A library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.

October 28

Rain in the night and this morning, preparing for winter.

We noticed in a great many places the narrow paths by which the moose came down to the river, and sometimes, where the bank was steep and somewhat clayey, they had slid down it.  The holes made by their feet in the soft bottom in shallow water are visible for a long time.

Joe told me that, though they shed their horns annually, each new pair has an additional prong. They are sometimes used as an ornament in front entries, for a hat-tree (to hang hats on).

Cedar bark appeared to be their commonest string.

These first beginnings of commerce on a lake in the wilderness are very interesting, — these larger white birds that come to keep company with the gulls, - if they only carry a few cords of wood across the lake. 

***

April 28, 1855 ("A a bird of many colors")

Just saw in the garden, in the drizzling rain, little sparrow-sized birds flitting about amid the dry corn stalks and the weeds, — one, quite slaty with black streaks and a bright-yellow crown and rump, which I think is the yellow-crowned warbler, but most of the others much more brown, with yellowish breasts and no yellow on crown to be observed, which I think the young of the same.

One flew up fifteen feet and caught an insect. They uttered a faint chip. Some of the rest were sparrows. I did not get good sight of the last. I suspect the former may be my tull-lulls of the Moosehead Carry. [No they were.] 

For a year or two past, my publisher, falsely so called, has been writing from time to time to ask what disposition should be made of the copies of "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" still on hand, and at last suggesting that he had use for the room they occupied in his cellar.

So I had them all sent to me here, and they have arrived to-day by express, filling the man's wagon, — 706 copies out of an edition of 1000 which I bought of Munroe four years ago and have been ever since paying for, and have not quite paid for yet. The wares are sent to me at last, and I have an opportunity to examine my purchase. 

They are something more substantial than fame, as my back knows, which has borne them up two flights of stairs to a place similar to that to which they trace their origin.

Of the remaining two hundred and ninety and odd, seventy-five were given away, the rest sold.

I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. Is it not well that the author should behold the fruits of his labor? My works are piled up on one side of my chamber half as high as my head, my opera omnia.

This is authorship; these are the work of my brain.

There was just one piece of good luck in the venture. The unbound were tied up by the printer four years ago in stout paper wrappers, and inscribed, —

H. D. Thoreau's 

Concord River 

50 cops. 

So Munroe had only to cross out 'River’ and write 'Mass.' and deliver them to the expressman at once.

I can see now what I write for, the result of my labors.

Nevertheless, in spite of this result, sitting beside the inert mass of my works, I take up my pen to-night to record what thought or experience I may have had, with as much satisfaction as ever.

Indeed, I believe that this result is more inspiring and better for me than if a thousand had bought my wares. It affects my privacy less and leaves me freer. 


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 28, 1853 

The yellow-crowned warbler . . . my tull-lulls of the Moosehead Carry.  See September 20, 1853 ("I saw the Fringilla hyemalis; also a bird a little smaller  maybe, brownish and yellowish  with some white tail-feathers, which I think makes the tull-lull sound, hopping on the wood-pile. Is not this the myrtle-bird? Their note interested me because I formerly had many a chase in a spring morning in the direction of this sound, in vain, to identify the bird.");  April 26, 1854 ("The woods are full of myrtle-birds this afternoon , more common and commonly heard than any, especially along the edge of woods on oaks , etc. , - their note an oft - repeated fine jingle , a che ' che , che ' che , che ' che , or a tweedle tweedle tweedle tweedle - twe . As I heard the tull lull from the same quarter from time to time , I think it came from it . Perhaps it may be written , a tea le , tea le , tea le . "); April 28, 1855 ("The myrtle-birds flit before us in great numbers, yet quite tame, uttering commonly only a chip, but some times a short trill or che che, che che, che che. Do I hear the tull-lull in the afternoon? It is a bird of many colors, — slate, yellow, black, and white, — singularly spotted."); October 3, 1859 ("I see on a wall a myrtle-bird in its October dress, looking very much like a small sparrow."); October 10, 1859 ("White-throated sparrows in yard and close up to house, together with myrtle-birds (which fly up against side of house and alight on window-sills)");  October 14, 1855 ("Some sparrow-like birds with yellow on rump flitting about our wood-pile. One flies up against the house and alights on the window-sill within a foot of me inside. Black bill and feet, yellow rump, brown above, yellowish-brown on head, cream-colored chin, two white bars on wings, tail black, edged with white, — the yellow-rump warbler or myrtle-bird without doubt. "); October 15, 1859 ("I think I see myrtle-birds on white birches, and that they are the birds I saw on them a week or two ago, — apparently, or probably, after the birch lice."); October 19, 1856 ("See quite a flock of myrtle-birds, — which I might carelessly have mistaken for slate-colored snowbirds, — flitting about on the rocky hillside under Conantum Cliff. They show about three white or light-colored spots when they fly, commonly no bright yellow, though some are pretty bright."); October 21, 1857 ("I see many myrtle-birds now about the house this forenoon, on the advent of cooler weather. They keep flying up against the house and the window and fluttering there, as if they would come in, or alight on the wood-pile or pump. They would commonly be mistaken for sparrows, but show more white when they fly, beside the yellow on the rump and sides of breast seen near to and two white bars on the wings."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Myrtle-bird; A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, Birds in the Rain

The rich nutmeg fragrance of black walnuts.

October 28

October 29, 2019

Goldenrods and asters have been altogether lingering some days. 

Walnuts commonly fall, and the black walnuts at Smith's are at least half fallen.  They are of the form and size of a small lemon and — what is singular — have a rich nutmeg fragrance. They are now turning dark-brown. 

Gray says it is rare in the Eastern but very common in the Western States. Is it indigenous in Massachusetts? [Emerson says it is, but rare.] If so, it is much the most remarkable nut that we have.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 28, 1859

Walnuts commonly fall. See  October 14, 1859 ("At Baker's wall two of the walnut trees are bare but full of green nuts (in their green cases), which make a very pretty sight as they wave in the wind. So distinct you could count every one against the sky, for there is not a leaf on these trees, but other walnuts near by are yet full of leaves."); October 27, 1857 ("Now it is time to look out for walnuts"); October 28, 1852 ("The boys are gathering walnuts. Their leaves are a yellowish brown."); November 20, 1858 ("When walnut husks have fairly opened, showing the white shells within, — the trees being either quite bare or with a few withered leaves at present, — a slight jar with the foot on the limbs causes them to rattle down in a perfect shower, and on bare, grass-grown pasture ground it is very easy picking them up.")

Black walnuts rare.  See October 27, 1856 ("Black walnut . . . were pretty common [in New Jersey]"); June 8, 1857 ("There are two good-sized black walnuts at Cyrus Smith's"); June 23, 1857 ("Pratt says he knows of a black walnut at Hunt's on Ponkawtasset. "); May 12, 1858 ("They use [chestnut] wood for coffins, instead of black walnut.")

There are now but few bright leaves to be seen.

October 28

Cattle coming down from up country. 

P. M. — Up Assabet to Cedar Swamp. 

Here is an Indian-summer day. Not so warm, indeed, as the 19th and 20th, but warm enough for pleasure. 

The majority of the white maples are bare, but others are still thickly leaved the leaves being a greenish yellow. It appears, then, that they hold their leaves longer than our other maples, or most trees. The majority of them do not acquire a bright tint at all, and, though interesting for their early summer blush, their autumnal colors are not remarkable. 

The dogwood on the island is perhaps in its prime, — a distinct scarlet, with half of the leaves green in this case. Apparently none have fallen. I see yet also some Cornus sericea bushes with leaves turned a clear dark but dull red, rather handsome. 

Some large red oaks are still as bright as ever, and that is here a brownish yellow, with leaves partly withered; and some are already quite bare.

Swamp white oak withers apparently with the white. Some of both are still partly greenish, while others of both are bare. 

How handsome the great red oak acorns now! I stand under the tree on Emerson’s lot. They are still falling. I heard one fall into the water as I approached, and thought that a musquash had plunged. They strew the ground and the bottom of the river thickly, and while I stand here I hear one strike the boughs with force as it comes down, and drop into the water. The part that was covered by the cup is whitish-woolly. How munificent is Nature to create this profusion of wild fruit, as it were merely to gratify our eyes! Though inedible they are more wholesome to my immortal part, and stand by me longer, than the fruits which I eat. If they had been plums or chestnuts I should have eaten them on the spot and probably forgotten them. They would have afforded only a momentary gratification, but being acorns, I remember, and as it were feed on, them still. They are untasted fruits forever in store for me. I know not of their flavor as yet. That is postponed to some still unimagined winter evening. These which we admire but do not eat are nuts of the gods. When time is no more we shall crack them. I cannot help liking them better than horse-chestnuts, which are of a similar color, not only because they are of a much handsomer form, but because they are indigenous. What hale, plump fellows they are! They can afford not to be useful to me, nor to know me or be known by me. They go their way, I go mine, and it turns out that sometimes I go after them. 

The hemlock is in the midst of its fall, and the leaves strew the ground like grain. They are inconspicuous on the tree.

The Populus grandidentata leaves are not all fallen yet. This, then, is late to lose its leaves, later, rather, than the sugar maple. Its leaves are large and conspicuous on the ground, and from their freshness make a great show there. It is later to fall than the tremuliformic, as it was later to bloom. 

I now begin to notice the evergreen ferns, when the others are all withered or fallen. 

The black willows have been bare some time. 

Panicled andromeda and winterberry are about bare. 

Pitch pines are falling; and white cedars are apparently in the midst of their fall, turning a pale brown and strewing the ground. 

There are now but few bright leaves to be seen, 'viz.

3  Pitch pine (though most is faded on the trees).
2  Larch.
1  Scarlet oak.
4  Populus grandidentata (thin-leaved).
6  A few yellow leaves on young willows, coniferous ones and S. sericea especially, still holding on to the extremity of the twigs.
8  Some crimson Viburnum nudum (thin-leaved).
9  Meadow-sweet.
10  Some Viburnum dentatum, greenish purple (thin leaved, not conspicuous).
5  Some small white birch tops.
5  High blueberry (more common than last).
7  Some silky cornel.
14  Flowering dogwood.
11  Gooseberry.
12  Common wild rose, yellow inclining to scarlet.
12  Rosa Carolina (clear dark red) and sweet-briar.
13  Staghorn sumach, in cool places and shaded.

Numbered in the order of their importance, most being either very thin-leaved now, or rare.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 28, 1858

The majority of the white maples are bare, but others are still thickly leaved. See note to October 14, 1858 ("The white maples are now apparently in their autumnal dress”)

The dogwood on the island is perhaps in its prime, — a distinct scarlet, with half of the leaves green in this case. See June 8, 1858 (“ Cornus florida at Island well out, say the 3d.”); August 30, 1854 (“Dogwood leaves have fairly begun to turn”); October 12, 1858 (“The C. florida at Island shows some scarlet tints, but it is not much exposed.”)

 I see yet also some Cornus sericea bushes with leaves turned a clear dark but dull red, rather handsome. See  October 9, 1858 (“Some Cornus sericea looks quite greenish yet.”); October 12, 1858 (“The Cornus sericea begins to fall, though some of it is green”); October 17, 1858 (“The Cornus sericea is a very dark crimson, though it has lost some leaves.”)


How handsome the great red oak acorns now! See October 12, 1858 (“Acorns, red and white (especially the first), appear to be fallen or falling. They are so fair and plump and glossy that I love to handle them, and am loath to throw away what I have in my hand.”); September 30, 1854 ("The conventional acorn of art is of course of no particular species, but the artist might find it worth his while to study Nature’s varieties again.”)

The hemlock is in the midst of its fall, and the leaves strew the ground like grain. See  October 8, 1857 (“Hemlock leaves are copiously falling. They cover the hillside like some wild grain. ”); October 16, 1857 (“Hemlock leaves are falling now faster than ever, and the trees are more parti-colored. The falling leaves look pale-yellow on the trees, but become reddish on the ground.”); November 11, 1855 (“At the Hemlocks I see a narrow reddish line of hemlock leaves . .. mathematically level. This chronicles the hemlock fall, which I had not noticed, we have so few trees, and also the river’s rise”)

The Populus grandidentata leaves are not all fallen yet.  See November 5, 1858 ("A few Populus grandidentata leaves are still left on"); November 10, 1858 ("There are still a few leaves on the large Populus tremuliformis, but they will be all gone in a day or two. They have turned quite yellow.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,the Big-toothed Aspen (Populus grandidentata)t

I now begin to notice the evergreen ferns. See October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum,. . .The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”). See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort; Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum & Aspidium cristatum;

Part Three: Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Sheild Fern

There are now but few bright leaves to be seen. See October 23, 1857(“I can find no bright leaves now in the woods.”)

When others wither

I now begin  to notice 

the evergreen ferns.

At the eleventh hour, late in the year, we have visions of the life we might have lived.

October 28. 

October 28, 2017

P. M. — To Conantum. 

To-day it does not rain, but is cloudy all the day. 

Large oak leaves have been falling for a week at least, but the oaks are not yet reduced to their winter state. 

On the causeway I see fox-colored sparrows flitting along in the willows and alders, uttering a faint cheep, and tree sparrows with them. 

On a black willow, a single grackle with the bright irls. (I doubt if some of the brown-headed blackbirds I have seen within three weeks were grackles.) 

As I sat at the wall-corner, high on Conantum, the sky generally covered with continuous cheerless-looking slate-colored clouds, except in the west, I saw, through the hollows of the clouds, here and there the blue appearing. 

All at once a low-slanted glade of sunlight from one of heaven’s west windows behind me fell on the bare gray maples, lighting them up with an incredibly intense and pure white light; then, going out there, it lit up some white birch stems south of the pond, then the gray rocks and the pale reddish young oaks of the lower cliffs, and then the very pale brown meadow-grass, and at last the brilliant white breasts of two ducks, tossing on the agitated surface far off on the pond, which I had not detected before. 

It was but a transient ray, and there was no sunshine afterward, but the intensity of the light was surprising and impressive, like a halo, a glory in which only the just deserved to live. 

It was as if the air, purified by the long storm, reflected these few rays from side to side with a complete illumination, like a perfectly polished mirror, while the effect was greatly enhanced by the contrast with the dull dark clouds and sombre earth. As if Nature did not dare at once to let in the full blaze of the sun to this combustible atmosphere. 

It was a serene, elysian light, in which the deeds I have dreamed of but not realized might have been performed. 

At the eleventh hour, late in the year, we have visions of the life we might have lived. 

No perfectly fair weather ever offered such an arena for noble acts. It was such a light as we behold but dwell not in! In each case, every recess was filled and lit up with this pure white light. The maples were Potter’s, far down stream, but I dreamed I walked like a liberated spirit in their maze. The withered meadow-grass was as soft and glorious as paradise. And then it was remarkable that the light-giver should have revealed to me, for all life, the heaving white breasts of those two ducks within this glade of light. It was extinguished and relit as it travelled. 

Tell me precisely the value and significance of these transient gleams which come sometimes at the end of the day, before the close of the storm, final dispersion of the clouds, too late to be of any service to the works of man for the day, and notwithstanding the whole night after may be overcast! Is not this a language to be heard and understood? 

There is, in the brown and gray earth and rocks, and the withered leaves and bare twigs at this season, a purity more correspondent to the light itself than summer offers. 

These two ducks, as near as I could see with my glass, were all dark above, back and wings, but had bright white breasts and necks. They were swimming and tacking about in the midst of the pond, with their heads half the time plunged beneath the surface. Were they grebes? or young sheldrakes? Even at this distance they warily withdraw still further off till I am gone. 

Both aspleniums and the small botrychium are still fresh, as if they were evergreen. The latter sheds pollen. The former are most fresh under the shelter of rocks. 

I look up and see a male marsh hawk with his clean cut wings, that has just skimmed past above my head, – not at all disturbed, only tilting his body a little, now twenty rods off, with demi-semi-quaver of his wings. He is a very neat flyer. 

Again, I hear the scream of a hen-hawk, soaring and circling onward. I do not often see the marsh hawk thus. What a regular figure this fellow makes on high, with his broad tail and broad wings! Does he perceive me, that he rises higher and circles to one side? He goes round now one full circle without a flap, tilting his wing a little; then flaps three or four times and rises higher. Now he comes on like a billow, screaming. 

Steady as a planet in its orbit, with his head bent down, but on second thought that small sprout-land seems worthy of a longer scrutiny, and he gives one circle backward over it. His scream is somewhat like the whinnering of a horse, if it is not rather a split squeal. It is a hoarse, tremulous breathing forth of his winged energy. But why is it so regularly repeated at that height? Is it to scare his prey, that he may see by its motion where it is, or to inform its mate or companion of its where about? 

Now he crosses the at present broad river steadily, deserving to have one or two rabbits at least to swing about him. What majesty there is in this small bird's flight! The hawks are large-souled. 

Those late grapes on Blackberry Steep are now as ripe as ever they will be. They are sweet and shrivelled but on the whole poor. They ripen there the latter part of October. 

The white pine needles on the ground are already turned considerably redder. The pitch pines, which are yellower than the white when they fall, are three quarters fallen. I see some which look exactly like bamboo, very prettily barred with brown every tenth of an inch or so. 

Going up the cliffy hillside, just north of the witch hazel, I see a vigorous young apple tree, which, planted by birds or cows, has shot up amid the rocks and woods, and has much fruit on it and more beneath it, unin jured by the frosts, now when all other fruits are gathered. It is of a rank, wild growth, with many green leaves on it still, and makes an impression, at least, of thorni ness. The fruit is hard and green, but looks like palatable winter fruit; some dangling on the twigs, but more half buried in the wet leaves, or rolled far down the hill amid the rocks. The owner, Lee, knows no thing of it. There is no hand to pluck its fruit; it is only gnawed by squirrels, I perceive. It has done double duty, – not only borne this crop, but each twig has grown a foot into the air. And this is such a fruit! Bigger than many berries, and carried home will be sound and palatable, perchance, next spring. Who knows but this chance wild fruit may be equal to those kinds which the Romans and the English have so prized, – may yet become the favorite of the nations? When I go by this shrub, thus late and hardy, and its dangling fruit strikes me, I respect the tree and am grateful for Nature's bounty. 

Even the sourest and crabbedest apple, growing in the most unfavorable position, suggests such thoughts as these, it [is] so noble a fruit. Planted by a bird on a wild and rocky hillside, it bears a fruit, perchance, which foreign potentates shall hear of and send for, though the virtues of the owner of the soil may never be heard of beyond the limits of his village. It may be the choicest fruit of its kind. Every wild apple shrub excites our expectation thus. It is a prince in disguise, perhaps.” 

There is, apparently, limestone just above this apple tree.

I see pignuts which squirrels have industriously gnawed, the thick rind closely adhering, so that at last they are left brown and very rough; but in no case is the shell cut quite through, for, as I find, they con tain no meat, but, under a shell of double thickness, a mere dry brown skin, and it seems the squirrels knew this!

Is that small fern (still partly green) Aspidium cristatum, at Lee's Cliff, northwest of the witch hazel? 

Suppose I see a single green apple, brought to perfection on some thorny shrub, far in a wild pasture where no cow has plucked it. It is an agreeable surprise. What chemistry has been at work there? It affects me somewhat like a work of art. 

I see some shrubs which cattle have browsed for twenty years, keeping them down and compelling them to spread, until at last they are so broad they become their own fence and some interior shoot darts upward and bears its fruit! 

What a lesson to man! So are human beings, referred to the highest standard, the celestial fruit which they suggest and aspire to bear, browsed on by fate, and only the most persistent and strongest genius prevails, defends itself, sends a tender scion upward at last, and drops its perfect fruit on the ungrateful earth; and that fruit, though somewhat smaller, perchance, is essentially the same in flavor and quality as if it had grown in a garden. 

That fruit seems all the sweeter and more palatable even for the very difficulties it has contended with. 

Here, on this rugged and woody hillside, has grown an apple tree, not planted by man, no relic of a former orchard, but a natural growth like the pines and oaks. Most fruits we prize and use depend entirely on our care. Corn and grain, potatoes, peaches (here), and melons, etc., depend altogether on our planting, but the apple emulates man's independence and enterprise. 

Like him to some extent, it has migrated to this new world and is ever here and there making its way amid the aboriginal trees. It accompanies man like the ox and dog and horse, which also sometimes run wild and maintain themselves. 

Spite of wandering kine and other adverse circumstance, that scorned shrub, valued only by small birds as a covert, a shelter from hawks, has its blossom week, and in course its harvest, sincere, though small. 

’T was thirty years ago,  

In a rocky pasture field  

Sprang an infant apple grove  

Unplanted and concealed.  

I sing the wild apple, theme enough for me.  

I love the racy fruit and I reverence the tree. 

In that small family there was one that loved the sun, which sent its root down deep and took fast hold on life, while the others went to sleep.    

In two years’ time ’t had thus 

Reached the level of the rocks, 

Admired the stretching world, 

Nor feared the wandering flocks.  

But at this tender age  

Its sufferings began:  

There came a browsing ox 

And cut it down a span.  

Its heart did bleed all day, 

And when the birds were hushed, –

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 28, 1857

At the eleventh hour, late in the year, we have visions of the life we might have lived. See August 18, 1853 (“What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now? — now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit? The year is full of warnings of its shortness, as is life.”); April 24, 1859 ("There is a season for everything. Let the season rule us. . . .There is no other life but this, or the like of this. Nothing must be postponed. Launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Live in the present. On any other course life is a succession of regrets.”)

All at once a low-slanted glade of sunlight . . .lighting them up with an incredibly intense and pure white light. See October 28, 1852 (“Suddenly the light of the setting sun yellows and warms all the landscape.”) See also August 28, 1860 (" Just before setting, the sun comes out into a clear space in the horizon and a sudden blaze of light falls on east end of the pond and the hillside. At this angle a double amount of bright sunlight reflects from the water up to the underside of the still very fresh green leaves of the bushes and trees on the shore and on Pine Hill, revealing the most vivid and varied shades of green."); November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine. . . .After a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire.")

I hear the scream of a hen-hawk, soaring and circling onward.. . It is a hoarse, tremulous breathing forth of his winged energy. But why is it so regularly repeated at that height? See March 2, 1855 ("Hear two hawks scream. There is something truly March-like in it, like a prolonged blast or whistling of the wind  through a crevice in the sky. . .”); March 6, 1858 ("I see the first hen-hawk, or hawk of any kind, methinks, since the beginning of winter. Its scream, even, is inspiring as the voice of a spring bird.") April 30, 1855 (“I hear from far the scream of a hawk circling over the Holden woods and swamp. This accounts for those two men with guns just entering it. What a dry, shrill, angry scream! . . . It must have a nest there.”); May 7, 1855 (“In the meanwhile, the crows are making a great cawing amid and over the pine-tops beyond the swamp, and at intervals I hear the scream of a hawk, . . . whom they were pestering”); June 8, 1853 (“I hear a hawk scream, and, looking up, see, a pretty large one circling not far off and incessantly screaming, as I at first suppose to scare and so discover its prey, but its screaming is so incessant and it circles from time to time so near me, as I move southward, that I begin to think it has a nest near by and is angry at my intrusion into its domains. As I move, the bird still follows and screams, coming sometimes quite near. . . At length I detect the nest . . .”); July 31, 1856 (“Near Well Meadow, hear the distant scream of a hawk, apparently anxious about her young, . . .This a sound of the season when they probably are taking their first (?) flights.”);  September 14, 1855 (“I scare from an oak by the side of the Close a young hen-hawk, which, launching off with a scream and a heavy flight, alights on the topmost plume of a large pitch pine. . .”)

Those late grapes on Blackberry Steep are now as ripe as ever they will be. See October 18, 1857 (“I find an abundance of those small, densely clustered grapes, – not the smallest quite, – still quite fresh . . . These are not yet ripe and may fairly be called frost grapes. Half-way up Blackberry Steep, above the rock.”); November 2, 1852 (“About the 10th of November, I first noticed long bunches of very small dark-purple or black grapes fallen on the dry leaves in the ravine east of Spring's house. . . .they had a very agreeably spicy acid taste, evidently not acquired till after the frosts. I thought them quite a discovery and ate many from day to day, . . . It is a true frost grape, but apparently answers to Vitis aestivates”); September 29, 1856 (“I am late for grapes; most have fallen. The fruit of what I have called Vitis aestivalis has partly fallen. . . . . Should not this be called frost grape,”)

I see some shrubs which cattle have browsed for twenty years, keeping them down and compelling them to spread, until at last they are so broad they become their own fence and some interior shoot darts upward and bears its fruit. See May 22, 1853 ("The pastures on this hill and its spurs are sprinkled profusely with thorny pyramidal apple scrubs, very thick and stubborn, first planted by the cows, then browsed by them and kept down stubborn and thorny for years, till, as they spread, their centre is protected and beyond reach and shoots up into a tree")

A screech owl sitting on the edge of a hollow hemlock stump, at the base of a large hemlock.

October 28

As I paddle under the Hemlock bank this cloudy afternoon, about 3 o’clock, I see a screech owl sitting on the edge of a hollow hemlock stump about three feet high, at the base of a large hemlock. 

It sits with its head drawn in, eying me, with its eyes partly open, about twenty feet off. 

When it hears me move, it turns its head toward me, perhaps one eye only open, with its great glaring golden iris. You see two whitish triangular lines above the eyes meeting at the bill, with a sharp reddish-brown triangle between and a narrow curved line of black under each eye. 

At this distance and in this light, you see only a black spot where the eye is, and the question is whether the eyes are open or not. 

It sits on the lee side of the tree this raw and windy day. You would say that this was a bird without a neck. Its short bill, which rests upon its breast, scarcely projects at all, but in a state of rest the whole upper part of the bird from the wings is rounded off smoothly, excepting the horns, which stand up conspicuously or are slanted back. 

After watching it ten minutes from the boat, I land two rods above, and, stealing quietly up behind the hemlock, though from the windward, I look carefully around it, and, to my surprise, see the owl still sitting there. 

So I spring round quickly, with my arm outstretched, and catch it in my hand. 

It is so surprised that it offers no resistance at first, only glares at me in mute astonishment with eyes as big as saucers. But ere long it begins to snap its bill, making quite a noise, and, as I roll it up in my handkerchief and put it in my pocket, it bites my finger slightly. 

I soon take it out of my pocket and, tying the handkerchief, leave it on the bottom of the boat. So I carry it home and made a small cage in which to keep it, for a night.

General color of the owl a rather pale and perhaps slightly reddish brown, the feathers centred with black. Perches with two claws above and two below the perch. It is a slight body, covered with a mass of soft and light-lying feathers. Its head muffled in a great hood. It must be quite comfortable in winter.

Dropped a pellet of fur and bones in his cage. He sat, not really moping but trying to sleep, in a corner of his box all day, yet with one or both eyes slightly open all the while. Ordinarily stood rather than sat on his perch.

I never once caught him with his eyes shut. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 28, 1855

See October 29, 1855 ("Carried my owl to the hill again . Had to shake him out of the box, for he did not go of his own accord . . .There he stood on the grass, at first bewildered . . . His attitude expressed astonishment more than anything.”); See  also May 7, 1855 ("I looked in, and, to my great surprise, there squatted, filling the hole, which was about six inches deep and five to six wide, a salmon-brown bird not so big as a partridge, seemingly asleep within three inches of the top and close to my face."); May 12, 1855 ("One of the three remaining eggs was hatched, and a little downy white young one, two or three times as long as an egg, lay helpless between the two remaining eggs .. . .Wilson says of his red owl (Strix asio) , — with which this apparently corresponds , and not with the mottled, though my egg is not " pure white, ” – that “the young are at first covered with a whitish down.");) May 25, 1855 ("Scared a screech owl out of an apple tree on hill; flew swiftly off at first like a pigeon woodpecker and lit near by .  . .then flew into a hole high in a hickory. . .It was reddish or ferruginous.");  May 26, 1855 ("At the screech owl's nest I now find two young slumbering, almost uniformly gray above, about five inches long  with little dark-grayish tufts for incipient horns(?).");  July 10, 1856 ("I find myself suddenly within a rod of a gray screech owl sitting on an alder bough with horns erect, turning its head from side to side and up and down . . . Another more red, also horned, repeats the same warning sound . . . I draw near and find a young owl a third smaller than the old, all gray without obvious horns --only four or five feet distant.");  December 26, 1860 ("Melvin sent to me yesterday a perfect Strix asio, or red owl of Wilson, - not at all gray. . . . This is, as Wilson says, a bright “nut brown" . . .. It is twenty-three inches alar extent by about eleven long."); February 5, 1861 ("Horace Mann brings me a screech owl . . . This is a decidedly gray owl, with none of the reddish or nut brown of the specimen of December 26, though it is about the same size, and answers exactly to Wilson's mottled owl.") and J. J. Audubon  ("The Red Owl of Wilson and other naturalists is merely the young of the bird called by the same authors the Mottled Owl,"). Also  aSeptember 23, 1855 (""I hear from my chamber a screech owl . . .a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinny of a colt.");   June 2, 1860 ("I soon hear its mournful scream. . . not loud now but, though within twenty or thirty rods, sounding a mile off.”); June 25, 1860 ("At evening up the Assabet hear four or five screech owls on different sides of the river, uttering those peculiar low screwing or working, ventriloquial sounds.”); August 14, 1854 (“I hear the tremulous squealing scream of a screech owl in the Holden Woods.”); October 9, 1851 ("Heard two screech owls in the night") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Screech Owl

I see a screech owl 

sitting on the edge of a 

hollow hemlock stump

A Book of the Seasons: October 28

October 28

Suddenly the light

of the setting sun yellows

and warms the landscape.

October 28, 1852

I hear no sound but
rustling of the withered leaves
and roar of the wind.
October 28, 1852

A warm but moist night.

The dew in the withered grass

reflects the moonlight.

October 28, 1852

Now the woods look bare
reflected in the water --
birches still yellow.
October 28, 1854

The reflected woods

begin to look bare –I look 

far between the trees.

Now the woods look bare

reflected in the water–

birches still yellow.

All at once pure white 

low-slanting sunlight lights up

two ducks on the pond.

October 28, 1857

All at once slanting

pure white sun light  lighting up

two ducks on the pond.

October 28, 1857

Leaves of the hemlock
now in the midst of its fall,
strew the ground like grain.
October 28, 1858

Fallen black walnuts
have a rich nutmeg fragrance,
now turning dark-brown.
October 28, 1859

We make a great noise
going through the fallen leaves
in the wood-paths now.
October 28, 1860

As if the tumult
of the waves clashing your boat
as we sail the wood.
October 28, 1860.

*****

Four months of the green leaf make all our summer . . . from June 1st to October 1st. . . and methinks there are about four months when the ground is white with snow. That would leave two months for spring and two for autumn. October 28, 1852

October the month of ripe or painted leaves; November the month of withered leaves and bare twigs and limbs. October 28, 1852

Here is an Indian-summer day. Not so warm, indeed, as the 19th and 20th, but warm enough for pleasure.  October 28, 1858

Rain in the night and this morning, preparing for winter. October 28, 1853

Just saw in the garden, in the drizzling rain, little sparrow-sized birds flitting about amid the dry corn stalks and the weeds, — one, quite slaty with black streaks and a bright-yellow crown and rump, which I think is the yellow-crowned warbler, but most of the others much more brown, with yellowish breasts and no yellow on crown to be observed, which I think the young of the same. One flew up fifteen feet and caught an insect. They uttered a faint chip. Some of the rest were sparrows. October 28, 1853 

On the causeway I see fox-colored sparrows flitting along in the willows and alders, uttering a faint cheep, and tree sparrows with them. October 28, 1857

On a black willow, a single grackle with the bright irls. October 28, 1857

See a very large flock of crows. October 28, 1860

I look up and see a male marsh hawk with his clean cut wings, that has just skimmed past above my head, – not at all disturbed, only tilting his body a little, now twenty rods off, with demi-semi-quaver of his wings. He is a very neat flyer. October 28, 1857

Again, I hear the scream of a hen-hawk, soaring and circling onward . . . What a regular figure this fellow makes on high, with his broad tail and broad wings! . . . He goes round now one full circle without a flap, tilting his wing a little; then flaps three or four times and rises higher. Now he comes on like a billow, screaming. Steady as a planet in its orbit . . . His scream is . . . a hoarse, tremulous breathing forth of his winged energy . . . The hawks are large-souled. October 28, 1857 ,


As I paddle under the Hemlock bank this cloudy afternoon, about 3 o’clock, I see a screech owl sitting on the edge of a hollow hemlock stump . . . I carried it home and made a small cage in which to keep it, for a night. October 28, 1855

Goldenrods and asters have been altogether lingering some days. October 28, 1859

How handsome the great red oak acorns now! October 28, 1858

 The boys are gathering walnuts. Their leaves are a yellowish brown.. October 28, 1852 

Walnuts commonly fall, and the black walnuts at Smith's are at least half fallen. They are of the form and size of a small lemon and — what is singular — have a rich nutmeg fragrance. They are now turning dark-brown. October 28, 1859

The woods begin to look bare, reflected in the water, and I look far in between the stems of the trees under the bank.  October 28, 1854

Swamp white oak withers apparently with the white. Some of both are still partly greenish, while others of both are bare. October 28, 1858

The majority of the white maples are bare, but others are still thickly leaved the leaves being a greenish yellow. It appears, then, that they hold their leaves longer than our other maples, or most trees.  October 28, 1858

Birches, which began to change and fall so early, are still in many places yellow.  October 28, 1854

The Populus grandidentata leaves are not all fallen yet. This, then, is late to lose its leaves, later, rather, than the sugar maple. Its leaves are large and conspicuous on the ground, and from their freshness make a great show there. It is later to fall than the tremuli formic, as it was later to bloom. October 28, 1858

The dogwood on the island is perhaps in its prime, — a distinct scarlet, with half of the leaves green in this case. Apparently none have fallen. October 28, 1858

I see yet also some Cornus sericea bushes with leaves turned a clear dark but dull red, rather handsome. October 28, 1858

Some large red oaks are still as bright as ever, and that is here a brownish yellow, with leaves partly withered; and some are already quite bare. October 28, 1858


The white pine needles on the ground are already turned considerably redder. October 28, 1857

We make a great noise going through the fallen leaves in the woods and wood-paths now, so that we cannot hear other sounds. October 28, 1860

Cattle coming down from up country.  October 28, 1858


Sunset from the Poplar Hill. A warm, moist afternoon. The clouds lift in the west, — indeed the horizon is now clear all around. Suddenly the light of the setting sun yellows and warms all the landscape. The air is filled with a remarkably vaporous haze. The shadows of the trees on the river's edge stretch straight a quarter of a mile into the level russet Great Meadows. October 28, 1852

All at once a low-slanted glade of sunlight from one of heaven’s west windows behind me fell on the bare gray maples, lighting them up with an incredibly intense and pure white light; then, going out there, it lit up some white birch stems south of the pond, then the gray rocks and the pale reddish young oaks of the lower cliffs, and then the very pale brown meadow-grass, and at last the brilliant white breasts of two ducks, tossing on the agitated surface far off on the pond. October 28, 1857

After whatever revolutions in my moods and experiences, when I come forth at evening, as if from years of confinement to the house, I see the few stars which make the constellation of the Lesser Bear in the same relative position, - the everlasting geometry of the stars.  October 28, 1852

The moon beginning to wane.  It is a quite warm but moist night. The dew in the withered grass reflects the moonlight  October 28, 1852

That star which accompanies the moon will not be her companion tomorrow  October 28, 1852

At the eleventh hour, late in the year, we have visions of the life we might have lived.  October 28, 1857

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Myrtle-bird

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Fox-colored Sparrow

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The hen-hawk

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

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

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Birches in Season

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, the Big-toothed Aspen

 (Populus grandidentata)

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

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, October Moods

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

*****

August 28, 1860 ("Just before setting, the sun comes out into a clear space in the horizon and a sudden blaze of light falls on east end of the pond and the hillside.")

September 25, 1851 ("Hawks, too, I perceive, sailing about in the clear air, looking white against the green pines, like the seeds of the milkweed. There is almost always a pair of hawks. Their shrill scream, that of the owls, and wolves are all related.")
October 10, 1851 ("You make a great noise now walking in the woods.")
October 21, 1857 ("I see many myrtle-birds now about the house this forenoon, on the advent of cooler weather. They keep flying up against the house and the window and fluttering there, as if they would come in, or alight on the wood-pile or pump. They would commonly be mistaken for sparrows, but show more white when they fly, beside the yellow on the rump and sides of breast seen near to and two white bars on the wings.")
October 22, 1855 ("I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines,");
October 22, 1857 ("As I go through the woods now, so many oak and other leaves have fallen the rustling noise somewhat disturbs my musing.”)

 October 23, 1857(“I can find no bright leaves now in the woods.”)
October 24, 1852 ("I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts.");
October 24, 1857 ("I hear the dull thump of heavy stones against the trees from far through the rustling wood, where boys are ranging for nuts. ")
October 26, 1860 ("This is the season of birch spangles, when you see afar a few clear-yellow leaves left on the tops of the birches.")
October 27, 1857 ("Now it is time to look out for walnuts")

October 29, 1855 ("As I pass Merrick’s pasture, I see and count about a hundred crows advancing in a great rambling flock from the southeast and crossing the river on high, and cawing")

October 29, 1857 (" A flock of about eighty crows flies ramblingly over toward the sowing, cawing and loitering and making a great ado, apparently about nothing")
November 1, 1851 ("Counted one hundred and twenty five crows in one straggling flock moving westward. ")

November 1, 1853 ("As I go up the back road, I am struck with the general stillness as far as birds are concerned.. . .I only hear some crows toward the woods. . . . As I return, I notice crows flying southwesterly in a very long straggling flock, of which I see probably neither end.")
November 2, 1853 (" A red-tailed hawk")
November 5, 1854 ("I think it is the fox-colored sparrow I see in flocks and hear sing now by wood-sides.")
November 6, 1853 ("It is surprising how little most of us are contented to know about the sparrows which drift about in the air before us just before the first snows. These little sparrows with white in tail, perhaps the prevailing bird of late, have flitted before me so many falls and springs, yet they have been strangers to me.")
November 14, 1853 (“October . . . is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky.”)

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 © 2009-2019