And in the distance a maple by the water beginning to blush.

September 19

And in the distance a maple by the water beginning to blush

September 19, 2014

P. M. - To Great Meadows.

The red capsules of the sarothra.

Many large crickets about on the sand.

Observe the effects of frost in particular places.

Some blackberry vines are very red.

I see the oxalis and the tree primrose and the Norway cinquefoil and the prenanthes and the Epilobium coloratum and the cardinal-flower and the small hypericum and yarrow, and I think it is the Ranunculus repens, between Ripley Hill and river, with spotted leaves lingering still.

The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises, - solid bulbs of blue from the shade, the stale grown purplish. It abounds along the river, after so much has been mown.

The polygala and the purple gerardia are still common and attract by their high color.

The small-flowering Bidens cernua (?) and the fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound.

The Viola lanceolata has blossomed again, and the lambkill.

What pretty six-fingered leaves the three oxalis leafets make! 

I see the effects of frost on the Salix Purshiana, imbrowning their masses; and in the distance is a maple or two by the water, beginning to blush.

That small, slender-leaved, rose-tinted (white petals, red calyx) polygonum by the river is perhaps in its prime now; slender spikes and slender lanceolate sessile leaves, with rent hairy and ciliate sheaths, eight stamens, and three styles united in middle. Not biting. I cannot find it described.

Cicuta maculata

And what is that white flower which I should call Cicuta maculata, except that the veins do not terminate in the sinuses?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1852

The soapwort gentian cheers and surprises,  September 19, 1851 ("The soapwort gentian now."); See also September 8, 1852 ("Gentiana saponaria out."); September 19, 1851 ("The soapwort gentian now."); .("September 22, 1852 ("The soapwort gentian the flower of the river-banks now.") September 25, 1857 ("You notice now the dark-blue dome of the soapwort gentian in cool and shady places under the bank.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Soapwort Gentian (Gentiana saponaria)

The red capsules of the sarothra. See August 3, 1852 ("The Hypericum Sarothra appears to be out.."); August 3, 1856 ("Sarothra apparently now in prime."); August 12, 1856 (“The sarothra — as well as small hypericums generally — has a lemon scent.”); August 19, 1856 ("The small hypericums have a peculiar smart, somewhat lemon-like fragrance, but bee-like. ); August 30, 1856 ("The sarothra is now apparently in prime on the Great Fields, and comes near being open now, at 3 p. m. Bruised, it has the fragrance of sorrel and lemon, rather pungent or stinging, like a bee.”); September 2, 1859 ("The sarothra grows thickly, and is now abundantly in bloom, on denuded places, i.e., where the sod and more or less soil has been removed, by sandy roadsides. "); September 23, 1852 ("The sarothra in bloom");   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

The Norway cinquefoil. See August 30, 1851 ("I perceive in the Norway cinquefoil (Potentilla Norvegica), now nearly out of blossom, that the alternate five leaves of the calyx are closing over the seeds to protect them. There is one door closed, of the closing year.")

The purple gerardia are still common and attract by their high color. See August 12, 1856 ("Gerardia purpurea, two or three days."); August 20, 1852 ("The purple gerardia is very beautiful now in green grass."); August 21, 1851 ("The purple gerardia now."); September 11, 1852 ("How much fresher some flowers look in rainy weather! When I thought they were about done, they appear to revive, and moreover their beauty is enhanced, as if by the contrast of the louring atmosphere with their bright colors. Such are the purple gerardia and the Bidens cernua.")

The small-flowering Bidens cernua (?) and the fall dandelion and the fragrant everlasting abound. See September 19, 1851 ("Large-flowered bidens, or beggar-ticks, or bur-marigold, now abundant by riverside."); . September 13, 1856 ("Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime on the top of the hill, about the oaks. Never saw them thicker in a meadow. A cool, spring-suggesting yellow. They reserve their force till this season, though they begin so early. Cool to the eye, as the creak of the cricket to the ear. "); August 29, 1856 ("Fragrant everlasting in prime and very abundant")

The Viola lanceolata has blossomed again. See September 28, 1852 ("I have now seen all but the blanda, palmata, and pubescens blooming again .. . This is the commencement, then, of the second spring"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

And in the distance is a maple or two by the water, beginning to blush. See  September 12, 1858 ("Some small red maples by water begun to redden."); September 18, 1858 ("Many red maples are now partly turned dark crimson along the meadow-edge."); September 18, 1860 ("The first autumnal tints (of red maples) are now generally noticed"); September 20, 1857 ("A great many small red maples in Beck Stow's Swamp are turned quite crimson, when all the trees around are still perfectly green. It looks like a gala day there."); September 21, 1854 ("The red maples, especially at a distance, begin to light their fires, some turning yellow, "); September 24, 1851 ("I notice one red tree, a red maple, against the green woodside in Conant's meadow. It is a far brighter red than the blossoms of any tree in summer and more conspicuous."); September 24, 1855 ("the maples are but just beginning to blush"); September 25, 1857 ("The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence"); September 25, 1857 ("The red maple has fairly begun to blush in some places by the river. I see one, by the canal behind Barrett’s mill, all aglow against the sun."); September 25, 1857 ("A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar."); September 26, 1854 ("Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off."); September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water."); September 27, 1857 ("At last, its labors for the year being consummated and every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum."); September 29, 1851 ("The intense brilliancy of the red-ripe maples scattered here and there in the midst of the green oaks and hickories on its hilly shore is quite charming. They are unexpectedly and incredibly brilliant, especially on the western shore and close to the water's edge, where, alternating with yellow birches and poplars and green oaks, they remind me of a line of soldiers, redcoats and riflemen in green mixed together."); September 30, 1854 ("I am surprised to see that some red maples, which were so brilliant a day or two ago, have already shed their leaves, and they cover the land and the water quite thickly."); October 3, 1858 ("Some particular maple among a hundred will be of a peculiarly bright and pure scarlet, and, by its difference of tint and intenser color, attract our eyes even at a distance in the midst of the crowd"); October 8, 1852 (“Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the maples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water.”)

And what is that white flower which I should call Cicuta maculata? See June 6, 1851 ("Gathered to-night the Cicuta maculata, American hemlock, the veins of the leaflets ending in the notches and the root fasciculated."); August 20, 1851 ("Sium lineare, a kind of water-parsnip, whose blossom resembles the Cicuta maculata.") August 29, 1858 ("Cicuta maculata, apparently generally done."); August 30, 1857 ("The flower of Cicuta maculata smells like the leaves of the golden senecio.."); October 2, 1859 ("The Cicuta maculata, for instance, the concave umbel is so well spaced, the different um-bellets (?) like so many constellations or separate systems in the firmament.") Note. Cicuta maculata is a highly poisonous species of flowering plant in the carrot family known by several common names, including spotted water hemlock, spotted parsley, spotted cowbane, and suicide root. It is considered to be North America's most toxic plant.~ Wikipedia

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

And in the distance

a maple by the water

beginning to blush.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. A maple by the water

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-520919 

All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them.

June 13

Sunday.

3 p. m. — To Conantum.

A warm day.

It has been cold, and we have had fires the past week sometimes.

Clover begins to show red in the fields, and the wild cherry is not out of blossom.

The river has a summer midday look, smooth to a cobweb, with green shores, and shade from the trees on its banks.

The Viburnum nudum.

The oblong- leaved sundew, but not its flower.

Do the bulbous arethusas last long? 

What a sweetness fills the air now in low grounds or meadows, reminding me of times when I went strawberrying years ago! It is as if all meadows were filled with some sweet mint.

The Dracama borealis (Bigelow) (Clintonia borealis (Gray)) amid the Solomon's-seals in Hubbard's Grove Swamp, a very neat and handsome liliaceous flower with three large, regular, spotless, green convallaria leaves, making a triangle from the root, and sometimes a fourth from the scape, linear, with four drooping, greenish-yellow, bell-shaped (?) flowers. Not in sun. In low shady woods. It is a handsome and perfect flower, though not high-colored. I prefer it to some more famous.

But Gray should not name it from the Governor of New York. What is he to the lovers of flowers in Massachusetts? If named after a man, it must be a man of flowers. Rhode Island botanists may as well name the flowers after their governors as New York. Name your canals and railroads after Clinton, if you please, but his name is not associated with flowers.

Mosquitoes now trouble the walker in low shady woods.

No doubt woodchucks in their burrows hear the steps of walkers through the earth and come not forth.

Yellow wood sorrel (Oxalis stricta), which, according to Gray, closes its leaves and droops at nightfall.

The woolly aphides on alders whiten one's clothes now.

What is that palmate(?)-leaved water-plant by the Corner causeway? 

The buck-bean grows in Conant's meadow.

Lambkill is out. I remember with what delight I used to discover this flower in dewy mornings – All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them, must be seen with youthful, early-opened, hopeful eyes.

Saw four cunning little woodchucks nibbling the short grass, about one third grown, that live under Conant's old house. Mistook one for a piece of rusty iron.

The Viburnum Lentago is about out of bloom; shows young berries.

The Smilax herbaeea, carrion-flower, a rank green vine with long-peduncled umbels, with small greenish or yellowish flowers just opening, and tendrils, at the Miles swamp. It smells exactly like a dead rat in the wall, and apparently attracts flies (I find small gnats on it) like carrion. A very remarkable odor; a single minute flower in an umbel open will scent a whole room.

Nature imitates all things in flowers. They are at once the most beautiful and the ugliest objects, the most fragrant and the most offensive to the nostrils, etc., etc.

The compound-racemed convallaria, being fully out, is white. I put it down too early, perhaps by a week.

The great leaves of the bass attract you now, six inches in diameter.

The delicate maidenhair fern forms a cup or dish, very delicate and graceful. Beautiful, too, its glossy black stem and its wave-edged fruited leafets.

I hear the feeble plaintive note of young bluebirds, just trying their wings or getting used to them.

Young robins peep.

I think I know four kinds of cornel beside the dog wood and bunchberry: 

• one now in bloom, with rather small leaves with a smooth, silky feeling beneath, a greenish-gray spotted stem, in older stocks all gray (Cornus alternifolia? or sericea?); 

• the broad-leaved cornel in Laurel Glen, yet green in the bud (C. circinata?);

• the small-leaved cornel with a small cyme or corymb, as late to be [sic] as the last, in Potter's hedge and on high hills (C. paniculata);

• and the red osier by the river (C. stolonifera), which I have not seen this year.

Mosquitoes are first troublesome in the house with sultry nights.

Orobanche uniflora, single-flowered broom-rape (Bigelow), [or] Aphyllon uniflorum, one-flowered cancer-root (Gray). C. found it June 12 at Clematis Brook.

Also the common fumitory (?), methinks; it is a fine-leaved small plant.

Captain Jonathan Carver commences his Travels with these words: 

"In June, 1766, I set out from Boston, and proceeded by way of Albany and Niagara, to Michillimackinac; a Fort situated between the Lakes Huron and Michigan, and distant from Boston 1300 miles. This being the uttermost of our factories towards the northwest, I considered it as the most convenient place from whence I could begin my intended progress, and enter at once into the Regions I designed to explore."

So he gives us no information respecting the intermediate country, nor much, I fear, about the country beyond.

Holbrook says the Emys picta is the first to be seen in the spring.

  

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 13, 1852

Gray should not name it from the Governor of New York . . . If named after a man, it must be a man of flowers. See August 31, 1851 (" I have no objection to giving the names of some naturalists, men of flowers, to plants, if by their lives they have identified themselves with them . . . But it must be done very sparingly, or, rather, discriminatingly, and no man's name be used who has not been such a lover of flowers that the flowers themselves may be supposed thus to reciprocate his love ")

Lambkill is out. I remember with what delight I used to discover this flower in dewy mornings. See June 13, 1854 ("How beautiful the solid cylinders of the lamb-kill now just before sunset, — small ten-sided, rosy-crimson basins, about two inches above the recurved, drooping dry capsules of last year"); June 25, 1852 ("Sometimes the lambkill flowers form a very even rounded, close cylinder, six inches long and two and a half in diameter, of rich red saucer-like flowers, the counterpart of the latifolia in flowers and flower- buds, but higher colored. I regard it as a beautiful flower neglected. It has a slight but not remarkable scent.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Lambkill (Kalmia augustifolia)

All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them, must be seen with youthful, early-opened, hopeful eyes. See July 18, 1851 ("It is a test question affecting the youth of a person , — Have you knowledge of the morning? . . .  Are you abroad early, brushing the dews aside?"); March 17, 1852 ("There is a moment . . .before the exhalations of the day commence to rise, when we see things more truly than at any other time.");  July 31, 1859 (""It is worth the while to get at least a dozen miles on your journey before the dew is off. );   A Week (Tuesday):

"In each dew-drop of the morning 

Lies the promise of a day"

Walden (“Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.”); and note to March 17, 1857 (“No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of the spring”) See also September 10, 1860:

Dew on a fine grass

white and silvery as frost –

the newly risen sun.

The Viburnum nudum. . . .The Viburnum Lentago is about out of bloom; shows young berries. See June 10, 1854 ("The Viburnum lentago is just out of bloom now that the V. nudum is fairly begun.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum lentago (nannyberry)

Yellow wood sorrel (Oxalis stricta), which closes its leaves and droops at nightfall. See August 15, 1851 ("Oxalis stricta, upright wood-sorrel, the little yellow ternate-leaved flower in pastures and corn-fields.")

The great leaves of the bass attract you now, six inches in diameter. See The bass suddenly expanding its little round leaves. May 13, 1854 ("The bass suddenly expanding its little round leaves. May 13, 1854"); See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

June 13. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 13

Sweetness fills the air

reminding me – years ago,

strawberrying times.

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

What produces this flashing air of autumn?

September 17. 

What produces this flashing air of autumn? — a brightness as if there were not green enough to absorb the light, now that the first frosts wither the herbs. 

The corn-stalks are stacked like muskets along the fields. 

The pontederia leaves are sere and brown along the river. 

The fall is further advanced in the water, as the spring was earlier there. I should say that the vegetation of the river was a month further advanced in its decay than of the land generally. 

The yellow lily pads are apparently decayed generally; as I wade, I tread on their great roots only; and the white lily pads are thinned. 

Now, before any effects of the frost are obvious on the leaves, I observe two black rows of dead pontederia in the river. 

Is it the alder locust that rings so loud in low land now? 

The umbel-shaped smilax berry clusters are now ripe. 

Still the oxalis blows, and yellow butterflies are on the flowers. 

I hear the downy woodpecker whistle, and see him looking about the apple trees as if to bore him a hole. Are they returning south? 

Abundance of wild grapes. I laid down some wild red grapes in front of the Cliffs, three united to a two-thirds-inch stock, many feet from the root, under an alder marked with two or three small sticks atop, and, ten feet north, two more of different stocks, one-half inch diameter, directly on the edge of the brook, their tops over the water, the shell of a five-inch log across them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 17, 1852

The corn-stalks are stacked like muskets along the fields. See September 14,1851("The corn-stalks standing in stacks, in long rows along the edges of the corn-fields, remind me of stacks of muskets.")

The corn-stalks standing

in stacks in long rows along

edges of corn-fields.

September 14,1851

Still the oxalis blows, and yellow butterflies are on the flowers. See August 15, 1851 ("Oxalis stricta, upright wood-sorrel, the little yellow ternate-leaved flower in pastures and corn-fields. "); September 13, 1858 ("Many yellow butterflies in road and fields all the country over.”) and note to October 20, 1858 ("I see yellow butterflies chasing one another, taking no thought for the morrow, but confiding in the sunny day as if it were to be perpetual.")

I hear the downy woodpecker whistle, and see him looking about the apple trees as if to bore him a hole. Are they returning south? See December 2, 1850 ("The woodpeckers' holes in the apple trees are about a fifth of an inch deep or just through the bark and half an inch apart. "); December 5, 1853 ("See and hear a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles?");  December 14, 1855 ("I heard the sound of a downy woodpecker tapping . . . Frequently, when I pause to listen, I hear this sound in the orchards or streets.");December 21, 1855 ( "Going to the post-office at 9 A. M. this very pleasant morning, . . . scare a downy woodpecker and a brown creeper in company"); December 30, 1855 ("See one downy woodpecker and one or two chickadees."); January 5, 1860 ("I see where the downy woodpecker has worked lately by the chips of bark and rotten wood scattered over the snow, though I rarely see him in the winter. Once to-day, however, I hear his sharp voice."); January 20, 1856 ("A downy woodpecker without red on head the only bird seen in this walk.")

I laid down some wild red grapes in front of the Cliffs. Compare September 18, 1858 ("Finding grapes, we proceeded to pluck them, tempted more by their fragrance and color than their flavor, though some were very palatable. We gathered many without getting out of the boat, as we paddled back, and more on shore close to the water’s edge, piling them up in the prow of the boat till they reached to the top of the boat, — a long sloping heap of them and very handsome to behold, being of various colors and sizes, for we even added green ones for variety. Some, however, were mainly green when ripe. You cannot touch some vines without bringing down more single grapes in a shower around you than you pluck in bunches, and such as strike the water are lost, for they do not float. But it is a pity to break the handsome clusters. Thus laden, the evening air wafting the fragrance of the cargo back to us, we paddled homeward. ")

May I love and revere myself above all the gods that men have ever invented.

August 15. 

Friday. 

Hypericum Canadense, Canadian St. John's-wort, distinguished by its red capsules. The petals shine under the microscope, as if they had a golden dew on them. 

Cnicus pumilus, pasture thistle. How many insects a single one attracts ! While you sit by it, bee after bee will visit it, and busy himself probing for honey and loading himself with pollen, regardless of your over shadowing presence. He sees its purple flower from afar, and that use there is in its color. 

Oxalis stricta, upright wood-sorrel, the little yellow ternate-leaved flower in pastures and corn-fields. 

Sagittaria sagittifolia, or arrowhead. It has very little root that I can find to eat. 

Campanula crinoides, var. 2nd, slender bellflower, vine-like like a galium, by brook-side in Depot Field. 

Impatiens, noli-me-tangere, or touch-me-not, with its dangling yellow pitchers or horns of plenty, which I have seen for a month by damp causeway thickets, but the whole plant was so tender and drooped so soon I could not get it home. 

May I love and revere myself above all the gods that men have ever invented. May I never let the vestal fire go out in my recesses.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal August 15, 1851

Hypericum Canadense, Canadian St. John's-wort, distinguished by its red capsules. See July 19, 1856 ("It is the Hypericum ellipticum and Canadense (linear- leaved) whose red pods are noticed now.");August 17, 1856 ("Hypericum Canadense well out at 2 p. m.")   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)


He sees its purple flower from afar, and that use there is in its color. See August 6, 1852 ("I find a bumblebee asleep in a thistle blossom, having crowded himself in deep amid the dense florets, out of the reach of birds, while the sky was overcast"); ; September 30, 1852 ("If there are any sweet flowers still lingering on the hillside, it is known to the bees both of the forest and the village."); October 11, 1856 ("A pasture thistle with many fresh flowers and bees on it."); March 18, 1860 ("No doubt this flower, too, has learned to expect its winged visitor knocking at its door in the spring."); July 29, 1853 (“The insect that comes after the honey or pollen of a plant is necessary to it and in one sense makes a part of it”)

May I love and revere myself above all the gods See July 16, 1851 ("May I treat myself tenderly as I would treat the most innocent child whom I love; may I treat children and my friends as my newly discovered self. Let me forever go in search of myself; never for a moment think that I have found myself; be as a stranger to myself, never a familiar, seeking acquaintance still. May I be to myself as one is to me whom I love, a dear and cherished object. ...[May] I love and worship myself with a love which absorbs my love for the world.");  January 9, 1853 ("May I lead my life the following year as innocently! May it be as fair and smell as sweet!. . .. It will go forth in April, this vestal now cherishing her fire, to be married to the sun."); October 18, 1855 (“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”); 

A new season has arrived: heat, fireflies; mosquitoes; trumping bullfrogs

June 7

P. M. — To Walden. 

Warm weather has suddenly come, beginning yesterday. To-day it is yet warmer, 87° at 3 P. M., compelling me to put on a thin coat, and I see that a new season has arrived.

June 7, 2018
 (Avesong)

June shadows are moving over waving grass-fields, the crickets chirp uninterruptedly, and I perceive the agreeable acid scent of high blueberry bushes in bloom. The trees having leaved out, you notice their rounded tops, suggesting shade. 

The nighthawk sparks and booms over arid hillsides and sprout-lands. 

It is evidence enough against crows and hawks and owls, proving their propensity to rob birds’ nests of eggs and young, that smaller birds pursue them so often. You do not need the testimony of so many farmers' boys when you can see and hear the small birds daily crying “Thief and murder” after these spoilers. 

What does it signify, the kingbird, black bird, swallow, etc., etc., pursuing a crow? They say plainly enough, “I know you of old, you villain; you want to devour my eggs or young. I have often caught you at it, and I’ll publish you now.” And probably the crow pursuing the fish hawk and eagle proves that the latter sometimes devour their young. 

The Salix tristis is now generally going or gone to seed.

Oxalis violacea in garden.

I see toads copulating and toad-spawn freshly laid in the Wyman meadow at Walden. 

Utricularia vulgaris out there. 

The water colored or dusted with the pollen of the pitch pine. 

As I was wading in this Wyman meadow, looking for bullfrog-spawn, I saw a hole at the bottom, where it was six or eight inches deep, by the side of a mass of mud and weeds which rose just to the surface three or four feet from the shore. It was about five inches in diameter, with some sand at the mouth, just like a musquash's hole. As I stood there within two feet, a pout put her head out, as if to see who was there, and directly came forth and disappeared under the target-weed; but as I stood perfectly still, waiting for the water which I had disturbed to settle about the hole, she circled round and round several times be tween me and the hole, cautiously, stealthily approaching the entrance but as often withdrawing, and at last mustered courage to enter it.

I then noticed another similar hole in the same mass, two or three feet from this. I thrust my arm into the first, running it in and downward about fifteen inches. It was a little more than a foot long and enlarged somewhat at the end, the bottom, also, being about a foot beneath the surface, — for it slanted downward, – but I felt nothing within; I only felt a pretty regular and rounded apartment with firm walls of weedy or fibrous mud. 

I then thrust my arm into the other hole, which was longer and deeper, but at first discovered nothing; but, trying again, I found that I had not reached the end, for it turned a little and descended more than I supposed. Here I felt a similar apartment or enlargement, some six inches in diameter horizontally but not quite so high nor nearly so wide at its throat.

 Here, to my surprise, I felt something soft, like a gelatinous mass of spawn, but, feeling a little further, felt the horns of a pout. I deliberately took hold of her by the head and lifted her out of the hole and the water, having run my arm in two thirds its length. She offered not the slightest resistance from first to last, even when I held her out of water before my face, and only darted away suddenly when I dropped her in the water. 

The entrance to her apartment was so narrow that she could hardly have escaped if I had tried to prevent her. Putting in my arm again, I felt, under where she had been, a flattish mass of ova, several inches in diameter, resting on the mud, and took out some. Feeling again in the first hole, I found as much more there. Though I had been stepping round and over the second nest for several minutes, I had not scared the pout.

 The ova of the first nest already contained white wiggling young. I saw no motion in the others. The ova in each case were dull-yellowish and the size of small buckshot. These nests did not communicate with each other and had no other outlet.

 Pouts, then, make their nests in shallow mud-holes or bays, in masses of weedy mud, or probably in the muddy bank; and the old pout hovers over the spawn or keeps guard at the entrance. Where do the Walden pouts breed when they have not access to this meadow?

 The first pout, whose eggs were most developed, was the largest and had some slight wounds on the back. The other may have been the male in the act of fertilizing the ova.

 I sit in my boat in the twilight by the edge of the river. Toads are now in full blast along the river. Some sit quite out at the edge of the pads, and hold up their heads so high when they ring, and make such a large bubble, that they look as if they would tumble over backward.

 Bullfrogs now are in full blast. I do not hear other frogs; their notes are probably drowned. I perceive that this generally is the rhythm of the bullfrog; er|er-r er-r-r| (growing fuller and fuller and more tremendous) and then doubling, er, er er, err er, er, er er, er, er and finally er, er, er, er er, er, er, er. Or I might write it oorar oorar oorar oorar-hah oorar-hah hah oorar hah hah hah.

Some of these great males are yellow or quite yellowish over the whole back. Are not the females oftenest white-throated?

 What lungs, what health, what terrenity (if not serenity) it suggests! 

At length I hear the faint stertoration of a Rana palustris (if not halecina).

Seeing a large head, with its prominent eyes, projecting above the middle of the river, I found it was a bullfrog coming across. It swam under water a  rod or two, and then came up to see where it was, or its way. It is thus they cross when sounds or sights attract them to more desirable shores. Probably they prefer the night for such excursions, for fear of large pickerel, etc.

 I thought its throat was not yellow nor baggy. Was it not the female attracted by the note of the male?

 Fireflies pretty numerous over the river, though we have had no thunder-showers of late.

 Mosquitoes quite troublesome here.

 The ledum is a very good plant to bloom in a pitcher, lasting a week or more.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 7, 1858


87° at 3 P. M and i see that a new season has arrived. . . .Fireflies pretty numerous over the river, though we have had no thunder-showers of late. Mosquitoes quite troublesome here. See  June 7, 1854   ([M]osquitoes are very troublesome in the woods . . .This muggy evening I see fireflies, the first I have seen"); See also June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th, viz.: -

• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.
• Hylodes cease to peep.
• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.
• Lightning-bugs first seen.
• Bullfrogs trump generally.
• Mosquitoes begin to be really troublesome.
• Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.
• Sleep with open window.
• Turtles fairly and generally begun to lay.")

See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Fireflies, winged sparks of fire!

The nighthawk sparks and booms over arid hillsides and sprout-lands. See June 7, 1853 ("Visit my nighthawk on her nest. . . . The sight of this creature sitting on its eggs impresses me with the venerableness of the globe.");  See also  May 25, 1852 ("First nighthawks squeak and boom")  and also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,, the Nighthawk

Oxalis violacea in garden. See June 7, 2057 ("Pratt has got the . . . Oxalis violacea, which he says began about last Sunday, or May 31st, larger and handsomer than the yellow, though it blossoms but sparingly.")

June 7. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 7

 June shadows moving

 over waving grass-fields, a 

new season arrived.

 

I sit in my boat

in the twilight by the

edge of the river.

At length I hear the 

faint stertoration of a 

Rana palustris

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A new season arrived

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 © 2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-580607

Seeking shelter under the Cliffs – how near all men come to doing nothing!

May 29.

P. M. — To Lee's Cliff. 

A fine-grained air, June-like, after a cloudy, rain- threatening or rainy morning. Sufficient with a still, clear air in which the hum of insects is heard, and the sunniness contrasts with the shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June. The grass is not yet dry. The birds sing more lively than ever now after the rain, though it is only 2 p. m. 

On the Corner road I overtake a short, thick-set young man dressed in thick blue clothes, with a large basket of scions, etc., on his arm, who has just come from Newton in the cars and is going to graft for Lafayette Garfield, thus late. He does not think much of the Baldwin, and still less of the Porter. The last is too sour! and, above all, does not bear well! ! Has set more scions of Williams' Favorite than of any other, and thinks much of Seaver's apple, a sweeting, etc. Verily, it is all de gustibus. Having occasion to speak of his father, who had been unfortunate, he said, " We boys (his sons) clubbed together and bought the old fellow a farm" just before he died. He had a very broad, round face, and short front teeth half buried in the gums, for he exposed the whole of his gums when he opened his mouth. 

I think I have noticed that coarse-natured farmers' boys, etc., have not a sufficiently fine and delicate taste to appreciate a high-flavored apple. It is commonly too acid for them, and they prefer some tame, sweet thing, fit only for baking, as a pumpkin sweeting. 

Men derive very various nutriment from the same nature, their common habitat, like plants. Some derive, as it were directly from the soil, a brawny body, and their cheeks bulge out like pumpkin sweetings. They seem more thoroughly naturalized here, and the elements are kinder to them. They have more of the wind and rain and meadow muck in their composition. They flourish in the swampy soil like vegetables and do not fear toothache or neuralgia. Some grow like a pumpkin pine, at least. They fish and hunt and get the meadow-hay. Compared with ordinary men, they grow like a Rohan potato beside a Lady's-Finger. Their system has great power of assimilation. The soil is native to them. As different elements go to the composition of two human bodies as the thoughts that occupy their brains are different. How much more readily one nature assimilates to beef and potatoes and makes itself a brawny body of them, than another! 

We sat and talked a spell at the Corner Spring. 

What is the new warbler I see and hear frequently now, with apparently a black head, white side-head, brown back, forked tail, and light legs? 

The sun came out an hour or more ago, rapidly drying the foliage, and for the first time this year I noticed the little shades produced by the foliage which had expanded in the rain, and long narrow dark lines of shade along the hedges or willow-rows. It was like the first bright flashings of an eye from under dark eyelashes after shedding warm tears. 

Now I see a great dark low-arching cloud in the northwest already dropping rain there and steadily sweeping southeast, as I go over the first Conantum Hill from the spring. But I trust that its southwest end will drift too far north to strike me. The rest of the sky is quite serene, sprinkled here and there with bright downy, glowing summer clouds. The grass was not yet dried before this angry summer-shower cloud appeared. 

I go on, uncertain whether it is broad or thin and whether its heel will strike me or not. How universal that strawberry-like fragrance of the fir-balsam cone and wilted twig! My meadow fragrance (also perceived on hillsides) reminds me of it. Methinks that the fragrance of the strawberry may stand for a large class of odors, as the terebinthine odors of firs and arbor-vitae and cedar (as the harp stands for music). There is a certain sting to it, as to them. 

Black shrub oaks well out. 

Oxalis stricta. 

The Veronica serpyllifolia, now erect, is commonly found in moist depressions or hollows in the pastures, where perchance a rock has formerly been taken out and the grass is somewhat thicker and deeper green; also in the grassy ruts of old, rarely used cart-paths.

Red and black oaks are out at Lee's Cliff, well out, and already there are crimson spots on the red oak leaves. Also the fine red mammilla galls stud the black cherry leaves. Galls begin with the very unfolding of the leaves. 

Solomon’s Seal
5/20/2017
(avesong)

The Polygonatum pubescens out there. 

Some, nay most, Turritis stricta quite out of bloom. 

Fair Haven Lake now, at 4.30 p. m., is perfectly smooth, reflecting the darker and glowing June clouds as it has not before. Fishes incessantly dimple it here and there, and I see afar, approaching steadily but diagonally toward the shore of the island, some creature on its surface, maybe a snake, — but my glass shows it to be a muskrat, leaving two long harrow-like ripples behind. Soon after, I see another, quite across the pond on the Baker Farm side, and even distinguish that to be a muskrat. The fishes, methinks, are busily breeding now. These things I see as I sit on the top of Lee's Cliff, looking into the light and dark eye of the lake. 

The heel of that summer-shower cloud, seen through the trees in the west, has extended further south and looks more threatening than ever. As I stand on the rocks, examining the blossoms of some forward black oaks which close overhang it, I think I hear the sound of flies against my hat. No, it is scattered raindrops, though the sky is perfectly clear above me, and the cloud from which they come is yet far on one side. 

I see through the tree-tops the thin vanguard of the storm scaling the celestial ramparts, like eager light infantry, or cavalry with spears advanced. But from the west a great, still, ash-colored cloud comes on. The drops fall thicker, and I seek a shelter under the Cliffs. 

I stand under a large projecting portion of the Cliff, where there is ample space above and around, and I can move about as perfectly protected as under a shed. To be sure, fragments of rock look as if they would fall, but I see no marks of recent ruin about me. 

Soon I hear the low all-pervading hum of an approaching hummingbird circling above the rock, which afterward I mistake several times for the gruff voices of men approaching, unlike as these sounds are in some respects, and I perceive the resemblance even when I know better. Now I am sure it is a hummingbird, and now that it is two farmers approaching. But presently the hum becomes more sharp and thrilling, and the little fellow suddenly perches on an ash twig within a rod of me, and plumes himself while the rain is fairly beginning. He is quite out of proportion to the size of his perch. It does not acknowledge his weight. 

I sit at my ease and look out from under my lichen-clad rocky roof, half-way up the Cliff, under freshly leafing ash and hickory trees on to the pond, while the rain is falling faster and faster, and I am rather glad of the rain, which affords me this experience. The rain has compelled me to find the cosiest and most homelike part of all the Cliff. 

The surface of the pond, though the rain dimples it all alike and I perceive no wind, is still divided into irregular darker and lighter spaces, with distinct boundaries, as it were watered all over. Even now that it rains very hard and the surface is all darkened, the boundaries of those spaces are not quite obliterated. The countless drops seem to spring again from its surface like stalagmites. 

A mosquito, sole living inhabitant of this antrum, settles on my hand. I find here sheltered with me a sweet-briar growing in a cleft of the rock above my head, where perhaps some bird or squirrel planted it. Mulleins beneath. Galium Aparine, just begun to bloom, growing next the rock; and, in the earth-filled clefts, columbines, some of whose cornucopias strew the ground. Ranunculus bulbosus in bloom; saxifrage; and various ferns, as spleenwort, etc. Some of these plants are never rained on. I perceive the buttery-like scent of barberry bloom from over the rock, and now and for some days the bunches of effete white ash anthers strew the ground. 

It lights up a little, and the drops fall thinly again, and the birds begin to sing, but now I see a new shower coming up from the southwest, and the wind seems to have changed somewhat. Already I had heard the low mutterings of its thunder — for this is a thunder- shower — in the midst of the last. It seems to have shifted its quarters merely to attack me on a more exposed side of my castle. Two foes appear where I had expected none. But who can calculate the tactics of the storm? 

It is a first regular summer thunder-shower, preceded by a rush of wind, and I begin to doubt if my quarters will prove a sufficient shelter. I am fairly besieged and know not when I shall escape. I hear the still roar of the rushing storm at a distance, though no trees are seen to wave. 

And now the forked flashes descending to the earth succeed rapidly to the hollow roars above, and down comes the deluging rain. I hear the alarmed notes of birds flying to a shelter. The air at length is cool and chilly, the atmosphere is darkened, and I have forgotten the smooth pond and its reflections. The rock feels cold to my body, as if it were a different season of the year. 

I almost repent of having lingered here; think how far I should have got if I had started homeward. But then what a condition I should have been in! Who knows but the lightning will strike this cliff and topple the rocks down on me? The crashing thunder sounds like the overhauling of lumber on heaven's loft. 

And now, at last, after an hour of steady confinement, the clouds grow thin again, and the birds begin to sing. They make haste to conclude the day with their regular evening songs (before the rain is fairly over) according to the program. 

The pepe on some pine tree top was heard almost in the midst of the storm. One or two bullfrogs trump. They care not how wet it is. 

Again I hear the still rushing, all-pervading roar of the withdrawing storm, when it is at least half a mile off, wholly beyond the pond, though no trees are seen to wave. It is simply the sound of the countless drops falling on the leaves and the ground. You were not aware what a sound the rain made. 

Several times I attempt to leave my shelter, but return to it. My first stepping abroad seems but a signal for the rain to commence again. Not till after an hour and a half do I escape. After all, my feet and legs are drenched by the wet grass.

Those great hickory buds, how much they contained! You see now the large reddish scales turned back at the base of the new twigs. Suddenly the buds burst, and those large pinnate leaves stretched forth in various directions. 

I see and hear the cuckoo. The Salix nigra, apparently several days, at Corner Bridge. Many of the black spruce have the terminal twigs dead. They are a slow-growing tree. 

It is encouraging to see thrifty-growing white pines by their side, which have added three feet to their height the last year. 

With all this opportunity, this comedy and tragedy, how near all men come to doing nothing! 

It is strange that they did not make us more intense and emphatic, that they do not goad us into some action. Generally, with all our desires and restlessness, we are no more likely to embark in any enterprise than a tree is to walk to a more favorable locality. 

The seaboard swarms with adventurous and rowdy fellows, but how unaccountably they train and are held in check! They are as likely to be policemen as anything. It exhausts their wits and energy merely to get their living, and they can do no more. 

The Americans are very busy and adventurous sailors, but all in somebody's employ, — as hired men. I have not heard of one setting out in his own bark, if only to run down our own coast on a voyage of adventure or observation, on his own account. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 29, 1857

The shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June. See June 4, 1855 ("dark shadows on field and wood are the more remarkable by contrast with the light yellow-green foliage now, and when they rest on evergreens they are doubly dark, like dark rings about the eyes of June."); June 9. 1856 ("Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,—the black elm-tops and shadows of June. It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath.”); June 11, 1856 (“I observe and appreciate the shade, as it were the shadow of each particular leaf on the ground. . . . It reminds me of the thunder-cloud and the dark eyelash of summer.”). See also .note to June 6, 1855 ("The dark eye and shade of June”).and  To the Maiden in the East from The Dial (October 1842) and A Week ("The lightning's silent gleam, / Startling my drowsy dream,/ Seemed like the flash / Under thy dark eyelash.")

Looking into the light and dark eye of the lake. See June 26, 1852 ("The smooth reflecting surface of woodland lakes in which the ice is just melted. Those liquid eyes of nature, blue or black or even hazel, deep or shallow, clear or turbid; green next the shore, the color of their iris.”)
The Veronica serpyllifolia, now erect, is commonly found in moist depressions ... See May 12, 1857 ("Veronica serpyllifolia is abundantly out at Corner Spring”); May 17, 1856 ("Veronica serpylléfolia abundant now on banks, erected.”)

Ranunculus bulbosus in bloom. See May 29, 1859 ("The Ranunculus bulbosus are apparently in prime.")

Oxalis stricta.  May 26, 1852 ("Walking home from surveying, the fields are just beginning to be reddened with sorrel.”); May 22, 1854 (" . . the sorrel beginning to redden the fields with ruddy health, — all these things make earth now a paradise.”)

The Polygonatum pubescens out there. See May 25, 1852 (“Polygonatum pubescens ready to bloom.”); May 22, 1856 (“Polygonatum pubescens at rock.”); May 21, 1856 ("The Polygonatum pubescens there, in shade, almost out; perhaps elsewhere already.”);  May 12, 1855 ("One flower of the Polygonatum pubescens open there [under Lee’s Cliff]; probably may shed pollen to-morrow.”).

Soon I hear the low all-pervading hum of an approaching hummingbird circling above the rock . . See May 17, 1856 ("There, along with me in the deep, wild swamp . . . Its hum was heard afar at first, like that of a large bee, bringing a larger summer.”)

It is a first regular summer thunder-shower, preceded by a rush of wind . . . See May 10, 1857 (" a sudden shower with some thunder and lightning; the first.")

I sit at my ease

under my lichen-clad roof 

thankful for the rain.