A warm and bright October afternoon.

October  5

October 5, 2024

[Begins now ten days of perfect Indian summer without rain; 

and the eleventh and twelfth days equally warm, though rainy.] 

October 5, 2019

P. M. – To Yellow Birch Swamp. 

I go by the river and Hunt's Bridge. A warm and bright October afternoon. 

One man is making a gutter, to be prepared for rains, in his piece recently laid down in Merrick's pasture, where the grass is just springing up. 

I see many haws still green and hard, though their leaves are mostly fallen. Do they ever turn red and edible? Their leaves are a very dull reddish cast. 

The surface of the river sparkles in this air here and there. 

I see in most orchards the apples in heaps under the trees, and ladders slanted against their twiggy masses. 

The earth shines now as much as, or more than, ever in spring, especially the bare and somewhat faded fields, pastures, stubble, etc. The light is reflected as from a ripe surface, no longer absorbed to secure maturity. 

I go north by Jarvis's lane from the old pump-maker's house. 

There is not that profusion and consequent confusion of events which belongs to a summer's walk. There are few flowers, birds, insects, or fruits now, and hence what does occur affects us as more simple and significant. The cawing of a crow, the scream of a jay. 

The latter seems to scream more fitly and with more freedom now that some fallen maple leaves have made way for his voice. The jay's voice resounds through the vacancies occasioned by fallen maple leaves.

The mulberry [or ash] was perhaps the first tree that was conspicuously turned after the maples. Many maples are still quite green; so that their gala-day will be prolonged. 

I see some hickories now a crisped mass of imbrowned yellow, green in the recesses, sere brown on the prominences, though the eye does not commonly thus discriminate. 

The smooth sumach is very important for its mass of clear red or crimson. Some of it is now a very dark crimson. 

In the old Carlisle road I see a great many pitch pine twigs or plumes, cast down, evidently, by squirrels, — but for what? 

Many are now gathering barberries. 

Am surprised to see a large sassafras tree, with its rounded umbrella-like top, without limbs beneath, on the west edge of the Yellow Birch Swamp, or east of Boulder Field. It is some sixteen inches in diameter. There are seven or eight within two rods. Leaves curled, but not changed. 

See a red squirrel cast down a chestnut bur. 

The pigeon woodpecker utters his whimsical ah-week ah-week, etc., as in spring. 

The yellow birch is somewhat yellowed. 

See a cherry-bird. 

Many robins feeding on poke berries on Eb Hubbard's hill. 

There is a great abundance of poke there. That lowest down the hill, killed by frost, drooping and withered, no longer purple-stemmed, but faded; higher up it is still purple. 

I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel. I see him running by fits and starts along a chestnut bough toward me. His head looks disproportionately large for his body, like a bulldog's, perhaps because he has his chaps full of nuts. He chirrups and vibrates his tail, holds himself in, and scratches along a foot as if it were a mile. He finds noise and activity for both of us. It is evident that all this ado does not proceed from fear. There is at the bottom, no doubt, an excess of inquisitiveness and caution, but the greater part is make-believe and a love of the marvellous. He can hardly keep it up till I am gone, however, but takes out his nut and tastes it in the midst of his agitation. “See there, see there,” says he, “who's that? O dear, what shall I do?” and makes believe run off, but doesn’t get along an inch, – lets it all pass off by flashes through his tail, while he clings to the bark as if he were holding in a race-horse. He gets down the trunk at last on to a projecting knot, head downward, within a rod of you, and chirrups and chatters louder than ever. Tries to work himself into a fright. The hind part of his body is urging the forward part along, snapping the tail over it like a whip-lash, but the fore part, for the most part, clings fast to the bark with desperate energy. 

Squirr, “to throw with a jerk,” seems to have quite as much to do with the name as the Greek skia oura, shadow and tail. 

The lower limbs of trees often incline downwards as if from sympathy with the roots; the upper tend upwards with the leading stem. 

I found on the 4th, at Conantum, a half-bushel of barberries on one clump about four feet in diameter at base, falling over in wreaths on every side. I filled my basket, standing behind it without being seen by other pickers only a dozen rods off. Some great clumps on Melvin's preserve, no doubt, have many more on them. 

I hear nowadays again the small woodpecker's sharp, shrill note from high on the trees. . . . 

It is evident that some phenomena which belong only to spring and autumn here, lasted through the summer in that latitude, as the peeping of hylodes and blossoming of some flowers that long since withered here were there still freshly in bloom, in that fresher and cooler atmosphere, — the calla for instance. To say nothing of the myrtle-bird and F. hyemalis which breed there, but only transiently visit us in spring and fall. Just as a river which here freezes only a certain distance from the shore, follow it further north, is found to be completely bridged over. The toads, too, as I have said, rang at this season. What is summer where Indian corn will not ripen?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 5, 1857

There are few flowers, birds, insects, or fruits now, and hence what does occur affects us as more simple and significant. See October 5, 1851("The nights now are very still, for there is hardly any noise of birds or of insects")

Many are now gathering barberries. See September 16. 1857 ("Barberries very handsome now. See boys gathering them in good season."); September 18, 1856 ("I get a full peck from about three bushes.”); September 19, 1856 (“Gather just half a bushel of barberries on hill in less than two hours, or three pecks to-day and yesterday in less than three hours. It is singular that I have so few, if any, competitors.”); September 24, 1859 ("A great many have improved this first fair day to come a-barberrying to the Easterbrooks fields."); September 25, 1855 (We get about three pecks of barberries from four or five bushes”); September 28, 1859 ("Children are now gathering barberries, — just the right time"); September 29, 1854 ("Now is the time to gather barberries"); October 1, 1853 (" Got three pecks of barberries.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Common Barberry

I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel. See September 28, 1851 ("I hear the barking of a red squirrel, who is alarmed at something, and a great scolding or ado among the jays"); December 1, 1857 ("I hear a red squirrel barking at me amid the pine and oak tops, and now I see him coursing from tree to tree."); March 30, 1859 ("Hear a red squirrel chirrup at me by the hemlocks (running up a hemlock), all for my benefit; not that he is excited by fear, I think, but so full is he of animal spirits that he makes a great ado about the least event. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

The jay seems to scream more fitly and with more freedom now that some fallen maple leaves have made way for his voice. Compare  October 11, 1859 ("The note of the chickadee, heard now in cooler weather and above many fallen leaves, has a new significance."). See September 21, 1854 ("I hear many jays since the frosts began.”); September 21, 1859 ("Jays are more frequently heard of late, maybe because other birds are more silent"): October 6, 1856 ("The jay's shrill note is more distinct of late about the edges of the woods, when so many birds have left us.”); October 11, 1856 (“In the woods I hear the note of the jay, a metallic, clanging sound, some times a mew. Refer any strange note to him.”);  October 20, 1856  ("Thus, of late, when the season is declining, many birds have departed, and our thoughts are turned towards winter. . .we hear the jay again more frequently,"); November 3, 1858 ("The jay is the bird of October. I have seen it repeatedly flitting amid the bright leaves,. . .It, too, with its bright color, stands for some ripeness in the bird harvest. And its scream! it is as if it blowed on the edge of an October leaf. It is never more in its element and at home than when flitting amid these brilliant colors.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay

There are few flowers

birds, insects or fruits now, and 

hence what does occur –

affects us as more simple 

and significant. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A warm and bright October afternoon. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-571005 

On a rounded rock there, covered with fresh-fallen pine-needles, amid the woods, whence I see Wachusett.

October 19. 

P. M. — To Conantum. 

The fall, now and for some weeks, is the time for flocks of sparrows of various kinds flitting from bush to bush and tree to tree — and both bushes and trees are thinly leaved or bare — and from one seared meadow to another. They are mingled together, and their notes, even, being faint, are, as well as their colors and motions, much alike. The sparrow youth are on the wing. They are still further concealed by their resemblance in color to the gray twigs and stems, which are now beginning to be bare. I have not noticed any kind of blackbird for a long time. 

The most prominent of the few lingering solidagos which I have noticed since the 8th is the S. caesia, though that is very scarce indeed now, hardly survives at all. 

Of the asters which I have noticed since that date, the A. undulatus is, perhaps, the only one of which you can find a respectable specimen. I see one so fresh that there is a bumblebee on it. 

Of lingering flowers which I have noticed during the last three or four days (vide list under 16th), not including fringed gentian and witch-hazel, the freshest, and at same time commonest, is the yarrow. 

I noticed, two or three days ago, after one of those frosty mornings, half an hour before sunset of a clear and pleasant day, a swarm, — were they not of winter gnats ? — between me and the sun like so many motes, seven or eight feet from the ground, by the side of a young cherry tree in the yard. The swarm was some three feet in diameter and seemed to have been revealed by the level rays of the sun. Each insect was acting its part in a ceaseless dance, rising and falling a few inches while the swarm kept its place. Is not this a forerunner of winter?

I go across Hubbard's land and find that I must go round the corners of two or three new winter-rye fields, which show very green by contrast with the seared grass. 

I sit on the old Conantum door-step, where the wind rattles the loose clapboards above my head, though for the most part only the horizontal rows of wrought nails are left to show where the clap boards have been. It is affecting to behold a peach and apple orchard just come to maturity by the side of this house, which was planted since this house was an uninhabited ruin, as if the first step would have been to pull down the house. 

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. They perch on the side of the dead mulleins, on rocks, on the ground, and directly dart off apparently in pursuit of some insect. I hear no note from them. They are thus near or on the ground, then, not as in spring. 

Both the white and black ash are quite bare, and some of the elms there. The bass has lost, apparently, more than half its leaves. 

The Botrychium lunarioides, now shedding its pale whitish dust when struck by the foot, but apparently generally a little past its maturity, is quite common in the pasture near the wall where I sat to watch the eagle. At first you notice only the stipe, four to seven or eight inches high, like a narrow hand partly closed, for the small (now dull-purplish) frond unites with it below the surface. 

Walking through the reddened huckleberry bushes, whose leaves are fast falling, I notice the birds' nests already filling with withered leaves. 

Witch-hazel in bloom
October 19, 2018

Witch-hazel is in prime, or probably a little past, though some buds are not yet open. Their leaves are all gone. They form large clumps on the hillside there, even thirty to fifty stems from one to two or three inches in diameter and the highest twelve feet high, falling over on every side. The now imbrowned ferns around indicate the moist soil which they like. 

I have often noticed the inquisitiveness of birds, as the other day of a sparrow, whose motions I should not have supposed to have any reference to me, if I had not watched it from first to last. 

I stood on the edge of a pine and birch wood. It flitted from seven or eight rods distant to a pine within a rod of me, where it hopped about stealthily and chirped awhile, then flew as many rods the other side and hopped about there a spell, then back to the pine again, as near me as it dared, and again to its first position, very restless all the while. Generally I should have supposed that there was more than one bird, or that it was altogether accidental, — that the chipping of this sparrow eight or ten rods [away] had no reference to me, — for I could see nothing peculiar about it. 

But when I brought my glass to bear on it, I found that it was almost steadily eying me and was all alive with excitement.

Pokeweed has been killed by the severe frosts of the last three or four days. 

The Asclepias Cornuti pods are now apparently in the midst of discounting. They point at various I angles with the stem like a flourish. The pretty brown fishes have loosened and lifted their scales somewhat, are bristling a little. Or, further advanced, the outer part of the down of the upper seeds is blown loose, while they are still retained by the ends  of the middle portion in loops  attached to the core. These white tufts, ready to burst and take to flight on the least jar, show afar as big as your fist. There they dangle and flutter, till they are quite dry and the wind rises. Others again are open and empty, except of the brown core, and you see what a delicate smooth white (slightly cream-colored) lining this casket has. 

The hypericums — the whole plant — have now generally been killed by the frost. 

A large pasture thistle bud close to the ground amid its leaves, as in spring. 

Among the dirty woolly heads of plants now gone to seed, I notice for the first time the peculiar matted, woolly top of the tall anemone, rising above some red-leaved huckleberries. I am surprised to see to what length and breadth one of these little compact conical heads has puffed out. Here are five which have flown and matted together into a mass four or five inches long, perpendicularly, by two wide, full of seeds with their wool. 

I return by the west side of Lee's Cliff hill, and sit on a rounded rock there, covered with fresh-fallen pine-needles, amid the woods, whence I see Wachusett. 

Wachusett from Fair Haven Hill, August 2, 1852

How little unevenness and elevation is required for Nature's effects! An elevation one thousand or fifteen hundred feet above the plain is seen from all eminences and level open plains, as from over the opening made by a pond, within thirty miles. Nature is not obliged to lift her mountains very high in the horizon, after all, to make them visible and interesting. 

The rich sunny yellow of the old pitch pine needles, just ready to fall, contrasting with the new and unmixed masses above, makes a very pleasing impression, as I look down into the hollows this side of Lee's Cliff. 

I noticed the small woodpecker several days ago.

H. D. Thoreau , Journal, October 19, 1856

The most prominent of the few lingering solidagos . . .  is the S. caesia, though that is very scarce indeed now. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Blue-stemmed Goldenrod (solidago caesia)

I see one [A. undulatus] so fresh that there is a bumblebee on it. See October 2, 1859  ("The Aster undulatus and Solidago coesia and often puberula are particularly prominent now, looking late and bright, attracting bees, etc."): October 4, 1853 ("Bumblebees are on the Aster undulatus, and gnats are dancing in the air."); October 6, 1858 (“The Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Generally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to one side the path."); October 12, 1856 ("It is interesting to see how some of the few flowers which still linger are frequented by bees and other insects."); October 25, 1858 ("The Aster undulatus is now a dark purple (its leaves), with brighter purple or crimson under sides."); November 3, 1858 ("Aster undulatus is still freshly in bloom"); November 7, 1858 ("Aster undulatus and several goldenrods, at least, may be found yet." See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Bees

It is affecting to behold a peach and apple orchard just come to maturity by the side of this house, which was planted since this house was an uninhabited ruin.  See February 19, 1855 ("Conant was cutting up an old pear tree which had blown down by his old house on Conantum. This and others still standing. . . were set anciently with reference to a house which stood in the little peach orchard near by.”) See also May 20, 1857 ("Peach trees are revealed along fences where they were quite unobserved before.")

Witch-hazel is in prime . . . Their leaves are all gone. See October 19, 1859 ("Many witch-hazel nuts are not yet open. The bushes just bare"); See also October 9, 1851("The witch-hazel here is in full blossom on this magical hillside, while its broad yellow leaves are falling. Some bushes are completely bare of leaves, and leather-colored they strew the ground."); October 11, 1858 ("Witch-hazel in full bloom, which has lost its leaves! ");  October 20, 1852 ("The witch-hazel is bare of all but flowers") And also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Witch-Hazel

Whence I see Wachusett . . . from all eminences and level open plains. See October 19, 1854 ("To Westminster by cars; thence on foot to Wachusett Mountain, four miles to Foster’s, and two miles thence to mountain-top by road."); October 20, 1854 ("Soon after sunrise I saw the pyramidal shadow of the mountain reaching quite across the State") See also November 30, 1852 ("From Pine Hill, Wachusett is seen over Walden. The country seems to slope up from the west end of Walden to the mountain."); August 25, 1853 ("Looking up the valley of the Mill Brook . . . I was surprised to see the whole outline and greater part of the base of Wachusett, though you stand in a low meadow."); December 27, 1853 ("Wachusett looks like a right whale over our bow, plowing the continent, with his flukes well down"); And also September 12, 1851 ("It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day."); March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top,. . . still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.'). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Mountains in the Horizon

October 19.   See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  October 19

On a rounded rock

covered with fresh pine-needles

I see Wachusett.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, On a rounded rock there, covered with fresh-fallen pine-needles

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-561019

A blue atmosphere

February 11.

Smith’s thermometer early this morning at -22°; ours at 8 A. M. -10°.

P. M. To J. Dugan’s via Tommy Wheeler’s. 

The atmosphere is very blue, tingeing the distant pine woods. 

February 11, 2023

The dog scares up some partridges out of the soft snow under the apple trees in the Tommy Wheeler orchard. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 11, 1855

The atmosphere is very blue, tingeing the distant pine woods. See January 13, 1859 ("I can see about a quarter of a mile through the mist, and when, later, it is somewhat thinner, the woods, the pine woods, at a distance are a dark-blue color."); February 2, 1854; ("The shade of pines on the snow is in some lights quite blue."); February 7, 1856 ("During the rain the air is thick, the distant woods bluish, and the single trees on the hill, under the dull mist-covered sky, remarkably distinct and black."); February 7, 1859 ("Evidently the distant woods are more blue in a warm and moist or misty day in winter.").

The dog scares up some partridges out of the soft snow under the apple trees . . .See February 11, 1856  ("See a partridge by the riverside, opposite Fair Haven Hill, which at first I mistake for the top of a fence-post above the snow, “); February 11, 1859 ("The south side of Ball’s Hill, which is warm and half bare, is tracked up with partridges, and I start several there. So is it next Sunday with the Hill shore, east of Fair Haven Pond. These birds are sure to be found now on such slopes, where only the ground and dry leaves are exposed");  February 18, 1852 (“I find the partridges among the fallen pine-tops on Fair Haven these afternoons, an hour before sundown, ready to commence budding in the neighboring orchard.”); April 22. 1852 ("Our dog sends off a partridge with a whir, far across the open field and the river, like a winged bullet.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Partridge

February 11. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  February 11

Minus ten degrees.

A blue atmosphere tinges

the distant pine woods.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A blue atmosphere 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau 

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550211

Now the springing foliage is like a sunlight on the woods

May 22.

5.30 a. m. — Up Assabet.  

May 22, 2019

Now begins the slightly sultryish morning air 

into which you awake early to hear 

the faint buzz of a fly 

or hum of other insect. 

The teeming air, deep and hollow, 

filled with some spiritus, 

pregnant as not in winter 

or spring, with room for imps, 

— good angels and bad, —

 

many chambers in it, 

infinite sounds. 

I partially awake the first time for a month at least. 

As if the cope of the sky lifted, 

the heat stretched and swelled it as a bladder, 

and it remained permanently higher 

and more infinite for the summer. Suggesting 

that the night has not been, with its incidents.

10 a. m. — To Fair Haven by boat. 

I rest in the orchard, doubtful 

whether to sit in shade or sun. 

Now the springing foliage 

is like a sunlight on the woods. 

I am first attracted 

and surprised 

when I look round and off to Conantum, 

at the smooth, lawn-like green fields. 

The air so clear 

— as not in summer — 

makes all things shine, 

as if all surfaces had been washed 

by the rains of spring 

and were not yet soiled 

or begrimed or dulled. You see 

even to the mountains clearly. 

The grass so short and fresh, 

the tender yellowish-green and silvery 

foliage of the deciduous trees 

lighting up the landscape, 

the birds now most musical, 

the sorrel beginning to redden 

the fields with ruddy health, — 

all these things make earth now a paradise. 

How many times 

I have been surprised  thus, 

on turning about on this very spot, 

at the fairness of the earth!

At Lee's Cliff. --

First observe the creak of crickets. It is quite general amid these rocks. The song suggests lateness, but only as we come to a knowledge of eternity after some acquaintance with time. It is only late for all trivial and hurried pursuits. It suggests a wisdom mature, never late, being above all temporal considerations, which possesses the coolness and maturity of autumn amidst the aspiration of spring and the heats of summer. They sit aside from the revolution of the seasons. Their strain is unvaried as Truth. 

Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets. In their song they ignore our accidents. They are not concerned about the news. A quire has begun which pauses not for any news, for it knows only the eternal. 

I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu, the first syllable in a different and higher key emphasized, — all very sweet and naive and innocent.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 22, 1854

The tender yellowish-green and silvery foliage of the deciduous trees lighting up the landscape, the birds now most musical — all these things make earth now a paradise. See May 17, 1852   (“The sun comes out and lights up the tender expanding leaves, and all nature is full of light and fragrance, and the birds sing without ceasing, and the earth is a fairyland. ”); May 18, 1852 (“this tender foliage, putting so much light and life into the landscape, is the remarkable feature at this date.”); May 18, 1851("The landscape has a new life and light infused into it. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest green.”)

How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth! See  May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world.”); October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape”); March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim.”).  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting

First observe the creak of crickets. See May 22, 1853 ("The crickets now first are generally heard.") See also May 24, 1857 ("Hear the first cricket as I go through a warm hollow, bringing round the summer with his everlasting strain."); June 4, 1857 (" One thing that chiefly distinguishes this season from three weeks ago is that fine serene undertone or earth-song as we go by sunny banks and hillsides, the creak of crickets, which affects our thoughts so favorably, imparting its own serenity.") andA Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Cricket in Spring

I hear also pe-a-wee pe-a-wee, and then occasionally pee-yu. See  May 22, 1853 ("The wood pewee’s warm note is heard") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Arrival of the Eastern Wood Pewee

May 22.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 22

Turning round, I am

surprised one more time by the

beauty of the world.

Springing foliage

lights up the landscape like a

sunlight on the woods.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau. 

Springing foliage is like a sunlight on the woods

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

 

tinyurl.com/hdt-540522 

The first bluebird - true to season.

March 7.

Most of the snow left on bare, dry level ground consists of the remains of drifts, particularly along fences, — most on the south side.  

It is remarkable how true each plant is to its season. Why should not the fringed gentian put forth early in the spring, instead of holding in till the latter part of September? How short a time it is with us!

Hear the first bluebird, — something like pe-a-wor, — and then other slight warblings, as if farther off. Am surprised to see the bird within seven or eight rods on the top of an oak by the orchard's edge under the hill. But he appears silent, while I hear others faintly warbling and twittering far in the orchard. When he flies I hear no more, and I suspect that he has been ventriloquizing; as if he hardly dare open his mouth yet, while there is so much winter left. 

He revisits the apple trees, and appears to find some worms. Probably not till now is his food to be found abundantly. See some fuzzy gnats in the air.

It is an overcast and moist but rather warm afternoon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 7, 1854

The fringed gentian. See October 19, 1852 ("It is a very singular and agreeable surprise to come upon this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories; the latest of all to begin to bloom.")


Ventriloquist blue bird. See February 27, 1861 ("It occurs to me that I have just heard a bluebird. I stop and listen to hear it again, but cannot tell whither it comes.")