The river, now that it is so clear and sunny, is better than any aquarium

August 8. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

I perceive that rocks on the bottom stretch across from Mantatuket Point to the Island, and probably make the ancient core of the shoals and islands, and the river has cut through above and between them and made them islands, just as it at high water cuts off and makes an island of Mantatuket Rock itself; i.e., the shallows below the junction are to be considered as the point of the hill, at least the rocky portion of them. 

I find the same curious eggs (which I saw at the Fordway on the 22d) on the rocks and trees on the Assabet, always on the upright, or steep, sides of rocks in the water or on bare-barked (or perhaps denuded of bark) trees on the edge of the river and overhanging it. Are they to be found up the main stream? They are not yet hatched.

Peetweets take their flight over the water, several together, apparently the old with their young now grown, the former (?) uttering a peculiarly soft rippling call. That is, it is not now a sharp, ringing note. 

The river, now that it is so clear and sunny, is better than any aquarium. Standing up and pushing gently up the stream, or floating yet more quietly down it, I can, in some places, see the secrets of half the river and its inhabitants,

• the common and familiar bream with the dusty light reflected from its fins,
•  the vigorous looking perch, tiger-like among fishes (I notice that many of the perch are poised head downward, peeping under the rocks), 
• the motionless pickerel with reticulated back and sides, as it were the seed-vessel of a water-plant, eyes set far back. 

It is an enchanter’s wand ready to surprise you with life. 

The weeds are as indispensable to the fishes as woods and shrubbery to us. I saw a perch conceal himself from my sight under a tuft of weeds at the bottom not much wider than its own length. That potamogeton (is it P. Robbinsii?) growing in dense beds under water, all immersed in shallow places, like a bed of brown and muddy ostrich-feathers, alternating with darker beds of Bidens Beckii, which show but a particle of green above the surface (I think of the latter in the South Branch), —what concealment these afford to turtles, frogs, fishes, etc.! The potamogetons are so thick in some places in the main stream that a frog might hop quite across the river on them without getting in over his head. 

Rice has had a little experience once in pushing a canal-boat up Concord River. Says this was the way they used to get the boat off a rock when by chance it had got on to one. If it had run quite on, so that the rock was partly under the main bottom of the boat, they let the boat swing round to one side and placed a stout stake underneath, a little aslant, with one end on the bottom of the river and the other ready to catch the bows of the boat, and while one held it, perhaps, the other pushed the boat round again with all his force, and so drove it on to the stake and lifted it up above the rock, and so it floated off.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 8, 1859

Rocks on the bottom stretch across from Mantatuket Point to the Island. See March 17, 1859; ("Mantatuket Rock, commonly a rocky peninsula with a low or swampy neck and all covered with wood . . .is now a small rocky island")

The river, now that it is so clear and sunny, is better than any aquarium. See August 8, 1854 ("This is a day of sunny water.. . .I look down a rod and see distinctly the fishes and the bottom."); see also July 18, 1854 ("On all sides, as I float along, the recesses of the water and the bottom are unusually revealed, and I see the fishes and weeds and shells. I look down into the sunny water. "); July 30, 1856 ("The water is suddenly clear.”); July 28, 1859 ("The season has now arrived when I begin to see further into the water . . “);. July 27, 1860 ("The water has begun to be clear and sunny, revealing the fishes and countless minnows of all sizes and colors”).

Peetweets the old with their young now grown, the former uttering a peculiarly soft rippling call. That is, it is not now a sharp, ringing note. See June 21, 1855 ("Peetweets make quite a noise calling to their young with alarm."); July 2, 1860 ("the alarm note of the peetweets, concerned about their young."); July 6, 1856 ("hear the distressed or anxious peet of a peetweet, and see it hovering over its young, half grown"); August 22, 1853 ("A peetweet flew along the shore and uttered its peculiar note")

This was the way they used to get the boat off a rock. Compare July 18, 1859 ("If you get on to a rock in the river, rock the boat, while you keep steadily pushing, and thus there will be moments when the boat does not rest on the rock at all, and you will rapidly get it off.")

August 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 8

 

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 © 2009-2021

At the bathing-place.

August 9.

River is risen and fuller, and the weeds at bathing-place washed away somewhat. Fall to them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 9, 1855

Fall to them. ... See September 24, 1854 (“These are the stages in the river fall... The water begins to be clear of weeds”)

August 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 9

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 © 2009-2021

A sudden and conspicuous fall aspect to the scenery of the river.

September 24

September 24, 2014

6 A. M. — To Hill. Low fog-like veil on meadows. On the large sassafras trees on the hill I see many of the handsome red club-shaped pedicels left, with their empty cups which have held fruit; and I see one or two elliptical but still green berries. Apparently the rest have ripened and fallen or been gathered by birds already, unless they fell prematurely.

Hear the flicker note. See a song-sparrow-like bird singing a confused low jingle. Afterward hear from a willow by river a clear strain from a song sparrow! 

The Viburnum Lentago berries now turn blue-black in pocket, as the nudum did, which last are now all gone, while the Lentago is now just in season.

P. M. —- By boat to Grape Cliff.

These are the stages in the river fall: first, the two varieties of yellow lily pads begin to decay and blacken (long ago); second, the first fall rains come after dog days and raise and cool the river, and winds wash the decaying sparganium, etc., etc., to the shores and clear the channel more or less; third, when the first harder frosts come (as this year the 21st and 22d inst), the button-bushes, which before had attained only a dull mixed yellow, are suddenly bitten, wither, and turn brown, all but the protected parts.

The first fall is so gradual as not to make much impression, but the last suddenly and conspicuously gives a fall aspect to the scenery of the river. The button-bushes thus withered suddenly paint with a rich brown the river’s brim. There, where the land appears to lap over the water by a mere edging, these thinner portions are first done brown. 

I float over the still liquid middle. I have not seen any such conspicuous effect of frost as this sudden withering of the button-bushes.

The water begins to be clear of weeds, and the fishes are exposed. It is now too cold to bathe with comfort. 

I scare up a duck which circles round four times high in the air a diameter of a. hundred rods, and finally alights with a long, slanting flight near where it rose. The muskrats make haste now to rear their cabins and conceal themselves. I see still what I, take to be small flocks of grackles feeding beneath the covert of the button-bushes and flitting from bush to bush. They seldom expose them-selves long. 

See a warbler which inquisitively approaches me creeper-wise along some dead brush twigs. It may be the pine-creeping warbler, though I see no white bars on wings. I should say all yellow olivaceous above; clear lemon-yellow throat and breast; narrow white ring around eye; black bill, straight; clay-colored legs; edge of wings white.

Young hickories, pretty generally, and some black oaks are frost-bitten, but no young white oaks. On the shrub oak plain under Cliffs, the young white oaks are generally now tending to a dull inward red. The ilicifolia generally green still, with a few yellowish or else scarlet leaves. The young black oaks with many red, scarlet, or yellowish leaves. The chinquapin pretty generally a clear brilliant dark red. The same with a few twigs of the scarlet oak, but not brilliant, i. e. glossy. The tupelo green, reddish, and brilliant scarlet, all together. The brightest hazel dim vermilion. Some red maple sprouts clear scarlet deepening to purplish. The panicled cornel green with a tinge of reddish purple. Only these young trees and bushes are yet conspicuously changed. 

The tupelo and the chinquapin the most brilliant of the above. The scarlet oak the clearest red. 

But little bright Solidago nemorosa is left. It is generally withered or dim. 

September 24, 2024

What name of a natural object is most poetic? That which he has given for convenience, whose life is most nearly related to it, who has known it longest and best.

The perception of truth, as of the duration of time, etc., produces a pleasurable sensation.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 24, 1854

On the large sassafras trees on the hill I see many of the handsome red club-shaped pedicels left, with their empty cups. See September 3, 1856 ("I find one sassafras berry, dark-blue in its crimson cup, club-shaped. . . methinks, far from palatable.") See also September 28, 1854 ("The sassafras trees on the hill are now wholly a bright orange scarlet as seen from my window, and the small ones elsewhere are also changed.") September 30, 1854 ("I detect the sassafras by its peculiar orange scarlet half a mile distant.")

Hear the flicker note.  See October 5, 1857 ("The pigeon woodpecker utters his whimsical ah-week ah-week, etc., as in spring. "); December 9, 1858 ("At New Bedford. See a song sparrow and a pigeon woodpecker. ) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

Hear from a willow by river a clear strain from a song sparrow! September 25, 1854 (" I hear some clear song sparrow strains, as from a fence-post amid snows in early spring. "); September 30, 1854 ("The song sparrow is still about, and the blackbird.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

The button-bushes, which before had attained only a dull mixed yellow, are suddenly bitten, wither, and turn brown. See September 24, 1855 ("The button bushes pretty well browned with frost . . . their pale yellowish season past."); See also September 18, 1860 ("This is a beautiful day . . . the first unquestionable and conspicuous autumnal day, when the willows and button-bushes are a yellowed bower in parallel lines along the swollen and shining stream."); September 20, 1859 ("I suspect that the button-bushes and black willows have been as ripe as ever they get to be"); September 20, 1855 ("First decisive frost, killing melons and beans, browning button-bushes and grape leaves.")

The water begins to be clear of weeds, and the fishes are exposed. It is now too cold to bathe with comfort. See September 5, 1854 ("This is a fall phenomenon. The river weeds, becoming rotten, though many are still green, fall or are loosened, the water rises, the winds come, and they are drifted to the shore, and the water is cleared."); August 9, 1855 ("River is risen and fuller, and the weeds at bathing-place washed away somewhat. Fall to them.")

The ilicifolia generally green still, with a few yellowish or else scarlet leaves. See October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit."); October 2, 1851 ("The shrub oaks on the terraced plain are now almost uniformly of a deep red"); October 7, 1857 ("Some shrub oaks are yellow, others reddish.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Shrub Oak

But little bright Solidago nemorosa is left. It is generally withered or dim. See September 24, 1856 ("S. nemoralis, about done")

What name of a natural object is most poetic? See January 29, 1852 ("The names of plants are for the most part traced to Celtic and Arabian roots.");  August 7, 1853 ("Is it not as language that all natural objects affect the poet? "); March 5, 1858 ("Our scientific names convey a very partial information only; they suggest certain thoughts only. It does not occur to me that there are other names for most of these objects, given by a people who stood between me and them, who had better senses than our race."); October 4, 1859 ("I do not get nearer by a hair's breadth to any natural object so long as I presume that I have an introduction to it from some learned man. To conceive of it with a total apprehension . . . you must approach the object totally unprejudiced You must be aware that no thing is what you have taken it to be."); February 12, 1860 ("Natural objects and phenomena are in this sense forever wild and unnamed by us."); February 18, 1860 ("A name is at most a mere convenience and carries no information with it . . . the sooner we forget their names the better, so far as any true appreciation of them is concerned. I think, therefore, that the best and most harmless names are those which are an imitation of the voice or note of an animal, or the most poetic ones.")

The perception of truth . . . produces a pleasurable sensation.See February 27, 1851 ("a novel and grand surprise, or a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we had called knowledge before; an indefinite sense of the grandeur and glory of the universe.”); September 1851 (“There are innumerable avenues to a perception of the truth. All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy; we reason from our hands to our head.”);  April 19 1852 ("How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact! suggesting what worlds remain to be unveiled.");  August 8, 1852 ("No man ever makes a discovery, even an observation of the least importance, but he is advertised of the fact by a joy that surprises him.”)

September 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 24

Suddenly withered

rich brown button-bushes now

paint the river’s brim.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Suddenly withered

rich brown button-bushes

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-540924

Now at sundown

September 5.

P. M. — Up Assabet to Sam Barrett’s Pond. 

September 05, 2014

The river rising probably. The river weeds are now much decayed. Almost all pads but the white lily have disappeared, and they are thinned, and in midstream those dense beds of weeds are so much thinned (potamogeton, heart-leaf, sparganium, etc., etc.) as to give one the impression of the river having risen, though it is not more than six inches higher on account of the rain.

This is a fall phenomenon. The river weeds, becoming rotten, though many are still green, fall or are loosened, the water rises, the winds come, and they are drifted to the shore, and the water is cleared.

During the drought I used to see Sam Wheeler’s men carting hogsheads of water from the river to water his shrubbery. They drove into the river, and, naked all but a coat and hat, they dipped up the water with a pail. Though a shiftless, it looked like an agreeable, labor that hot weather. 

Barrett shows me some very handsome pear-shaped cranberries, not uncommon, which may be a permanent variety different from the common rounded ones.

Bathe at the swamp white oak, the water again warmer than I expected. I see much thistle-down without the seed floating on the river and a hummingbird about a cardinal-flower over the water’s edge.

Just this side the rock, the water near the shore and pads is quite white for twenty rods, as with a white sawdust, with the exuviae of small insects about an eighth of an inch long, mixed with scum and weeds.

I hear the tree-toad to-day. 

Now at sundown, a blue heron flaps away from his perch on an oak over the river before me, just above the rock. 

Hear locusts after sundown.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 5, 1854

Bathe at the swamp white oak, the water again warmer than I expected. See September 2, 1854 ("The water is surprisingly cold on account of the cool weather and rain, but especially since the rain of yesterday morning. It is a very important and remarkable autumnal change. It will not be warm again probably."); September 6, 1854 ("The water is again warmer than I should have believed; "); September 12, 1854 ("Bathing I find it colder again than on the 2d, so that I stay in but a moment. I fear that it will not again be warm."); September 24, 1854 ("It is now too cold to bathe with comfort") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Luxury of Bathing

This is a fall phenomenon . . . the water is cleared. See September 24, 1854 ("The water begins to be clear of weeds, and the fishes are exposed.")

I hear the tree-toad to-day. See June 14, 1853 ("Suddenly a tree-toad in the overhanging woods begins, and another answers, and another, with loud, ringing notes such as I never heard before, and in three minutes they are all silent again."); October 18, 1859 ("Saw a tree-toad on the ground . . .It is marked on the back with black, somewhat in the form of the hylodes.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Tree-toad

A blue heron flaps away from his perch on an oak over the river. .See August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me"); August 24, 1854 (" See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond. At a distance before you, only the two waving lines appear, and you would not suspect the long neck and legs. "); September 9, 1858 ("This hot September afternoon all may be quiet amid the weeds, but the dipper, and the bittern, and the yellow legs, and the blue heron, and the rail are silently feeding there.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron

Hear locusts after sundown. See September 2, 1856 ("Frank Harding has caught a dog-day locust which lit on the bottom of my boat, in which he was sitting, and z-ed there"); September 7, 1858 ("It is an early September afternoon, melting warm and sunny. . .and ever and anon the hot z-ing of the locust is heard.")

September 5. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 5

Now at sundown

a blue heron flaps away 

from his perch on an oak 

over the river before me

just above the rock.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Now at sundown

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-540905

Walk to the view after sunset. we are treated to a light show of lightning. severe storms to northwest over Ottowa and Montreal, lighting the clouds, sometimes showing bolts, for perhaps an hour. A first quarter moon low in the south. we go down by the big house then bushwack to the fort. Windy. zphx September 5, 2014

Incessant flashes

lighting the edge of the cloud.

A rush of cool wind.

September 6, 1854