How many turtles put into the river?

May 19

Put my little turtles into the river. They had not noticeably increased in size, – or hardly. Three had died within a week for want of attention, two mud turtles and one musk turtle. Two were missing, one mud and one musk. Five musk were put into the river.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 19, 1855

Little mud turtles. See April 1, 1858 ("I see on the wet mud a little snapping turtle evidently hatched last year . . . Talk of great heads, look at this one!");  June 7, 1854 (“Now I see a snapping turtle . . . It had just been excavating.”); August 26, 1854 ("Open one of my snapping turtle's eggs . . . When I behold this monster thus steadily advancing toward maturity, all nature abetting, I am convinced that there must be an irresistible necessity for mud turtles."); September 11, 1852 ("Genius is like the snapping-turtle born with a great developed head.");  September 16, 1854 ("I find the mud turtle’s eggs at the Desert all hatched, one still left in the nest . . . At length it puts out its head and legs, turns itself round, and crawls to the water.");

Little musk turtles. See September 9, 1854 ("I find a little hole, three quarters of an inch or an inch over, above my small tortoise eggs, and find a young tortoise coming out . . . It is the Sternothærus odoratus — already has the strong scent — and now has drawn in its head and legs.");  September 11, 1854 ("Measured to-day the little Sternothærus odoratus which came out the ground in the garden September 9th . . . It does not so much impress me as an infantile beginning of life as an epitome of all the past of turtledom and of the earth. I think of it as the result of all the turtles that have been.")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus)

Tortoise eggs hatching.

 

September 10. 

I can find no trace of the tortoise-eggs of June 18, though there is no trace of their having been disturbed by skunks. They must have been hatched earlier.

C. says he saw a painted tortoise a third grown, with a freshly killed minnow in his mouth as long as himself, eating it.

Thinking over the tortoises, I gave these names: rough tortoise, scented ditto, vermilion (rainbow, rail?), yellow box, black box, and yellow-spotted.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 10, 1855

I can find no trace of the tortoise-eggs of June 18. See June 18, 1855 ("At 3 P. M., as I walk up the bank by the Hemlocks, I see a painted tortoise just beginning its hole; . . . I stoop down over it, and, to my surprise, after a slight pause it proceeds in its work, directly under and within eighteen inches of my face.") see also June 11, 1858 ("Looking carefully to see where the ground had been recently disturbed, I dug with my hand and could directly feel the passage to the eggs, and so discovered two or three nests with their large and long eggs, – five eggs in one of them.").; June 12, 1860 ("At this moment these turtles are on their way inland to lay their eggs all over the State, warily drawing in their heads and waiting when you come by."); June 16, 1858 (“I see a yellow-spotted turtle digging its hole at mid afternoon, but, like the last of this species I saw, it changed its place after I saw it, and I did not get an egg; it is so wary.”); June 18, 1858 ("I find a young Emys insculpta, apparently going to lay, though she had not dug a hole. It was four and a quarter inches long by three and a half wide, and altogether the handsomest turtle of this species, if not of any, that I have ever seen."); August 26, 1854 ("I am convinced that there must be an irresistible necessity for mud turtles.”); August 28, 1856 ("I open the painted tortoise nest of June 10th, and find a young turtle partly out of his shell. . . .What's a summer? Time for a turtle's eggs to hatch. So is the turtle developed, fitted to endure, for he outlives twenty French dynasties. One turtle knows several Napoleons. ") September 9, 1854 ("Thus the earth is the mother of all creatures.”); And also see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus ); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

Causes still in operation, however slow and unobserved.

January 14. 

Coldest morning yet; 20° (?).

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

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

Richard Porson said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The same is true in detail also.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

— Lao Tzu

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

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

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

Nature is slow but sure – 

she works no faster 

than need be.

A small hawk flies swiftly past on the side of the hill, swift and low.

April 7.

April 7, 2019

The Cheney elm looks as if it would shed pollen to-morrow,[no], and the Salix purpurea will perhaps within a week. 

Standing under the north side of the hill, I hear the rather innocent phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe' of a fish hawk (for it is not a scream, but a rather soft and innocent note), and, looking up, see one come sailing from over the hill. The body looks quite short in proportion to the spread of the wings, which are quite dark or blackish above. He evidently has something in his talons. 

We soon after disturb him again, and, at length, after circling around over the hill and adjacent fields, he alights in plain sight on one of the half-dead white oaks on the top of the hill, where probably he sat before. As I look through my glass, he is perched on a large dead limb and is evidently standing on a fish (I had noticed something in his talons as he flew), for he stands high and uneasily, finding it hard to keep his balance in the wind. 

He is disturbed by our neighborhood and does not proceed at once to eat his meal. I see the tail of the fish hanging over the end of the limb. Now and then he pecks at it. I see the white on the crown of the hawk. It is a very large black bird as seen against the sky. Soon he sails away again, carrying his fish, as before, horizontally beneath his circles about over the adjacent pasture like a hawk hunting, though he can only be looking for a suitable place to eat his fish or waiting for us to be gone. 

Looking under the limb on which he was perched, we find a piece of the skin of a sucker (?) or some other scaly fish which a hawk had dropped there long since. No doubt many a fish hawk has taken his meal on that sightly perch. 

It seems, then, that the fish hawk which you see soaring and sailing so leisurely about over the land — for this one soared quite high into the sky at one time — may have a fish in his talons all the while and only be waiting till you are gone for an opportunity to eat it on his accustomed perch. 

I told Pratt my theory of the formation of a swamp on a hillside, but he thought that the growth of the alders, etc., there would not make the ground any more moist there, but less so, and stated that the soil (as he had noticed) was drier under rank grass in a mowing-field than at the same depth under a surface of bare and hot sand, because the grass took up the moisture from the soil. 

I saw a hole (probably of a woodchuck) partly dug on the east side of the hill, and three or four large stones lay on the fresh sand-heap thrown out, which the wood- chuck had pushed up from below. One was about six inches long by four or more wide and might weigh four pounds, and, looking into the hole, whose bottom I could not see, I saw another nearly as large about three feet down, on its way up. I have seen their holes dug in much worse places than this. This hole sloped downward at a considerable angle, so that the stones had to be pushed up a steep slope. 

A small hawk flies swiftly past on the side of the hill, swift and low, apparently the same as that of April 3d, a deep rusty brown. 

The woodchuck probably digs in a stony place that he may be the more secure. 

I hear there the hovering note of a snipe at 4.30 p.m., — unusually early in the day. 

Find a Sternothcerus odoratus so far from water on Simon Brown's knoll, where water has not been since about March 20th, that I think he was then washed and left there and has since lain in the ground. There are two or three small leeches on him, which may have adhered to him all winter. 

The white man's relics in the fields are like the Indian's, — pipes, pottery, and (instead of arrowheads) bullets.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 7, 1859

The Cheney elm looks as if it would shed pollen to-morrow.  See April 15, 1852 (“The broad flat brown buds on Mr. Cheney's elm, containing twenty or thirty yellowish-green threads, surmounted with little brownish-mulberry cups, which contain the stamens and the two styles, -- these are just expanding or blossoming now.”); April 16, 1856 (“Cheney’s elm shows stamens on the warm side pretty numerously.”); April 17, 1855 (“The flowers of the common elm at Lee’s are now loose and dangling, apparently well out a day or two in advance of Cheney’s, but I see no pollen. ”)


I hear the rather innocent phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe' of a fish hawk , and, looking up, see one come sailing from over the hill. See April 6, 1859 ("A fish hawk sails down the river, from time to time almost stationary one hundred feet above the water, notwithstanding the very strong wind.”); April 14, 1852 ("The streams break up; the ice goes to the sea. Then sails the fish hawk overhead, looking for his prey.”) April 25, 1858 (“ I hear the phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe, the sharp whistling note, of a fish hawk. . . . There is about half a second between each note, and he utters them either while perched or while flying. He shows a great proportion of wing and some white on back. The wings are much curved. He sails along some eighty feet above the water’s edge, looking for fish, and alights again quite near. I see him an hour afterward about the same spot.”)See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Osprey (Fish Hawk)

A small hawk flies swiftly past on the side of the hill, swift and low, apparently the same as that of April 3d, a deep rusty brown. See April 3, 1859 ("Near to the pond I see a small hawk, larger than a pigeon hawk, fly past, — a deep brown with a light spot on the side. I think it probable it was a sharp-shinned hawk.”) See also See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the sharp-shinned hawk.

I hear there the hovering note of a snipe at 4.30 p.m., — unusually early in the day. See April 7, 1858 ("Snipes rise two or three times as I go over the meadow"); see also April 6, 1854 ("Hear the snipe over the meadows this evening."); April 9, 1853 ("Hear the snipe a short time at early starlight"); April 9, 1855 ("Some twenty minutes after sundown I hear the first booming of a snipe.") and A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the Snipe

Delayed by fog in night off coast of Maine.

July 20 

To Boston on way to Maine Woods. 

At Natural History Library. 

Holbrook makes the Emys terrapin to be found from Rhode Island to Florida and South America. "The only Emys common to North and South America." So did not know it was found at New Bedford. Was not my Freetown turtle (vide April 13th) Holbrook's Kinosternon Pennsylvanicum? In his plate the edges of the scales are of more waving lines than those of the Sternothoerus; it has more brown or reddish yellow both above and below; its tail appears more sharply horny. There is no yellow line on its neck. The sternum is considerably larger (in proportion to carapax) as well as broader behind, and the plates connecting it with the upper shell are much wider. In the generic account the difference from the Sternothoerus is that the jaws are hooked (I see no difference in the plates) and the "sternum sub divided into three sections, anterior and posterior movable ; " and the " supplemental plates very large." Under this species he says the shell is "ecarinate;" "vertebral plates depressed, sub-imbricate." "Length of shell, 3 1/2 inches; breadth of shell, 2 inches 10 lines; elevation, 1 3/4 inches; length of sternum, 3 inches 2 lines." "The living animal has a slight odour of musk that is not disagreeable." Found in Atlantic States from Florida to latitude 41°. Thinks Hitchcock mistook it for Sternothoerus in his Geology. Found in the West, and Say says, high up the Missouri. 

According to De Kay, it is found sparingly in the southern counties of New York, and he says, "It has a strong musky smell." Of the Sternothoerus he says, "There appear to be two varieties, of which one is smooth on the shell, while the other is sub-carinate." Length of shell of Sternothoerus, 2 5/10 inches; height, 1 2/10; of Kinosternon, 4 and 8/10. (Vide April 13th.) 

De Kay does not describe the Cistuda Blandingii as found in New York. 

5 p. m. — Take cars for Portland. 

Very hot and dusty; as much need of a veil in the cars to exclude cinders as in the woods to keep off mosquitoes. Riding in the cars this weather like sitting in the flue of a chimney. 

Take steamer at Portland. Delayed by fog in night off coast of Maine.

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1857

De Kay: . James Dekay (October 12, 1792 – November 21, 1851) was an American zoologist involved with the Geological Survey of New York, wiho published the multi-volume Zoology of New York, or The New-York Fauna covering: mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians and fish -- the nearly 2,300 animals they estimated to exist in New York. This work was illustrated by  John William Hill. Hill and De Kay used a camera lucia for the rough drafts of the drawings. Hill's drawings of birds represented the first time hand-colored lithographs were used to illustrate a state bird book. De Kay collected the first specimen of a species of small brown snake on Long Island, which was named for him as Storeria dekayi. ~ Wikipedia

Was not my Freetown turtle (vide April 13th) Holbrook's Kinosternon Pennsylvanicum? See April 13, 1857 ("Saw a strange turtle, much like a small snapping turtle or very large Sternothoerus odoratus . . .")

I see a toad only an inch and a quarter long.

May 13. 

Work in garden. I see a toad only an inch and a quarter long; so they must be several years growing. 

P. M. — To Leaning Hemlocks. 

A large bunch of oat spawn in meadow water. 

Scare up a black duck and apparently two summer ducks. 

Canoe birch, how long? 

Sternothaerus.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 13, 1857

A large bunch of oat spawn in meadow water.  See May 13, 1858 ("The large globular masses of oat spawn. . . look like a seedy fruit which is divested of its rind.”)See also May 6, 1856 (“Oat spawn showing little pollywogs (?) in meadow water.”); May 11, 1855 (“See oat-seed spawn — a mass as big as fist —- on bottom; of brown jelly composed of smaller globules, each with a fish-like tadpole, color of a seed.”) Compare April 4, 1857 (“very handsome spherical masses of transparent jelly, two and a half to three inches in diameter, suspended near the surface of some weed, as goldenrod or aster, and consisting of globules about a third of an inch in diameter, with a black or dark centre as big as a large shot.”)

A strange turtle at Long Pond

April 13. 

Monday. 

To Middleborough ponds. There was no boat on Little Quitticus; so we could not explore it. 

Set out to walk round it, but, the water being high,— higher than anciently even, on account of dams, — we had to go round a swamp at the south end, about Joe’s Rocks, and R. gave it up. 

I went to Long Pond and waited for him. 

Saw a strange turtle, much like a small snapping turtle or very large Sternothaerus odoratus, crawling slowly along the bottom next the shore. Poked it ashore with a stick. It had a peculiarly square snout, two hinges to the sternum and both parts movable. Was very sluggish; would not snap nor bite. Looked old, being mossy above on the edge, and the scales greenish and eaten beneath. The flesh slate colored.* 

I saw that it was new and wished to bring it away, but had no paper to wrap it in. So I peeled a white birch, getting a piece of bark about ten inches long. I noticed that the birch sap was flowing. This bark at once curled back so as to present its yellow side out ward. I rolled it about the turtle and folded the ends back and tied it round with a strip of birch bark, making a very nice and airy box for the creature, which would not be injured by moisture, far better than any paper, and so I brought it home to Concord at last. 

As my coat hung in R.’s shanty, over a barrel of paper, the morning that I came away the turtle made a little noise, scratching the birch bark in my pocket. R. observed, 

“ There is a mouse in that barrel. What would you do about it?”

“Oh, let him alone,” said I, “ he ’ll get out directly.”

“ They often get among my papers,” he added.

“ I guess I ’d better set the barrel outdoors.” 

I did not explain, and perhaps he experimented on the barrel after my departure.

As I sat on the shore there, waiting for R., I saw many mosquitoes flying low over the water close to the sandy shore. 

The turtle when I first saw him was slowly and tremblingly pacing along the bottom, rather toward the shore, with its large head far out on its outstretched neck. From its size and general color and aspect, I did not doubt at first that it was a snapping turtle, notwithstanding the season.

H  D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1857 

To Middleborough ponds. See June 30, 1856 ("To Middleborough ponds in the new town of Lakeville") and  June 24, 1856 ("To Sassacowen Pond and to Long Pond")

I rolled [the strip of birch bark]about the turtle and folded the ends back and tied it round with a strip of birch bark, making a very nice and airy box for the creature. . .and so I brought it home to Concord at last. See April 25, 1857 ("I find that I can very easily make a convenient box of the birch bark, at this season at least, when the sap is running") See also   April 23, 1856 ("Brought it [a beetle] home in a clam’s shells tied up, —a good insect-box."); June 23, 1852 ("I am inclined to think that my hat, whose lining is gathered in midway so as to make a shelf, is about as good a botany-box as I could have and far more convenient. . .").

* The Freetown Turtle compared with Storer’s Sternothoerus.

Answers to the generic description, except perhaps that the posterior valve of the sternum is movable.

Compared with the S. odoratus. 

There is no peculiar scent to it. The upper shell is flattened on the dorsal ridge for the width of the dorsal plates and is not carinated there. (I find one as flat, and others are not carinated.) Color out of water a dirty brown. The marginal plates are a little narrower. 

The sternum (as well as that of my S. odomtus) is apparently composed of 11 instead of 9 plates, the anterior portion being composed of 5 instead of 3 plates. The posterior portion is distinctly movable, much more than the odoratus, and it is quite rounded on the sides. 

Irides not distinct. It appears as if blind. No yellow lines what ever on the head or neck. Jaws not dark-brown, but bluish-slate, as is the skin generally.

My two S. odoratus are 3 3/5 inches long by 2 1/2 wide and 1 1/2 inches high, being highest behind. The Freetown turtle is 4 inches long by 2 3/4 and 1 5/8  high, being highest forward. It has much green moss (?) on the rear and marginal plates, and the scales of the sternum are greenish and worn or carious. It is quite sluggish. Otherwise it apparently answers to Storer’s S. odoratus.

Botanizing with Russell; Bathing in Walden

July 23

July 23, 2016

9 a. m. — Up river for Nuphar Kalmiana with Russell.

Pasture thistle, not long. 

Hypericum Sarothra, not long, or perhaps some days. 

Antennaria margaritacea. Scutellaria lateriflora, apparently some days. 

R. says that my five-finger fungus is the Lycoperdon stellatum and can be found now. I find it in some places. (It is different from the white rough-coated puffball now found.) It was exhibited lately in Boston as the "resurrection plant " (! !) to compete with the one imported from Palestine. 

That what I have called fresh-water sponge is such, Spongea fluviatilis, and, like the marine, is uncertain whether vegetable or animal. When burned it leaves a mass of white spicula which have been mistaken for infusoria! 

Thinks the dry brown last-year’s plant I brought from Haskell's Island, Lakeville, the Epiphegus. 

That the Rubus Canadensis, low blackberry, is not found far west of us. 

That there is described — he thinks in Hooker's English Flora — a certain massing up of a conferva similar to that of my eriocaulon balls. Has seen a Mexican species, allied to the potato, cultivated hereabouts, which became a weed, — would not become larger than a walnut. 

Speaks of the young pouts with their bladders attached, accompanied by the old. 

That the berries of the celtis are pleasant to taste, those of the sassafras abominable. 

Showed me the Dulichium spathaceum, leaves in three ranks, so common along river, now in bloom; also the Carex lupulina (?) or retrorsa (?), hop sedge, with the inflated perigynia. 

Said that those reddish clusters of buds on a rush or carex were enlarged by disease. 

That the two white cotton-grasses (Eriophorum) were probably but one species, taller and shorter; also the two wool-grasses Scirpus — Trichophorum [sic] were probably but one species, the tall and short. 

That there was an account of the lecheas by Tuckerman in Silliman's Journal. 

P. M. — To Walden for hydropeltis. 

A young sternothserus which R. picked up recently dead, on the shore of the pond, was one and one sixteenth inches long, — the upper shell, — probably therefore a last year's one, or not yet one year old. Very high and sharp back, but broader than old. No hook to upper bill. 

That fern leaf on my coal (?) is probably the Newropteris as figured in Richardson's Botany. 

Saw at Hydropeltis Meadow a small bullfrog in the act of swallowing a young but pretty sizable apparently Rana palustris, such as now hop about, an inch and a half long. He took it down head foremost, and as the legs were slowly taken in, — stuffing himself, — for the legs were often straightened out, — I wondered what satisfaction it could be to the larger to have that cold slimy fellow, entire, lying head to tail within him! I sprang to make him disgorge, but it was too late to save him. Though I tossed the bullfrog out of the water, the palustris was entombed. So little while had he been in the light when he fell into that recess! 

Bathing in Walden, I find the water considerably colder at the bottom while I stand up to my chin, but the sandy bottom much warmer to my feet than the water. The heat passes through the water with[out] being absorbed by it much. 

The hydropeltis leaves so crowded they cannot lie flat, but their edges show (a good part the under side) as if blown up by wind. 

The water adder killed on the 15th and left hanging on a twig has decayed wonderfully. I perceive no odor, and it is already falling to pieces. I can see most of its ribs and through and through in many directions ! ! It is already mere skin and skeleton, as empty as [a] flute. I can count the bare ribs, and it [is] inoffensive to the smell. 

See apparently young goldfinches about, very freshly bright golden and black. 

The small potamogeton, heterophyllus (?) or hybridus (?), out some time. Ludwigia alternifolia, five or six days.

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

Bathing in Walden, I find the water considerably colder at the bottom while I stand up to my chin. See June 25, 1858 ("We bathe at Bittern Cliff. The water is exceedingly warm near the surface, but refreshingly cold four or five feet beneath. There must be twenty degrees difference at least"); July 3, 1854 ("What a luxury to bathe now! It is gloriously hot, — the first of this weather. I cannot get wet enough. I must let the water soak into me. I begin to inhabit the planet, and see how I may be naturalized at last.”); July 9, 1852 ("Bathing is an undescribed luxury. To feel the wind blow on your body, the water flow on you and lave you, is a rare physical enjoyment this hot day. . . .The pond water being so warm made the water of the brook feel very cold;. . .and when I thrust my arm down where it was only two feet deep, my arm was in the warm water of the pond, but my hand in the cold water of the brook.”); July 10, 1852 (" I make quite an excursion up and down the river in the water, a fluvial, a water walk. . . .Walking up and down a river in torrid weather with only a hat to shade the head.”);  July 17, 1860 ("The soft sand on the bottom of Walden, as deep as I can wade, feels very warm to my feet, while the water feels cold.");July 22, 1851("I bathe, and in a few hours I bathe again, not remembering that I was wetted before. When I come to the river, I take off my clothes and carry them over, then bathe and wash off the mud and continue my walk. I would fain take rivers in my walks endwise.”).  See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing


The water adder killed on the 15th. See July 15, 1856 ("It was about three feet long, but large round in proportion, with about one hundred and forty abdominal plates and a long, slender tail. . . .")

Young goldfinches about, very freshly bright golden and black. See May 6, 1860 ("A goldfinch apparently not quite in summer dress; with a dark-brown, not black, front.") See also July 10, 1854 (" Goldfinch oftener twitters over."); July 17, 1852 ("Again methinks I hear the goldfinch."); July 31, 1859 ("The goldfinch's note, the cool watery twitter, is more prominent now."); July 31, 1855 ("Have observed the twittering over of goldfinches for a week."); and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Goldfinch

Saturday afternoon we are putting together a sturdy garden cart at the edge of the garage when a sudden wind rises the trees begin to crack and the top of the large near-dead maple at the top of the driveway comes down with a crash blocking the way out. Then a heavy rain comes and thunder and rain and dark I decide to take a nap. I get up a couple of hours later when the power goes on and begin to clear the driveway starting with the small stuff. Jane comes out with her Japanese saw and I spend a lot of time first with the electric chainsaw which derails after each cut and eventually get my gas chainsaw going and cut the larger stuff. We end up loading my truck with all the tops of the tree and drive it up the driveway where we dump it near the entrance to the trail. 20160723

July 23. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 23

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.” 

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

An island forms in the river.

July 3. 

P. M. —To Assabet River.  

July 3, 2016

In the main stream, at the Rock, I am surprised to see flags and pads, laying the foundation of an islet in the middle, where I had thought it deep before. Apparently a hummock lifted by ice sunk there in the spring, and this may be the way in which many an island has been formed in the river. 

I scare up one or two woodcocks in different places by the shore, where they are feeding, and in a meadow. They go off with a whistling flight. Can see where their bills have probed the mud. 

See a sternothaerus on a small stump two feet over water. I approach and take hold of it, but cannot easily remove it. It appears to be shrunk on, withering away and dying there. It barely moves its head and eyes slightly, and its flippers look very much shrunken, yet it tumbles off after I leave. Apparently a male. 

I notice afterward, on succeeding days, many of them resting thus sluggishly, and find that I can approach and handle them and leave them as I found them. They appear much more sluggish than the other kinds now, though they were active enough in the spring. 

The tortoises improve every rock, and willow slanting over the water, and every floating board and rail. You will see one on the summit of a black willow stump several feet high, and two or more part way up. Some tumble from a height of five or six feet into the water before you. 

Even the great snap-turtle puts his head out and climbs up a rock on the bank with the rest.

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

This may be the way in which many an island has been formed in the river.  See February 28, 1855 (“The greater part of those hummocks there are probably, if not certainly, carried by the ice. . . . This is a powerful agent at work.”); February 25, 1851 ("I see from the bridge,. . . what looks like an island directly over the channel. . . .It is the crust of the meadow afloat, . . .another agent employed in the distribution of plants.”)

Walking under an apple tree in the little Baker Farm peach orchard,

June 20. 

Friday. A. M. —To Baker Farm with Ricketson.  A very hot day. 

Two Sternotherus odoratus by heap in Sanborn’s garden, one making a hole for its eggs, the rear of its shell partly covered. See a great many of these out to-day on ground and on willows. 

Swamp-pink out apparently two or three days at Clamshell Ditch. 

Late thalictrum apparently a day or two there. 

Archangelica apparently two or three days. 

A phoebe nest, second time, with four cream-white eggs. Got one. The second brood in the same nest.

Saw a snap-turtle out in sun on tussock opposite Bittern Cliff. Probably the water was too warm for him. 

They had at Middlesex House, yesterday, snuff flavored with ground or pulverized black birch bark. 

Walking under an apple tree in the little Baker Farm peach orchard, heard an incessant shrill musical twitter or peeping, as from young birds, over my head, and, looking up, saw a hole in an upright dead bough, some fifteen feet from ground. Climbed up and, finding that the shrill twitter came from it, guessed it to be the nest of a downy woodpecker, which proved to be the case, — for it reminded me of the hissing squeak or squeaking hiss of young pigeon woodpeckers, but this was more musical or bird-like.

The bough was about four and a half inches in diameter, and the hole perfectly circular, about an inch and a quarter in diameter. Apparently nests had been in holes above, now broken out, higher up. When I put my fingers in it, the young breathed their shrill twitter louder than ever. Anon the old appeared, and came quite near, while I stood in the tree, keeping up an incessant loud and shrill scolding note, and also after I descended; not to be relieved. 

Potentilla Norvegicea; apparently petals blown away.

Five young phoebes in a nest, apparently upon a swallow nest, in Conant’s old house, just ready to fly. 

Rudbeckia hirta budded.

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

It reminded me of the hissing squeak or squeaking hiss of young pigeon woodpeckers, but this was more musical or bird-like.  See June 10, 1856 (“In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well feathered. They utter their squeaking hiss whenever I cover the hole with my hand, apparently taking it for the approach of the mother.") and also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker

The bough was about four and a half inches in diameter, and the hole perfectly circular, about an inch and a quarter in diameter. See July 19, 1856 ("The downy woodpecker's nest which I got July 8th was in a dead and partly rotten upright apple bough four and three quarters inches [in] diameter. Hole perfectly elliptical (or oval) one and two sixteenths by one and five sixteenths inches; whole depth below it eight inches. It is excavated directly inward about three and a half inches, with a conical roof, also arching at back, with a recess in one side on level with the hole, where the bird turns") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Downy Woodpecker.

Conant’s old house. See February 19, 1855 ("Conant was cutting up an old pear tree which had blown down by his old house on Conantum. This [was] set anciently with reference to a house which stood in the little peach orchard near by.")

June 20. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 20

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

Soothed and cheered by I knew not what

June 1. 

Horse-radish in yard, to-morrow. 

Picked up an entire sternothaerus shell yesterday, without scales. In the upper shell there appear to be six small segments of shell wholly dorsal, seventeen wholly lateral (nine in front), and twenty-two marginal, forty five in all. The ribs, in this case spreading out and uniting to form a sharp and tight roof, suggest that ribs were the first rafters. 

So we turn our backs to the storm and shelter ourselves under this roof. The scales upon the shell answer to the shingles on the roof, breaking joints. 

Saw the shell of another turtle, apparently a young painted turtle, one inch long, curiously wrinkled and turned up, like that found in Middleborough. This had been washed up on to meadow some weeks ago, apparently. 

P. M. — To Walden. 

June 1, 2016

Somewhat warmer at last, after several very cold, as Well as windy and rainy, days. 

Was soothed and cheered by I knew not what at first, but soon detected the now more general creak of crickets. 

A striped yellow bug in fields. 

Most of the leaves of the Polygonatum pubescens which I gathered yesterday at Island had been eaten up by some creature. 

A chewink’s nest a rod and a half south of Walden road, opposite Goose Pond path, under a young oak, covered by overarching dry sedge; four eggs, pretty fresh. I am pretty sure the bird uttered the unusual hoarse and distressed note while I was looking at them. 

Linaria Canadensis on Emerson Cliff. Rock-rose, a day or two there. 

Whiteweed by railroad at pond to-morrow. Cotton-grass, several days before the 29th May. 

Heard a quail whistle May 30th. 

The late crataegus on hill, about May 31st.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 1, 1856

The now more general creak of crickets. See May 18, 1860 ("The creak of the cricket has been common on all warm, dry hills, banks, etc., for a week, - inaugurating the summer."); May 30, 1855 ("Is it not summer now when the creak of the crickets begins to be general?"); June 4, 1854 ("These warm and dry days, which put spring far behind, the sound of the cricket at noon has a new value and significance, so serene and cool. It is the iced-cream of song. It is modulated shade."); May 22, 1854 ("At Lee's Cliff. --First observe the creak of crickets. It is quite general amid these rocks. . . ."); May 26, 1852 ("To-night I hear many crickets. They have commenced their song. They bring in the summer."); June 13, 1851 ("I listen to the ancient, familiar, immortal, dear cricket sound under all others, and as these cease I become aware of the general earth-song.”).

A chewink’s nest a rod and a half south of Walden road, opposite Goose Pond path, under a young oak, covered by overarching dry sedge; four eggs, pretty fresh. See June 10, 1856 (“Chewink’s nest with four young in the dry sprout-land of Loring’s thick wood that was, under a completely overarching tuft of dry sedge grass.”); July 8, 1857 (“A chewink's nest with four young just hatched, at the bottom of the pyrola hollow and grove, where it is so dry, about seven feet southwest of a white pine.”)

Linaria Canadensis on Emerson Cliff. See May 22, 1855 ("Linaria Canadensis on Cliffs open.")

• Linaria Canadensis: A native annual or biennial that prefers highly disturbed areas with sandy soils. Its attractive light-blue to blue-violet flowers have a white throat and a nectar spur. (Nuttallanthus canadensisis, Blue Toadflax,, Canada Toadflax. Old-field Toadflax)

To be soothed and cheered 

by I know not what at first . . . 

the creak of crickets.

   

Botonizing the meadows

August 6, 2015

August 6

Down river to Tarbell Hill with C. 

Saw a Sternotherus odoratus, caught by the neck and hung in the fork between a twig and main trunk of a black willow, about two feet above water, — apparently a month or two, being nearly dry. Probably in its haste to get down had fallen and was caught. I have noticed the same thing once or twice before. 

Hear the autumnal crickets. 

At Ball’s Hill see five summer ducks, a brood now grown, feeding amid the pads on the opposite side of the river, with a whitish ring, perhaps nearly around neck. A rather shrill squeaking quack when they go off. 

It is remarkable how much more game you will see if you are in the habit of sitting in the fields and woods. As you pass along with a noise it hides itself, but presently comes forth again. 

The Ludwigia spharocarpa out maybe a week. I was obliged to wade to it all the way from the shore, the meadow-grass cutting my feet above and making them smart. You must wear boots here.

The lespedeza with short heads, how long? These great meadows through which I wade have a great abundance of hedge-hyssop now in bloom in the water. Small St. John’s-worts and elodeas, lanceolate loosestrife, arrow heads, small climbing bellflower, also horse-mint on the drier clods. These all over the meadow. 

I see seven or eight nighthawks together; dull-buff breasts, with tails short and black beneath. 

The mole cricket creaks along the shore. 

Meadow-haying on all hands.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 6, 1855

Hear the autumnal crickets . . . The mole cricket creaks along the shore. See  August 6, 1854 (“.This anticipation of the fall, — coolness and cloud, and the crickets steadily chirping in mid-afternoon.”);  see also August 4, 1851 ("I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn."); August 18, 1856 “I hear the steady (not intermittent) shrilling of apparently the alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal, a season sound.”) and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

The Ludwigia spharocarpa out maybe a week.  See August 1, 1856 ("Ludwigia sphaerocarpa apparently a week out, a foot and a half to two feet high.") See also Gobotany — round-pod water-primrose

 

Small St. John’s-worts and elodeas, lanceolate loosestrife, arrow heads, small climbing bellflower, also horse-mint . . . all over the meadow. See August 13, 1856 (“Is there not now a prevalence of aromatic herbs in prime? — The polygala roots, blue-curls, wormwood, pennyroyal, Solidago odora, rough sunflowers, horse-mint, etc., etc. Does not the season require this tonic? ”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

I see seven or eight nighthawks together See . August 2, 1854 ("The nighthawk flies low , skimming over the ground now "): see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,, the Nighthawk

Meadow-haying on all hands. See August 6, 1858 ("We pass haymakers in every meadow,");   August 7, 1854 ("A great part of the farmers of Concord are now in the meadows, and toward night great loads of hay are seen rolling slowly along the river’s bank,"); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

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

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