Two great devil’s-needles, as big as hummingbirds,

July 17.

The common amaranth.

Young toads not half an inch long at Walden shore.

The smooth sumach resounds with the hum of bees, wasps, etc., at Water target Pond.

I see two great devil’s-needles, three inches long, with red abdomens and bodies as big as hummingbirds, sailing round this pond, round and round, and ever and anon darting aside suddenly, probably to seize some prey.

Here and there the water targets look red, perhaps their under sides.

A duck at Goose Pond.

Rank weeds begin to block up low wood-paths, — goldenrods, asters, etc.

The pearly everlasting.

Lobelia inflata.

The Solidago nemoralis (?) in a day or two, - gray goldenrod.

I think we have no Hieracium Gronovii, though one not veined always and sometimes with two or more leaves on stem.

No grass balls to be seen.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  July 17, 1853

Young toads not half an inch long. See July 17, 1856 ("I see many young toads hopping about . . .not more than five eighths to three quarters of an inch long"); July 25, 1855 ("Many little toads about.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: Midsummer Toads ; Northland Nature: Tiny toad time in late July; What are these Tiny Toads? ("The tadpoles of many species of the genus Bufo (what most people consider to be the “true toads”) metamorphose at a very small size, often all at once, and then disperse. If you live near a pond or lake or stream where the tadpoles are common, you might all of a sudden see dozens or even hundreds of these tiny toadlets for a few days, and after that, see them only occasionally.); Mary Holland, Toadlets Dispersing (July 17, 2013)

The smooth sumach resounds with the hum of bees, wasps, etc, See July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

I see two great devil’s-needles, three inches long, with red abdomens and bodies as big as hummingbirds, sailing round this pond. See ; July 17, 1854 ("Meanwhile large yellowish devil's-needles, coupled, are flying about and repeatedly dipping their tails in the water. . . . great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore . . . about a foot above the water, some against a head wind; a. . . If devil's-needles cross Fair Haven, then man may cross the Atlantic. "); see also July 10, 1855 ("Great devil’s-needles above the bank, apparently catching flies ") July 27, 1856 ("A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle, between my hands. It is about three inches long and three and a half in spread of wings, without spots, black and yellow, with green eyes") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Devil's-needle

The pearly everlasting. See July 17, 1852 ("The Antennaria margaritacea, pearly everlasting, is out"); August 23, 1856 ("I see a bed of Antennaria margaritacea, now in its prime, by the railroad, and very handsome."); August 23, 1858 (“I see dense patches of the pearly everlasting, maintaining their ground in the midst of dense green sweet-fern, a striking contrast of snow-white and green.”)

Lobelia inflata. See  July 17, 1852 ("Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco""); July 19, 1856 ("Lobelia inflata, perhaps several days; little white glands (?) on the edges of the leaves. ") August 20, 1851 ("The Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco, meets me at every turn. At first I suspect some new bluish flower in the grass, but stooping see the inflated pods. Tasting one such herb convinces me that there are such things as drugs which may either kill or cure")

The Solidago nemoralis  in a day or two.See August 5, 1856 ("S. nemoralis, two or three days."); August 18, 1854 ("The solidago nemoralis is now abundantly out on the Great Fields.”); August 21, 1856 ("nemoralis, just beginning generally to bloom.")

I think we have no Hieracium Gronoviis See August 21, 1851 ("I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense.”);July 29, 1856 (“What I have called Hieracium Gronovii. . . has achenia like H . venosum; so I will give it up.”)---Hieracium gronovii  has not been recorded from Middlesex County, Massachusetts~ Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts

No grass balls to be seen See June 19, 1853 ("No grass balls yet.")

The carnival of the year commencing.

May 28.

A rose in a garden.

5 P. M. – To Lupine Hill by boat.

The carnival of the year commencing — a warm, moist, hazy air, the water already smooth and uncommonly high, the river overflowing, and yellow lilies all drowned, their stems not long enough to reach the surface.

I see the boat-club, or three or four in pink shirts, rowing at a distance.

Beech-drops out apparently some days, the old bridge landing at Nawshawtuct; also just out green-briar.

Already the ringing croak of a toad begins to be heard here and there along the river, and the troonk of a bullfrog from time to time.

What is peculiar now, beginning yesterday, after rains, is the sudden heat, and the more general sound of insects by day, and the loud ringing croak of common toads and tree-toads at evening and in the night.

Our river has so little current that when the wind has gone down, as at present, it is dark and perfectly smooth, and at present dusty as a stagnant pool in every part of it; far from there being any murmur, there is no ripple nor eddy for the most part.

Hubbard has plowed up the low-lying field at the bathing place and planted it with potatoes; and now we find that the field we resort to was equally used by the Indians, for their arrowheads are now exposed by the plow.

The sidesaddle-flower conspicuous, but no pollen yet.

The bulbous arethusa out a day or two — probably yesterday. Though in a measure prepared for it, still its beauty surprised me; it is by far the highest and richest color yet. Its intense color in the midst of the green meadow made it look twice as large as reality; it looks very foreign in the midst of our plants - its richly speckled, curled, and bearded lip.

Devil’s needles begin to fly; saw one the 14th.

Thesium just beams now at six o’clock, and the lupines do not look so well for it; their lilac tints show best looking at them towards the sun, for they are transparent. Last night in the dark they were all a pale, whitish color like the moon by day — a mere dull luminousness, as if they reflected light absorbed by day.

Seen from this point now, the pitch pines on Bear Garden Hill, the fresh green foliage of the deciduous trees now so prevails, the pitch pines, which lately looked green, are of a dark brownish or mulberry color by contrast, and the white pines almost as dark, but bluer. In this haziness no doubt they are a little darker than usual.

The grass on pretty high ground is wet with dew an hour before sunset. Whiteweed now, and cotton-grass. 

May 27, 2019

For three quarters of an hour the sun is a great round red ball in the west, reflected in the water; at first a scarlet, but as it descends growing more purple and crimson and larger, with a blue bar of a cloud across it; still reflected in the water, two suns, one above the other, below the hilly bank; as if it were a round hole in the cope of heaven, through which we looked into a crimson atmosphere. If such scenes were painted faithfully they would be pronounced unnatural. 

May 28, 2017

It is remarkable at how little distance a hillside covered with lupines looks blue, while a house or board painted blue is seen so great a distance.

A sprig of wilted fir now grown an inch emits that rich fragrance somewhat like strawberries and pineapples, yet peculiar.

Mayhew, in his “London Labour and London Poor,” treating of the costermongers, or those who get their living in the streets of London, speaks of “the muscular irritability begotten by continued wande ing,” making one “unable to rest for any time in one place.”

Mentions the instance of a girl who had been accustomed to sell sprats in the streets, who having been taken into a gentleman ‘ s house out of charity, the pressure of shoes was intolerable to her.” “ ut no sooner did she hear from her friends, that sprats were again in the market, than as if there were some magical influence in the fish, she at once requested to be freed from the confinement, and permitted to return to her old calling.”

I am perhaps equally accustomed to a roaming field-life, experience a good deal of that muscular irritability, and have a good many friends who let me know when sprats are in the market.

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

Our river has so little current. See July 30, 1859 ("It is a mere string of lakes which have not made up their minds to be rivers. As near as possible to a standstill."); April 16, 1852 ("A succession of bays it is, a chain of lakes, . . .There is just stream enough for a flow of thought; that is all. Many a foreigner who has come to this town has worked for years on its banks without discovering which way the river runs. ")

The bulbous arethusa out a day or two — probably yesterday. Though in a measure prepared for it, still its beauty surprised me; it is by far the highest and richest color yet. See May 30, 1854 ("I am surprised to find arethusas abundantly out in Hubbard's Close, maybe two or three days ... This high-colored plant shoots up suddenly, all flower, in meadows where it is wet walking. A superb flower.”) and note to May 29, 1856 ("Two Arethusa bulbosa at Hubbard’s Close apparently a day or two")

The sidesaddle-flower conspicuous, but no pollen yet. See May 30, 1852 ("The sidesaddle-flowers . . . are just beginning to blossom. The last are quite showy flowers when the wind turns them so as to show their under sides.");  June 10, 1854 ("Sidesaddle generally out; petals hang down, apparently a day or two. It is a conspicuous flower."); and note to June 12, 1856 ("Sidesaddle flower numerously out now")

It is remarkable at how little distance a hillside covered with lupines looks blue, See June 5, 1852 ("The transparency of the flower makes its color changeable. It paints a whole hillside with its blue,. . .No other flowers exhibit so much blue. That is the value of the lupine. The earth is blued with them.")

May 28. SeeA Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, May 28

Two suns in the west

reflected in water, one

above the other.

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

Hotter still than the last two days, — 90° and more.

May 8

Sunday. Hotter still than the last two days, — 90° and more. 

Summer yellowbird. 

C. sees a chimney swallow. 

Indeed, several new birds have come, and many new insects, with the expanding leafets. Catbird. 

The swollen leaf -buds of the white pine — and yet more the pitch pine — look whitish, and show life in the tree. 

Go on the river. 

The sweet flags, both pads, and equisetum and pontederia are suddenly becoming conspicuous, also the Arum peltandrum. 

Grackles here yet. 

Tree-toad is heard. 

Apple trees begin to make a show with their green. 

See two great devil's-needles go by coupled, the foremost blue, the second brown. 

Hear a dor-bug in the house at evening.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 8, 1859


Summer yellowbird. Indeed, several new birds have come, and many new insects, with the expanding leafets. See . May 8, 1854 (“Hear a yellowbird in the direction of the willows. Its note coarsely represented by che-che-che-char-char- char”); May 8, 1857 ("The ring of toads, the note of the yellowbird, the rich warble of the red-wing, the thrasher on the hillside, the robin's evening song, the woodpecker tapping some dead tree across the water "); May 10, 1858 (" For some days the Salix alba have shown their yellow wreaths here and there, suggesting the coming of the yellowbird, and now they are alive with them.")

Several new birds have come, and many new insects, with the expanding leafets. Catbird. See April 18, 1852 (I would make a chart of our life,  know why just this circle of creatures completes the world, what kinds of birds come with what flowers.) May 8, 1857 ("From amid the alders, etc., I hear the mew of the catbird and the yorrick of Wilson's thrush.")

Now I am ice, now I am sorrel

June 6

8 a. m. — To Lee's Cliff by river. 

Salix pedicellaris off Holden's has been out of bloom several days at least. So it is earlier to begin and to end than our S. lucida. 

This is June, the month of grass and leaves. The deciduous trees are investing the evergreens and revealing how dark they are. 

Already the aspens are trembling again, and a new summer is offered me. I feel a little fluttered in my thoughts, as if I might be too late. 

June 6, 2012

Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration. It simply gives a tone and hue to my thought. Each annual phenomenon is a reminiscence and prompting. Our thoughts and sentiments answer to the revolutions of the seasons, as two cog-wheels fit into each other. We are conversant with only one point of contact at a time, from which we receive a prompting and impulse and instantly pass to a new season or point of contact. A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. Now I am ice, now I am sorrel. Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. 

I see a man grafting, for instance. What this imports chiefly is not apples to the owner or bread to the grafter, but a certain mood or train of thought to my mind. That is what this grafting is to me. Whether it is anything at all, even apples or bread, to anybody else, I cannot swear, for it would be worse than swearing through glass. 

For I only see those other facts as through a glass darkly. 

Crataegus Crus-Galli, maybe a day. 

Early iris. 

Viburnum-Lentago, a day or more. 

Krigias, with their somewhat orange yellow, spot the dry hills all the fore noon and are very common, but as they are closed in the afternoon, they are but rarely noticed by walkers. 

The long mocker-nut on Conantum not yet out, and the second, or round, one will be yet later. Its catkins are more grayish. 

I see many great devil's-needles in an open wood, — and for a day or two, — stationary on twigs, etc., standing out more or less horizontally like thorns, holding by their legs and heads(?). They do not incline to move when touched, and their eyes look whitish and opaque, as if they were blind. 

They were evidently just escaped from the slough. I often see the slough on plants and, I think, the pupa in the water, as at Callitriche Pool. 

As I sit on Lee's Cliff, I see a pe-pe on the topmost dead branch of a hickory eight or ten rods off. Regularly, at short intervals, it utters its monotonous note like till-till-till, or pe-pe-pe. Looking round for its prey and occasionally changing its perch, it every now and then darts off (phoebe-like), even five or six rods, to ward the earth to catch an insect, and then returns to its favorite perch. If I lose it for a moment, I soon see it settling on the dead twigs again and hear its till, till, till. It appears through the glass mouse-colored above and head (which is perhaps darker), white throat, and narrow white beneath, with no white on tail. 

There is a thorn now in its prime, i. e. near the beaked hazel, Conantum, with leaves more wedge-shaped at base than the Cratcegus coccinea; apparently a variety of it, between that and Crus-Galli. (In press.) 

A kingbird's nest, with two of its large handsome eggs, very loosely set over the fork of a horizontal willow by river, with dried everlasting of last year, as usual, just below Garfield's boat. Another in black willow south of long cove (east side, north of Hubbard's Grove) and another north of said cove. 

A brown thrasher's nest, with two eggs, on ground, near lower lentago wall and toward Bittern Cliff. 

The Ranunculus Purshii is in some places abundantly out now and quite showy. It must be our largest ranunculus (flower).

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 6, 1857

Salix pedicellaris off Holden's has been out of bloom several days at least. See May 4, 1858 (“Salix pedicellaris at Holden's Swamp, staminate, out apparently two days.”); May 28, 1858 ("The Salix pedicellaris, which abounds in the Great Meadows, is a peculiar and rather interesting willow, some fifteen inches high and scarcely rising above the grass even now."); May 28, 1859 ("S. pedicellaris long out of bloom.")

Already the aspens are trembling again, and a new summer is offered me. I feel a little fluttered in my thoughts. Compare Walden ("Solitude") ("Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled")

Each season is but an infinitesimal point. See  May 23, 1841 ("All nature is a new impression every instant");August 19, 1851("The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other. If you are not out at the right instant, the summer may go by and you not see it.”); January 26, 1852 (" The moment always spurs us. The spurs of countless moments goad us incessantly into life."); Walden:  Where I lived and what I lived for ("God Himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages.") and Economy, ("In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.”); Walden ("To effect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”);  April 24, 1859 ("The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature's. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.") December 8, 1859 ("Only the poet has the faculty to see present things as if also past and future, as if universally significant.”)

I see many great devil's-needles in an open wood, They were evidently just escaped from the slough. See June 10, 1857 ("Many creatures — devil's- needles, etc., etc. — cast their sloughs now. Can't I?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau.the Devil's-needle

As I sit on Lee's Cliff, I see a pe-pe on the topmost dead branch of a hickory eight or ten rods off. . . .mouse-colored above and head (which is perhaps darker), white throat, and narrow white beneath, with no white on tail. See June 10, 1855 ("Nest of the Muscicapa Cooperi, or pe pe, on a white spruce in the Holden Swamp . . ."); June 5, 1856 ("The Muscicapa Cooperi sings pe pe pe’, sitting on the top of a pine . . .”); June 8, 1856 ("At Cedar Swamp, saw the pe-pe catching flies like a wood pewee, darting from its perch on a dead cedar twig from time to time and returning to it. “); May 15, 1855 ("I hear from the top of a pitch pine in the swamp that loud, clear, familiar whistle . . . I saw it dart out once, catch an insect, and return to its perch muscicapa-like.”).

A brown thrasher's nest, with two eggs, on ground. See May 23, 1858 ("Brown thrasher's nest on ground, under a small tree, with four eggs."); ,June 5, 1856 ("A brown thrasher’s nest with four eggs . . . under a small white pine"): See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Brown Thrasher

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

The trembling aspens

offer me a new summer –

fluttering my thoughts.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Now I am ice, now I am sorrel

 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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-570606

You should travel as a common man.

June 3.

Alternate-leaf dogwood
June 3, 2017

P. M. — To White Cedar Swamp. 

Salix lucida out of bloom, but S. nigra still in bloom. I see a large branch of S. lucida, which has been broken off probably by the ice in the winter and come down from far up-stream and lodged, butt downward, amid some bushes, where it has put forth pink fibres from the butt end in the water, and is growing vigorously, though not rooted in the bottom. It is thus detained by a clump of bushes at high water, where it begins to sprout and send its pink fibres down to the mud, and finally the water, getting down to the summer level, leaves it rooted in the bank. 

The first Crataegus on Hill is in many instances done, while the second is not fairly or generally in bloom yet.

The pitch pine at Hemlocks is in bloom. The sterile flowers are yellowish, while those of the P. resinosa are dark-purple. As usual, when I jar them the pollen rises in a little cloud about the pistillate flowers and the tops of the twigs, there being a little wind. 

The bass at the Island will not bloom this year. (?)

The racemed andromeda (Leucothoe) has been partly killed, — the extremities of the twigs, — so that its racemes are imperfect, the lower parts only green. It is not quite out; probably is later for this injury. 

The ground of the cedar swamp, where it has been burnt over and sprouts, etc., have sprung up again, is covered with the Marchantia polymorpha. Now shows its starlike or umbrella-shaped fertile flowers and its shield-shaped sterile ones. It is a very rank and wild- looking vegetation, forming the cuticle of the swamp's foundation. 

I feel the suckers' nests with my paddle, but do not see them on account of the depth of the river. 

Many small devil's-needles, like shad-flies, in bushes.

Early potatoes are being hoed. 

The gardener is killing the piper grass. 

I have several friends and acquaintances who are very good companions in the house or for an afternoon walk, but whom I cannot make up my mind to make a longer excursion with; for I discover, all at once, that they are too gentlemanly in manners, dress, and all their habits. I see in my mind's eye that they wear black coats, considerable starched linen, glossy hats and shoes, and it is out of the question. It is a great disadvantage for a traveller to be a gentleman of this kind; he is so ill-treated, only a prey to landlords. 

It would be too much of a circumstance to enter a strange town or house with such a companion. You could not travel incognito; you might get into the papers. 

You should travel as a common man. 

If such a one were to set out to make a walking-journey, he would betray himself at every step. Every one would see that he was trying an experiment, as plainly as they see that a lame man is lame by his limping. The natives would bow to him, other gentlemen would invite him to ride, conductors would warn him that this was the second-class car, and many would take him for a clergyman; and so he would be continually pestered and balked and run upon. You would not see the natives at all. 

Instead of going in quietly at the back door and sitting by the kitchen fire, you would be shown into a cold parlor, there to confront a fireboard, and excite a commotion in a whole family. The women would scatter at your approach, and their husbands and sons would go right up to hunt up their black coats, — for they all have them; they are as cheap as dirt. You would go trailing your limbs along the highways, mere bait for corpulent innholders, as a pickerel's leg is trolled along a stream, and your part of the profits would be the frog's. 

No, you must be a common man, or at least travel as one, and then nobody will know that you are there or have been there. 

I would not undertake a simple pedestrian excursion with one of these, because to enter a village, or a hotel, or a private house, with such a one, would be too great a circumstance, would create too great a stir. You could only go half as far with the same means, for the price of board and lodgings would rise everywhere; so much you have to pay for wearing that kind of coat. Not that the difference is in the coat at all, for the character of the scurf is determined by that of the true liber beneath. 

Innkeepers, stablers, conductors, clergymen, know a true wayfaring man at first sight and let him alone. 

It is of no use to shove your gaiter shoes a mile further than usual. Sometimes it is mere shiftlessness or want of originality, — the clothes wear them; sometimes it is egotism, that cannot afford to be treated like a common man, — they wear the clothes. They wish to be at least fully appreciated by every stage-driver and schoolboy. They would like well enough to see a new place, perhaps, but then they would like to be regarded as important public personages. They would consider it a misfortune if their names were left out of the published list of passengers because they came in the steerage, — an obscurity from which they might never emerge.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 3, 1857

Salix lucida out of bloom  . . . See May 14, 1857("Salix lucida at bridge; maybe staminate earlier.”); September 3, 1856 (“The S. lucida makes about the eleventh willow that I have distinguished. When I find a new and rare plant in Concord I seem to think it has but just sprung up here, — that it is, and not I am, the newcomer, — while it has grown here for ages before I was born.”) September 2, 1856 (“[A]t the stone bridge, am surprised to see the Salix lucida, a small tree with very marked and handsome leaves, on the sand, water's edge, at the great eddy. . . .”)

The first Crataegus on Hill is in many instances done, while the second is not fairly or generally in bloom yet.  See June 1, 1857 (“The second thorn on Hill will evidently open tomorrow.. . . That largest and earliest thorn is now in full bloom, and I notice that its an apple tree, . . ..”); June 1, 1856 (“The late crataegus on hill, about May 31st.”); June 12, 1855 (“A hawthorn grows near by, just out of bloom, twelve feet high — Crataegus Oxyacantha.”)  Crataegus, commonly called hawthorn, thornapple, May-tree, whitethorn, or hawberry, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the family Rosaceae,. Wikipedia

The racemed andromeda has been partly killed, . . .  See June 8, 1856 (“I find no Andromeda racemosa in flower. It is dead at top and slightly leafed below. Was it the severe winter, or cutting off the protecting evergreens?”); (April 24, 1854 ("New plant (Racemed andromeda) flower-budded at Cedar Swamp . . . upright dense racemes of reddish flower-buds on reddish terminal shoots.”)

The ground of the cedar swamp, where it has been burnt over . . . is covered with the Marchantia polymorphs . . . a very rank and wild-looking vegetation, forming the cuticle of the swamp's foundation. See April 23, 1856 ("The white cedar swamp consists of hummocks, now surrounded by water, where you go jumping from one to another.”);

We walk down the big gorge planning to go to the waterfall. It is been wet and rainy and there is a lot of water. Everything is green and lush. I am awestruck looking at the cliffs above and the greenery rocks trees forest ferns.caverns. And reflections in the stream rushing by. I take a picture of yellow birch  growing on the rocks. Jane spots a hermit thrush on its nest at the mouth of the gorge. Rather than disturb it we turn around and hike out 

A hermit thrush nests

here at the mouth of the gorge.

The stream rushing by.

 zphx- 20170603 

A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle.

July 27. 

Lobelia cardinalis, three or four days, with similar white glands (?) on edges of leaves as in L. spicata. Why is not this noticed? 

Cornus sericea about done.

As I paddle by Dodge's Brook, a great devil's-needle alights on my paddle, between my hands. It is about three inches long and three and a half in spread of wings, without spots, black and yellow, with green eyes (?). It keeps its place within a few inches of my eyes, while I was paddle some twenty-five rods against a strong wind, clinging closely. Perhaps it chose that place for coolness this hot day. 

To-day, as yesterday, it is more comfortable to be walking or paddling at 2 and 3 p. m., when there is wind, but at five the wind goes down and it is very still and suffocating. I afterward saw other great devil's-needles, the forward part of their bodies light-blue and very stout. 

The Stellaria longifolia is out of bloom and drying up. Vide some of this date pressed. 

At Bath Place, above, many yellow lily pads are left high and dry for a long time, in the zizania hollow, a foot or more above the dry sand, yet with very firm and healthy green leaves, almost the only ones not eaten by insects now. This river is quite low. 

The yellow lilies stand up seven or eight inches above the water, and, opposite to Merriam's, the rocks show their brown backs very thick (though some are concealed), like sheep and oxen lying down and chewing the cud in a meadow. I frequently run on to one — glad when it's the smooth side — and am tilted up this way or that, or spin round as on a central pivot. They bear the red or blue paint from many a boat, and here their moss has been rubbed off. 

Ceratophyllum is now apparently in bloom commonly, with its crimson-dotted involucre. 

I am surprised to find kalmiana lilies scattered thinly all along the Assabet, a few small, commonly reddish pads in middle of river, but I see no flowers. It is their great bluish waved (some green) radical leaves which I had mistaken for those of the heart-leaf, the floating leaves being so small. These and vallisneria washed up some time. The radical leaves of the heart-leaf are very small and rather triangular. 

I see, on a rock in midstream, a peetweet within a foot of a turtle, both eying me anxiously within two rods, but not minding each other. 

Zizania scarce out some days at least.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1856

A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle... See  June 13, 1854 ("I float homeward over water almost perfectly smooth, my sail so idle that I count ten devil's-needles resting along it at once."); July 17, 1854 ("I am surprised to see crossing my course in middle of Fair Haven Pond great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore.").

June 13. 

Floating homeward, I 

count devil's-needles at rest 

on my idle sail.

July 17.

Flying shore to shore, 

yellowish devil's-needles 

cross their Atlantic. 

July 27

A devil's-needle 

keeps its place on my paddle

against a strong wind.

July 27, 1856

A middle-sized copper-colored devil's-needle.

July 20

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Button-bush, apparently two or three days. 

I suspect that those very variously formed leaves in and about woods which come to naught — like the sium in deep water — are of the nabalus. 

Caught a middle-sized copper-colored devil's-needle (with darker spots on wings), sluggish, on a grass stem, with many dark-colored elliptical eggs packed closely to outside, under its breast.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1856


A middle-sized copper-colored devil's-needle. See June 13, 1854 ("I float homeward over water almost perfectly smooth, my sail so idle that I count ten devil's-needles resting along it at once."); July 17, 1854 ("I am surprised to see crossing my course in middle of Fair Haven Pond great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore."); July 27, 1856 ("A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle...");

June 13. 

Floating homeward, I 

count devil's-needles at rest 

on my idle sail.

July 17.

Flying shore to shore, 

yellowish devil's-needles 

cross their Atlantic. 

July 27

A devil's-needle 

keeps its place on my paddle

against a strong wind.

July 27, 1856

The phe phee-ar of the new muscicapa.

May 23. 

P. M. — To Heywood Spring. 

Sorrel well open on west side of railroad causeway against H. Wheeler’s land. 

Noticed the earliest willow catkins turned to masses of cotton yesterday; also a little of the mouse-ear down begins to be loose. 

Hear often and distinctly, apparently from H. Wheeler’s black spruce wood-lot, the phe phee-ar of the new muscicapa. Red-eye and wood thrush. 

Houstonias whiten the fields, and looked yesterday like snow, a sugaring of snow, on the side of Lee’s Hill. 

Heard partridges drum yesterday and to-day. 

Observed the pads yesterday just begun to spread out on the surface with wrinkled edges and here and there a bullet-like bud; the red white lily pads still more rare as yet. 

The stellaria at Heywood Spring must be the same with that near the E. Hosmer Spring, though the former has commonly fewer styles and rather slenderer leaves.  It appears to be the S. borealia, though the leaves are narrowly lanceolate; has three to seven styles; a few petals (cleft almost to the bottom) or none; pods, some larger than the calyx  and apparently ten-ribbed; petals, now about the length of the sepals.

After sunset on river. A warm summer-like night. A bullfrog trumps once. A large devil’s—needle goes by after sundown. 

The ring of toads is loud and incessant. It seems more prolonged than it is. I think it not more than two seconds in each case. 

At the same time I hear a low, stertorous, dry, but hard-cored note from some frog in the meadows and along the riverside; often heard in past years but not accounted for. Is it a Rana palustris? 

Dor-bugs hum in the yard, — and were heard against the windows some nights ago. The cat is springing into the air for them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 23, 1856

Hear often and distinctly, apparently from H. Wheeler’s black spruce wood-lot, the phe phee-ar of the new muscicapa. See May 23, 1854 ("The wood pewee sings now in the woods behind the spring in the heat of the day”). see also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Wood-Pewee


Heard partridges drum yesterday and to-day. See February 22, 1855 ("He [Farmer] had seen a partridge drum standing on a wall. Said it stood very upright and produced the sound by striking its wings together behind its back, . . .but did not strike the wall nor its body."); April 19, 1860 ("Toward night, hear a partridge drum. You will hear at first a single beat or two far apart and have time to say, "There is a partridge," so distinct and deliberate is it often, before it becomes a rapid roll."); April 25, 1854 ("The first partridge drums in one or two places, as if the earth's pulse now beat audibly with the increased flow of life. It slightly flutters all Nature and makes her heart palpitate.") April 29, 1857 ("C. says it makes his heart beat with it, or he feels it in his breast.");. May 11, 1853 (" Beginning slowly and deliberately, the partridge's beat sounds faster and faster from far away under the boughs and through the aisles of the wood until it becomes a regular roll, but is speedily concluded") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau May 23

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

Sailing is much like flying

April 29. 

April 29, 2016

Was awakened early this morning by thunder and some rain, — the second thunder-shower of the season, —but it proved a fair day. 

At mid forenoon saw a fish hawk flying leisurely over the house northeasterly. 

P. M. — To Cedar Swamp. 

J Monroe’s larch staminate buds have now erected and separated their anthers, and they look somewhat withered, as if they had shed a part of their pollen. If so, they began yesterday. 

It was quite warm when I first came out, but about 3 P. M. I felt a fresh easterly wind, and saw quite a mist in the distance produced by it, a sea-turn. There was the same phenomenon yesterday at the same hour, and on the 24th, later in the day. Yet to-day the air was not much cooled. Your first warning of it may be the seeing a thick mist on all the hills and in the horizon. The wind is southeast. 

I see great devil’s-needles whiz by, coupled.

Do not sail well till I reach Dove Rock, then glide swiftly up the stream. I move upward against the current with a moderate but fair wind, the waves somewhat larger, probably because the wind contends with the current. 

The sun is in my face, and the waves look particularly lively and sparkling. I can steer and write at the same time. They gurgle under my stern, in haste to fill the hollow which I have created. The waves seem to leap and roll like porpoises, with a slight surging sound when their crests break, and I feel an agreeable sense that I am swiftly gliding over and through them, bound on my own errands, while their motion is chiefly but an undulation, and an apparent one. 

It is pleasant, exhilarating, to feel the boat tossed up a little by them from time to time. Perhaps a wine-drinker would say it was like the effect of wine. It is flattering to a sense of power to make the wayward wind our horse and sit with our hand on the tiller. Sailing is much like flying, and from the birth of our race men have been charmed by it. 

Near the little larch, scared a small dark-brown hawk from an apple tree, which flew off low to another apple tree beside Barrett’s Pond. Just before he flew again I saw with my glass that his tail was barred with white. Must it not be a pigeon hawk then? He looked a dark slate as he sat, with tawny-white thighs and under head, —far off. He soon started a third time, and a crow seemed to be in chase of him. I think I have not described this white—barred hawk before, but for the black-barred vide May 8, 1854, and April 16, 1855. 

The white cedar now sheds pollen abundantly. Many flowers are effete, though many are not open. Probably it began as much as three days ago. I strike a twig, and its peculiar pinkish pollen fills the air.

Sat on the knoll in the swamp, now laid bare. How pretty a red maple in bloom (they are now in prime), seen in the sun against a pine wood, like these little ones in the swamp against the neighboring wood, they are so light and ethereal, not a heavy mass of color impeding the passage of the light, and they are of so cheerful and lively a color. 

The pine warbler is heard very much now at mid day, when already most birds are quiet. It must be the female which has so much less yellow beneath. 

Do not the toads ring most on a windy day like this? I heard but few on the still 27th. 

A pigeon woodpecker alights on a dead cedar top near me. Its cackle, thus near, sounds like eh eh eh eh eh, etc., rapidly and emphatically repeated. 

Some birch sprouts in the swamp are leafed as much as any shrub or tree. 

Barn swallows and chimney, with white-bellied swallows, are flying together over the river. I thought before that I distinguished the twitter of the chimney swallow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 29, 1856

J. Monroe’s larch staminate buds have now erected and separated their anthers. See April 29, 1855 ("A few of the cones within reach on F. Monroe’s larches shed pollen; say, then, yesterday. The
crimson female flowers are now handsome but small.");April 23, 1855 ("The anthers of the larch are conspicuous, but I see no pollen. White cedar to-morrow.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Larch in Spring


The white cedar now sheds pollen abundantly. Probably it began as much as three days ago. I strike a twig, and its peculiar pinkish pollen fills the air. See April 26, 1857 ("The white cedar is apparently just out.") ; April 26, 1856 ("The white cedar gathered the 23d does not shed pollen in house till to-day, and I doubt if it will in swamp before to-morrow."); April 24, 1855 ("The [pollen] of the white cedar is very different, being a faint salmon.”)

Must it not be a pigeon hawk then?  I think I have not described this white-barred hawk before. See April 27, 1860 ("Saw yesterday, and see to-day, a small hawk which I take to be a pigeon hawk. This one skims low along over Grindstone Meadow, close to the edge of the water, and I see the blackbirds rise hurriedly from the button bushes and willows before him. I am decided by his size (as well as color) and his low, level skimming.") See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Hawk (Merlin)

. . . to make the wayward wind our horse and sit with our hand on the tiller. Sailing is much like flying, and from the birth of our race men have been charmed by it. See July 29, 1851 ("The sailboat is an admirable invention, by which you compel the wind to transport you even against itself. It is easier to guide than a horse; the slightest pressure on the tiller suffices. I think the inventor must have been greatly surprised, as well as delighted, at the success of his experiment.”)

At the Hemlocks I see a rock which has been moved into the river.

April 27. 

P. M. -- Up Assabet. 

I find none of Monroe’s larch buds shedding pollen, but the anthers look crimson and yellow, and the female flowers are now fully expanded and very pretty, but small. I think it will first scatter pollen to-morrow.

Apparently a small bullfrog by riverside, though it looks somewhat like a Rana fontinalis; also two or three (apparently) R. palustris in that well of Monroe’s, which have jumped in over the curb, perhaps. 

I see quite a number of tortoises out sunning, just on the edge of the Hosmer meadow, which is rapidly becoming bare. Their backs shine from afar in the sun. Also one Emys insculpta out higher up. 

From close by I hear a red-wing’s clear, loud whistle, — not squeak (which I think may be confined to the grackle). It is like pte'-a pte’-a, or perhaps without the p.

The tapping of a woodpecker is made a more remarkable and emphatic sound by the hollowness of the trunk, the expanse of water which conducts the sound, and the morning hour at which I commonly hear it. I think that the pigeon woodpeckers must be building, they frequent the old aspen now so much.

At the Hemlocks I see a rock which has been moved since last fall seven or eight feet into the river, though the ground is but little descending. The rock is about five and a half feet by three by one. 

I see a rather large devil’s-needle coursing over the low osiers in Pinxter Swamp. Is it not early for one?

The white birch which I tapped in V. palmata Swamp still runs; and the holes are full of, and the base of the tree covered with, a singular sour-tasted, rather hard—crusted white (not pink) froth, and a great many of those flat beetles (?), lightning-bug—like, and flies, etc., are sucking it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 27, 1856

I find none of Monroe’s larch buds shedding pollen, but the anthers look crimson and yellow, and the female flowers are now fully expanded and very pretty, but small. See April 22, 1856 ("Monroe’s larches by river will apparently shed pollen soon. The staminate flowers look forward, but the pistil late scarcely show any red"); April 29, 1855 (“A few of the cones within reach on F. Monroe’s larches shed pollen; say, then, yesterday The crimson female flowers are now handsome but small); April 29, 1856 ("Monroe’s larch staminate buds have now erected and separated their anthers, and they look somewhat withered, as if they had shed a part of their pollen. If so, they began yesterday. ”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Larch

Apparently a small bullfrog by riverside, though it looks somewhat like a Rana fontinalis. See May 1, 1858 (“I find many apparent young bullfrogs in the shaded pools on the Island Neck. Probably R. fontinalis.”) and note to May 6, 1858 (Frogs of Massachusetts)

From close by I hear a red-wing’s clear, loud whistle. See March 19, 1858 ("By the river, see distinctly red-wings and hear their conqueree. They are not associated with grackles. They are an age before their cousins, have attained to clearness and liquidity. They are officers, epauletted; the others are rank and file. I distinguish one even by its flight, hovering slowly from tree-top to tree-top, as if ready to utter its liquid notes. Their whistle is very clear and sharp, while the grackle's is ragged and split."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Red-wing in Spring

The tapping of a woodpecker is made a more remarkable and emphatic sound by the hollowness of the trunk, the expanse of water which conducts the sound, and the morning hour at which I commonly hear it.  See. March 15, 1854 ("I hear that peculiar, interesting loud hollow tapping of a woodpecker from over the water"); March 29, 1853 ("On approaching the Island, I am surprised to hear the scolding, cackle-like note of the pigeon woodpecker, a prolonged loud sound somewhat like one note of the robin. This was the tapper, on the old hollow aspen which the small woodpeckers so much frequent. Unless the latter make exactly the same sound with the former, then the pigeon woodpecker has come!! ");   March 30, 1854  ("At the Island I see and hear this morning the cackle of a pigeon woodpecker at the hollow poplar; had heard him tapping distinctly from my boat's place, 1/4+ of a mile");  April 14, 1856  ("Hear the flicker’s cackle on the old aspen, and his tapping sounds afar over the water. Their tapping resounds thus far, with this peculiar ring and distinctness, because it is a hollow tree they select to play on, as a drum or tambour. It is a hollow sound which rings distinct to a great distance, especially over water."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker) and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring, the tapping of the woodpecker

At the Hemlocks I see a rock which has been moved. . . . See  Aprll 1, 1852  ("There are many larger hemlocks covering the steep side-hill forming the bank of the Assabet, where they are successively undermined by the water, . . . and almost every year one falls in and is washed away. The place is known as the " Leaning Hemlocks.”); March 24, 1855 ("Passing up the Assabet, by the Hemlocks, where there has been a slide and some rocks have slid down into the river, I think I see how rocks come to be found in the midst of rivers."): See also  A Book of the Seasons, at the Leaning Hemlocks

I see a rather large devil’s-needle . . . Is it not early for one? See May 18, 1855 ("See  Large devil’s-needle.");  May 23, 1856 ("A large devil’s—needle goes by after sundown."); May 30, 1860 ("Saw some devil’s-needles (the first) about the 25th.");  June 6, 1852  ( First devil's-needles in the air,."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Devil's-needle