The goldenrods resound with the hum of bees.

September 9.

Yesterday and to-day have felt about as hot as any weather this year.

The potato-balls lie ripe in the fields.

The groundsel down is in the air.

The last day of August I saw a sharp-nosed green grasshopper.

The goldenrods resound with the hum of bees and other insects.

Methinks the little leaves now springing, which I have called mullein, must be fragrant everlasting (?).

I believe that I occasionally hear a hylodes within a day or two.

In front of Cæsar's, the Crotalaria sagittalis, rattle-pod, still in bloom, though the seeds are ripe; probably began in July.

Also by Cæsar's well, Liatris scariosa, handsome rose-purple, with the aspect of a Canada thistle at a distance, or a single vernonia. Referred to August. Ah! the beauty of the liatris bud just bursting into bloom, the rich fiery rose-purple, like that of the sun at his rising. Some call it button snakeroot.

Those crotalaria pods would make pretty playthings for children.

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

 
The goldenrods resound with the hum of bees and other insects. See August 21, 1852 ("The bees, wasps, etc. are on the goldenrods, improving their time before the sun of the year sets."); August 30, 1859 ("Now that flowers are rarer, almost every one of whatever species has bees or butterflies upon it."); September 21, 1856  ("[On top of Cliff, behind the big stump] is a great place for white goldenrod, now in its prime and swarming with honey-bees."); October 11, 1856 ("The white goldenrod is still common here, and covered with bees."); October 12, 1856 ("It is interesting to see how some of the few flowers which still linger are frequented by bees and other insects. ")

I believe that I occasionally hear a hylodes within a day or two. See October 2, 1859 ("Hear a hylodes in the swamp."); October 3, 1852 ("I hear a hylodes (?) from time to time."); October 3, 1858 ("Hear a hylodes peeping on shore."):October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time,")

By Cæsar's well, Liatris scariosa, handsome rose-purple, with the aspect of a Canada thistle at a distance, or a single vernonia. See August 1, 1856 (" Liatris will apparently open in a day or two."); August 9, 1853 ("At Peter's well . I also find one or two heads of the liatris . . . .. It has the aspect of a Canada thistle at a little distance."); September 6, 1859 ("The liatris is, perhaps, a little past prime. It is a very rich purple in favorable lights and makes a great show where it grows. . . . For prevalence and effect it may be put with the vernonia, and it has a general resemblance to thistles and knapweed, but is a handsomer plant than any of them.") ; September 28, 1858 ("Liatris done, apparently some time.")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Liatris

Those crotalaria pods would make pretty playthings for children. See August 1, 1856 ("Crotalaria . . . some pods fully grown. "); October 3, 1856 ("I detect the crotalaria . . . by hearing the now rattling seeds in its pods as I go through the grass, like the trinkets about an Indian's leggins, or a rattlesnake.");  October 3, 1858 ("As I go through the Cut, I discover a new locality for the crotalaria, being attracted by the pretty blue-black pods"); October 3, 1858 ("It is interesting to consider how that crotalaria spreads itself, sure to find out the suitable soil. One year I find it on the Great Fields and think it rare; the next I find it in a new and unexpected place. It flits about like a flock of sparrows, from field to field.")

Liatris blooming

rich fiery rose-purple

like the sun rising.

A good deal of coolness in the wind, so that I can scarcely find a comfortable seat.

May 2

River three and five sixteenths below summer level. 

I observed on the 29th that the clams had not only been moving much, furrowing the sandy bottom near the shore, but generally, or almost invariably, had moved toward the middle of the river. Perhaps it had something to do with the low stage of the water. 

I saw one making his way — or perhaps it had rested since morning-over that sawdust bar just below Turtle Bar, toward the river, the surface of the bar being an inch or two higher than the water. Probably the water, falling, left it thus on dry (moist) land.

I notice this forenoon (11. 30 A. M. ) remarkably round-topped white clouds just like round-topped hills, on all sides of the sky, often a range of such, such as I do not remember to have seen before. There was considerable wind on the surface, from the northeast, and the above clouds were moving west and southwest, -- a generally distributed cumulus.    

What added to the remarkableness of the sight was a very fine, fleecy cirrhus, like smoke, narrow but of indefinite length, driving swiftly eastward beneath the former, proving that there were three currents of air, one above the other.  (The same form of cloud prevailed to some extent the next day.) 

Salix alba apparently yesterday.  

The early potentillas are now quite abundant.

P. M.    – To stone heaps and stone bridge. 

Since (perhaps) the middle of April we have had much easterly (northeast chiefly) wind, and yet no rain, though this wind rarely fails to bring rain in March.  (The same is true till 9th of May at least; i. e., in spite of east winds there is no rain.)

I find no stone heaps made yet, the water being very low. (But since — May 8th-I notice them, and perhaps I overlooked them before.) 

I notice on the east bank by the stone-heaps, amid the bushes, what I supposed to be two woodchucks' holes, with a well-worn path from one to the other, and the young trees close about them, aspen and black cherry, had been gnawed for a foot or more upward for a year or two.  There were some fresh wounds, and also old and extensive scars of last year partially healed. 

The naked viburnum is leafing.

The sedge apparently Carex Pennsylvanica has now been out on low ground a day or two.   

A crowd of men seem to generate vermin even of the human kind.  In great towns there is degradation undreamed of elsewhere, — gamblers, dog-killers, rag pickers.  Some live by robbery or by luck.  There was the Concord muster (of last September).  I see still a well dressed man carefully and methodically searching for money on the muster-fields, far off across the river.  I turn my glass upon him and notice how he proceeds.  (I saw them searching there in the fall till the snow came.) He walks regularly and slowly back and forth over the ground where the soldiers had their tents, — still marked by the straw, — with his head prone, and poking in the straw with a stick, now and then turning back or aside to examine something more closely. He is dressed, methinks, better than an average man whom you meet in the streets. How can he pay for his board thus? He dreams of finding a few coppers, or perchance a half-dime, which have fallen from the soldiers' pockets, and no doubt he will find something of the kind, having dreamed of it, --having knocked, this door will be opened to him.  

Walking over the russet interval, I see the first red-winged grasshoppers. They rise from the still brown sod before me, and I see the redness of their wings as they fly. They are quite shy and hardly let me come within ten feet before they rise again, — often before I have seen them fairly on the ground.   

It was 63° at 2 P. M., and yet a good deal of coolness in the wind, so that I can scarcely find a comfortable seat. (Yet a week later, with thermometer at 60° and but little wind, it seems much warmer.) We have had cool nights of late.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 2, 1860

Salix alba apparently yesterday. See May 2, 1853 (" Summer yellowbird on the opening Salix alba.?"). See also  April 24, 1855 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf. "); April 29, 1855 ("For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other tree, —a pyramid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape."); April 30, 1859 (Salix alba leafing, or stipules a quarter of an inch wide; probably began a day or two.");    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.")

The naked viburnum is leafing. See April 30, 1859 ("The viburnum buds are so large and long, like a spear-head, that they are conspicuous the moment their two leafets diverge and they are lit up by the sun.");  May 1, 1854 ("The viburnum (Lentago or nudum) leaves unexpectedly forward at the Cliff Brook and about Miles Swamp. ")

The early potentillas are now quite abundant. See May 1, 1854 (“At Lee's Cliff find the early cinquefoil”); May 8, 1860 ("The cinquefoil is closed in a cloudy day, and when the sun shines it is turned toward it."); May 17, 1853 ("The early cinquefoil is now in its prime and spots the banks and hillsides and dry meadows with its dazzling yellow. How lively! It is one of the most interesting yellow flowers. ")

"And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

January 24

bobcat, January 24,2020

2 p. m. — To Tarbell, river, via railroad. 

Thermometer 46. Sky thinly overcast, growing thicker at last as if it would rain. Wind northwest. 

See a large flock of lesser redpolls, eating the seeds of the birch (and perhaps alder) in Dennis Swamp by railroad. They are distinct enough from the goldfinch, their note more shelly and general as they fly, and they are whiter, without the black wings, beside that some have the crimson head or head and breast. They alight on the birches, then swarm on the snow beneath, busily picking up the seed in the copse. 

The Assabet is open above Derby's Bridge as far as I go or see, probably to the factory, and I know not how far below Derby's. It opens up here sooner than below the Assabet Bath to its mouth. 

The blue vervain stands stiffly and abundant in one place, with much rather large brown seed in it. It is in good condition. 

Scare a shrike from an apple tree. He flies low over the meadow, somewhat like a woodpecker, and alights near the top twig of another apple tree. 

See a hawk sail over meadow and woods; not a hen-hawk; possibly a marsh hawk. 

A grasshopper on the snow. 

The droppings of a skunk left on a rock, perhaps at the beginning of winter, were full of grasshoppers' legs. 

As I stand at the south end of J. P. B.'s moraine, I watch six tree sparrows, which come from the wood and alight and feed on the ground, which is there bare. They are only two or three rods from me, and are incessantly picking and eating an abundance of the fine grass (short-cropped pasture grass) on that knoll, as a hen or goose does. I see the stubble an inch or two long in their bills, and how they stuff it down. Perhaps they select chiefly the green parts. So they vary their fare and there is no danger of their starving. 

These six hopped round for five minutes over a space a rod square before I put them to flight, and then I noticed, in a space only some four feet square in that rod, at least eighteen droppings (white at one end, the rest more slate-colored). So wonderfully active are they in their movements, both external and internal. They do not suffer for want of a good digestion, surely. No doubt they eat some earth or gravel too. So do partridges eat a great deal. 

These birds, though they have bright brown and buff backs, hop about amid the little inequalities of the pasture almost unnoticed, such is their color and so humble are they. 

Solomon thus describes the return of Spring (Song of Solomon, ii, 10-12) : — 

"Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

"For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

"The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

JANUARY 24, 2020

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 24, 1860

See a large flock of lesser redpolls, eating the seeds of the birch (and perhaps alder) in Dennis Swamp by railroad. See January 20, 1857 ("Heard, in the Dennis swamp by the railroad this afternoon, the peculiar goldfinch-like mew — also like some canaries — of, I think, the lesser redpoll (?). Saw several. Heard the same a week or more ago. "); January 8, 1860 ("Hear the goldfinch notes (they may be linarias), and see a few on the top of a small black birch by the pond-shore, of course eating the seed. Thus they distinguish its fruit from afar. When I heard their note, I looked to find them on a birch, and lo, it was a black birch! [Were they not linarias? Vide Jan. 24]")

A grasshopper on the snow. See January 24, 1859 ("I also see a great many of those little brown grasshoppers and one perfectly green one, some of them frozen in")

The droppings of a skunk left on a rock, perhaps at the beginning of winter, were full of grasshoppers' legs. See February 24, 1854 "The other day I thought that I smelled a fox very strongly, and went a little further and found that it was a skunk.”);February 24, 1857 ("I have seen the probings of skunks for a week or more. “); February 26, 1860 ("They appear to come out commonly in the warmer weather in the latter part of February.”)

Six tree sparrows come from the wood and alight and feed on the ground. See  January 16, 1860 ("I see a flock of tree sparrows busily picking something from the surface of the snow amid some bushes. . . . the tree sparrow comes from the north in the winter . . . The bird understands how to get its dinner perfectly.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  "And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."

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

Singing and whistling at the same time.

March 30. 

March 30, 2016

6 a.m. — To Hill (across water). 

Hear a red squirrel chirrup at me by the hemlocks (running up a hemlock), all for my benefit; not that he is excited by fear, I think, but so full is he of animal spirits that he makes a great ado about the least event. 

At first he scratches on the bark very rapidly with his hind feet without moving the fore feet. He makes so many queer sounds, and so different from one another, that you would think they came from half a dozen creatures. I hear now two sounds from him of a very distinct character, — a low or base inward, worming, screwing, or brewing, kind of sound (very like that, by the way, which an anxious partridge mother makes) and at the same time a very sharp and shrill bark, and clear, on a very high key, totally distinct from the last, — while his tail is flashing incessantly. 

You might say that he successfully accomplished the difficult feat of singing and whistling at the same time. 

P. M. — To Walden via Hubbard's Close. 

The green-bodied flies out on sheds, and probably nearly as long as the other; the same size as the house-fly. 

I see numerous large skaters on a ditch. This may be the Gerris lacustris, but its belly is not white, only whitish in certain lights. It has six legs, two feelers (the two foremost legs being directed forward), a stout-ish body, and brown above. The belly looks whitish when you look at it edgewise, but turned quite over (on its back), it is brown. 

A very small brown grasshopper hops into the water. 

I notice again (in the spring-holes in Hubbard's Close) that water purslane, being covered with water, is an evergreen, — though it is reddish. 

Little pollywogs two inches long are lively there. 

See on Walden two sheldrakes, male and female, as is common. So they have for some time paired. They are a hundred rods off. The male the larger, with his black head and white breast, the female with a red head. With my glass I see the long red bills of both. They swim at first one way near together, then tack and swim the other, looking around incessantly, never quite at their ease, wary and watchful for foes. A man cannot walk down to the shore or stand out on a hill overlooking the pond without disturbing them. They will have an eye upon him. 

The locomotive-whistle makes every wild duck start that is floating within the limits of the town. I see that these ducks are not here for protection alone, for at last they both dive, and remain beneath about forty pulse-beats, — and again, and again. I think they are looking for fishes. Perhaps, therefore, these divers are more likely to alight in Walden than the black ducks are. 

Hear the hovering note of a snipe.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 30, 1859

Hear a red squirrel chirrup at me by the hemlocks (running up a hemlock), all for my benefit; not that he is excited by fear, I think, but so full is he of animal spirits that he makes a great ado about the least event. See October 5, 1857 (“I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel. . . .  It is evident that all this ado does not proceed from fear. There is at the bottom, no doubt, an excess of inquisitiveness and caution, but the greater part is make-believe and a love of the marvellous.) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

I see numerous large skaters on a ditch. See March 29, 1853 ("Tried several times to catch a skater. Got my hand close to him; grasped at him as quick as possible; was sure I had got him this time; let the water run out between my fingers; hoped I had not crushed him; opened my hand; and lo! he was not there. I never succeeded in catching one.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and  Skaters (Hydrometridae)

See on Walden two sheldrakes, male and female, as is common. . .  They swim at first one way near together, then tack and swim the other, looking around incessantly, never quite at their ease, wary and watchful for foes. See March 30, 1858 ("The full plumaged males, conspicuously black and white and often swimming in pairs, appeared to be the most wary, keeping furthest out. ").See also March 27, 1858 ("They are now pairing. . . .At first we see only a male and female quite on the alert, some way out on the pond, tacking back and forth and looking every way."); April 7, 1855 ("But they will let you come only within some sixty rods ordinarily. I observe that they are uneasy at sight of me and begin to sail away in different directions."). Also see A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Goosander, Merganser)

Hear the hovering note of a snipe. See March 29, 1858 ("At the first pool I also scared up a snipe. It rises with a single cra-a-ckand goes off with its zigzag flight, with its bill presented to the earth, ready to charge bayonets against the inhabitants of the mud.”); April 1, 1853 ("Now, at early starlight, I hear the Snipe’s hovering note as he circles over Nawshawtuct Meadow. . . . It sounds very much like a winnowing-machine increasing rapidly in intensity for a few seconds.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

A pair of ravens 

now crossing in front of us

in erratic flight.

March 30, 2019

This ice is a good field for an entomologist.

January 24.

An abundance of excellent skating, the freshet that covered the meadows being frozen. Many boys and girls are skating on Mantatuket Meadow and on Merrick’s. Looking from this shore, they appear decidedly elevated,—not by their skates merely. What is the cause? Do we take the ice to be air? 

I see an abundance of caterpillars of various kinds on the ice of the meadows, many of those large, dark, hairy, with longitudinal light stripes, somewhat like the common apple one. Many of them are frozen in yet, some for two thirds their length, yet all are alive. 

Yet it has been so cold since the rise that you can now cross the channel almost anywhere. 

I also see a great many of those little brown grasshoppers and one perfectly green one, some of them frozen in, but generally on the surface, showing no signs of life; yet when I brought them home to experiment on, I found them all alive and kicking in my pocket. 

There were also a small kind of reddish wasp, quite lively, on the ice, and other insects; those naked, or smooth, worms or caterpillars. 

This shows what insects have their winter quarters in the meadow-grass. This ice is a good field for an entomologist. 

I experimented on the large bubbles under the ice. Some, the oldest and nearest the surface, were white; others, the newest and against the present under surface, were of a bluish or slate color, more transparent. I found that the whiteness of the first was owing to the great quantity of little bubbles above and below the great one produced by the heat of this “burning-glass,” while those of recent formation have not had time to accomplish this.

When I cut through with my knife an inch or two to one of the latter kind, making a very slight opening, the confined air, pressed by the water, burst up with a considerable hissing sound, sometimes spurting a little water with it, and thus the bubble was contracted, almost annihilated; but frequently, when I cut into one of the old or white ones, there was no sound, the air did not rush out because there was no pressure, there being ice below as well as above it; but when I also pierced the lower ice it did rush out with a sound like the others. 

My object at first was to ascertain if both kinds of bubbles contained air. But that was plain enough, for when the water rushed in the bluish, or new, ones wholly beneath the ice wholly or nearly disappeared, while the white ones, giving place to water, were no longer white. It would seem, then, that a considerable pressure, such as the water exerts on an air-bubble under the ice, does not force it through the ice, certainly not for a considerable time. 

How, then, can the musquash draw air through the ice as is asserted? He might, however, come to breathe in such a bubble as this already existing. 

The larger spiders generally rest on the ice with all their legs spread, but on being touched they gather them up.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 24, 1859

This ice is a good field for an entomologist. See January 22, 1859 ("Perhaps the caterpillars, etc., crawl forth in sunny and warm days in midwinter when the earth is bare, and so supply the birds, and are ready to be washed away by a flow of water! I find thus a great variety of living insects now washed out. ")

I found that the whiteness of the first was owing to the great quantity of little bubbles above and below the great one produced by the heat of this “burning-glass,” See January 9, 1859 ("I inferred, therefore, that all those infinite minute bubbles I had seen first on the under side of the ice were now frozen in with it, and that each, in its proportion or degree, like the large ones, had operated like a burning-glass on the ice beneath it")

How, then, can the musquash draw air through the ice as is asserted? See January 22, 1859 ("J. Farmer tells me that he once saw a musquash rest three or four minutes under the ice with his nose against the ice in a bubble of air about an inch in diameter, and he thinks that they can draw air through the ice,")

The larger spiders generally rest on the ice with all their legs spread, but on being touched they gather them up. See January 6, 1854 ("Frequently see a spider apparently stiff and dead on snow."); December 18, 1855 ("A dark-colored spider of the very largest kind on ice.") ;December 23, 1859 ("A little black, or else a brown, spider (sometimes quite a large one) motionless on the snow or ice.")

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, This ice is a good field for an entomologist. 

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

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.”)

I did not suspect such a congregation in the desolate garden.

October 12

witch hazel

October 12, 2018

It is interesting to see how some of the few flowers which still linger are frequented by bees and other insects. Their resources begin to fail and they are improving their last chance. 

I have noticed them of late, especially on white goldenrod and pasture thistles, etc.; and to-day, on a small watermelon cut open ten days ago, in the garden, I see half a dozen honey bees, many more flies, some wasps, a grasshopper, and a large handsome butterfly, with dark snuff-colored wings and a stripe of blue eyes on them. The restless bees keep buzzing toward the butterfly, but it keeps them off by opening and shutting its wings, but does not much mind the other insects. I did not suspect such a congregation in the desolate garden.

Wasps for some time looking about for winter quarters.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 12, 1856

White goldenrod and pasture thistles. See  October 11, 1856 ("A pasture thistle with many fresh flowers and bees on it."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Thistle and Thistle-down

I did not suspect such a congregation in the desolate garden. See September 30, 1852 ("I feel the richer for this experience. It taught me that even the insects in my path are not loafers, but have their special errands. Not merely and vaguely in this world, but in this hour, each is about its business.")

Wasps for some time looking about for winter quarters. See August 21, 1852 ("See The bees, wasps, etc. are on the goldenrods, improving their time before the sun of the year sets"); August 29, 1851 ("I find a wasp in my window, which already appears to be taking refuge from winter"); September 10, 1859 ("See wasps, collected in the sun on a wall, at 9 A. M."); September 26, 1857 ("The season is waning. A wasp just looked in upon me."); October 2, 1851 ("At the Cliffs, I find the wasps prolonging their short lives on the sunny rocks, just as they endeavored to do at my house in the woods.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Wasps and Hornets

October 12. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  October 12

Honey bees, flies, wasps,

a grasshopper, and a large 

handsome butterfly -

I did not suspect 

a congregation in the 

desolate garden.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  A congregation in the desolate garden.

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-561012

They trouble me by getting into my shoes.

September 4. 

P. M. — To Miles Swamp, Conantum. 

What are those small yellow birds with two white bars on wings, about the oak at Hubbard's Grove?

Aralia racemosa berries just ripe, at tall helianthus by bass beyond William Wheeler's; not edible. 

Indian hemp out of bloom. 

Butterflies in road a day or two. 

The crackling flight of grasshoppers. The grass also is all alive with them, and they trouble me by getting into my shoes, which are loose, and obliging me to empty them occasionally. 

Measured an archangelica stem (now of course dry) in Corner Spring Swamp, eight feet eight inches high, and seven and a quarter inches in circumference at ground. It is a somewhat zigzag stem with few joints and a broad umbelliferous top, so that it makes a great show. One of those plants that have their fall early. 

There are many splendid scarlet arum berries there now in prime, forming a dense ovate head on a short peduncle; the individual berries of various sizes, between pear and mitre and club form, flattened against each other on a singular (now purple and white) core, which is hollow. What rank and venomous luxuriance in this swamp sprout-land! 

Viola pedata again. 

I see where squirrels have eaten green sweet viburnum berries on the wall, together with hazelnuts. The former, gathered red, turn dark purple and shrivelled, like raisins, in the house, and are edible, but chiefly seed. 

The fever-bush is conspicuously flower-budded. Even its spicy leaves have been cut by the tailor bee, and circular pieces taken out. He was, perhaps, attracted by its smoothness and soundness. 

Large puffballs, sometime.

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

Indian hemp out of bloom. See note to September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain . . .”)

Butterflies in road a day or two. See September 3, 1854 (“I see some fleets of yellow butterflies in the damp road after the rain, as earlier.”)

Splendid scarlet arum berries there now in prime . . .See September 2, 1853 ("The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion on a rich ground . . .”)

Viola pedata again. See August 12, 1858 (“Saw a Viola pedata blooming again.”); October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds. . . .The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression."); October 22, 1859 (" In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us.”)

He was, perhaps, attracted by its smoothness and soundness. . . . See August 11, 1852 ("I am attracted by the clear dark-green leaves of the fever-bush.”); August 19, 1852 (The clear dark-green leaves of the fever-bush overhang the stream.”)

A weather-painted house and barn, with an orchard by its side, in midst of a sandy field surrounded by green woods, with a small blue lake on one side.

August 26. 

Tuesday. More wind and quite cold this morning, but very bright and sparkling, autumn-like air, reminding of frosts to be apprehended, also tempting abroad to adventure. The fall cricket — or is it alder locust? — sings the praises of the day. 

So about 9 a. m. up river to Fair Haven Pond. 

The flooded meadow, where the grasshoppers cling to the grass so thickly, is alive with swallows skimming just over the surface amid the grass-tops and apparently snapping up insects there. Are they catching the grasshoppers as they cling to bare poles? (I see the swallows equally thick there at 5 p. m. when I return also.) 

River slowly falling. The most conspicuous weed rising above the water is the wool-grass, with its great, rich, seedy heads, which rise from a few inches to a foot above at present, as I push over the uncut meadows. 

I see many white lilies fairly and freshly in bloom after all this flood, though it looks like a resurrection.

The wind is northwest, apparently by west, and I sail before it and under Hubbard's Bridge. 

The red maples of Potter's Swamp show a dull-purple blush and sometimes a low scarlet bough, the effect evidently of the rain ripening them. 

Rice told me about their crossing the causeway from Wayland to Sudbury some sixty years ago in a freshet which he could just remember, in a half-hogs head tub, used for scalding pigs, having nailed some boards on the bottom to keep it from upsetting. It was too deep for a team. 

We begin to apprehend frosts before the melons are ripe! 

A blue heron sails away from a pine at Holden Swamp shore and alights on the meadow above. Again he flies, and alights on the hard Conantum side, where at length I detect him standing far away stake-like (his body concealed), eying me and depending on his stronger vision. 

The desmodium flowers are pure purple, rose-purple in the morning when quite fresh, excepting the two green spots. The D. rotundifolium also has the two green (or in its case greenish) spots on its very large flower. These desmodiums are so fine and inobvious that it is difficult to detect them. I go through a grove in vain, but when I get away, find my coat covered with their pods. They found me, though I did not them. The round-leafed desmodium has sometimes seven pods and large flowers still fresh. 

The Lespedeza Stuvei is very abundant on Black berry Steep, two and a half to three feet high. It has a looser top and less dense spikes than the hirta. It gives a pink hue to the hillside. The L. violacea is smaller and much more violet, the hirta more white. Galium pilosum still common; and Desmodium acuminatum still by rock on Blackberry Steep. This to be added to the desmodiums of this place. 

As I stand there, a young male goldfinch darts away with a twitter from a spear thistle top close to my side, and, alighting near, makes frequent returns as near to me and the thistle as it dares pass, not yet knowing man well enough to fear him. 

I rest and take my lunch on Lee's Cliff, looking toward Baker Farm. 

July 20, 2018

What is a New England landscape this sunny August day? A weather-painted house and barn, with an orchard by its side, in midst of a sandy field surrounded by green woods, with a small blue lake on one side. A sympathy between the color of the weather-painted house and that of the lake and sky. I speak not of a country road between its fences, for this house lies off one, nor do I commonly approach them from this side. The weather-painted house. This is the New England color, homely but fit as that of a toadstool. What matter though this one has not been inhabited for thirty years? 

Methinks I hear the crow of a cock come up from its barn-yard. I think I hear the pine warbler's note in the woods behind me. Hear a plain phebe note from a chickadee. 

Bluets still. 

Epilobium down flies abundantly on hillsides. 

I gather a bundle of pennyroyal; it grows largest and rankest high and close under these rocks, amid the loose stones. I tie my bundle with the purple bark of the poke-weed. 

Sail across to Bee Tree Hill. This hillside, laid bare two years ago and partly last winter, is almost covered with the Aster macrophyllus, now in its prime. It grows large and rank, two feet high. On one I count seventeen central flowers withered, one hundred and thirty in bloom, and half as many buds. 

As I looked down from the hilltop over the sprout-land, its rounded grayish tops amid the bushes I mistook for gray, lichen-clad rocks, such was its profusion and harmony with the scenery, like hoary rocky hilltops amid bushes. There were acres of it, densely planted. Also erechthites as abundant and rank in many places there as if it had been burnt over! So it does not necessarily imply fire. I thought I was looking down on gray, lichen-clad rocky summits on which a few bushes thinly grew. These rocks were asters, single ones a foot over, many prostrate, and making a gray impression. 

Many leaves of shrubs are crisp and withered and fallen there, though as yet no drought nor frost. Nothing but rain can have done it. Aspen leaves are blackened. Stonecrop still. Another monster aphis on a huckleberry leaf. Galium triflorum still. See a great many young oaks and shrub oaks stripped by caterpillars of different kinds now.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal August 26, 1856


The fall cricket — or is it alder locust? — sings the praises of the day. See August 26, 1860 ("The shrilling of the alder locust is the solder that welds these autumn days together."); August 15, 1852 ("That clear ring like an alder locust (is it a cricket ?) for some time past is a sound which belongs to the season.)

A blue heron sails away from a pine at Holden Swamp shore and alights on the meadow above. See note to August 19, 1858 ("Blue herons, which have bred or been bred not far from us (plainly), are now at leisure, or are impelled to revisit our slow stream. I have not seen the last since spring. "); August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron
I gather a bundle of pennyroyal;. . . I tie my bundle with the purple bark of the poke-weed.See August 11, 1853 ("Evening draws on while I am gathering bundles of pennyroyal on the further Conantum height. I find it amid the stubble mixed with blue-curls and, as fast as I get my hand full, tie it into a fragrant bundle.”);  August 13, 1852 ("Pennyroyal abundant in bloom. I find it springing from the soil lodged on large rocks in sprout-lands, and gather a little bundle, which scents my pocket for many days.")

Another monster aphis on a huckleberry leaf. See August 18, 1856 ("Saw yesterday and some days before a monster aphis some five eighths of an inch long on a huckleberry leaf.. . .")


A sympathy between the color of the weather-painted house and that of the lake and sky.The weather-painted house. This is the New England color. See April 3, 1858  ("In the hazy atmosphere yesterday we could hardly see Garfield's old unpainted farmhouse."); April 24, 1857 ("That is a very New England landscape. Buttrick's yellow farmhouse near by is in harmony with it."); June 15, 1859 (“A regular old-fashioned country house, long and low, one story unpainted, with a broad green field, half orchard, for all yard between it and the road, — a part of the hill side, — and much June-grass before it. This is where the men who save the country are born and bred.”); November 26, 1857 ("Minott's is a small, square, one-storied and unpainted house, with a hipped roof and at least one dormer window, a third the way up the south side of a long hill")

What is the use, in Nature's economy, of these occasional floods in August?

August 25. 

 P. M. — To Hill by boat. Silvery cinquefoil now begins to show itself commonly again. Perhaps it is owing to the rain, spring like, which we have in August. 

I paddle directly across the meadow, the river is so high, and land east of the elm on the third or fourth row of potatoes. The water makes more show on the meadows than yesterday, though hardly so high, be cause the grass is more flatted down. 

I easily make my way amid the thin spires. Almost every stem which rises above the surface has a grasshopper or caterpillar upon it. Some have seven or eight grasshoppers, clinging to their masts, one close and directly above an other, like shipwrecked sailors, now the third or fourth day exposed. Whither shall they jump? It is a quarter of a mile to shore, and countless sharks lie in wait for them. They are so thick that they are like a crop which the grass bears; some stems are bent down by their weight. 

This flood affects other inhabitants of these fields than men; not only the owners of the grass, but its inhabitants much more. It drives them to their upper stories, — to take refuge in the rigging. Many that have taken an imprudent leap are seen struggling in the water. How much life is drowned out that inhabits about the roots of the meadow-grass! How many a family, perchance, of short-tailed meadow mice has had to scamper or swim! 

The river-meadow cranberries are covered deep. I can count them as they lie in dense beds a foot under water, so distinct and white, or just beginning to have a red cheek. They will probably be spoiled, and this  crop will fail. 

Potatoes, too, in the low land on which water has stood so long, will rot. 

The farmers commonly say that the spring floods, being of cold water, do not injure the grass like later ones when the water is warm, but I suspect it is not so much owing to the warmth of the water as to the age and condition of the grass and whatever else is exposed to them. They say that if you let the water rise and stand some time over the roots of trees in warm weather it will kill them. 

This, then, may be the value of these occasional freshets in August: they steam and kill the shrubs and trees which had crept into the river meadows, and so keep them open perpetually, which, perchance, the spring floods alone might not do. 

It is commonly supposed that our river meadows were much drier than now originally, or when the town was settled. They were probably drier before the dam was built at Billerica, but if they were much or at all drier than now originally, I ask what prevented their being converted into maple swamps? Maples, alders, birches, etc., are creeping into them quite fast on many sides at present. If they had been so dry as is supposed they would not have been open meadows. It seems to be true that high water in midsummer, when perchance the trees and shrubs are in a more tender state, kills them. 

It "steams" them, as it does the grass; and maybe the river thus asserts its rights, and possibly it would still to great extent, though the meadows should be considerably raised. Yet, I ask, why do maples, alders, etc., at present border the stream, though they do not spring up to any extent in the open meadow? Is it because the immediate bank is commonly more firm as well as higher (their seeds also are more liable to be caught there), and where it is low they are protected by willows and button-bushes, which can bear the flood? Not even willows and button-bushes prevail in the Great Meadows, — though many of the former, at least, spring up there, — except on the most elevated parts or hummocks.

The reason for this cannot be solely in the fact that the water stands over them there a part of the year, be cause they are still more exposed to the water in many places on the shore of the river where yet they thrive. Is it then owing to the soft character of the ground in the meadow and the ice tearing up the meadow so extensively? On the immediate bank of the river that kind of sod and soil is not commonly formed which the ice lifts up. Why is the black willow so strictly confined to the bank of the river? 

What is the use, in Nature's economy, of these occasional floods in August? Is it not partly to preserve the meadows open? 

Mr. Rice says that the brook just beyond his brother Israel's in Sudbury rises and runs out before the river, and then you will see the river running up the brook as fast as the brook ran down before. 

Apparently half the pads are now afloat, notwithstanding the depth of the water, but they are almost all white lily pads, the others being eaten and decayed. They have apparently lengthened their stems some what. They generally lie with more or less coil, prepared for a rise of the water, and perhaps the length of that coil shows pretty accurately to how great a rise they are ordinarily subject at this season. 

I was suggesting yesterday, as I have often before, that the town should provide a stone monument to be placed in the river, so as to be surrounded by water at its lowest stage, and a dozen feet high, so as to rise above it at its highest stage; on this feet and inches to be permanently marked; and it be made some one's duty to record each high or low stage of the water. Now, when we have a remarkable freshet, we cannot tell surely whether it is higher than the one thirty or sixty years ago or not. It would be not merely interesting, but often practically valuable, to know this. 

Reuben Rice was telling me to-night that the great freshet of two or three years ago came, according to his brother Israel, within two inches of one that occurred about forty years ago. I asked how he knew. He said that the former one took place early (February?), and the surface froze so that boys skated on it, and the ice marked a particular apple tree, girdled it, so that it is seen to this day. 

But we wish to speak more confidently than this allows. It is important when building a causeway, or a bridge, or a house even, in some situations, to know exactly how high the river has ever risen. It would need to be a very large stone or pile of stones, which the ice could not move or break. Perhaps one corner of a bridge abutment would do. 

Rice killed a woodchuck to-day that was shearing off his beans. He was very fat. 

I cross the meadows in the face of a thunder-storm rising very dark in the north. There are several boats out, but their crews soon retreat homeward before the approaching storm. It comes on rapidly, with vivid lightning striking the northern earth and heavy thunder following. 

Just before, and in the shadow of, the cloud, I see, advancing majestically with wide circles over the meadowy flood, a fish hawk and, apparently, a black eagle (maybe a young white-head). The first, with slender curved wings and silvery breast, four or five hundred feet high, watching the water while he circles slowly southwesterly. What a vision that could detect a fish at that distance! The latter, with broad black wings and broad tail, hovers only about one hundred feet high; evidently a different species, and what else but an eagle? 

They soon disappear southwest, cutting off a bend. The thunder-shower passed off to the southeast.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 25, 1856

Why is the black willow so strictly confined to the bank of the river? See August 7, 1858 ("The most luxuriant groves of black willow are on the inside curves, —but rarely ever against a firm bank or hillside, the positive male shore. “); August 15, 1858 (“I notice the black willows . . . to see where they grow, distinguishing ten places. In seven instances they are on the concave or female side distinctly.”); August 19, 1858 (“I noticed the localities of black willows as far up as the mouth of the river in Fair Haven Pond, but not so carefully as elsewhere, and from the last observations I infer that the willow grows especially and almost exclusively in places where the drift is most likely to lodge, as on capes and points and concave sides of the river, though I noticed a few exceptions to my rule.”)