Their harvest of panic seed.

September 26. 

Another smart frost, making dry walking amid the stiffened grass in the morning. 

The purple grass (Eragrostis pectinacea) done. Perhaps the first smart frost finished its purple.

I observe that the seeds of the Panicum sanguinale and filiforme are perhaps half fallen, evidently affected by the late frosts, as chestnuts, etc., will be by later ones; and now is the time, too, when flocks of sparrows begin to scour over the weedy fields, especially in the morning. Methinks they are attracted to some extent by this their harvest of panic seed. 

The spikes of P. Crus-galli also are partially bare.

Evidently the small granivorous birds abound more after these seeds are ripe. 

The seeds of pigweed are yet apparently quite green. Maybe they are somewhat peculiar for hanging on all winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 26, 1858


The seeds of the Panicum sanguinale and filiforme are perhaps half fallen.--This their harvest of panic seed. See September 4, 1858 ("P. sanguinale, crab grass, finger grass, or purple panic grass.");September 12, 1858 ("The Panicum filiforme is very abundant ... and, seen in the right light, where they stand thick, they give a purple gleam to the field. ")

The spikes of P. Crus-galli also are partially bare. See September 13, 1858 ("There is a man there mowing the Panicum Crus-galli, which is exceedingly rank and dense.")

Now is the time, too, when flocks of sparrows begin to scour over the weedy fields, especially in the morning. See September 17, 1858 (“Methinks, too, that there are more sparrows in flocks now about in garden”);  September 27, 1858 ("What are those little birds in flocks in the garden and on the peach trees these mornings, about size of chip-birds, without distinct chestnut crowns?”); October 3, 1860 ("I have seen and heard sparrows in flocks, more as if flitting by, within a week, or since the frosts began.") October 5, 1858 (“I still see large flocks, apparently of chip birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard.”); October 10, 1853 ("There are . . . large flocks of small sparrows, which make a business of washing and pruning themselves in the puddles in the road, as if cleaning up after a long flight and the wind of yesterday.”); 

The seeds of pigweed are somewhat peculiar for hanging on all winter. See February 13, 1853 ("I am called to window to see a dense flock of snowbirds, on and under the pigweed in the garden. "); February 10, 1855 ("t is worth the while to let some pigweed grow in your garden, if only to attract these winter visitors. "); January 2, 1856 ("I see, near the back road and railroad, a small flock of eight snow buntings feeding on the the seeds of the pigweed.")

September 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 26

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

It is an early September afternoon.

September 7. 

P. M. — To Assabet Bath. 

September 7, 2018

I turn Anthony’s corner. It is an early September afternoon, melting warm and sunny; the thousands of grasshoppers leaping before you reflect gleams of light; a little distance off the field is yellowed with a Xerxean army of Solidago nemoralis between me and the sun; the earth-song of the cricket comes up through all; and ever and anon the hot z-ing of the locust is heard. (Poultry is now fattening on grasshoppers.) The dry deserted fields are one mass of yellow, like a color shoved to one side on Nature’s palette. You literally wade in yellow flowers knee-deep, and now the moist banks and low hollows are beginning to be abundantly sugared with Aster Tradescantia.

J. Farmer calls those Rubus sempervirens berries, now abundant, “snake blackberries.” 

Looking for my Maryland yellow-throat’s nest, I find that apparently a snake has made it the portico to his dwelling, there being a hole descending into the earth through it! 

In Shad-bush Meadow the prevailing grasses (not sedges) now are the slender Panicum clandestinum, whose seeds are generally dropped now, Panicum virgatum, in large tufts, and blue-joint, the last, of course, long since done. These are all the grasses that I notice there. 

What a contrast to sink your head so as to cover your ears with water, and hear only the confused noise of the rushing river, and then to raise your ears above water and hear the steady creaking of crickets in the aerial universe! 

While dressing, I see two small hawks, probably partridge hawks, soaring and circling about one hundred feet above the river. Suddenly one drops down from that height almost perfectly perpendicularly after some prey, till it is lost behind the bushes. 

Near the little bridge at the foot of Turtle Bank, Eragrostis capillaris in small but dense patches, apparently in prime (the Poa capillaris of Bigelow). What I have thus called in press is E. pectinacea (P. hirsuta of Bigelow). 

On the flat hill south of Abel Hosmer, Agrostis scabra, hair grass, flyaway grass, tickle grass, out of bloom; branches purplish. That of September 5th was the A. perennans, in lower ground. 

On the railroad between tracks above Red House, hardly yet out; forked aristida, or poverty grass. 

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. [Yes. Vide Sept. 9th. Vide Sept. 21st and Dec. 7th, and June 1st, 1859]

Also a smaller egg of same form, but dull white with very pale dusky spots, which may be that of the Carolina rail. 

He had also what I think the egg of the Falco fuscatus, it agreeing with MacGillivray’s sparrow hawk’s egg.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 7, 1858

Looking for my Maryland yellow-throat’s nest. See June 10, 1858 (“To Assebet Bath. . .A Maryland yellow-throat's nest near apple tree by the low path beyond the pear tree. Perfectly concealed under the loose withered grass at the base of a clump of birches, with no apparent entrance. ”)

In Shad-bush Meadow the prevailing grasses now are the slender Panicum clandestine, Panicum virgatum,  and blue-joint, the last, of course, long since done. These are all the grasses that I notice there. See August 2, 1858 (“Landed at the Bath-Place and walked the length of Shad-bush Meadow. . . .What I have called the Panicum latifoliumhas now its broad leaves, striped with red, abundant under Turtle Bank, above Bath-Place.”)

Storrow Higginson brings from Deerfield this evening some eggs to show me, — among others apparently that of the Virginian rail. See September 9, 1858 (“My egg (named Sept. 7th) was undoubtedly a meadow-hen’s Rallus Virginiana.”)

Purple panic grass.

September 4.

Much rain, with thunder and lightning. 

September 4, 2018
(avesong)

Our large-fruited sparganium is evidently S. ramosum, still a little, at least, in flower. 

My large grass of the riverside with a narrow or spike-like appressed panicle, long since out, at the end of a long bare culm, leafy below, is apparently Phalaris arundinacea. 

Piper grass is apparently Triticum repens; now done.

What I called Panicum capillare (after Hoar, without examining) is P. sanguinale, crab grass, finger grass, or purple panic grass. Panicum capillare (very different and like Eragrostis capillaris, the fine purple grass) is now in prime in garden.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 4, 1858

(Eragrostis capillaris, the fine purple grass) See August 13, 1860 ("Purple grass (Eragrostis pectinacca), two or three days. E. capillaris, say as much.")

To Gowing's Swamp.

August 13.


P. M. — To Great Meadows and Gowing's Swamp.

Purple grass (Eragrostis pectinacca), two or three days. E. capillaris, say as much. Andropogon scoparius, a day or two. Calamagrostis coarctata, not quite.

Glyceria obtusa, well out; say several days.

Some of the little cranberries at Gowing's Swamp appear to have been frost-bitten. Also the blue-eyed grass, which is now black-topped.

Hear the steady shrill of the alder locust.

Rain this forenoon. Windy in afternoon

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 13, 1860

Glyceria obtusa, well out. See September 2, 1858 (“That rich, close, erect-panicled grass of the meadows, apparently for a month in bloom.”)

The little cranberries at Gowing's Swamp . . . See August 30, 1856 (“I have come out this afternoon a-cranberrying, chiefly to gather some of the small cranberry . . . Better for me, says my genius, to go cranberrying this afternoon for the Vaccinium Oxycoccus in Gowing's Swamp, to get but a pocketful and learn its peculiar flavor, aye, and the flavor of Gowing's Swamp and of life in New England. . .”)

Hear the steady shrill of the alder locust. See August 10, 1853 ("Saw an alder locust this morning."); August 11, 1852 ("The autumnal ring of the alder locust."); August 12, 1858 (“Hear what I have called the alder locust (?) as I return over the causeway, and probably before this.”)

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

Little cranberries 

at Gowing's Swamp  frost-bitten –

blue-eyed grass black-topped.

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