A Book of the Seasons: February 4. (tracks: mink, otter, partridge; the play of light in the pines, discovery, a glorious night)

 

The year is but succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

February 4

A glorious night

coming home through the village

by this full moonlight.

February 4, 1852

The tracks of a mink

in the shallow snow along

the edge of the river.

February 4, 1854

Distinct otter-track

by the rock at the junction

of the two rivers.

February 4, 1855

Partridges feeding

on the sumach berries make

fresh tracks every snow.

February 4, 1856

February 4, 2024

I went over to the Hemlocks on the Assabet this morning. Saw the tracks, I think of a mink, in the shallow snow along the edge of the river, looking for a hole in the ice. February 4, 1854

A clear, cold morning. The smokes from the village chimneys are quickly purified and dissipated, like vapor, in the air. February 4, 1854

Clear and cold and windy; much colder than for some time. February 4, 1855

It is better skating to-day than yesterday. This is the sixth day of some kind of skating. February 4, 1855

See this afternoon a very distinct otter-track by the Rock, at the junction of the two rivers.  February 4, 1855

The separate foot-tracks are quite round, more than two inches in diameter, showing the five toes distinctly in the snow, which is about half an inch deep. February 4, 1855

Close by the Great Aspen I see where it had entered or come out of the water under a shelf of ice left adhering to a maple. February 4, 1855

There it apparently played and slid on the level ice, making a broad trail as if a shovel had been shoved along, just eight inches wide, without a foot-track in it for four feet or more. February 4, 1855

It had left much dung on the ice, soft, yellow, bowel-like, like a gum that has been chewed in consistency. February 4, 1855

About the edge of the hole, where the snow was all rubbed off, was something white which looks and smells exactly like bits of the skin of pouts or eels. February 4, 1855

Minott tells of one shot once while eating an eel. Vance saw one this winter in this town by a brook eating a fish. February 4, 1855

I go to walk at 3 P. M., thermometer 18°. It has been about this (and 22°) at this hour for a week or two. February 4, 1856

All the light snow, some five inches above the crust, is adrift these days and driving over the fields like steam, or like the foam-streaks on a flooded meadow, from northwest to southeast. February 4, 1856

The surface of the fields is rough, like a lake agitated by the wind. February 4, 1856

I see that the Partridges feed quite extensively on the sumach berries. February 4, 1856

They come to them after every snow, making fresh tracks, and have now stripped many bushes quite bare. February 4, 1856

At Tanager Glade I see where the rabbits have gnawed the bark of the shrub oaks extensively, and the twigs, down to the size of a goose-quill, cutting them off as smoothly as a knife. February 4, 1856

They have also gnawed some young white oaks, black cherry, and apple. The shrub oaks look like hedges which have been trimmed or clipped. February 4, 1856

I have often wondered how red cedars could have sprung up in some pastures which I knew to be miles distant from the nearest fruit-bearing cedar, but it now occurs to me that these and barberries, etc., may be planted by the crows, and probably other birds. February 4, 1856

The oak leaves which have blown over the snow are collected in dense heaps on the still side of the bays at Walden, where I suspect they make warm beds for the rabbits to squat on. February 4, 1856

The sun loves to nestle in the boughs of the pine and pass rays through them. February 4, 1852

The needles of the pine are the touchstone for the air; any change is revealed by their livelier green or increased motion. February 4, 1852

Now the white pine are a misty blue; anon a lively, silvery light plays on them . . . while the pitch pines are a brighter yellowish-green than usual. February 4, 1852

They are the telltales. February 4, 1852

Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole, growing with the Andromeda calyculata, Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, etc. This plant might easily be confounded with the water andromeda by a careless observer. When I showed it to a teamster, he was sure that he had seen it often in the woods, but the sight of the woolly under side staggered him. As usual with the finding of new plants, I had a presentiment that I should find the ledum in Concord. It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery. February 4, 1858

11 P. M. — Coming home through the village by this full moonlight, it seems one of the most glorious nights I ever beheld. February 4, 1852

Though the pure snow is so deep around, the air, by contrast perhaps with the recent days, is mild and even balmy to my senses, and the snow is still sticky to my feet and hands . February 4, 1852

And the sky is the most glorious blue I ever beheld, even a light blue on some sides, as if I actually saw into day, while small white, fleecy clouds, at long intervals, are drifting from west-north west to south-southeast. February 4, 1852

Has not this blueness of the sky the same cause with the blueness in the holes in the snow, and in some distant shadows on the snow? — if, indeed, it is true that the sky is bluer in winter when the ground is covered with snow. February 4, 1852

If you would know the direction of the wind, look not at the clouds, which are such large bodies and confuse you, but consider in what direction the moon appears to be wading through them. February 4, 1852

The outlines of the elms were never more distinctly seen than now.  February 4, 1852

It seems a slighting of the gifts of God to go to sleep now; as if we could better afford to close our eyes to daylight, of which we see so much. February 4, 1852

*****

 Natural History of Massachusetts (1842) ("The otter is rarely if ever seen here at present; and the mink is less common than formerly.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Otter

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, White Pines

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at the Leaning Hemlocks

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, at Ledum Swamp 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February is Mid-Winter

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating

*****

October 25, 1858 ("Now, especially, we notice . . .the silvery sheen of pine-needles; i. e., when its old leaves have fallen and trees generally are mostly bare . . .I do not know why we perceive this more at this season, unless because the air is so clear and all surfaces reflect more light; and, besides, all the needles now left are fresh ones, or the growth of this year. Also I notice. . another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light.")

November 11, 1851("There is a cold, silvery light on the white pines )
December 14, 1854 ("I have rarely seen any reflections -- of weeds, willows, and elms. . . -- so distinct, the stems so black and distinct")

November 16, 1852 ("The pines on shore look very cold, reflecting a silvery light.")
November 26, 1858 ("If the pond continues to fall, undoubtedly all the fishes thus landlocked will die.. . .No doubt several creatures, like otter and mink and foxes, know where to resort for their food at this season. This is now a perfect otter’s or mink’s preserve.")

November 30, 1851 ("My eye rested with pleasure on the white pines, now reflecting a silvery light.")

December 2, 1852 ("We see a mink, slender, black, very like a weasel in form. He alternately runs along on the ice and swims in the water, now and then holding up his head and long neck looking at us. Not so shy as a muskrat.")

December 3, 1856 ("The pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon. . . .The silvery needles of the pine straining the light.")

At the forest’s edge

silvery needles of the pine

straining the light.

December 3, 1856

December 6. 1856 ("I see here and there very faint tracks of musk-rats or minks, made when it was soft and sloshy.")

December 6, 1856 (“Just this side of Bittern Cliff, I see a very remarkable track of an otter . . .The river was all tracked up with otters, from Bittern Cliff upward. Sometimes one had trailed his tail, apparently edge wise, making a mark like the tail of a deer mouse; sometimes they were moving fast, and there was an interval of five feet between the tracks.”);

December 8, 1855(The sun is reflected from far through the aisles with a silvery light from the needles of the pine.")

Sun is reflected

from the needles of the pine

with a silvery light.

Dec. 8, 1855

December 9, 1856 ("Coming through the Walden woods, I see already great heaps of oak leaves collected in certain places on the snow-crust by the roadside, where an eddy deposited them.. . .They are beds which invite the traveller to repose on them, even in this wintry weather.")

December 9, 1856 ("The reflected white in the winter horizon of this perfectly cloudless sky is being condensed at the horizon's edge . . . against which the tops of the trees — pines and elms — are seen with beautiful distinctness.")

December 11, 1858 ("Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust, simulating bare ground and helping to conceal the rabbit and partridge.")

December 17, 1859 ("And on the ridge north is the track of a partridge amid the shrubs. It has hopped up to the low clusters of smooth sumach berries, sprinkled the snow with them, and eaten all but a few. ")

December 19, 1851 ("Why should it be so pleasing to look into a thick pine wood where the sunlight streams in and gilds it?")
December 21. 1851(“Sunlight on pine-needles is the phenomenon of a winter day.”)

December 31, 1854 (“ On the edge of A. Wheeler’s cranberry meadow I see the track of an otter made since yesterday morning.”)

January 21, 1853 (“I think it was January 20th that I saw that which I think an otter track in path under the Cliffs, — a deep trail in the snow, six or seven inches wide and two or three deep in the middle, as if a log had been drawn along, similar to a muskrat's only much larger, and the legs evidently short and the steps short, sinking three or four inches deeper still, as if it had waddled along.”);

January 21, 1853 ("The blueness of the sky at night — the color it wears by day — is an everlasting surprise to me, suggesting the constant presence and prevalence of light in the firmament, that we see through the veil of night to the constant blue, as by day.")

January 21, 1853 ("Otter are very rare here now.”);
January 22, 1856 (“After long study with a microscope, I discover that they [crow droppings] consist of the seeds and skins and other indigestible parts of red cedar berries and some barberries . . . from the cedar woods and barberry bushes by Flint’s Pond. “)

January 22, 1856 ("The tracks of the partridges by the sumachs, made before the 11th, are perhaps more prominent now than ever, for they have consolidated the snow under them so that as it settled it has left them alto-relievo. They look like broad chains extending straight far over the snow")

January 30, 1854 ("How retired an otter manages to live! He grows to be four feet long without any mortal getting a glimpse of him,")

February 2, 1855 ("At ten o’clock, the moon still obscured, I skate on the river and meadows . . .  We seem thus to go faster than by day")

February 3, 1855 ("This will deserve to be called the winter of skating.")
February 3, 1856 ("A strong northwest wind (and thermometer 11°), driving the surface snow like steam.")

February 3. 1852 ("Is not the sky unusually blue to-night? dark blue?")

February 5, 1852 ("The sky last night was a deeper, more cerulean blue than the far lighter and whiter sky of to-day.")

February, 5, 1852 ("The boughs, feathery boughs, of the white pines, tier above tier, reflect a silvery light against the darkness of the grove, as if both the silvery-lighted and greenish bough and the shadowy intervals of the shade behind belong to one tree.”)

February 6, 1856 ( [Goodwin] thinks that what I call muskrat-tracks are mink-tracks by the Rock, and that muskrat do not come out at all this weather.")

February 8, 1857 (“The otter must roam about a great deal, for I rarely see fresh tracks in the same neighborhood a second time the same winter, though the old tracks may be apparent all the winter through.”)

February 10, 1860 ("I see that Wheildon's pines are rocking and showing their silvery under sides as last spring, — their first awakening, as it were. ")
February 11, 1859 (" The south side of Ball’s Hill, which is warm and half bare, is tracked up with partridges, and I start several there. So is it next Sunday with the Hill shore, east of Fair Haven Pond. These birds are sure to be found now on such slopes, where only the ground and dry leaves are exposed.")

February 13, 1855 ("The tracks of partridges are more remarkable in this snow than usual, it is so light, being at the same time a foot deep. In one place, when alighting, the primary quills, five of them, have marked the snow for a foot. I see where many have dived into the snow.")

February 20, 1855 (Among the quadrupeds of Concord, the otter is "very rare.")
February 20, 1856 (“See a broad and distinct otter-trail, made last night or yesterday. It came out to the river through the low declivities, making a uniform broad hollow trail there without any mark of its feet. . . .Commonly seven to nine or ten inches wide, and tracks of feet twenty to twenty-four apart; but sometimes there was no track of the feet for twenty-five feet, frequently for six; in the last case swelled in the outline.”)

February 22, 1856 (“Just below this bridge begins an otter track, several days old yet very distinct, which I trace half a mile down the river. In the snow less than an inch deep, on the ice, each foot makes a track three inches wide, apparently enlarged in melting. The clear interval, sixteen inches; the length occupied by the four feet, fourteen inches. It looks as if some one had dragged a round timber down the middle of the river a day or two since, which bounced as it went.”)

February 25, 1860 ("I noticed yesterday the first conspicuous silvery sheen from the needles of the white pine waving in the wind.")

February 28, 1857 (“I see the track, apparently of a muskrat (?). . . with very sharp and distinct trail of tail, — on the snow and thin ice over the little rill in the Miles meadow. . . . (Does the mink ever leave a track of its tail?”)
March 6, 1856 ("On the rock this side the Leaning Hemlocks, is the track of an otter.")
March 8, 1853 ("Saw a mink run across the road in Sudbury, a large black weasel, to appearance, worming its supple way over the snow. Where it ran, its tracks were thus: the intervals between the fore and hind feet sixteen or eighteen inches by two and a half.")

March 21, 1859 (“That fine silvery light reflected from its needles (perhaps their undersides) incessantly in motion.”)

March 31, 1857 ("The existence of the otter, our largest wild animal, is not betrayed to any of our senses (or at least not to more than one in a thousand)! )

April 2 1853 (“I can see far into the pine woods to tree behind tree, and one tower behind another of silvery needles, stage above stage, relieved with shade.”)

April 6, 1855 ("It reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen.")

May 1, 1855 ("Why have the white pines at a distance that silvery look around their edges or thin parts? Is it owing to the wind showing the under sides of the needles? Methinks you do not see it in the winter.")

May 11, 1853 ("The sky is blue by night as well as by day, because it knows no night.")

May 18, 1852 ("The forest, the dark-green pines, wonderfully distinct, near and erect, with their distinct dark stems, spiring tops, regularly disposed branches, and silvery light on their needles.")
July 2, 1854 ("From the Hill, the sun rising, I see a fine river fog . . . I mark the outlines of the elms . . . now so still and distinct, looking east")

February 4, 2021

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

February 3  <<<<<<<<   February 4 >>>>>>>>  February 5

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 4

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 ©  2009-2023

https://tinyurl.com/HDT04Feb

Another new plant anticipated. Naming Ledum Swamp.

February 4. 

P. M. – To C. Miles Swamp. 

Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole, growing with the Andromeda calyculata, Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, etc. 

The A. Polifolia is very abundant about the pond-hole, some of it very narrow-leaved and dark, even black, above, as if burnt. 

The ledum bears a general resemblance to the water andromeda, with its dark reddish-purplish, or rather mulberry, leaves, reflexed; but nearer it is distinguished by its coarseness, the perfect tent form of its upper leaves, and the large, conspicuous terminal roundish (strictly oval) red buds, nearly as big as the swamp pink's, but rounded. The woolly stem for a couple of inches beneath the bud is frequently bare and conspicuously club-shaped. The rust on the under sides of the leaves seems of a lighter color than that of Maine. The seed-vessels (which open at the base first) still hold on. 

This plant might easily be confounded with the water andromeda by a careless observer. When I showed it to a teamster, he was sure that he had seen it often in the woods, but the sight of the woolly under side staggered him. 

There are many small spruce thereabouts, with small twigs and leaves, an abnormal growth, reminding one of strange species of evergreen from California, China, etc. 

I brought some home and had a cup of tea made, which, in spite of a slight piny or turpentine flavor, I thought unexpectedly good. 

An abundance of nesaea on the east edge of the pond-hole (call it Ledum Pond-hole); and is that a lysimachia mingled with it?

The ledum does not grow amid the maples, nor, indeed, does the A. Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, nor even the water andromeda abundantly. It bears no more shade than that of the spruce trees, which do not prevail over the above-named shrubbery. 

As usual with the finding of new plants, I had a presentiment that I should find the ledum in Concord. It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery.

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

Discover the Ledum latiforium ....The rust on the under sides of the leaves seems of a lighter color than that of Maine. See July 25, 1857 (“Here [at Kimeo], among others, were the . . . Oxalis Acetosella, still occasionally in flower; Labrador tea (Ledum latifolium), out of bloom; Kalmia glauca, etc., etc., close to the track. ”); August 24, 1857 (“We waded into Coos Swamp on the south side the turnpike [at Natick] to find the ledum, but did not succeed. ”); June 19, 1856 (“Looked at a collection of the rarer plants made by Higginson and placed at the Natural History Rooms. Among which noticed ...Ledum latifolium, from White Mountains, rather 'broader—leafed than mine from Maine.”)  ~~ Recently reclassified from the genus Ledum, labrador-tea (Rhododendron groenlandicum) is a diminutive shrub of cool, wet swamps, spruce forests, and muskeg. It is recognized by its clusters of tiny white flowers and its folded-under leaves with brown hairs on the undersides. This shrub is named Labrador-tea because its aromatic leaves were commonly brewed as a tea by northern native Americans. Moose browse the leaves and twigs. ~ Go Botany

The A. Polifolia is very abundant about the pond-hole, some of it very narrow-leaved and dark, even black, above, as if burnt. See February 12, 1858 ("There is, apparently, more of the Andromeda Polifolia in that swamp than anywhere else in Concord."); November 15,1857 ("At C. Miles Swamp [f]ind plenty of Andromeda Polifolia ... where you can walk dry-shod in the spruce wood”). See also July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom.): February 17, 1854 ("In the open part of Gowing's Swamp I find the Andromeda Polifolia. Neither here nor in Beck Stow's does it grow very near the shore.)

This plant might easily be confounded with the water andromeda by a careless observer. See August 19, 1856 (“a careless observer would look through their thin flowery panicles without observing any flower at all.”)

There are many small spruce thereabouts, with small twigs and leaves, an abnormal growth, See November 15,1857 ("At C. Miles Swamp .. where you can walk dry-shod in the spruce wood”); February 12, 1858 ("About the ledum pond-hole there is an abundance of that abnormal growth of the spruce. . . , which have an impoverished look, altogether forming a broom-like mass, very much like a heath."); June 13, 1858 ("I see a song sparrow's nest here in a little spruce just by the mouth of the ditch."); August 8, 1858 ("The peculiar plants of [Ledum] swamp are, then, as I remember, these nine: spruce, Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, Ledum latifolium, Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, Platanthera blephari glottis, Scheuchzeria palustris, Eriophorum 'vaginatum.");' September 6, 1858 ("That swamp is a singularly wild place, without any natural outlet. I hear of a marsh hawk’s nest there this summer. I see great spiders there of an uncommon kind, whose webs —the main supporting line — stretch six feet in the clear from spruce to spruce, as high as my head, with a dense web of the usual form some fifteen inches in diameter beneath."); October 23, 1858 ("The spruce is changed and falling, but is brown and inconspicuous. A man at work on the Ledum Pool, draining it, says that. . . he had found three growths of spruce, one above another, there.")

It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery. See  July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. This is another instance of a common experience. When I am shown from abroad, or hear of, or in any [way] become interested in, some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon. Within a week R. W. E. showed me a slip of this in a botany, as a great rarity which George Bradford brought from Watertown. I had long been interested in it by Linnaeus's account. I now find it in abundance.”); January 9, 1855 (“Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots very much like the Andromeda Polifolia, amid sphagnum, lambkill, Andromeda calyculata, blueberry bushes, etc., though there is very little to be seen above the snow. It is, I have little doubt, the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia.”);  September 2, 1856 (“It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, perhaps wading in some remote swamp where I have just found something novel and feel more than usually remote from the town. Or some rare plant which for some reason has occupied a strangely prominent place in my thoughts for some time will present itself. My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things.”); November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else. In my botanical rambles I find that first the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, though it may at first seem very foreign to this locality, and for some weeks or months I go thinking of it and expecting it unconsciously, and at length I surely see it, and it is henceforth an actual neighbor of mine. This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name.”); August 22, 1860 ("I never find a remarkable Indian relic but I have first divined its existence, and planned the discovery of it. Frequently I have told myself distinctly what it was to be before I found it.”); and note to July 2, 1857 ("We find only the world we look for.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 4

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 ©  2009-2023

The serene and everlasting truths that underlie and support our vacillating life.

February 4. 

the eternal plains of truth, where rests the base of those beautiful columns that sustain the heavens

February 4, 2017

Met Theodore Parker in the cars, who told me that he had recently found in Lake Michigan a single ball, five inches in diameter, like those I presented to the Natural History Society, though he did not observe the eriocaulon. It was late in the season. 

Yet along that sled-track (vide the 3d) they will have their schools and lyceums and churches, like the snow-heaps crowded up by the furrow, and consider themselves liberally educated, notwithstanding their narrow views and range. And the bare track that leads to the next town and seaboard, only six inches' breadth of iron rails! and a one-eighth-inch wire in the air! 

I sometimes hear a prominent but dull-witted worthy man say, or hear that he has said, rarely, that if it were not for his firm belief in "an overruling power," or a "perfect Being," etc., etc. But such poverty-stricken expressions only convince me of his habitual doubt and that he is surprised into a transient belief. Such a man's expression of faith, moving solemnly in the traditional furrow, and casting out all free-thinking and living souls with the rusty mould-board of his compassion or contempt, thinking that he has Moses and all the prophets in his wake, discourages and saddens me as an expression of his narrow and barren want of faith. I see that the infidels and skeptics have formed themselves into churches and weekly gather together at the ringing of a bell. 

Sometimes when, in conversation or a lecture, I have been grasping at, or even standing and reclining upon, the serene and everlasting truths that underlie and support our vacillating life, I have seen my auditors standing on their terra firma, the quaking earth, crowded together on their Lisbon Quay, and compassionately or timidly watching my motions as if they were the antics of a rope-dancer or mountebank pretending to walk on air; or here and there one creeping out upon an overhanging but cracking bough, unwilling to drop to the adamantine floor beneath, or perchance even venturing out a step or two, as if it were a dangerous kittly-bender, timorously sounding as he goes. 

So the other day, as I stood on Walden, drinking at a puddle on the ice, which was probably two feet thick, and thinking how lucky I was that I had not got to cut through all that thickness, I was amused to see an Irish laborer on the railroad, who had come down to drink, timidly tiptoeing toward me in his cowhide boots, lifting them nearly two feet at each step and fairly trembling with fear, as if the ice were already bending beneath his ponderous body and he were about to be engulfed. "Why, my man," I called out to him, " this ice will bear a loaded train, half a dozen locomotives side by side, a whole herd of oxen," suggesting whatever would be a weighty argument with him. And so at last he fairly straightened up and quenched his thirst. 

It was very ludicrous to me, who was thinking, by chance, what a labor it would be to get at the water with an axe there and that I was lucky to find some on the surface. 

So, when I have been resting and quenching my thirst on the eternal plains of truth, where rests the base of those beautiful columns that sustain the heavens, I have been amused to see a traveller who had long confined himself to the quaking shore, which was all covered with the traces of the deluge, come timidly tiptoeing toward me, trembling in every limb. 

I see the crowd of materialists gathered together on their Lisbon Quay for safety, thinking it a terra firma. 

Though the farmer has been all winter teaming wood along the river, the timid citizen that buys it, but who has not stepped out of the road, thinks it all kittly-benders there and warns his boys not to go near it. 

Minott says that Dr. Heywood used to have a crazy hen (and he, too, has had one). She went about by herself uttering a peevish craw craw, and did not lay. One day he was going along on the narrow peninsula of Goose Pond looking for ducks, away in Walden Woods a mile and a half from Heywood's, when he met this very hen, which passed close by him, uttering as usual a faint craw craw. He knew her perfectly well, and says that he was never so surprised at anything in his life. How she had escaped the foxes and hawks was more than he knew. 

Told a story about one Josh Piper, a harelipped man, who lived down east awhile, whose wife would not let him occupy her bed; but he used to catch ducks there in a net on the shore as they do pigeons, and so got feathers enough to fill the bed, and therefore thought he had a right to lie on it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 4, 1857

I see the crowd of materialists gathered together on their Lisbon Quay for safety,. . .A refernee to the earthquake at Lisbon on the 1st of November, 1755 : “.The most extraordinary circumstance which occurred at Lisbon during the catastrophe was the subsidence of a new quay, built entirely of marble at an immense expense. A great concourse of people had collected there for safety, as a spot where they might be beyond the reach of falling ruins; but, suddenly, the quay sank down with all the people on it,. . .” 2 Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology 239 (3d ed. 1834)

the timid citizen . . . thinks it all kittly-benders there and warns his boys not to go near it. See Walden, Conclusion ("It affords me no satisfaction to commence to spring an arch before I have got a solid foundation. Let us not play at kittlybenders. There is a solid bottom everywhere.”)

another walk ending up at the Fisher Kendall pond. It is a quarter moon and though somewhat cloudy enough light  to walk by for most of the walk At the pond we clear some branches to make an easier path over the ice. It is a beautiful spot in at the top of the mountain between the ridges. We stop turn out the lights and listen  Orion peaks through the clouds  At the pond while we are busy there we have a start when Acorn disappears Bushwhacking back  we are both under red light it is good exercise there is couple of inches of snow on a stable crust and good walking 20170204

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 4

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 ©  2009-2023

A Book of the Seasons: February 4.

February 4
The tracks of a mink
in shallow snow along the
edge of the river.
February 4, 1854


In the shallow snow
by the edge of the river,
the tracks of a mink.
February 4, 1854


The tracks of a mink
looking for a hole in the ice
on the river’s edge.
February 4, 1854

Distinct otter-track
by the rock at the junction
of the two rivers.
February 4, 1855

Partridges feed on
the sumach berries making
fresh tracks every snow.
February 4, 1856


I went over to the Hemlocks on the Assabet this morning. Saw the tracks, I think of a mink, in the shallow snow along the edge of the river, looking for a hole in the ice. A clear, cold morning. February 4, 1854



See this afternoon a very distinct otter-track by the Rock, at the junction o

The separate foot-tracks are quite round, more than two inches in diameter, showing the five toes distinctly in the snow, which is about half an inch deep. February 4, 1855

Close by the Great Aspen I see where it had entered or come out of the water under a shelf of ice left adhering to a maple. February 4, 1855
I see that the partridges feed quite extensively on the sumach berries, e. g. at my old house. They come to them after every snow, making fresh tracks, and have now stripped many bushes quite bare. February 4, 1856

At Tanager Glade I see where the rabbits have gnawed the bark of the shrub oaks extensively, and the twigs, down to the size of a goose-quill, cutting them off as smoothly as a knife. February 4, 1856
The oak leaves which have blown over the snow are collected in dense heaps on the still side of the bays at Walden, where I suspect they make warm beds for the rabbits to squat on. February 4, 1856

The sun loves to nestle in the boughs of the pine and pass rays through them. February 4, 1852
\

Partridges feed quite extensively on the sumach berries. February 4, 1856

They come to them after every snow, making fresh tracks, and have now stripped many bushes quite bare. February 4, 1856

Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole, growing with the Andromeda calyculata, Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, etc. This plant might easily be confounded with the water andromeda by a careless observer. When I showed it to a teamster, he was sure that he had seen it often in the woods, but the sight of the woolly under side staggered him. As usual with the finding of new plants, I had a presentiment that I should find the ledum in Concord. It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery. February 4, 1858

11 P. M. — Coming home through the village by this full moonlight, it seems one of the most glorious nights I ever beheld. February 4, 1852 

It seems a slighting of the gifts of God to go to sleep now; as if we could better afford to close our eyes to daylight, of which we see so much. February 4, 1852

Another walk ending

at the Fisher-Kendall pond

looking at the stars.

February 4, 2017

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

Partridges feed quite extensively on the sumach berries

February 4

P. M. —To Walden.

I go to walk at 3 P. M., thermometer 18°. It has been about this (and 22°) at this hour for a week or two.

All the light snow, some five inches above the crust, is adrift these days and driving over the fields like steam, or like the foam-streaks on a flooded meadow, from northwest to southeast. The surface of the fields is rough, like a lake agitated by the wind.

Partridge tracks, January 24, 1856 

("with its slight hind toe, open and wide-spread toes on each side, 

both feet forming one straight line ")

I see that the partridges feed quite extensively on the sumach berries, e.g. at my old house. They come to them after every snow, making fresh tracks, and have now stripped many bushes quite bare. 

At Tanager Glade I see where the rabbits have gnawed the bark of the shrub oaks extensively, and the twigs, down to the size of a goose-quill, cutting them off as smoothly as a knife. They have also gnawed some young white oaks, black cherry, and apple. The shrub oaks look like hedges which have been trimmed or clipped. 

I have often wondered how red cedars could have sprung up in some pastures which I knew to be miles distant from the nearest fruit-bearing cedar, but it now occurs to me that these and barberries, etc., may be planted by the crows, and probably other birds. 

The oak leaves which have blown over the snow are collected in dense heaps on the still side of the bays at Walden, where I suspect they make warm beds for the rabbits to squat on. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 4, 1856

I see that the partridges feed quite extensively on the sumach berries . . . and have now stripped many bushes quite bare. See January 11, 1856 ("Observed that the smooth sumachs about the north side of the Wyman meadow had been visited by partridges and a great many of the still crimson berries were strewn on the snow. There they had eaten them, perched on the twigs. Elsewhere they had tracked the snow from bush to bush, visiting almost every bush and leaving their traces."); January 22, 1856 ("The tracks of the partridges by the sumachs, made before the 11th, are perhaps more prominent now than ever, for they have consolidated the snow under them so that as it settled it has left them alto-relievo. They look like broad chains extending straight far over the snow");  February 13, 1855 ("The tracks of partridges are more remarkable in this snow than usual, it is so light, being at the same time a foot deep. In one place, when alighting, the primary quills, five of them, have marked the snow for a foot. I see where many have dived into the snow."); December 17, 1859 ("Tthe track of a partridge . . .  It has hopped up to the low clusters of smooth sumach berries, sprinkled the snow with them, and eaten all but a few ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

It now occurs to me that these [red cedar] and barberries, etc., may be planted by the crows, and probably other birds. See January 22, 1856 (“After long study with a microscope, I discover that they [crow droppings] consist of the seeds and skins and other indigestible parts of red cedar berries and some barberries . . . from the cedar woods and barberry bushes by Flint’s Pond. “) See also October 16, 1860( Looking from a hilltop, I observe that pines, white birches, red maples, alders, etc., often grow in more or less regular rounded or oval or conical patches, while oaks, chestnuts, hickories, etc., simply form woods of greater or less extent, whether by themselves or mixed, and do not naturally spring up in an oval form. This is a consequence of the different manner in which trees which have winged seeds and those which have not are planted, - the former being blown together in one direction by the wind, the latter being dispersed irregularly by animals.); September 1, 1860: ("See how artfully the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a bird may be compelled to transport it."); September 18, 1859 (How little observed are the fruits which we do not use! How few attend to the ripening and dispersion of the pine seed!);August 9, 1851(The OEnothera biennis along the railroad now. Do the cars disperse seeds?); February 25, 1851 ( the crust of the meadow afloat,. . . Here is another agent employed in the distribution of plants.)

The oak leaves which have blown over the snow are collected in dense heaps on the still side of the bays at Walden, where I suspect they make warm beds for the rabbits to squat on. See December 9, 1856 ("Coming through the Walden woods, I see already great heaps of oak leaves collected in certain places on the snow-crust by the roadside, where an eddy deposited them.. . .The greater part that have fallen are deposited in clear and crispy heaps in particular places. They are beds which invite the traveller to repose on them, even in this wintry weather.") and note to December 11, 1858 ("Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust, simulating bare ground and helping to conceal the rabbit and partridge, etc. They are not equally diffused, but collected together here and there as if for the sake of society. ")

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

Partridges feeding

on the sumach berries make

fresh tracks every snow.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Partridges make fresh tracks

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560204

Distinct otter-track by the Rock at the junction of the two rivers.

February 4

Clear and cold and windy; much colder than for some time. It is better skating to-day than yesterday. This is the sixth day of some kind of skating.

See this afternoon a very distinct otter-track by the Rock, at the junction of the two rivers. The separate foot-tracks are quite round, more than two inches in diameter, showing the five toes distinctly in the snow, which is about half an inch deep. 

Close by the Great Aspen I see where it had entered or come out of the water under a shelf of ice left adhering to a maple. There it apparently played and slid on the level ice, making a broad trail as if a shovel had been shoved along, just eight inches wide, without a foot-track in it for four feet or more. 

It had left much dung on the ice, soft, yellow, bowel-like, like a gum that has been chewed in consistency. About the edge of the hole, where the snow was all rubbed off, was something white which looks and smells exactly like bits of the skin of pouts or eels.

Minott tells of one shot once while eating an eel. Vance saw one this winter in this town by a brook eating a fish.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 4, 1855

This is the sixth day of some kind of skating. See February 5, 1855 ("The ice for the last week has reached quite up into the village, so that you could get on to it just in the rear of the bank and set sail on skates for any part of the Concord River valley.");  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Winter of Skating

A very distinct otter-track by the Rock, at the junction of the two rivers. See February 8, 1857 (“The otter must roam about a great deal, for I rarely see fresh tracks in the same neighborhood a second time the same winter, though the old tracks may be apparent all the winter through.”);  February 20, 1856 (“See a broad and distinct otter-trail, made last night or yesterday. It came out to the river through the low declivities, making a uniform broad hollow trail there without any mark of its feet  . . . Commonly seven to nine or ten inches wide, and tracks of feet twenty to twenty-four apart; but sometimes there was no track of the feet for twenty-five feet, frequently for six; in the last case swelled in the outline.”); February 22, 1856 (“Just below this bridge begins an otter track, several days old yet very distinct, which I trace half a mile down the river. In the snow less than an inch deep, on the ice, each foot makes a track three inches wide, apparently enlarged in melting. The clear interval, sixteen inches; the length occupied by the four feet, fourteen inches. It looks as if some one had dragged a round timber down the middle of the river a day or two since, which bounced as it went.”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Otter

The Rock:  Egg Rock / Island Rock, "The most forwrd point on the small area that Thoreau refers to as the Island,"  an outcrop at the confluence of the Assabet and Sudbury rivers where they form the Concord River." ~ Ray Angelo,  Thoreau Place Names 74  

Minott tells of one. See  April 6, 1855 ("It reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen."); January 30, 1854 ("How retired an otter manages to live! He grows to be four feet long without any mortal getting a glimpse of him,"); February 20, 1855 (among the quadrupeds of Concord, the otter is "very rare."); March 31, 1857 ("The existence of the otter, our largest wild animal, is not betrayed to any of our senses (or at least not to more than one in a thousand)! ): Natural History of Massachusetts (1842) ("The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten have disappeared ; the otter is rarely if ever seen here at present; and the mink is less common than formerly..")

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

Distinct otter-track

by the rock at the junction

of the two rivers.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Distinct otter-track by the Rock

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/hdy-550204