinks more conspicuous now at a distance along the edge of the meadow, where they round and mass the trees and bushes, here and there marked with the white, downy under sides of the leaves. 

The wind is very unsteady and flirts our sail about to this side and that. We prefer to sail to-day (Sunday) because there are no haymakers in the meadow.

Land at Tarbell's Hills.  

August 6, 2017

It is at length cloudy, and still behind the hills, and very grateful is this anticipation of the fall, — coolness and cloud, and the crickets steadily chirping in mid-afternoon. 

As I look westward up the stream, the oak, etc., on Ponkawtasset are of a very dark green, almost black, which, methinks, they have worn only since midsummer. 

We row back with two big stones in the stern. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 6, 1854

Methinks that after this date there is commonly a vein of coolness in the wind. See August 7, 1854 ("It is the glistening autumnal side of summer. I feel a cool vein in the breeze, which braces my thought.")

The Great Meadows are for the most part shorn. See August 5, 1854 ("A platoon of haymakers has just attacked the meadow-grass . . . We are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season.") See also 
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

Small light-green sensitive ferns are springing up full of light on the bank. See August 19, 1854 ("The very light yellowish-green of the sensitive fern which the mowers have left."); September 6, 1856 ("The sensitiveness of the sensitive fern. If you take a tender plant by the stem, the warmth of your hand will cause the leaves to curl.")

This anticipation of the fall, — coolness and cloud, and the crickets steadily chirping in mid-afternoon. See August 6, 1852 ("Has not the year grown old ? . . . It is the signs of the fall that affect us most."); August 6, 1855 ("Hear the autumnal crickets."); July 28, 1854 ("Last evening it was much cooler, and I heard a decided fall sound of crickets."); July 30 1852 (After midsummer we . . . are forward to see in each sight and hear in each sound some presage of the fall,");  August 4, 1851 ("I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn."); August 7, 1854 ("The cool nocturnal creak of the crickets is heard in the mid-afternoon.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Midsummer midlife blues.

The oak, etc . . . are of a very dark green, almost black, which, methinks, they have worn only since midsummer.  See August 8, 1854 ("The foliage of most trees is now not only most dense, but a very dark green.")

August 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 6

Coolness and cloud and  

crickets steadily chirping 

in mid-afternoon –

. 

we row back with two

big stones in the stern.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A vein of coolness in the wind

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540806