A footpath may be found encircling all our ponds.

November 9. 

Tuesday. 

November 9, 2020

Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata (flat in a brook), yarrow, dandelion, autumnal dandelion, tansy, Aster undulatus, etc. 

A late three ribbed goldenrod, with large serratures in middle of the narrow leaves, ten or twelve rays. Potentilla argentea.

Fore part of November time for walnutting.

All around Walden, both in the thickest wood and where the wood has been cut off, there can be traced a meandering narrow shelf on the steep hillside, the footpath worn by the feet of Indian hunters, and still occasionally trodden by the white man, probably as old as the race of man here. And the same trail may be found encircling all our ponds.

Near the sandy eastern shore, where the water is eight or ten feet deep, I have seen from a boat, in calm weather, broad circular heaps of small stones on the bottom, half a dozen feet in diameter by a foot or more in height, where all around was bare sand, - probably the work of some kind of fish.

The French call dragon-flies “demoiselles.”


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 9, 1852

Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, yarrow, dandelion, autumnal dandelion, tansy, Aster undulatus. See October 20, 1852 ("Tansy, white goldenrod, blue-stemmed goldenrod. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed. ");  November 2, 1853 ("I might put by themselves the November flowers, — flowers which survive severe frosts and the fall of the leaf."); November 3, 1853 ("To-day I see yarrow, very bright "); November 3, 1853 ("I saw a very fresh A. undulatus this afternoon."); November 3, 1858 ("Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom"); November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet."); November 12, 1853 ("Tansy is very fresh still in some places"); November 14, 1852 ("Still yarrow, tall buttercup, and tansy."); November 18, 1852 ("Yarrow and tansy still. These are cold, gray days."); November 18, 1855 ("Tansy still shows its yellow disks, but yarrow is particularly fresh and perfect, cold and chaste, with its pretty little dry-looking rounded white petals and green leaves."); November 22, 1853 ("Yarrow is particularly fresh and innocent"); November 23, 1852 ("Among the flowers which may be put down as lasting thus far, as I remember, in the order of their hardiness: yarrow, tansy (these very fresh and common), cerastium, autumnal dandelion, dandelion, and perhaps tall buttercup, etc., the last four scarce. The following seen within a fortnight: a late three-ribbed goldenrod of some kind, blue-stemmed goldenrod (these two perhaps within a week), Potentilla argentea, Aster undulatus, Ranunculus repens, Bidens connata, shepherd's-purse").  See also  December 6, 1852 ("Tansy still fresh."); December 12, 1852 ("Tansy still fresh yellow by the Corner Bridge."); December 19, 1859 ("Yarrow too is full of seed now")

Fore part of November time for walnutting. See October 27, 1857 ("Now it is time to look out for walnuts"); October 28, 1852 ("The boys are gathering walnuts."); November 20, 1858 ("When walnut husks have fairly opened, showing the white shells within, — the trees being either quite bare or with a few withered leaves at present, — a slight jar with the foot on the limbs causes them to rattle down in a perfect shower, and on bare, grass-grown pasture ground it is very easy picking them up."); December 5, 1856 ("There are a great many walnuts on the trees, seen black against the sky, and the wind has scattered many over the snow-crust. It would be easier gathering them now than ever. “); December 10, 1856 ("Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill. It has not been better picking this season there. They lie on the snow, or rather sunk an inch or two into it. And some trees hang quite full.")

 The footpath worn by the feet of Indian hunters. See February 16, 1854 ("That Indian trail on the hillside about Walden is revealed with remarkable distinctness to me standing on the middle of the pond, by the slight snow which had lodged on it forming a clear white line unobscured by weeds and twigs.”) See  also  Walden, The Ponds ("I have been surprised to detect encircling the pond, even where a thick wood has just been cut down on the shore, a narrow shelf-like path in the steep hill side, alternately rising and falling, approaching and receding from the water's edge, as old probably as the race of man here, worn by the feet of aboriginal hunters, and still from time to time unwittingly trodden by the present occupants of the land. This is particularly distinct to one standing on the middle of the pond in winter, just after a light snow has fallen, appearing as a clear undulating white line, unobscured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious a quarter of a mile off in many places where in summer it is hardly distinguishable close at hand. The snow reprints it, as it were, in clear white type alto-relievo.")

Causes still in operation, however slow and unobserved.

January 14. 

Coldest morning yet; 20° (?).

Pliny says, "In minimis Natura praestat” (Nature excels in the least things).

The Wellingtonia gigantea, the famous California tree, is a great thing; the seed from which it sprang, a little thing; and so are all seeds or origins of things.

Richard Porson said:

"We all speak in metaphors. Those who appear not to do it, only use those which are worn out, and are overlooked as metaphors. The original fellow is therefore regarded as only witty; and the dull are consulted as the wise."

He might have said that the former spoke a dead language.

John Horne Tooke is reported in "Recollections” by Samuel Rogers as having said:

 "Read few books well. We forget names and dates; and reproach our memory. They are of little consequence. We feel our limbs enlarge and strengthen; yet cannot tell the dinner or dish that caused the alteration. Our minds improve though we cannot name the author, and have forgotten the particulars."

I think that the opposite would be the truer statement, books differ so immensely in their nutritive qualities, and good ones are so rare.

Gosse, in his "Letters from Alabama,” says that he thinks he saw a large dragon-fly (Æslona), which was hawking over a brook, catch and devour some minnows about one inch long, and says it is known that "the larvæ of the greater water-beetles (Dyticidæ) devour fish."

It is the discovery of science that stupendous changes in the earth's surface, such as are referred to the Deluge, for instance, are the result of causes still in operation, which have been at work for an incalculable period. There has not been a sudden re-formation, or, as it were, new creation of the world, but a steady progress according to existing laws.

The same is true in detail also.

It is a vulgar prejudice that some plants are "spontaneously generated,” but science knows that they come from seeds, i. e. are the result of causes still in operation, however slow and unobserved.

It is a common saying that "little strokes fall great oaks,” and it does not imply much wisdom in him who originated it. The sound of the axe invites our attention to such a catastrophe; we can easily count each stroke as it is given, and all the neighborhood is informed by a loud crash when the deed is consummated.

But such, too, is the rise of the oak; little strokes of a different kind and often repeated raise great oaks, but scarcely a traveller hears these or turns aside to converse with Nature, who is dealing them the while.

Nature is slow but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance; she knows that seeds have many other uses than to reproduce their kind. In raising oaks and pines, she works with a leisureliness and security answering to the age and strength of the trees. If every acorn of this year's crop is destroyed, never fear! she has more years to come. It is not necessary that a pine or an oak should bear fruit every year, as it is that a pea-vine should.

So, botanically, the greatest changes in the landscape are produced more gradually than we expected. If Nature has a pine or an oak wood to produce, she manifests no haste about it.

Thus we should say that oak forests are produced by a kind of accident, i. e. by the failure of animals to reap the fruit of their labors. Yet who shall say that they have not a fair knowledge of the value of their labors — that the squirrel when it plants an acorn, has not a transient thought for its posterity? 

Possibly here, a thousand years hence, every oak will know the human hand that planted it.

How many of the botanist's arts and inventions are thus but the rediscovery of a lost art, i.e. lost to him here or elsewhere! 

Horace Mann told me some days ago that he found, near the shore in that muddy bay by the willows in the rear of Mrs. Ripley's, a great many of the Sternothærus odoratus, assembled, he supposed, at their breeding time, or, rather, about to come out to lay their eggs. He waded in [and] collected — I think he said-about a hundred and fifty of them for Agassiz! 

I see in the Boston Journal an account of robins in numbers on the savin trees in that neighborhood, feeding on their berries. This suggests that they may plant its berries as well as the crows.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 14, 1861

The discovery of science that stupendous changes in the earth's surface, such as are referred to the Deluge, for instance, are the result of causes still in operation, which have been at work for an incalculable period. See Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology (1830–33); Stephen Jay Gould, Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle,

Nature is slow but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance. See September 7, 1839 ("Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace."); November 8, 1860 ("Consider how persevering Nature is, and how much time she has to work in, though she works slowly.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

— Lao Tzu

There has not been a sudden re-formation, or, as it were, new creation of the world, but a steady progress according to existing laws. Compare May 23, 1841 ("All nature is a new impression every instant"); January 20, 1855 (“The world is not only new to the eye, but is still as at creation.”); October 18, 1860 ("The development theory implies a greater vital force in nature, equivalent to a sort of constant new creation. We find ourselves in a world that is already planted, but is also still being planted as at first.")

Porson said: "We all speak in metaphors." See September 1851 (“All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.”); May 10, 1853 ("He is the richest who has most use for nature as raw material of tropes and symbols with which to describe his life. If I am overflowing with life, am rich in experience for which I lack expression, then nature will be my language full of poetry,- all nature will fable, and every natural phenomenon be a myth. The man of science, who is not seeking for expression but for a fact to be expressed merely, studies nature as a dead language. I pray for such inward experience as will make nature significant.")

It is a vulgar prejudice that some plants are "spontaneously generated,” but science knows that they come from seeds, i. e. are the result of causes still in operation, however slow and unobserved. See The Succession of Forest Trees  ("As for the heavy seeds and nuts which are not furnished with wings , the notion is still a very common one that , when the trees which bear these spring up where none of their kind were noticed before, they have come from seeds or other principles spontaneously generated there in an unusual manner, or which have lain dormant in the soil for centuries, or perhaps been called into activity by the heat of a burning  I do not believe these assertions, and I will state some of the ways in which, according to my observation, such forests are planted and raised.")

Nature is slow but sure – 

she works no faster 

than need be.

Dragon-flies have begun to come out in numbers.

May 25. 

May 25,2019

Dragon-flies have begun to come out of their larva state in numbers, leaving the cases on the weeds, etc. See one tender and just out this forenoon.

Meadow fox-tail grass abundantly out (how long?), front of E. Hosmer's by bars and in E. Hubbard's meadow, front of meeting-house. 

The Salix petiolaris is either entire or serrate, and generally, I should now say, was becoming serrate, the later leaves, e. g. that one, a fertile one, nearly opposite the Shattuck oak. 

The river is quite high for the season, on account of the late rains. 

Hear within a day or two what I call the sprayey note of the toad, different and later than its early ring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 25, 1859

Hear within a day or two what I call the sprayey note of the toad, different and later than its early ring.  See May 25, 1851 (“I hear the dreaming of the frogs.  So it seems to me, and so significantly passes my life away. It is like the dreaming of frogs in a summer evening.”); May 25, 1855 ("Hear . . . the summer spray frog, amid the ring of toads.”); May 25, 1860  ("5 P.M. the toads ring loud and numerously, as if invigorated by this little moisture and coolness.”) See also  May 13, 1860 ("It is so warm that I hear the peculiar sprayey note of the toad generally at night."); May 16, 1853 ("Nature’appears to have passed a crisis. . ..  The sprayey dream of the toad has a new sound"); May 20, 1854 ("The steadily increasing sound of toads and frogs along the river with each successive warmer night is one of the most important peculiarities of the season. Their prevalence and loudness is in proportion to the increased temperature of the day. It is the first earth-song, beginning with the croakers, (the cricket's not yet), as if the very meads at last burst into a meadowy song."); June 12, 1855 (“I hear the toad, which I have called “spray frog” falsely, still. . . .A peculiarly rich, sprayey dreamer, now at 2 P. M.! . . . This rich, sprayey note possesses all the shore. It diffuses itself far and wide over the water and enters into every crevice of the noon, and you cannot tell whence it proceeds”); Compare May 25, 1852 ("I hear the first troonk of a bullfrog.”);  And see also June 13, 1851 ("The different frogs mark the seasons pretty well,- the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog, and the bullfrog.") and note to May 6, 1858 ("I think that the different epochs in the revolution of the seasons may perhaps be best marked by the notes of reptiles. They express, as it were, the very feelings of the earth or nature.")(catologing the frogs of Massachsetts)

Our river is so sluggish and smooth that sometimes I can trace a boat that has passed half an hour before, by the bubbles on its surface.

August 3. 

Sunday. P. M. — To Lee's Cliff by river. 

Landing at flat shore. The sium and sarothra apparently now in prime. The central umbel of the sium going or gone to seed. The whorled utricularia is open all day. The Hypericum ellipticum is apparently out of bloom, there at least. 

At length from July 30th inclusive the cloud-like wreaths of mist of these dog-days lift somewhat, and the sun shines out more or less, a short time, at 3 p. m. 

The sun coming out when I am off Clamshell, the abundant small dragon-flies of different colors, bright-blue and lighter, looped along the floating vallisneria, make a very lively and gay appearance. I fancy these bright loops adorn or set forth the river like triumphal arches for my procession, stretching from side to side. 

The floating vallisneria is very thick at the shallow bends. I see many of its narrow, erect, spoon-shaped tops. 

Cornus alternifolia 

Cornus alternifolia berries ripe, as I go from Holden Swamp shore to Miles Swamp. They are in open cymes, dull-blue, somewhat depressed globular, tipped with the persistent styles, yet already, as usual, mostly fallen. But handsomer far are the pretty (bare) red peduncles and pedicels, like fairy fingers spread. They make a show at a distance of a dozen rods even. Some thing light and open about this tree, but a sort of witch's tree nevertheless. 

The purple utricularia abundant, but I did not chance to notice it July 25th. 

At Bittern Cliff again lucky enough to find Polygonum tenue, apparently out but a short time, say one week at most. Have marked the spot by a stone from the wall; further north than formerly. 

Selaginella rupestris (?) shows yellow fruit now at Bittern Cliff. 

Gerardia quercifolia, three to four feet high, out there, apparently two or three days. Yet none of the leaves I have are twice pinnatifid. 

Penny royal there, apparently some days.

Diplopappus cornifolius, some time. Desmodium acuminatum a long time out and also gone to seed. Lespedeza hirta, Blackberry Steep, how long? 

High blackberries beginning; a few ripe. 

Parietaria a foot high, some time, under the slippery elm. 

What is that tall (four feet), long-bearded grass, now nearly ripe, under this end of Lee's Cliff? 

I see blackened haycocks on the meadows. Think what the farmer gets with his hay, — what his river-meadow hay consists of, — how much of fern and osier and sweet-gale and Polygonum hydropiperoides and rhexia (I trust the cattle love the scent of it as well as I) and lysimachia, etc., etc., and rue, and sium and cicuta. 

In a meadow now being mown I see that the ferns and small osiers are as thick as the grass. If modern farmers do not collect elm and other leaves for their cattle, they do thus mow and cure the willows, etc., etc., to a considerable extent, so that they come to large bushes or trees only on the edge of the meadow. 

Two small ducks (probably wood ducks) flying south. Already grown, and at least looking south! ! It reminds me of the swift revolution of the seasons.

Our river is so sluggish and smooth that sometimes I can trace a boat that has passed half an hour before, by the bubbles on its surface, which have not burst. I have known thus which stream another party had gone up long before. A swift stream soon blots out such traces. 

Cirsium lanceolatum at Lee's Cliff, apparently some days. Its leaves are long-pointed and a much darker green than those of the pasture thistle. On the under sides of its leaves I noticed very large ants attending peculiar large dark-colored aphides, for their milch cows. 

The prevailing willow off Holden Swamp is sericea- like, but the leaf is narrow, more shining above, and merely glaucous beneath, longer-petioled, the serratures not so much bent toward the point. The twigs not nearly so brittle at the base, but bringing away strings of bark. Stipules probably fallen or inconspicuous. Can it be S. petiolaris? and is it the same with that above Hemlocks, north side? Or is it S. lucida? Vide in press. 

Edge of grain-field next Bittern Cliff Wood, common spurge; and, with it, apparently the same, half ascendant and covered or spotted with a minute fungus.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 3, 1856

Cornus alternifolia berries ripe . . . See August 1, 1852 ("The berries of what I have called the alternate-leaved cornel are now ripe, a very dark blue - blue-black - and round, but dropping off prematurely, leaving handsome red cymes, which adorn the trees from a distance.")

Willows, etc., etc.. . . come to large bushes or trees only on the edge of the meadow. See July 29, 1853 ("[A plant] grows where it escapes the mower, . . . we do not know where they would prefer to grow if unmolested by man, but rather where they best escape his vandalism. How large a proportion of flowers, for instance, are referred to and found by hedges, walls, and fences.")

Our river is so sluggish and smooth that sometimes I can trace a boat that has passed half an hour before. . . See April 16, 1852 ("[Concord River is a] succession of bays . . . 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 white maple keys fall and float down the stream like wings of great insects.

May 29

P. M. — To Cedar Swamp by Assabet. 

The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream like the wings of great insects. 

Dandelions and mouse-ear down have been blowing for some time and are seen on water. These are interesting as methinks the first of the class of downy seeds which are more common in the fall. 

There are myriads of shad-flies fluttering over the dark and still water under the hill, one every yard or two, continually descending, almost falling, to the surface of the water as if to drink and then rising again, again to fall upon it, and so on. I see the same one fall and rise five or six feet thus four or five times; and now comes along a large dragon-fly and snatches one. 

Other smaller insects, light-colored, are fluttering low close to the water, and in some places are swarms of small black moths.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1854

Today's entry includes an extended comment on the fugitive slave trial, in Boston, of Anthony Burns. This material and more from June 9, 1854, toned down, would be worked into HDT's "Slavery in Massachusetts." ("These days it is left to one Mr. Loring to say whether a citizen of Massachusetts is a slave or not. ... Why, the United States Government never performed an act of justice in its life!...Rather than thus consent to establish hell upon earth, — to be a party to this establishment, — I would touch a match to blow up earth and hell together." ) ~ Zphx. [Burns was convicted of being a fugitive slave on June 2, 1854. That same day, an estimated 50,000 lined the streets of Boston, watching Anthony Burns walk in shackles toward the waterfront and the waiting ship.]

See Thoreau Transforms His Journal into “Slavery in Massachusetts”


The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream like the wings of great insects. See May 21, 1853 ("The white maple keys are nearly two inches long by a half-inch wide, in pairs, with waved inner edges like green moths ready to bear off their seeds.");  May 30, 1853 ("The white maple keys falling and covering the river.");  June 6, 1855 ("The white maple keys are about half fallen.”); June 9, 1858 ("White maple keys are abundantly floating.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Maple Keys

Dandelions and mouse-ear down have been blowing for some time and are seen on water. See May 29, 1853 ("Fields are whitened with mouse-ear gone to seed — a mass of white fuzz blowing off one side — and also with dandelion globes of seeds.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Mouse-ear

There are myriads of shad-flies fluttering over the dark and still water. See .  May 4, 1856 ("Shad-flies on the water, schooner-like");  June 2, 1854 ("When we returned to our boat at 7 p. m., I noticed first, to my surprise, that the river was all alive with leaping fish . . . Looking up I found that the whole atmosphere over the river was full of shad-flies. It was a great flight of ephemera.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring (millers, perla, shad-flies or ephemera)

May 29. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 29

The white maple keys

fall and float down the stream like

wings of great insects.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Insects on the water

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-540529