The river fallen some nine inches notwithstanding the melted snow.

 

April 6.

April 6, 2021

Am surprised to find the river fallen some nine inches notwithstanding the melted snow.

But I read in Blodget that the equivalent in water is about one tenth. Say one ninth in this case, and you have one and one third inches, and this falling on an unfrozen surface, the river at the same time falling from a height, shows why it was no more retarded (far from being absolutely raised).

There is now scarcely a button-ball to be seen on Moore's tree, where there were many a month ago. The balls have not fallen entire, but been decomposed and the seed dispersed gradually, leaving long, stringy stems and their cores dangling still.  It is the storms of February and March that disperse them.

The (are they cinnamon?) sparrows are the finest singers I have heard yet, especially in Monroe's garden, where I see no tree sparrows. Similar but more prolonged and remarkable and loud.

 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 6, 1861

Am surprised to find the river fallen some nine inches notwithstanding the melted snow. See April 6, 1858 ("They with whom I talk do not remember when the river was so low at this season.");April 7, 1858 ("The ground about the outmost willow at my boat's place is high and dry. . . . There is no water anywhere on these meadows now — except the one or two permanent pools — which I cannot walk through in my boots. ") Compare  April 8, 1856 ("River had risen so since yesterday I could not get under the bridge, but was obliged to find a round stick and roll my boat over the road.”) and  April 12, 1856 ("The river . . . was at its height when the snow generally was quite melted here, i. e. yesterday.")

But I read in Blodget that the equivalent in water is about one tenth. See L Blodgett, Climatology of the United States 320 (1857) ("one-tenth of the recorded depth of snow has been taken as its equivalent in water. This rule is sufficiently near to accuracy for any general purpose,")

There is now scarcely a button-ball to be seen on Moore's tree, where there were many a month ago. See February 28. 1861 ("The buttonwood seed has apparently scarcely begun to fall yet — only two balls under one tree, but they loose and broken. [Almost entirely fallen March 7th, leaving the dangling stems and bare receptacles.]") Note, per Wikipedia ("The Buttonball Tree is an exceptionally large American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) located in Sunderland, Massachusetts. The nickname "buttonball" has been used for all like trees")

Skate to Bound Rock.

February 15.

As in the expression of moral truths we admire any closeness to the physical fact which in all language is the symbol of the spiritual, so, finally, when natural objects are described, it is an advantage if words derived originally from nature, it is true, but which have been turned (tropes) from their primary signification to a moral sense, are used, i. e., if the object is personified. 

The one who loves and understands a thing the best will incline to use the personal pronouns in speaking of it. To him there is no neuter gender. Many of the words of the old naturalists were in this sense doubly tropes. 

P. M. — About 30° at 2 P. M. 

Skated to Bound Rock. 

Frequently, the same night that it first freezes, or perhaps in the morning, the ice over the thread of the river will be puffed up for many rods a foot or more, evidently by expanding vapors beneath, and also over the channel of some warm spring emptying in. Also at Walden where it is very shallow or the ice rests on a bar between the pond and a bay. 

When lately the open parts of the river froze more or less in the night after that windy day, they froze by stages, as it were, many feet wide, and the water dashed and froze against the edge of each successive strip of ice, leaving so many parallel ridges. 

The river is rapidly falling, is more than a foot lower than it was a few days ago, so that there is an ice-belt left where the bank is steep, and on this I skate in many places; in others the ice slants from the shore for a rod or two to the water; and on the meadows for the most part there is no water under the ice, and it accordingly rumbles loudly as I go over it, and I rise and fall as I pass over hillocks or hollows.

From the pond to Lee's Bridge I skated so swiftly before the wind, that I thought it was calm, for I kept pace with it, but when I turned about I found that quite a gale was blowing. 

Occasionally one of those puffs (making a pent-roof of ice) runs at right angles across the river where there is no spring or stream emptying in. A crack may have started it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 15, 1860

February 14. February 15. February 16

It is an advantage if words derived originally from nature, it is true, but which have been turned (tropes) from their primary signification to a moral sense, are used, i. e., if the object is personified. See February 23, 1860 ("Ultimately the moral is all in all, and we do not mind it if inferior truth is sacrificed to superior, as when the moralist fables and makes animals speak and act like men. It must be warm, moist, incarnated, — have been breathed on at least. A man has not seen a thing who has not felt it.");  May 10, 1853 ("He is the richest who has most use for nature as raw material of tropes and symbols with which to describe his life.  . . I pray for such inward experience as will make nature significant."); May 6, 1854 ("There is no such thing as pure objective observation. Your observation, to be interesting, i. e. to be significant, must be subjective.")

Bound Rock.  See A Week on the Concord and Merrimak Rivers ("Bound Rock, where four towns bound on a rock in the river, Lincoln, Wayland, Sudbury, Concord.")

The river is rapidly falling, is more than a foot lower than it was a few days ago, so that there is an ice-belt left where the bank is steep, and on this I skate in many places. See February 14, 1859 ("The ice-belt which I still see along the steep bank of the Assabet is now some three weeks old."); February 15, 1859 ("there are two of those ice-belts, a narrower and thinner one about twenty inches below the first, often connected with it by icicles at the edge. Thus each rise was recorded.") See also January 1, 1857 ("I observe a shelf of ice — what arctic voyagers call the ice-belt or ice-foot (which they see on a very great scale sledging upon it) — adhering to the walls and banks at various heights, the river having fallen nearly two feet since it first froze"); January 16, 1857("As I pass the Island (Egg Rock), I notice the ice-foot adhering to the rock about two feet above the surface of the ice generally. . . . The same phenomena, no doubt, on a much larger scale occur at the north.”); February 1, 1859 ("Also an ice-belt adheres to the steep shores . . .and you see where this hard and thick ice has bent under its own weight.")

From the pond to Lee's Bridge I skated so swiftly before the wind. See January 14, 1855 ("Skate to Baker Farm with a rapidity which astonished myself, before the wind, feeling . . . like a new creature, a deer, perhaps, moving at this rate. . . . There was I, and there, and there. I judged that in a quarter of an hour I was three and a half miles from home without having made any particular exertion.")

I mark a willow eight feet above summer level.

September 16. 

7 a.m. — River fallen one and a half inches. Is three feet and seven eighths of an inch above summer level, i. e. at notch on tree. 

I mark a willow eight feet above summer level.

See no zizania seed ripe, or black, yet, but almost all is fallen.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 16, 1860

River fallen one and a half inches. Is three feet and seven eighths of an inch above summer level, i. e. at notch on tree. See June 23, 1860 ("At 7 p. m. the river is fifteen and three fourths inches above summer level.") September 13, 1860 ("The river this morning, about 7 A.M., is already twenty-eight and a half inches above summer level, and more than twenty inches of this is owing to the rain of yesterday and last night!! . . . At evening the river is five inches higher than in the morning.");  September 14, 1860 ("A. M. — River still rising; at 4 p. m. one and an eighth inches higher than in morning."); September 15, 1860 ("In morning river is three feet two and a half plus inches above summer level. Thus it reached its height the third day after the rain; had risen on the morning of the third day about thirty inches on account of the rain of one day (the 12th)."); September 17, 1860 ("6.30 a. m. — River thirty-four and an eighth above summer level, or fallen about four inches since evening of 15th."); September 19, 1860 (" 4 p. m. — River fallen about one foot."); September 27, 1860 ("Sept. 27. A. M. —. River about thirty-five inches above summer level, and goes no higher this time.")

See no zizania seed ripe, or black, yet, but almost all is fallen. See September 4, 1852 ("The zizania ripe, shining black, cylindrical kernels, five eighths of an inch long."); September 25, 1858 ("The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it?")

What was that large rather grayish duck on Fair Haven Pond this afternoon?

March 26.

March 26, 2018

P. M. — To Conantum via Cardinal Shore and boat.

 The river has gone down considerably, but the rain of yesterday and to-day has checked its fall somewhat. 

Much earth has been washed away from the roots of grasses and weeds along the banks of the river, and many of those pretty little bodkin bulbs are exposed and so transported to new localities. This seems to be the way in which they are spread. 

I see many smallish ants on the red carcass of a musquash just skinned and lying on the bank, cold and wet as the weather is. They love this animal food. 

On the top of the hill at Lee's Cliff much wintergreen has been eaten; at least a great many leaves are lying loose, strewn about. 

I find washed up on the (Cardinal) shore a little bream about an inch and an eighth long, very much like those found at Walden last fall. It has about seven transverse bars, a similar dorsal fin, a reddish-copper iris, with the black vertical dash through the eye. I think it must be one of the common breams of the river, — though I see only the black spot on the operculum and not any red one, — and apparently all the young are thus striped (?) . 

What was that large rather grayish duck on Fair Haven Pond this afternoon? It was far off. Was it a last year's male sheldrake, or a female, or another?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 26, 1859

Much earth has been washed away from the roots of grasses and weeds along the banks of the river, and many of those pretty little bodkin bulbs are exposed and so transported to new localities. See April 22, 1856 ("What is that little bodkin-shaped bulb which I found washed up on the edge of the meadow, white with a few small greenish rounded leafets? "); April 16, 1858 ("The bodkin-like bulb, . . . is probably the water-purslane. I see it floating free and sending out many rootlets, on pools and ditches. In this way it spreads itself.")

On the top of the hill at Lee's Cliff much wintergreen has been eaten. See November 16, 1858 (“Methinks the wintergreen, pipsissewa, is our handsomest evergreen, so liquid glossy green and dispersed almost all over the woods.”); November 19, 1850 ("Now that the grass is withered and the leaves are withered or fallen, it begins to appear what is evergreen the partridge-berry and checkerberry, and winter-green leaves even, are more conspicuous.”); December 23, 1855 (“At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical(?) leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, . . . checkerberry, wintergreen, . . .”); February 16, 1855 (“I see where probably rabbits have nibbled of the leaves of the Wintergreen.”); see also July 3, 1852 ("The Chimaphila umbellata, wintergreen, must have been in blossom some time.”)

A little bream about an inch and an eighth long, very much like those found at Walden last fall.  See November 26, 1858 (" a great many minnows about one inch long . . . shaped like bream, but had the transverse bars of perch. ... Yet, from their form and single dorsal fin, I think they are breams. Are they not a new species? "); November 27, 1858 ("They have about seven transverse dark bars, a vertical dark mark under eye, and a dark spot on edge of operculum. "); December 3, 1858 ("The largest of the four breams (vide November 26th) . . . Operculums tinged, streaked, and spotted with golden, coppery, greenish, and violet reflections. A vertical dark mark or line, corresponding to the stripes, through the eye. Iris copper-color or darker. ")

I see a female marsh hawk sailing and hunting over Potter's Swamp.

March 21. 

6 a. m. — The water has fairly begun to fall. 

It was at its height the 17th; fell a little — two or three inches — the morning of the 18th. On the - 18th it rained very considerably all day, which would ordinarily have raised the river a foot, or perhaps two, but, the wind being very strong from the southwest, it only prevented its falling any more until this morning. It did not probably raise it more than two inches. 

Of course, there could not have been much melted snow and ice to be added to the last rain about the sources of the river, since they are considerably further south, where the ground must have been much more bare than here.

A crow blackbird. 

P. M. — Sail to Fair Haven Pond. A strong northwest wind. 

Draw my boat over the road on a roller. Raising a stone for ballast from the south side of the railroad causeway, where it is quite sunny and warm, I find the undersides very densely covered with little ants, all stirring and evidently ready to come out, if some have not already. They feel the heat through the stone on the ground. 

It blowed very smartly in gusts, and my boat scud along this way and that, not minding its helm much, as if it were lifted partly out of water. I went from point to point as quickly as you could say "here" and "there."

I see a female marsh hawk sailing and hunting over Potter's Swamp. I not only see the white rump but the very peculiar crescent-shaped curve of its wings. 

Fair Haven Pond is only two thirds open. 

The east end is frozen still, and the body of the ice has drifted in to shore a rod or two, before the northwest wind, and its edge crumbled against the trees. 

I see, on a yellow lily root washed up, leaf-buds grown five or six inches, or even seven or eight, with the stems. 

Everywhere for several days the alder catkins have dangled long and loose, the most alive apparently of any tree. They seem to welcome the water which half covers them. 

The willow catkins are also very conspicuous, in silvery masses rising above the flood. 

I see several white pine cones in the path by Wheildon's which appear to have fallen in the late strong winds, but perhaps the ice in the winter took them off. Others still hold on. 

From the evening of March 18th to this, the evening of the 21st, we have had uninterrupted strong wind, — till the evening of the 19th very strong south west wind, then and since northwest, — three days of strong wind.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 21, 1859


I see a female marsh hawk. . I not only see the white rump but the very peculiar crescent-shaped curve of its wings. See  March 29, 1854 ("See two marsh hawks, white on rump");  April 23, 1855 ("See a frog hawk beating the bushes regularly. What a peculiarly formed wing! It should be called the kite. Its wings are very narrow and pointed, and its form in front is a remarkable curve, and its body is not heavy . . I have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk? . . . probably female hen-harrier [i. e. marsh hawk]");. May 1, 1855 (" What I have called the frog hawk is probably the male hen-harrier, . . .MacGillivray . . .says . . . the large brown bird with white rump is the female"); March 17, 1860 ("Was not that a marsh hawk, a slate-colored one which I saw flying over Walden Wood with long, slender, curving wings, with a diving, zigzag flight? [No doubt it was, for I see another, a brown one, the 19th.]”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

Fair Haven Pond is only two thirds open. See  March 22, 1855 ("I cross Fair Haven Pond, including the river, on the ice, and probably can for three or four days yet. "); March 22, 1854 ("Fair Haven still covered and frozen anew in part.");   March 20, 1858 ("Fair Haven is still closed."); March 26, 1860 ("Fair Haven Pond may be open by the 20th of March, as this year, or not till April 13 as in '56")

Everywhere for several days the alder catkins have dangled long and loose, the most alive apparently of any tree See March 20, 1853 ("Those alder catkins on the west side of Walden tremble and undulate in the wind, they are so relaxed and ready to bloom, — the most forward blossom-buds.");  March 22, 1853 ("The very earliest alder is in bloom and sheds its pollen. I detect a few catkins at a distance by their distinct yellowish color. This the first native flower"); March 23, 1853 ("The alder catkins, just burst open, are prettily marked spirally by streaks of yellow, contrasting with alternate rows of rich reddish-brown scales, which make one revolution in the length of the catkin.")

The willow catkins are also very conspicuous, in silvery masses rising above the flood. See March 22, 1854 ("The now silvery willow catkins shine along the shore over the cold water."); March 22, 1856 ("The down of willow catkins in very warm places has in almost every case peeped out an eighth of an inch, generally over the whole willow"); March 20, 1858 (“How handsome the willow catkins! Those wonderfully bright silvery buttons, so regularly disposed in oval schools in the air, or, if you please, along the seams which their twigs make, in all degrees of forwardness, from the faintest, tiniest speck of silver, just peeping from beneath the black scales, to lusty pussies which have thrown off their scaly coats and show some redness at base on a close inspection.”);  March 20,1859. ("When I get opposite the end of the willow-row, the sun comes out and they are very handsome, like a rosette, pale-tawny or fawn-colored at base and a rich yellow or orange yellow in the upper three or four feet.  This is, methinks, the brightest object in the landscape these days.")

I see several white pine cones in the path by Wheildon's which appear to have fallen in the late strong winds. See note to March 5, 1860 ("White pine cones half fallen.")

Pine cones in the path

fallen in the late strong winds –

others still hold on.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A marsh hawk sailing over Potter's Swamp

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-590321

An ice-belt adheres to the steep shores.

February 1

February 1, 2019

P. M.—Up Assabet. 

The river having suddenly gone down since the freshet, I see cakes of ice eight or ten feet across left two feet high or more above the banks, frozen to four or five maples or oaks. Indeed, each shore is lined with them, where wooded, a continuous row attached to alders, maples, swamp white oaks, etc., which grow through them or against their edges. 

They are somewhat like tables of a picnic party or a muster-field dinner. Rustic tables and seats. Sometimes a little inclined, having settled on one side. 

Also an ice-belt adheres to the steep shores, and the rain and melted snow, running down, has drifted over the edge of it, forming abundant and pretty icicles, and you see where this hard and thick ice has bent under its own weight. 

As for large oak leaves now, I think there is not much difference between the white and scarlet oaks; then come black, red, and swamp white, but the last one has scarcely any.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 1, 1859

An ice-belt adheres to the steep shores.  See January 1, 1857 ("I observe a shelf of ice . . . adhering to the walls and banks at various heights, the river having fallen nearly two feet since it first froze."); February 14, 1859 ("Some of the belt itself, where three inches thick, has bent downward eighteen inches at four or five feet from the bank")

An ice-belt adheres

to the steep shores – thick ice bent

under its own weight.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, An ice-belt adheres to the steep shores.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

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

Rise and fall of the river under the ice. II.

January 25. 

The river has gone down about eight inches, and the ice still adhering to the shore all about the meadows slants downward for some four or five feet till it meets the water, and it is there cracked, often letting the water up to overflow it, so that it is hard to get off and on in some places.

That channel ice of the 22d, lifted up, looks thin, thus:

The edges of the outside portions are more lifted up now, apparently by the weight of the water on them. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 25, 1859



See February 1, 1855 ("Apparently the thin recent ice of the night, which connects the main body with the shore, bends and breaks with the rising of the mass")

An old stump by the wall.

November 22

In surveying Mr. Bigelow’s wood-lot to day I found at the northeasterly angle what in the deed from the Thayers in ’38 was called “an old stump by the wall.” It is still quite plain and may last twenty years longer. It is oak. 

This is quite a pleasant day, but hardly amounting to Indian summer. 

I see swarms of large mosquito-like insects dancing in the garden. They may be a large kind of Tipulidoe. Had slender ringed abdomens and no plumes. 

The river is quite low, — about as low as it has been, for it has not been very low. 

About the first of November a wild pig from the West, said to weigh three hundred pounds, jumped out of a car at the depot and made for the woods. The owner had to give up the chase at once, not to lose his passage, while some railroad employees pursued the pig even into the woods a mile and a half off, but there the pig turned and pursued them so resolutely that they ran for their lives and one climbed a tree. The next day being Sunday, they turned out in force with a gun and a large mastiff, but still the pig had the best of it, — fairly frightened the men by his fierce charges, — and the dog was so wearied and injured by the pig that the men were obliged to carry him in their arms. The pig stood it better than the dog. Ran between the gun man’s legs, threw him over, and hurt his shoulder, though pierced in many places by a pitchfork. At the last accounts, he had been driven or baited into a barn in Lincoln, but no one durst enter, and they were preparing to shoot him. Such pork might be called venison.[Caught him at last in a snare, and so conveyed him to Brighton.]

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 22, 1858

I see swarms of large mosquito-like insects dancing in the garden. See October 20, 1858 (“It is so warm that even the tipulidae appear to prefer the shade. There they continue their dance, balancing to partners, as it seems, and by a fine hum remind me of summer still, when now the air generally is rather empty of insect sounds.”)

A wild pig from the Westjumped out of a car at the depot and made for the woods. See February 15, 1857 (“How to catch a pig”)

Nature is confident.

October 12. 

October 12, 2018

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Most exposed button-bushes and black willows are two thirds bare, and the leaves which remain on the former are for the most part brown and shrivelled. The balls stand out bare, ruddy or brown. The coarse grass of the riverside (Phalaris ?) is bleached as white as corn. 

The Cornus sericea begins to fall, though some of it is green; and the C. florida at Island shows some scarlet tints, but it is not much exposed. I believe that this was quite showy at Perth Amboy. 

There are many maple, birch, etc., leaves on the Assabet, in stiller places along the shore, but not yet a leaf harvest. Many swamp white oaks look crisp and brown. 

I land at Pinxter Swamp. The leaves of the azaleas are falling, mostly fallen, and revealing the large blossom-buds, so prepared are they for another year. 

With man all is uncertainty. He does not confidently look forward to another spring. But examine the root of the  savory-leaved aster, and you will find the new shoots, fair purple shoots, which are to curve upward and bear the next year’s flowers, already grown half an inch or more in earth. Nature is confident. 

The river is lower than before this year, or at least since spring, yet not remarkably low, and meadows and pools generally are drier. 

The oak leaves generally are duller than usual this year. I think it must be that they are killed by frost before they are ripe. 

Some small sugar maples are still as fair as ever. You will often see one, large or small, a brilliant and almost uniform scarlet, while another close to it will be perfectly green. 

The Osmunda regalis and some of the small or middle-sized ferns, not evergreens, in and about the swamps, are generally brown and withered, though with green ones intermixed. They are still, however, interesting, with their pale brown or cinnamon-color and decaying scent. 

Hickories are for the most part being rapidly browned and crisp. 

Of the oaks, the white is apparently the most generally red at present. I see a scarlet oak still quite green.

Brakes are fallen in the pastures. They lie flat, still attached to the ground by their stems, and in sandy places they blow about these and describe distinct and perfect circles there. The now fallen dark-brown brake lies on or across the old brake, which fell last year and is quite gray but remarkably conspicuous still. They have fallen in their ranks, as they stood, and lie as it were with a winding-sheet about them. 

Young sweet-fern, where it had been burned in the spring, is quite green. 

Exposed clethra is crisp and brown. 

Some bass trees are quite bare, others but partly. 

The hop hornbeam is in color and falling like the elm. 

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. 

I land at Pinxter Swamp. The leaves of the azaleas are falling, mostly fallen, and revealing the large blossom-buds, so prepared are they for another year. 

With man all is uncertainty. He does not confidently look forward to another spring. But examine the root of the savory-leaved aster, and you will find the new shoots, fair purple shoots, which are to curve upward and bear the next year's flowers, already grown half an inch or more in earth. Nature is confident. 

I see a squirrel-nest of leaves, made now before the leaves are fallen. 

I have heard of judges, accidentally met at an evening party, discussing the efficacy of the laws and courts, and deciding that, with the aid of the jury system, “substantial justice was done.” But taking those cases in which honest men refrain from going to law, together with those in which men, honest and dishonest, do go to law, I think that the law is really a “humbug,” and a benefit principally to the lawyers.

This town has made a law recently against cattle going at large, and assigned a penalty of five dollars. I am troubled by an Irish neighbor’s cow and horse, and have threatened to have them put in the pound. But a lawyer tells me that these town laws are hard to put through, there are so many quibbles. He never knew the complainant to get his case if the defendant were a-mind to contend. However, the cattle were kept out several days, till a Sunday came, and then they were all in my grounds again, as I heard, but all my neighbors tell me that I cannot have them impounded on that day. Indeed, I observe that very many of my neighbors do for this reason regularly turn their cattle loose on Sundays. 

The judges may discuss the question of the courts and law over their nuts and raisins, and mumble forth the decision that “substantial justice is done,” but I must believe they mean that they do really get paid a “substantial” salary.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 12, 1858


The large blossom-buds, so prepared are they for another year. See January 10, 1856 ("the great yellow and red forward-looking buds of the azalea")

Examine the root of the savory-leaved aster, and you will find the new shoots, fair purple shoots, which are to curve upward and bear the next year's flowers, already grown half an inch or more in earth.  See October 10, 1858 ("Pulling up some Diplopappus linariifolius, now done, I find many bright-purple shoots, a half to three quarters of an inch long, freshly put forth underground and ready to turn upward and form new plants in the spring.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Savory-leaved aster

Some bass trees are quite bare. See October 4, 1858 ("The bass is in the prime of its change, a mass of yellow."); October 9, 1853 ("The birch is yellow; the black willow brown; the elms sere, brown, and thin; the bass bare.");    October 13, 1855 ("The maples now stand like smoke along the meadows. The bass is bare"); October 18, 1857 ("The bass and the black ash are completely bare; how long?"); October 19, 1856 ("The bass has lost, apparently, more than half its leaves.")October 22, 1854 ("Bass trees are bare.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

The Osmunda regalis . . . in and about the swamps, are generally brown and withered.  See   October 11, 1857 ("The osmunda ferns are generally withered and brown except where very much protected from frost. ")

OCTOBER 12, 2018

The farmers digging potatoes on shore pause a moment to watch my sail and bending mast.

September 27. 

P. M. — By boat to Fair Haven Pond. Wind northeast. Sail most of the way. 

The river has gone down from its height on the 20th, and is now some eighteen inches lower, or within its banks. The front rank polygonum is uncovered and in bloom still, but its leaves generally turned a dull red. The P. hydropiperoides is apparently past prime. The P. amphibium spikes still in prime. 

When close to the bushes you do not notice any mark of the recent high water, but at a little distance you see a perfectly level line on the button-bushes and willows, about eighteen inches above the present surface, it being all dark below and warm sunny yellow above. The leaves that have been immersed are generally fallen or withered. Though the bushes may be loose and open, this water line is so perfectly level that it appears continuous. 

The farmers digging potatoes on shore pause a moment to watch my sail and bending mast. 

It is pleasant to see your mast bend in these safe waters. It is rare that the wind is so northeast that I can sail well from the railroad bridge to Clamshell Hill, as to-day.

Red maples now fairly glow along the shore. They vary from yellow to a peculiar crimson which is more red than common crimson. But these particular trees soon fade. It is the first blush which is the purest. 

See men raking cranberries now, or far away squatting in the meadows, where they are picking them. 

Grapes have begun to shrivel on their stems. They drop off on the slightest touch, and if they fall into the water are lost, going to the bottom. You see the grape leaves touched with frost curled up and looking crisp on their edges. 

The fisherman Haynes thinks that the large flock of peetweet-like birds which I saw on the meadow one fall were what he calls “black-backs.” 

What are those little birds in flocks in the garden and on the peach trees these mornings, about size of chip-birds, without distinct chestnut crowns? 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 27, 1858

The farmers digging potatoes on shore pause a moment to watch my sail and bending mast.See May 19, 1856 ("A traveller riding along the highway is watching my sail while he hums a tune.") Compare September 21, 1859 ("The farmers on all sides are digging their potatoes, so prone to their work that they do not see me going across lots.")

Red maples now fairly glow along the shore. See September 27, 1851 ("The maples by the riverside look very green yet, have not begun to blush, nor are the leaves touched by frost. Not so on the uplands"); 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 ("Small red maples in low ground have fairly begun to burn for a week.")

The river is low. The meadows dry.

April 7. 

A cold and gusty, blustering day. We put on greatcoats again. 

April 7, 2018

P. M. — Down the Great Meadows. 

The river is low, even for summer. The ground about the outmost willow at my boat's place is high and dry. I cross the meadows and step across the Mill Brook near Mrs. Ripley's. 

You hear no stertorous sounds of the Rana halecina this cold and blustering day, unless a few when you go close to their breeding places and listen attentively. Scarcely one has his head out of water, though I see many at the bottom. I wear india-rubber boots and wade through the shallow water where they were found. 

In a shallow sheet of water on the meadow, with a grassy bottom, the spawn will commonly all be collected in one or two parcels in the deepest part, if it is generally less than eight or ten inches deep, to be prepared for a further fall. You will also find a little here and there in weedy ditches in the meadow. One of the first-named parcels will consist of even a hundred separate deposits about three or four inches in diameter crowded together. 

The frogs are most numerous to-day about and beneath the spawn. 

Each little mass of ova is pretty firmly attached to the stubble, – not accidentally,  but designedly and effectually, — and when you pull it off, leaves some of the jelly adhering to the stubble. If the mass is large it will run out of your hand this side or that, like a liquid, or as if it had life, — like “sun squall.” It is not injured by any ordinary agitation of the water, but the mass adheres well together. It bears being carried any distance in a pail. When dropped into the water again, it falls wrong side up, showing the white sides of the cores or yolks (?). 

On the Great Meadows, I stand close by two coupled. The male is very much the smallest, an inch, at least, the shortest, and much brighter-colored. The line, or “halo” (?), or margin about its blotches is a distinct yellow or greenish yellow. The female has a distended paunch full of spawn. 

Snipes rise two or three times as I go over the meadow. 

The remarkable spawn of the 3d, just below the Holt (?), does not show its cylindrical form so well as before; appears to have been broken up considerably, perhaps by creatures feeding on it. 

I see the remains of a duck which has died on this meadow, and the southeast edge of the meadow is strewn with the feathers of the water-fowl that plumed themselves here before the water went down. 

There is no water anywhere on these meadows now — except the one or two permanent pools — which I cannot walk through in my boots. 

Where they have been digging mud the past winter in Beck Stow's Swamp, I perceive that the crust, for one foot deep at least, consists chiefly, or perhaps half of it, — the rest mainly sphagnum, - of the dead and fallen stems of water andromeda which have accumulated in course of time. 

I brought home the above two kinds of spawn in a pail. Putting some of the Rana halecina spawn in a tumbler of water, I cannot see the gelatinous part, but only the dark or white cores, which are kept asunder by it at regular intervals. 

The other (probably fish) spawn is seen to be arranged in perfect hexagons; i. e., the ova so impinge on each other; but where there is a vent or free side, it is a regular arc of a circle. Is not this the form that spheres pressing on each other equally on all sides assume? I see the embryo, already fish-like (?), curved round the yolk, with a microscope.

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

The river is low, even for summer. See April 6, 1858 ("They with whom I talk do not remember when the river was so low at this season.") Compare April 8, 1856 ("River had risen so since yesterday I could not get under the bridge, but was obliged to find a round stick and roll my boat over the road.”)

You hear no stertorous sounds of the Rana halecina this cold and blustering day. Compare April 3, 1858 (" This might be called the Day of the Snoring Frogs, or the Awakening of the Meadows.") and see note to April 7, 1860 ("This is the Rana halecina day, — awakening of the meadows. — though not very warm.")

I see the embryo, already fish-like (?), curved round the yolk, with a microscope. See April 3, 1858 ("When returning , we discovered , on the south side of the river , just at the old crossing - place from the Great Meadows , north of the ludwigia pool , a curious kind of spawn . It was white , each ovum about as big as a robin - shot or larger , with mostly a very minute white core , no black core , and these were agglutinated together in the form of zigzag hollow cylinders , two or three inches in di ameter and one or two feet long"); April 14, 1858 ("with his microscope I see the heart beating in the embryo fish and the circulations distinctly along the body."); April 16, 1858 ("For more than a week the embryos have been conspicuously active, hardly still enough to be observed with a microscope. Their tails, eyes, pectoral fins, etc., were early developed and conspicuous. They keep up a regular jerking motion as they lie curved in the egg,. . . ( Some are still in the egg on the 18th . )")

How herbaceous and shrubby plants have suffered the past very mild but open winter.

April 6.

April 6, 2018

A moist, foggy, and very slightly drizzly morning.

 It has been pretty foggy for several mornings. This makes the banks look suddenly greener, apparently making the green blades more prominent and more vividly green than before, prevailing over the withered ones.

P. M. – Ride to Lee’s Cliff and to Second Division Brook. 

It begins to grow cold about noon, after a week or more of generally warm and pleasant weather. 

They with whom I talk do not remember when the river was so low at this season. The top of the bathing-rock, above the island in the Main Branch, was more than a foot out of water on the 3d, and the river has been falling since.

On examining the buds of the elm at Helianthus Bank, I find it is not the slippery elm, and therefore I know but one. 

At Lee's Cliff I find no saxifrage in bloom above the rock, on account of the ground having been so exposed the past exceedingly mild winter, and no Ranunculus fascicularis anywhere there, but on a few small warm shelves under the rocks the saxifrage makes already a pretty white edging along the edge of the grass sod [?] on the rocks; has got up three or four inches, and may have been out four or five days. 

I also notice one columbine, which may bloom in a week if it is pleasant weather. 

The Ulmus Americana is apparently just out here, or possibly yesterday. The U. fulva not yet, of course. The large rusty blossom-buds of the last have been extensively eaten and mutilated, probably by birds, leaving on the branches which I examine mostly mere shells. 

I see, in [one] or two places in low ground, elder started half an inch, before any other shrub or tree. The Turritis stricta is four to six inches high.

 No mouse-ear there yet.

 I hear hylas in full blast 2.30 P. M.

 It is remarkable how much herbaceous and shrubby plants, some which are decidedly evergreen, have suffered the past very mild but open winter on account of the ground being bare. Accordingly the saxifrage and crowfoot are so backward, notwithstanding the warmth of the last ten days. Perhaps they want more moisture, too. 

The asplenium ferns of both species are very generally perfectly withered and shrivelled, and in exposed places on hills the checkerberry has not proved an evergreen, but is completely withered and a dead-leaf color. I do not remember when it has suffered so much. Such plants require to be covered with snow to protect them.

At Second Division, the Caltha palustris, half a dozen well out. The earliest may have been a day or two. 

The frost is but just coming out in cold wood-paths on the north sides of hills, which makes it very muddy, there only. 

Returned by the Dugan Desert and stopped at the mill there to get the aspen flowers. The very earliest aspens, such as grow in warm exposures on the south sides of hills or woods, have begun to be effete. Others are not yet out. 

Talked a moment with two little Irish (?) boys, eight or ten years old, that were playing in the brook by the mill. Saw one catch a minnow. I asked him if he used a hook. He said no, it was a “dully-chunk,” or some such word. “Dully what?” [I] asked. “Yes, dully,” said he, and he would not venture to repeat the whole word again. It was a small horsehair slip noose at the end of a willow stick four feet long. The horsehair was twisted two or three together. He passed this over the fish slowly and then jerked him out, the noose slipping and holding him. It seems they are sometimes made with wire to catch trout. I asked him to let me see the fish he had caught. It was a little pickerel five inches long, and appeared to me strange, being transversely barred, and reminded me of the Wrentham pond pickerel; but I could not re member surely whether this was the rule or the exception; but when I got home I found that this was the one which Storer does not name nor describe, but only had heard of. Is it not the brook pickerel? Asking what other fish he had caught, he said a pike. “That,” said I, “is a large pickerel.” He said it had “a long, long neb like a duck’s bill.” 

It rapidly grows cold and blustering.

April 6, 1858 (“The asplenium ferns of both species are very generally perfectly withered and shrivelled.”)

H. D. Thoreau, Journal  April 6, 1858

On a few small warm shelves under the rocks the saxifrage may have been out four or five days. See April 7, 1855 ("The saxifrage on the rocks will apparently open in two days; it shows some white. ");  April 10, 1855("As for the saxifrage, when I had given it up for to-day, having, after a long search in the warmest clefts and recesses, found only three or four buds which showed some white, I at length, on a still warmer shelf, found one flower partly expanded, and its common peduncle had shot up an inch."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Saxifrage in Spring (Saxifraga vernalis).

I also notice one columbine, which may bloom in a week if it is pleasant weather. .The Turritis stricta is four to six inches high. The saxifrage and crowfoot are so backward, notwithstanding the warmth of the last ten days.  See April 2, 1856 ("Cross Fair Haven Pond to Lee’s Cliff. The crowfoot and saxifrage seem remarkably backward; no growth as yet. . . .. The columbine, with its purple leaves, has grown five inches, and one is flower-budded, apparently nearer to flower than anything there. Turritis stricta very forward, four inches high.");  April 18, 1856 ("Common saxifrage and also early sedge I am surprised to find abundantly out—both—considering their backwardness April 2d. Both must have been out some, i. e. four or five, days half-way down the face of the ledge. Crowfoot, apparently two or three days. . . . Turritis stricta. Columbine, and already eaten by bees. Some with a hole in the side"); April 19, 1858 ("Viola ovata on bank above Lee's Cliff. Edith Emerson found them there yesterday; also columbines and the early potentilla April 13th !!!")

At Second Division, the Caltha palustris, half a dozen well out. See March 30, 1856 ("[I]n this warm recess at the head of the meadow, though the rest of the meadow is covered with snow a foot or more in depth, I am surprised to see . . . the Caltha palustris bud, which shows yellowish; and the golden saxifrage, green and abundant")

The very earliest aspens have begun to be effete. Others are not yet out. See April 9, 1856 ("Early aspen catkins have curved downward an inch, and began to shed pollen apparently yesterday.”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Aspens

This was the one which Storer does not name nor describe, but only had heard of. Is it not the brook pickerel? See May 27, 1858 ("De Kay describes the Esox fasciatus, which is apparently mine of May 11th."); February 23, 1859 ("I see, just caught in the pond, a brook pickerel which, though it has no transverse bars, but a much finer and slighter reticulation than the common, is very distinct from it in the length and form of the snout. This is much shorter and broader as you look down on it.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pickerel

April 6, 2018