Sunset in winter from a clearing in the woods.

December 20

Saturday. 2 P. M. – To Fair Haven Hill and plain below.

Saw a large hawk circling over a pine wood below me, and screaming, apparently that he might discover his prey by their flight.

Travelling ever by wider circles.

What a symbol of the thoughts, now soaring, now descending, taking larger and larger circles, or smaller and smaller. It flies not directly whither it is bound, but advances by circles, like a courtier of the skies. No such noble progress! How it comes round, as with a wider sweep of thought! But the majesty is in the imagination of the beholder, for the bird is intent on its prey.

Circling and ever circling, you cannot divine which way it will incline, till perchance it dives down straight as an arrow to its mark.

It rises higher above where I stand, and I see with beautiful distinctness its wings against the sky, primaries and secondaries, and the rich tracery of the outline of the latter (?), its inner wings, or wing-linings, within the outer, - like a great moth seen against the sky.

A will-o'-the-wind. Following its path, as it were through the vortices of the air. The poetry of motion.

Not as preferring one place to another, but enjoying each as long as possible. Most gracefully so surveys new scenes and revisits the old.

As if that hawk were made to be the symbol of my thought, how bravely he came round over those parts of the wood which he had not surveyed, taking in a new segment, annexing new territories! Without ”heave-yo!” it trims its sail. It goes about without the creaking of a block.

That America yacht of the air that never makes a tack, though it rounds the globe itself, takes in and shakes out its reefs without a flutter, -- its sky - scrapers all under its control.

Holds up one wing, as if to admire, and sweeps off this way, then holds up the other and sweeps that. If there are two concentrically circling, it is such a regatta as Southampton waters never witnessed.

Flights of imagination, Coleridgean thoughts.

So a man is said to soar in his thought, ever to fresh woods and pastures new. Rises as in thought. 

Snow-squalls pass, obscuring the sun, as if blown off from a larger storm. 

Since last Monday the ground has been covered half a foot or more with snow; and the ice also, before I have had a skate. Hitherto we had had mostly bare, frozen ground.

Red, white, green, and, in the distance, dark brown are the colors of the winter landscape. I view it now from the cliffs. The red shrub oaks on the white ground of the plain beneath make a pretty scene.

Most walkers are pretty effectually shut up by the snow.

I observe that they who saw down trees in the woods with a cross-cut saw carry a mat to kneel on. It is no doubt a good lesson for the woodchopper, the long day alone in the woods, and he gets more than his half dollar a cord. 

Say the thing with which you labor. It is a waste of time for the writer to use his talents merely. Be faithful to your genius. Write in the strain that interests you most. Consult not the popular taste. 

The red oak leaves are even more fresh and glossy than the white.

A clump of white pines, seen far westward over the shrub oak plain, which is now lit up by the setting sun, a soft, feathery grove, with their gray stems indistinctly seen, like human beings come to their cabin door, standing expectant on the edge of the plain, impress me with a mild humanity.

The trees indeed have hearts.

With a certain affection the sun seems to send its farewell ray far and level over the copses to them, and they silently receive it with gratitude, like a group of settlers with their children.

The pines impress me as human.

A slight vaporous cloud floats high over them, while in the west the sun goes down apace behind glowing pines, and golden clouds like mountains skirt the horizon.

Nothing stands up more free from blame in this world than a pine tree.


The dull and blundering behavior of clowns will as surely polish the writer at last as the criticism of men of thought. It is wonderful, wonderful, the unceasing demand that Christendom makes on you, that you speak from a moral point of view. Though you be a babe, the cry is, Repent, repent. The Christian world will not admit that a man has a just perception of any truth, unless at the same time he cries, "Lord be merciful to me a sinner."

What made the hawk mount? Did you perceive the manæuvre? Did he fill himself with air? Before you were aware of it, he had mounted by his spiral path into the heavens. 

Our country is broad and rich, for here, within twenty miles of Boston, I can stand in a clearing in the woods and look a mile or more, over the shrub oaks, to the distant pine copses and horizon of uncut woods, without a house or road or cultivated field in sight. 

Sunset in winter from a clearing in the woods, about Well Meadow Head. 

December 20, 2019

They say that the Indians of the Great Basin live on the almonds of the pine. Have not I been fed by the pine for many a year? 

Go out before sunrise or stay out till sunset. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 20, 1851

<<<<< December 19, 1851                                                December 21, 1851 >>>>>

The Christian world will not admit that a man has a just perception of any truth, unless at the same time he cries, "Lord be merciful to me a sinner." See 1850? (“Repentance is not a free and fair highway to God. A wise man will dispense with repentance It is shocking and passionate. God prefers that you approach him thoughtful, not penitent, though you are the chief of sinners. It is only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to him.”)

A large hawk circling over a pine wood below me, and screaming, apparently that he might discover his prey by their flight. See December 20, 1857 ("A hen-hawk circling over that wild region. See its red tail.");See also June 15, 1852 ("I hear the scream of a great hawk, sailing with a ragged wing against the high wood-side, apparently to scare his prey and so detect it "); June 8, 1853 ("As I stand by this pond, 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."); October 28, 1857 ,("His scream . . . 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? ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The hen-hawk

Red, white, green, and, in the distance, dark brown are the colors of the winter landscape. See  December 21, 1855 ("A few simple colors now prevail."); December 21, 1854 ("Fair Haven Pond, for instance, a perfectly level plain of white snow, untrodden as yet by any fisherman, surrounded by snow-clad hills, dark evergreen woods, and reddish oak leaves, so pure and still.") See also December 20, 1854 ("It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple, —the sharp clear air, the white snow everywhere covering the earth, and the polished ice."); February 13, 1860 ("It is surprising what a variety of distinct colors the winter can show us,")

The trees indeed have hearts . . . like a group of settlers with their children.The pines impress me as human. See February 15, 1841 ("The trees have come down to the bank to see the river go by.")

And he looked up, and said,

I see men as trees, walking.

— Mark 8:22-25.

The sun goes down apace behind glowing pines, and golden clouds like mountains skirt the horizon. Compare December 19, 1851 ("Why should it be so pleasing to look into a thick pine wood where the sunlight streams in and gilds it? . . .Now the sun sets suddenly without a cloud– & with scarcely any redness following so pure is the atmosphere – only a faint rosy blush along the horizon."); December 21 1851 (Long after the sun has set, and downy clouds have turned dark, and the shades of night have taken possession of the east, some rosy clouds will be seen in the upper sky over the portals of the darkening west.");  December 23, 1851 (“Now the sun has quite disappeared, but the afterglow, as I may call it, apparently the reflection from the cloud beyond which the sun went down on the thick atmosphere of the horizon, is unusually bright and lasting. Long, broken clouds in the horizon, in the dun atmosphere, — as if the fires of day were still smoking there, — hang with red and golden edging like the saddle cloths of the steeds of the sun. ”); December 24, 1851 (“When I had got home and chanced to look out the window from supper, I perceived that all the west horizon was glowing with a rosy border.”); December 25, 1851 (“I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand?”)

Go out before sunrise or stay out till sunset. See January 20, 1852 ("To see the sun rise or go down every day would preserve us sane forever.”); November 4, 1852 ("I keep out-of-doors for the sake of the mineral, vegetable, and animal in me."); June 5, 1854 ("I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature.”); December 29, 1856 (“We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day."); September 13, 1859 ("You must be outdoors long, early and late."); November 13, 1857 ("See the sun rise or set if possible each day.")

I can stand in a clearing in the woods and look a mile or more, over the shrub oaks, to the distant pine copses and horizon of uncut woods, without a house or road or cultivated field in sight. See January 22, 1852 ("I see, one mile to two miles distant on all sides from my window, the woods, which still encircle our New England towns.  . . . How long will these last?")

Go out before sunrise or stay out till sunset. See December 27, 1851 ("The man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset, while revolutions vex the world.");  January 17, 1852 (“In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. That is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer.");  January 20, 1852  ("To see the sun rise or go down every day would preserve us sane forever.");  June 5, 1854 ("I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature.”); December 29, 1856 (“We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day."); January 7, 1857 ("I have told many that I walk every day about half the daylight . . . I come out to these solitudes, where the problem of existence is simplified."); November 13, 1857 ("See the sun rise or set if possible each day."); September 13, 1859 ("You must be outdoors long, early and late.")

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

Sunset in winter 

from a clearing in the woods –

gold clouds like mountains.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Sunset in winter from a clearing in 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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-511220

We have only to elevate our view a little to see the whole forest as a garden.

October 31. 

P. M. — To Conantum. 

Our currants bare; how long? 

The Italian poplars are now a dull greenish yellow, not nearly so fair as the few leaves that had turned some time ago. 

Some silvery abeles are the same color.  

I go over the Hubbard Bridge causeway. The young Salix alba osiers are just bare, or nearly so, and the yellow twigs accordingly begin to show. 

It is a fine day, Indian—summer-like, and there is considerable gossamer on the causeway and blowing from all trees. That warm weather of the 19th and 20th was, methinks, the same sort of weather with the most pleasant in November (which last alone some allow to be Indian summer), only more to be expected. 

I see many red oaks, thickly leaved, fresh and at the height of their tint. These are pretty clear yellow. It is much clearer yellow than any black oak, but some others are about bare. These and scarlet oaks, which are yet more numerous, are the only oaks not withered that I notice to-day, except one middle-sized white oak probably protected from frost under Lee’s Cliff. 

Between the absolutely deciduous plants and the evergreens are all degrees, not only those which retain their withered leaves all winter, but those, commonly called evergreen, which, though slow to change, yet acquire at last a ruddy color while they keep their leaves, as the lambkill and water andromeda (?).

Get a good sight on Conantum of a sparrow (such as I have seen in flocks some time), which utters a sharp te te-te quickly repeated as it flies, sitting on a wall three or four rods off. I see that it is rather long and slender, is perhaps dusky-ash above with some black backward; has a pretty long black bill, a white ring about eye, white chin and line under check, a black (or dark) spotted breast and dirty cream-color beneath; legs long and slender and perhaps reddish-brown, two faint light bars on wings; but, what distinguishes it more, it keeps gently jerking or tossing its tail as it sits, and when a flock flies over you see the tails distinctly black beneath. Though I detected no yellow, yet I think from the note that it must be the shore lark (such as I saw March 24th) in their fall plumage. They are a common bird at this season, I think. 

I see a middle-sized red oak side by side with a black one under Lee’s Cliff. The first is still pretty fresh, the latter completely withered. The withered leaves of the first are flat, apparently thin, and a yellowish brown;those of the black are much curled and a very different and dark brown, and look thicker. 

Barberry generally is thickly leaved and only some what yellowish or scarlet, say russet. 

I tasted some of the very small grapes on Blackberry Steep, such as I had a jelly made of. Though shrivelled, and therefore ripe, they are very acid and inedible. 

The slippery elm has a few scattered leaves on it, while the common close by is bare. So I think the former is later to fall. You may well call it bare. 

The cedar at Lee’s Cliff has apparently just fallen, — almost. 

As I sit on the Cliff there, the sun is now getting low, and the woods in Lincoln south and east of me are lit up by its more level rays, and there is brought out a more brilliant redness in the scarlet oaks, scattered so equally over the forest, than you would have believed was in them. Every tree of this species which is visible in these directions, even to the horizon, now stands out distinctly red.

Some great ones lift their red backs high above the woods near the Codman place, like huge roses with a myriad fine petals, and some more slender ones, in a small grove of white pines on Pine Hill in the east, in the very horizon, alternating with the pines on the edge of the grove and shouldering them with their red coats, — an intense, burning red which would lose some of its strength, methinks, with every step you might take to ward them, — look like soldiers in red amid hunters in green. This time it is Lincoln green, too. 

Until the sun thus lit them up you would not have believed that there were so many redcoats in the forest army. Looking westward, their colors are lost in a blaze of light, but in other directions the whole forest is a flower-garden, in which these late roses burn, alternating with green, while the so-called “gardeners,” working here and there, perchance, beneath, with spade and water-pot, see only a few little asters amid withered leaves, for the shade that lurks amid their foliage does not report itself at this distance. They are unanimously red. The focus of their reflected,[color] is in the atmosphere far on this side. Every such tree, especially in the horizon, becomes a nucleus of red, as it were, where, with the declining sun, the redness grows and glows like a cloud. It only has some comparatively dull-red leaves for a nucleus and to start it, and it becomes an intense scarlet or red mist, or fire which finds fuel for itself in the very atmosphere. I have no doubt that you would be disappointed in the brilliancy of those trees if you were to walk to them. You see a redder tree than exists. It is a strong red, which gathers strength from the air on its way to your eye. It is partly borrowed fire, borrowed of the sun. The scarlet oak asks the clear sky and the brightness of the Indian summer. These bring out its color. If the sun goes into a cloud they become indistinct. 

These are my China asters, my late garden flowers. It costs me nothing for a gardener. The falling leaves, all over the forest, are protecting the roots of my plants. Only look at what is to be seen, and you will have garden enough, without deepening the soil of your yard. We have only to elevate our view a little to see the whole forest as a garden.

To my surprise, the only yellow that I see amid the universal red and green and chocolate is one large tree top in the forest, a mile off in the east, across the pond, which by its form and color I know to be my late acquaintance the tall aspen (tremuliformis) of the 29th. It, too, is far more yellow at this distance than it was close at hand, and so are the Lombardy poplars in our streets. The Salix alba, too, looks yellower at a distance now. Their dull-brown and green colors do not report them selves so far, while the yellow crescit eundo, and we see the sun reflected in it. 

After walking for a couple of hours the other day through the woods, I came to the base of a tall aspen, which I do not remember to have seen before, standing in the midst of the woods in the next town, still thickly leaved and turned to greenish yellow. It is perhaps the largest of its species that I know. It was by merest accident that I stumbled on it, and if I had been sent to find it, I should have thought it to be, as we say, like looking for a needle in a haymow. All summer, and it chances for so many years, it has been concealed to me; but now, walking in a different direction, to the same hilltop from which I saw the scarlet oaks, and looking off just before sunset, when all other trees visible for miles around are reddish or green, I distinguish my new acquaintance by its yellow color. 

Such is its fame, at last, and reward for living in that solitude and obscurity. It is the most distinct tree in all the landscape, and would be the cynosure of all eyes here. Thus it plays its part in the choir. I made a minute of its locality, glad to know where so large an aspen grew. Then it seemed peculiar in its solitude and obscurity. It seemed the obscurest of trees. Now it was seen to be equally peculiar for its distinctness and prominence. Each tree (in October) runs up its flag and we know [what] colors it sails under. The sailor sails, and the soldier marches, under a color which will report his virtue farthest, and the ship’s “private signals” must be such as can be distinguished at the greatest distance. The eye, which distinguishes and appreciates color, is itself the seat of color in the human body. 

It is as if it recognized me too, and gladly, coming half-way to meet me, and now the acquaintance thus propitiously formed will, I trust, be permanent. 

Of the three (?) mocker-nuts on Conantum top only the southernmost is bare, the rest are thickly leaved yet. 

The Viburnum Lentago is about bare. 

That hour-glass apple shrub near the old Conantum house is full of small yellow fruit. Thus it is with them. By the end of some October, when their leaves have fallen, you see them glowing with an abundance of wild fruit, which the cows cannot get at over the bushy and thorny hedge which surrounds them. Such is their pursuit of knowledge through difficulties. Though they may have taken the hour-glass form, think not that their sands are run out. So is it with the rude, neglected genius from amid the country hills; he suffers many a check at first, browsed on by fate, springing in but a rocky pasture, the nursery of other creatures there, and he grows broad and strong, and scraggy and thorny, hopelessly stunted, you would say, and not like a sleek orchard tree all whose forces are husbanded and the precious early years not lost, and when at first, within this rind and hedge, the man shoots up, you see the thorny scrub of his youth about him, and he walks like an hour-glass, aspiring above, it is true, but held down and impeded by the rubbish of old difficulties overcome, and you seem to see his sands running out. But at length, thanks to his rude culture, he attains to his full stature, and every vestige of the thorny hedge which clung to his youth disappears, and he bears golden crops of Porters or Baldwins, whose fame will spread through all orchards for generations to come, while that thrifty orchard tree which was his competitor will, perchance, have long since ceased to bear its engrafted fruit and decayed.

The beach plum is withering green, say with the apple trees, which are half of them bare. 

Larches fairly begun to fall; so they are at height.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 31, 1858

It is a fine day, Indian—summer-like, and there is considerable gossamer on the causeway and blowing from all trees. See October 31, 1853 ("t is a beautiful , warm and calm Indian- summer afternoon . . . I slowly discover that this is a gossamer day . . . the gossamer reaching across the causeway . . . streamed southward with the slight zephyr. As if the year were weaving her shroud out of light . . . They were streaming in like manner southward from the railing of the bridge  parallel waving threads of light, producing a sort of flashing in the air ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days

Every tree of this species which is visible in these directions, even to the horizon, now stands out distinctly red. Until the sun thus lit them up you would not have believed that there were so many redcoats in the forest army. See October 24, 1858 ("The scarlet oak. . . is now completely scarlet and apparently has been so a few days. This alone of our indigenous deciduous trees . . .is now in its glory. ");October 25, 1858 ("[I]t is remarkable how evenly they are distributed over the hills, by some law not quite understood.")

It becomes an intense scarlet or red mist, or fire which finds fuel for itself in the very atmosphere. … It is a strong red, which gathers strength from the air on its way to your eye. It is partly borrowed fire, borrowed of the sun. Compare October 28, 1852 ("Suddenly the light of the setting sun yellows and warms all the landscape. The air is filled with a remarkably vaporous haze.")

The only yellow that I see amid the universal red and green and chocolate is one large tree top in the forest, a mile off in the east, across the pond, which by its form and color I know to be my late acquaintance the tall aspen (tremuliformis) of the 29th. See October 29, 1858 ("Am surprised to see, by the path to Baker Farm, a very tall and slender large Populus tremuliformis still thickly clothed with leaves which are merely yellowish greén, later than any P. grandidentata I know.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Tallest Aspen

Larches fairly begun to fall; so they are at height. See November 1, 1857 ("The larches are at the height of their change."); November 4, 1855 ("Larches are now quite yellow, — in the midst of their fall.")

The most distinct tree 

in all the landscape, as if 

it recognized me.

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 begin now to notice 

the evergreen ferns.

A very wild sight.

May 20. 

P. M. – Up Assabet. 

A cloudy afternoon, with a cool east wind, producing a mist. 

May 20, 2018

Hundreds of swallows are now skimming close over the river, at its broadest part, where it is shallow and runs the swiftest, just below the Island, for a distance of twenty rods. There are bank, barn, cliff, and chimney swallows, all mingled together and continually scaling back and forth, – a very lively sight. 

They keep descending or stooping to within a few inches of the water on a curving wing, without quite touching it, and I suppose are attracted by some small insects which hover close over it. They also stoop low about me as I stand on the flat island there, but I do not perceive the insects. They rarely rise more than five feet above the surface, and a general twittering adds to the impression of sociability. 

The principal note is the low grating sound of the bank swallow, and I hear the vit vit of the barn swallow. The cliff swallow, then, is here. 

Are the insects in any measure confined to that part of the river? Or are they congregated for the sake of society? I have also in other years noticed them over another swift place, at Hubbard's Bath, and also, when they first come, in smaller numbers, over the still and smooth water under the lee of the Island wood. They are thick as the gnats which perhaps they catch. 

Swallows are more confident and fly nearer to man than most birds. It may be because they are more protected by the sentiment and superstitions of men. 

The season is more backward on account of the cloudy and rainy weather of the last four or five days and some preceding. 

The Polygonatum pubescens, not quite. 

The red oak is not out. 

Hear a quail whistle. 

I notice that the sugar maple opposite Barrett's does not bloom this year, nor does the canoe birch by the Hemlocks bear sterile catkins. Perhaps they more or less respect the alternate years. 

3.30 P. M. — To Brister's Hill. 

Going along the deep valley in the woods, just before entering the part called Laurel Glen, I heard a noise, and saw a fox running off along the shrubby side-hill. It looked like a rather small dirty-brown fox, and very clumsy, running much like a wood chuck. It had a dirty or dark brown tail, with very little white to the tip. A few steps further I came upon the remains of a woodchuck, yet warm, which it had been eating. Head, legs, and tail, all remained, united by the skin, but the bowels and a good part of the flesh were eaten. This was evidently a young fox, say three quarters grown, or perhaps less, and appeared as full as a tick. 

There was a fox-hole within three rods, with a very large sand-heap, several cartloads, before it, much trodden. Hearing a bird of which I was in search, I turned to examine it, when I heard a bark behind me, and, looking round, saw an old fox on the brow of the hill on the west side of the valley, amid the bushes, about ten rods off, looking down at me. 

At first it was a short, puppy-like bark, but afterward it began to bark on a higher key and more prolonged, very unlike a dog, a very ragged half-screaming bur ar-r-r. I proceeded along the valley half a dozen rods after a little delay (the fox being gone), and then looked round to see if it returned to the woodchuck. 

I then saw a full-grown fox, perhaps the same as the last, cross the valley through the thin low wood fifteen or twenty rods behind me, but from east to west, pausing and looking at me anxiously from time to time. It was rather light tawny (not fox-colored) with dusky-brown bars, and looked very large, wolf-like. The full-grown fox stood much higher on its legs and was longer, but the body was apparently not much heavier than that of the young. 

Going a little further, I came to another hole, and ten feet off was a space of a dozen square feet amid some little oaks, worn quite bare and smooth, apparently by the playing of the foxes, and the ground close around a large stump about a rod from the hole was worn bare and hard, and all the bark and much of the rotten wood was pawed or gnawed off lately. They had pawed a deep channel about one and in between the roots, perhaps for insects. There lay the remains of another woodchuck, now dry, the head, skin, and legs being left, and also part of the skin of a third, and the bones of another animal, and some partridge feathers. The old foxes had kept their larder well supplied. 

Within a rod was another hole, apparently a back door, having no heap of sand, and five or six rods off another in the side of the hill with a small sand-heap, and, as far down the valley, another with a large sand-heap and a back door with none. There was a well-beaten path from the one on the side hill five or six rods long to one in the valley, and there was much blackish dung about the holes and stump and the path. By the hole furthest down the valley was another stump, which had been gnawed (?) very much and trampled and pawed about like the other. I suppose the young foxes play there. 

There were half a dozen holes or more, and what with the skulls and feathers and skin and bones about, I was reminded of Golgotha. These holes were some of them very large and conspicuous, a foot wide vertically, by eight or ten inches, going into the side-hill with a curving stoop, and there was commonly a very large heap of sand before them, trodden smooth. It was a sprout-land valley, cut off but a year or two since. 

As I stood by the last hole, I heard the old fox bark, and saw her (?) near the brow of the hill on the north west, amid the bushes, restless and anxious, overlooking me a dozen or fourteen rods off. I was, on doubt, by the hole in which the young were. She uttered at very short intervals a prolonged, shrill, screeching kind of bark, beginning lower and rising to a very high key, lasting two seconds; a very broken and ragged sound, more like the scream of a large and angry bird than the bark of a dog, trilled like a piece of vibrating metal at the end. 

It moved restlessly back and forth, or approached nearer, and stood or sat on its haunches like a dog with its tail laid out in a curve on one side, and when it barked it laid its ears flat back and stretched its nose forward. Sometimes it uttered a short, puppy like, snappish bark. It was not fox-colored now, but a very light tawny or wolf-color, dark-brown or dusky beneath in a broad line from its throat; its legs the same, with a broad dusky perpendicular band on its haunches and similar ones on its tail, and a small whitish spot on each side of its mouth. There it sat like a chieftain on his hills, looking, methought, as big as a prairie wolf, and shaggy like it, anxious and even fierce, as I peered through my glass. 

I noticed, when it withdrew, – I too withdrawing in the opposite direction, — that as it had descended the hill a little way and wanted to go off over the pinnacle without my seeing which way it went, it ran one side about ten feet, till it was behind a small white pine, then turned at a right angle and ascended the hill directly, with the pine between us. The sight of it suggested that two or three might attack a man. The note was a shrill, vibrating scream or cry; could easily be heard a quarter of a mile. 

How many woodchucks, rabbits, partridges, etc., etc., they must kill, and yet how few of them are seen! A very wolfish color. It must have been a large fox, and, if it is true that the old are white on the sides of the face, an old one. They evidently used more than a half dozen holes within fifteen rods. I withdrew the sooner for fear by his barking he would be betrayed to some dog or gunner. 

It was a very wild sight to see the wolf-like parent circling about me in the thin wood, from time to time pausing to look and bark at me. 

This appears to be nearest to the cross fox of Audubon, and is considered a variety of the red by him and most others, not white beneath as the red fox of Harlan. Emmons says of the red fox, “In the spring the color appears to fade,” and that some are “pale yellow,” but does not describe minutely. This was probably a female, for Bell says of the English fox that the female “loses all her timidity and shyness when suckling her young;” also that they are a year and a half in attaining their full size.

[I find afterward three or four more fox-holes near by, and see where they have sat on a large upturned stump, which had heaved up earth with it. Many large pieces of woodchuck's skin about these holes. They leave the head and feet. A scent of carrion about the holes.]

Hear the pepe. 

See tanagers, male and female, in the top of a pine, one red, other yellow, from below. We have got to these high colors among birds. 

Saw in the street a young cat owl, one of two which Skinner killed in Walden Woods yesterday. It was almost ready to fly, at least two and a half feet in alar extent; tawny with many black bars, and darker on wings. Holmes, in Patent Office Report, says they “pair early in February.” 

So I visited the nest. It was in a large white pine close on the north side of the path, some ten rods west of the old Stratton cellar in the woods. This is the largest pine thereabouts, and the nest is some thirty-five feet high on two limbs close to the main stem, and, according to Skinner, was not much more than a foot across, made of small sticks, nearly flat, “without fine stuff!” There were but two young. This is a path which somebody travels every half-day, at least, and only a stone's throw from the great road. There were many white droppings about and large rejected pellets containing the vertebrae and hair of a skunk. 

As I stood there, I heard the crows making a great noise some thirty or forty rods off, and immediately suspected that they were pestering one of the old owls, which Skinner had not seen. It proved so, for, as I approached, the owl sailed away from amidst a white pine top, with the crows in full pursuit, and he looked very large, stately, and heavy, like a seventy-four among schooners. I soon knew by the loud cawing of the crows that he had alighted again some forty rods off, and there again I found him perched high on a white pine, the large tawny fellow with black dashes and large erect horns. Away he goes again, and the crows after him.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 20, 1858

Hundreds of swallows are now skimming close over the river. See note to May 16, 1857 (“An unusual number of swallows are flying low over [the meadows].”)

I heard the old fox bark, a prolonged, shrill, screeching kind of bark, beginning lower and rising to a very high key, lasting two seconds; a very broken and ragged sound. See January 23, 1858 ("What a smothered, ragged, feeble, and unmusical sound is the bark of the fox! ")

Hear the pepe. See May 18,  1857 ("Hear the pepe, how long?”) ; June 6, 1857 ("As I sit on Lee's Cliff, I see a pe-pe on the topmost dead branch of a hickory eight or ten rods off. . . . mouse-colored above and head (which is perhaps darker), white throat, and narrow white beneath, with no white on tail.”); June 10, 1855 ("Nest of the Muscicapa Cooperi, or pe pe, on a white spruce in the Holden Swamp . . .”)

Tanagers, male and female, in the top of a pine, one red, other yellow . . . these high colors among birds. See May 23, 1853 ("I hear and see a tanager. How he enhances the wildness and wealth of the woods! That contrast of a red bird with the green pines and the blue sky! ...”); May 24, 1860 ("You can hardly believe that a living creature can wear such colors.”); May 28, 1855 (" I see a tanager, the most brilliant and tropical-looking bird we have, bright-scarlet with black wings, the scarlet appearing on the rump again between wing-tips. . . .A remarkable contrast with the green pines.”)

It was a very wild sight. See November 27, 1857 (“Returning, I see a fox run across the road in the twilight . . . I feel a certain respect for him, . . ., he still maintains himself free and wild in our midst.”)  and note to January 21, 1857 (“It is remarkable how many tracks of foxes you will see . . . yet a regular walker will not glimpse one oftener than once in eight or ten years.”)

This appears to be nearest to the cross fox of Audubon; Emmons says of the red fox that some are “pale yellow.” See January 30, 1855 ("Minott to-day enumerates the red, gray, black, and what he calls the Sampson fox.”) and Z. Thompson, Natural History of Vermont 35 (“A blackish stripe passing from the neck down the back and another crossing it alright angles over the shoulders . . . Instead of considering the Cross Fox a distinct species, I have concluded to adopt the opinion of Dr. Richardson, who regards it merely as a variety of the common fox.”)

The Telegraph says it Snowed in Bangor To-day.

May 31

P. M. — To Clintonia Swamp (Hubbard’s) Grove. 

A ground-bird’s nest (melodia or graminea), with six of those oblong narrow gray eggs speckled with much brown at end. When I looked again half an hour after, one egg was hatched. The bird would steal out through the grass when I came within a rod, and then, after running a rod or two, take to wing. 

May 31, 2016

Tied a string about a low pyrus a rod or so to right of entrance to Hubbard’s Pyrus Swamp and two feet west of a pitch pine stump, and pressed a twig of it.

Clintonia. 

Nuphar advena first noticed; may have been out some time in some places, but just out in river. 

Pink, common wild, maybe two or three days.

Sundown—To Hill and Island. 

Have noticed within a week, from time to time, the water-line on the bushes along the shore — the water going down — unusually distinct, for while the exposed parts have leaved out, the lower are quite bare and black. 

Hemlock and creeping juniper, where had not bloomed the 22d, are now entirely out of bloom on the hill. How short their flower lasts! 

Ranunculus Purshii, probably earlier in some places, but water high. 

That little cerastium on the rock at the Island, noticed the 22d, which probably opened about  that time, is now out of bloom. It is about three inches high and has long pods, more than twice the length of the calyx, which turn upward. I have seen no petals. It seems to be the C. nutans (?), from size, erectness, and form of pods and leaves. It has viscid hairs or with glands at end. 

The red oak is so forward, compared with the rest, that it is more difficult to get a sprig in flower small enough (its leaves) to press. 

As I return in the dusk, many nighthawks, with their great spotted wings, are circling low over the river, as the swallows were when I went out. They skim within a rod of me. After dusk these greater swallows come forth, and circle and play about over the water like those lesser ones, or perhaps making a larger circuit, also uttering a louder note. It would not be safe for such great birds to fly so near and familiarly by day. 

It has been very cold for two or three days, and to-night a frost is feared. The telegraph says it snowed in Bangor to-day. 

The hickory leaves are blackened by blowing in the cold wind.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 31, 1856

A ground-bird’s nest (melodia or graminea.), with six of those oblong narrow gray eggs speckled with much brown at end. See May 18, 1855 ("A bay-wing sparrow’s nest, four eggs (young half hatched) -- some black-spotted, others not”); May 27, 1856 ("Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs . . . with very dark blotches."); June 4, 1857 (“I scare up a bay-wing. She runs several rods close to the ground through the thin grass, and then lurks behind tussocks, etc. The nest has four eggs, dull pinkish-white with brown spots; nest low in ground, of stubble lined with white horse hair. ”). See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing [Vesper] Sparrow (Fringilla graminea)

Clintonia. See June 2, 1853 ("Clintonia borealis, a day or two. This is perhaps the most interesting and neatest of what I may call the liliaceous (?) plants we have. Its beauty at present consists chiefly in its commonly three very handsome, rich, clear dark-green leaves . . . arching over from a centre at the ground, sometimes very symmetrically disposed in a triangular fashion; and from their midst rises the scape [ a ] foot high, with one or more umbels of “green bell-shaped flowers,” yellowish- green, nodding or bent downward")

Nuphar advena first noticed . . . just out in river. See May 30, 1858 ("I saw the Nuphar advena above water and yellow in Shrewsbury the 23d.")

Pink, common wild, maybe two or three days. See May 29, 1852 (" Barberry in bloom, wild pinks, and blue-eyed grass."); June 5, 1850 ("The first of June, when the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons.”);  June 19, 1852 ("Is not this the carnival of the year, when the swamp rose and wild pink are in bloom,  the last stage before blueberries come?")

Ranunculus Purshii, probably earlier in some places, but water high. See May 26, 1855 ("The Ranunculus Purshii in that large pool in the Holden Swamp Woods makes quite a show at a little distance now."); May 28, 1858 ("The Ranunculus Purshii is now abundant and conspicuous in river."): June 6, 1857 ('The Ranunculus Purshii is in some places abundantly out now and quite showy. It must be our largest ranunculus (flower).”)

That little cerastium on the rock at the Island, noticed the 22d . . . seems to be the C. nutans [nodding chickweed]. See  May 6, 1856 ("Cerastium out there under the bank"); May 22, 1856 ("A little clammy hairy cerastium (?) (like a Cerastium viscosum, slender and erect), about three inches high, will open in a day or two on the rock near the bass."); June 5, 1856 ("I must call that cerastium of May 22d C. nutans (?), at least for the present, though . . .Thompson’s “History of Vermont,” says it is not found in New England out of that State.") See also  May 31, 1853 (" The fact that a rare and beautiful flower which we never saw, perhaps never heard of, for which therefore there was no place in our thoughts, may at length be found in our immediate neighborhood, is very suggestive.  The boundaries of the actual are no more fixed and rigid than the elasticity of our imaginations.")

[Thoreau's herbarium includes a physical specimen from "Island Rock” with the label “Cerastium nutans'’ in his own handwriting. See Richard J. Eaton,  A Flora of Concord, 114  ("Very rare. The only known specimen to have been collected in New England east of the Connecticut River except in Connecticut.")]

The red oak is so forward . . .it is more difficult to get a sprig in flower small enough (its leaves) to press. See May 18, 1851 ("The oak leaves of all colors are just expanding, and are more beautiful than most flowers");  May 20, 1852 ("The red oak leaves are very pretty and finely cut, about an inch and three quarters long. Like most young leaves, they are turned  back around the twig, parasol-like."); May 23, 1860 ("The quarter-grown red oak leaves between you and the sun, how yellow-green!")

As I return in the dusk, many nighthawks, with their great spotted wings, are circling low over the river, as the swallows were when I went out. See   June 5, 1854 ("Now, just before sundown, a nighthawk is circling, imp-like, with undulating, irregular flight over the sprout-land on the Cliff Hill, with an occasional squeak and showing the spots on his wings. He does not circle away from this place, and I associate him with two gray eggs somewhere on the ground beneath and a mate there sitting.") June 21, 1856 ("Nighthawks numerously squeak at 5 P. M. and boom  Saw them fly low and touch the water like swallows over Walden. ")

The telegraph says it snowed in Bangor to-day. See August 26, 1854 ("Hear by telegraph that it rains in Portland and New York."); See also November 13, 1851 ("The cattle-train came down last night from Vermont with snow nearly a foot thick upon it. It is as if, in the fall of the year, a swift traveller should come out of the north with snow upon his coat.")  

The hickory leaves are blackened by blowing in the cold wind. See May 31, 1858 ("There were severe frosts on the nights of the 28th and 29th, and now I see the hickories turned quite black")

May 31. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, May 31

Six narrow gray eggs speckled with brown at the end in a ground-bird’s nest.

That cerastium

on the rock at the Island . . .

another rare plant.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The Telegraph says it Snowed in Bangor 

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

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