The grassy sea.

August 3

6 A. M. — River fallen one inch since 2.30 P. M. yesterday; i.e., it is now a quarter of an inch above summer level. 

AUGUST 3, 2019

Juncus Greenei grows in river meadow opposite Dodd’s; long done. I saw (the 31st ult.) that the river was narrowed to a third its width by a large mass of button-bushes sunk in the middle of it_above the Sudbury causeway. 

The low water reveals a mass of meadow sunk under the railroad bridge. Both this and Lee’s Bridge are thus obstructed this year.  

I should say the origin of these holes was that the river, being shallow and therefore crowded, runs swiftly and digs into the bank and so makes a deep hole and a bend. The three large lakes may perhaps be considered as three deep holes made by a larger river or ocean current in former ages. The almost constant occurrence of a bay, or stagnant expansion, on the convex side at the bends is remarkable. It seems to be a place where the river has formerly flowed, but which, by wearing into the opposite bank, it has left. 

There are about twenty-one weedy places (i. e., where the weeds extend quite across), all together about two miles in length. These weedy places, you may say (not withstanding the frequent winding of the river), generally occur at bends (the Island shoal, perhaps, and Barrett’s Bar, and above Middlesex Turnpike Bridge are exceptions).  The most remarkable bend between Framingham and the Dam is the Ox-Bow in Framingham. 

Since our river is so easily affected by wind, the fact that its general course is northeast and that the prevailing winds in summer are southwest is very favorable to its rapid drainage at that season. If by fall you mean a swifter place occasioned by the bottom below for a considerable distance being lower than the bottom above for a considerable distance, I do not know of any such between Pelham Pond and the Falls. 

These swifter places are produced by a contraction of the stream,— chiefly by the elevation of the bottom at that point, — also by the narrowing of the stream. 

The depths are very slight compared with the lengths. The average depth of this twenty-five miles is about one seventeen thousandth the length; so that if this portion of the river were laid down on a map four feet long the  depth would be about equal to the thickness of ordinary letter paper, of which it takes three hundred and fifty to an inch. Double the thickness of the letter paper, and it will contain the deep holes which are so unfathomed and mysterious, not to say bottomless, to the swimmers and fishermen. 

Methinks the button-bushes about Fair Haven indicate a muddy but not deep pond.

The deepest reach of this twenty-five miles is from E. Davis Hill to Skelton Bend. 

Methinks I saw some of the fresh-water sponge in the river in Framingham. 

Undoubtedly, in the most stagnant parts of the river, when the wind blows hard up-stream, a chip will be drifted faster up-stream than ever it floats downward there in a calm. 

P. M. — I see two or three birds which I take to be rose-breasted grosbeaks of this year. They are speckled brown and white (with considerable white) birds, and no rose on breast that I see. I hear them singing a little in a grosbeak-like strain, but a more partial warble. Heard one July 28th on an oak high up Assabet, and to-day on an apple tree near Brister’s. 

Warren Miles tells me that in mowing lately he cut in two a checkered “adder,” — by his account it was the chicken snake, — and there was in its stomach a green snake, dead and partly digested, and he was surprised to find that they ate them. 

Water-bugs are collected in dense swarms about my boat, at its stagnant harbor. They gyrate in a very leisurely manner under my face, occasionally touching one another by their edges a moment. When I move or disturb the water, they at once begin to gyrate rapidly. After the evening has set in, I perceive that these water bugs, which all day were collected in dense swarms in the stagnant water amid the weeds at the sides, are dispersed over the river (quite across it here) and gyrating rapidly in the twilight.

The haymakers are quite busy on the Great Meadows, it being drier than usual. It being remote from public view, some of them work in their shirts or half naked. 

As I wade through the middle of the meadows in sedge up to my middle and look afar over the waving and rustling bent tops of the sedge (all are bent northeast by the southwest wind) toward the distant mainland, I feel a little as if caught by a rising tide on flats far from the shore. I am, as it were, cast away in the midst of the sea. It is a level sea of waving and rustling sedge about me. The grassy sea. 

You feel somewhat as you would if you were standing in water at an equal distance from the shore. To-day I can walk dry over the greater part of the meadows, but not over the lower parts, where pipes, etc., grow; yet many think it has not been so dry for ten years!

Goodwin is there after snipes. I scare up one in the wettest part. High blackberries begin to be ripe.

A novel phenomenon of dry weather and a low stage of water is the sight of dense green beds of Eleocharis acicularis, still in bloom, which grows at the bottom of muddy pools, but now, they being dry, looks like a dense fine bed of green moss, denser than grass. I recline on such a bed, perfectly dry and clean, amid the flags and pontederia, where lately was water and mud. It covers the mud with a short dense green mat of culms fine as a hair, quite agreeable to rest on and a rather novel sight.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 3, 1859

It is a level sea of waving and rustling sedge about me. The grassy sea. See July 4, 1860 ("We are wading and navigating at present in a sort of sea of grass, which yields and undulates under the wind like water")

High blackberries begin to be ripe. See August 3, 1856 ("High blackberries beginning; a few ripe."); August 4, 1856 ("Here and there the high blackberry, just beginning, towers over all."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

I measure the rapidity of the river's current.

July 25. 

July 25, 2019

The Rice boy brings me what he thought a snipe's egg, recently taken from a nest in the Sudbury meadows. It is of the form of a rail's egg, but is not whitish like mine, but olive-colored with dark-brown spots. Is it the sora rail? 

He has also a little egg, as he says taken out of a thrasher's nest, apparently one third grown. 

Flagg says that the chimney swallow is sometimes abroad "the greater part of the night;" is informed by Fowler that the rose-breasted grosbeak often sings in the light of the moon. 

P. M. — Water three and a half inches above summer level. 

I measure the rapidity of the river's current. At my boat's place behind Channing's, a bottle sunk low in the water floats one hundred feet in five minutes; one hundred feet higher up, in four and a half minutes. (I think the last the most correct.) It came out a rod and a half ahead of two chips.

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

Olive-colored with dark-brown spots. Is it the sora rail? See note to December 7, 1858 ("The rail’s egg (of Concord, which I have seen) . . . Is it the sora rail’s (of which there is no egg in this collection)?")

Water three and a half inches above summer level. See July 9, 1859 ("July 9th, water is eleven and a half inches above summer level.")

How much it enhances the wildness and the richness of the forest to see in it some beautiful bird which you never detected before!

June 13. 

9 a. m. — To Orchis Swamp.

Find that there are two young hawks; one has left the nest and is perched on a small maple seven or eight rods distant. This one appears much smaller than the former one. I am struck by its large, naked head, so vulture-like, and large eyes, as if the vulture's were an inferior stage through which the hawk passed. Its feet, too, are large, remarkably developed, by which it holds to its perch securely like an old bird, before its wings can perform their office. It has a buff breast, striped with dark brown. 

Pratt, when I told him of this nest, said he would like to carry one of his rifles down there. But I told him that I should be sorry to have them killed. I would rather save one of these hawks than have a hundred hens and chickens. It was worth more to see them soar, especially now that they are so rare in the landscape. It is easy to buy eggs, but not to buy hen-hawks. 

My neighbors would not hesitate to shoot the last pair of hen-hawks in the town to save a few of their chick ens! But such economy is narrow and grovelling. It is unnecessarily to sacrifice the greater value to the less. I would rather never taste chickens' meat nor hens' eggs than never to see a hawk sailing through the upper air again. This sight is worth incomparably more than a chicken soup or a boiled egg. So we exterminate the deer and substitute the hog. 

It was amusing to observe the swaying to and fro of the young hawk's head to counterbalance the gentle motion of the bough in the wind. 

Violets appear to be about done, generally. 

Four-leaved loosestrife just out; also the smooth wild rose yesterday. The pogonia at Forget-me-not Brook.

What was that rare and beautiful bird in the dark woods under the Cliffs, with black above and white spots and bars, a large triangular blood-red spot on breast, and sides of breast and beneath white? Note a warble like the oriole, but softer and sweeter. It was quite tame. I cannot find this bird described.  I think it must be a grosbeak.

 At first I thought I saw a chewink, [as] it sat within a rod sideways to me, and I was going to call Sophia to look at it, but then it turned its breast full toward me and I saw the blood-red breast, a large triangular painted spot occupying the greater part of the breast. It was in the cool, shaded underwood by the old path just under the Cliff. It is a memorable event to meet with so rare a bird. 

Birds answer to flowers, both in their abundance and their rareness. The meeting with a rare and beautiful bird like this is like meeting with some rare and beautiful flower, which you may never find again, perchance, like the great purple fringed orchis, at least. How much it enhances the wildness and the richness of the forest to see in it some beautiful bird which you never detected before!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 13, 1853


To Orchis Swamp. See June 12, 1853 ("Visited the great [purple fringed] orchis which I am waiting to have open completely. It is emphatically a flower (within gunshot of the hawk's nest); its great spike, six inches by two, of delicate pale-purple flowers, which begin to expand at bottom, rises above and contrasts with the green leaves of the hellebore and skunk-cabbage and ferns (by which its own leaves are concealed) in the cool shade of an alder swamp.")

What was that rare and beautiful bird in the dark woods under the Cliffs, with black above and white spots and bars, a large triangular blood-red spot on breast, and sides of breast and beneath white? --beautiful bird which you never detected before!. See May 25, 1854 ("Hear and see . . . the rose-breasted grosbeak, a handsome bird with a loud and very rich song, in character between that of a robin and a red-eye. . . . Rose breast, white beneath, black head and above, white on shoulder and wings."); May 24, 1855 (“Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. At first think it a tanager, but soon I perceive its more clear and instrumental — should say whistle, if one could whistle like a flute; a noble singer, reminding me also of a robin; clear, loud and flute-like; . . . Song not so sweet as clear and strong.”); May 21, 1856 (“What strong colored fellows, black, white, and fiery rose-red breasts! Strong-natured, too, with their stout bills. A clear, sweet singer, like a tanager but hoarse somewhat, and not shy.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak

The meeting with a rare and beautiful bird like this is like meeting with some rare and beautiful flower, which you may never find again. See May 31, 1853 (“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 be found in our immediate neighborhood, is very suggestive.”)

Some rare and beautiful flower like the great purple fringed orchis. See June 15, 1852 ("Here also, at Well Meadow Head, I see the fringed purple orchis, unexpectedly beautiful, though a pale lilac purple, — a large spike of purple flowers. . . . The most striking and handsome large wild-flower of the year thus far that I have seen.")

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

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 black snake at home in the trees.

May 28. 

Saturday. P. M. — To Cliffs. 

Some Salix rostrata seed begins to fly. 

Low blackberry in bloom on railroad bank. 

Also S. Torreyana seed, just begun to fly. S. pedicellaris long out of bloom there. 

At the extreme east side of Trillium Wood, come upon a black snake, which at first keeps still prudently, thinking I may not see him, — in the grass in open land, — then glides to the edge of the wood and darts swiftly up into the top of some slender shrubs there — Viburnum dentatum and alder — and lies stretched out, eying me, in horizontal loops eight feet high. The biggest shrub was not over one inch thick at the ground. At first I thought its neck was its chief member, — as if it drew itself up by it, — but again I thought that it rather (when I watched it ascending) extended its neck and a great part of its body upward, while the lower extremity was more or less coiled and rigid on the twigs from a point d'appui. Thus it lifted itself quickly to higher forks. When it moved along more horizontally, it extended its neck far, and placed it successively between the slender forks. 

This snake, some four feet long, rested there at length twelve feet high, on twigs, not one so big as a pipe-stem, in the top of a shad-bush; yet this one's tail was broken off where a third of an inch thick, and it could not cling with that. It was quick as thought in its motions there, and perfectly at home in the trees, so far was it from making the impression of a snake in an awkward position. 

Cinnamon fern pollen [sic]. 

Lady's-slipper pollen. These grow under pines even in swamps, as at Ledum Swamp. 

The lint from leaves sticks to your clothes now. 

Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. 

Methinks every tree and shrub is started, or more, now, but the Vaccinium dumosum, which has not burst.

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, May 28, 1859

Some Salix rostrata seed begins to fly. See June 6, 1856 ("That willow, male and female, opposite to Trillium Woods on the railroad, I find to be the Salix rostrata, or long-beaked willow, one of the ochre-flowered.")

This snake, some four feet long, perfectly at home in the trees. See May 16, 2018 ("It surprised me very much to see it cross from tree to tree exactly like a squirrel, where there appeared little or no support for such a body."); May 30, 1855 ("See a small black snake run along securely through thin bushes (alders and willows) three or four feet from the ground, passing intervals of two feet easily,—very readily and gracefully, —ascending or descending")

The Vaccinium dumosum. See  August 30, 1856 (“I noticed also a few small peculiar-looking huckleberries hanging on bushes amid the sphagnum, and, tasting, perceived that they were hispid, a new kind to me. Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella . . .. Has a small black hairy or hispid berry, shining but insipid and inedible, with a tough, hairy skin left in the mouth.”); July 2, 1857 (“The Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, not yet quite in prime. . . . not to be mistaken for the edible huckleberry or blueberry blossom.”); August 8, 1858 (“the Gaylussacia dumosa var. hiriella . . . the only inedible species of  Vaccinieoe that I know in this town”)

May 28. SeeA Book of the Seasons,, by Henry Thoreau, May 28

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

I saw, about west-northwest, a large Green Mountain, perhaps Mansfield Mountain.

July 15. 

Thursday. Continued the ascent of Lafayette, also called the Great Haystack. 

It is perhaps three and a half miles from the road to the top by path along winding ridge. At about a mile and a half up by path, the spruce began to be small. 

Saw there a silent bird, dark slate and blackish above, especially head, with a white line over the brows, then dark slate next beneath, white throat and reddish belly, black bill. A little like a nut hatch. Also saw an F. hyemalis on top of a dead tree. 

The wood was about all spruce here, twenty feet high, together with Vaccinium Canadense, lambkill in bloom, mountain-ash, Viburnum nudum, rhodora, Amelanchier oligocarpa, nemopanthes. 

As I looked down into some very broad and deep ravines from this point, their sides appeared to be covered chiefly with spruce, with a few bodkin points of fir here and there (had seen two days before some very handsome firs on low ground which were actually concave on sides  of cone), while the narrow bottom or middle of the ravine, as far up and down as trees reached, where, of course, there was most water, was almost exclusively hardwood, apparently birch chiefly. 

As we proceeded, the number of firs began to increase, and the spruce to diminish, till, at about two miles perhaps, the wood was almost pure fir about fourteen feet high; but this suddenly ceased at about half a mile further and gave place to a very dwarfish fir, and to spruce again, the latter of a very dwarfish, procumbent form, dense and flat, one to two feet high, which crept yet higher up the mountain than the fir, —over the rocks beyond the edge of the fir, -- and with this spruce was mixed Empetrum nigrum, dense and matted on the rocks, partly dead, with berries already blackening, also Vaccinium uliginosum. 

Though the edges all around and the greater part of such a thicket high up the otherwise bare rocks might be spruce, yet the deeper hollows between the rocks, in the midst, would invariably be filled with fir, rising only to the same level, but much larger round. These firs especially made the stag-horns when dead. 

The spruce was mostly procumbent at that height, but the fir upright, though flat-topped. In short, spruce gave place to fir from a mile and a half to a mile below the top, — so you may say firs were the highest trees, — and then succeeded to it in a very dwarfish and procum bent form yet higher up. 

At about one mile or three quarters below the summit, just above the limit of trees, we came to a little pond, maybe of a quarter of an acre (with a yet smaller one near by), the source of one head of the Pemigewasset, in which grew a great many yellow lilies (Nuphar advena) and I think a potamogeton. 

In the flat, dryish bog by its shore, I noticed the Empetrum nigrum (1), ledum (2), Vaccinium Oxycoccus, Smilacina trifolia, Kalmia glauca (3) (in bloom still), Andromeda calyculata (4) (and I think Polifolia), Eriophorum vaginatum, Vaccinium uliginosum (5), Juncus filiformis, four kinds of sedge (e. g. Carex pauciflora .9), C. irrigua with dangling spikes, and a C. lupulzna-like, and the Scirpus caespitosus (?) of Mt. Washington, brown lichens (q. v.), and cladonias, all low and in a moss-like bed in the moss of the bog; also rhodora of good size. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 were quite dwarfish. 

The outlet of the pond was considerable, but soon lost beneath the rocks. A willow, rostrata-like but not downy, grew there. 

In the dwarf fir thickets above and below this pond, I saw the most beautiful linnaeas that I ever saw. They grew quite densely, full of rose-purple flowers, — deeper reddish purple than ours, which are pale, — perhaps nodding over the brink of a spring, altogether the fairest mountain flowers I saw, lining the side of the narrow horse track through the fir scrub. As you walk, you overlook the top of this thicket on each side. 

There also grew near that pond red cherry, Aster prenanthes (?) and common rue. 

We saw a line of fog over the Connecticut Valley. Found near summit apparently the Vaccinium angustifolium of Aitman (variety of Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, Gray), bluets, and a broad-leaved vaccinium lower down (q. ‘12.). 

Just below top, reclined on a dense bed of Salix Uva-ursi, five feet in diameter by four or five inches deep, a good spot to sit on, mixed with a rush, amid rocks. This willow was generally showing its down.

We had fine weather on this mountain, and from the summit a good view of Mt. Washington and the rest, though it was a little hazy in the horizon. It was a wild mountain and forest scene from south-southeast round easterwardly to north-northeast. 

On the northwest the country was half cleared, as from Monadnock, -— the leopard-spotted land. I saw, about west-northwest, a large Green Mountain, perhaps Mansfield Mountain, though the compass was affected here. 

The Carex scirpoidea (?) grew at top, and it was surprising how many large bees, wasps, butterflies, and other insects were hovering and fluttering about the very apex, though not particularly below. What attracts them to such a locality.

Heard one white-throated sparrow above the trees, and also saw a little bird by the pond. Think I heard a song sparrow about latter place. Saw a toad near limit of trees, and many pollywogs in the pond above trees. 

Boiled tea for our dinner by the little pond, the head of the Pemigewasset. Saw tracks in the muddy bog by the pond-side, shaped somewhat like a small human foot sometimes, perhaps made by a bear. We made our fire on the moss and lichens, by a rock, amid the shallow fir and spruce, burning the dead fir twigs, or “deer’s-horns.” 

I cut off a flourishing fir three feet high and not flattened at top yet. This was one and a quarter inches in diameter and had thirty four rings. One, also flourishing, fifteen inches high, had twelve rings at ground. One, a dead one, was twenty nine inches in circumference, and at four feet from ground branched horizontally as much as five feet each way, making a flat top, curving upward again into stag horns, with branches very large and stout at base. 

Another fir, close by and dead, was thirty  inches in circumference at ground and only half an inch in diameter at four and a half feet. 

Another fir, three feet high, fresh and vigorous, without a flat top as yet, had its woody part an inch and an eighth thick (or diameter) at base (the bark being one eighth inch thick) and sixty-one rings. There was no sign of decay, though it was, as usual, mossy, or covered with lichens. 

I cut off at ground one of the little procumbent spruce trees, which spread much like a juniper, but not curving upward. This rose about nine inches above the ground, but I could not count the rings, they were so fine. (Vide piece.) 

The smallest diameter of the wood is forty-one eightieths of an inch. The number of rings, as near as I can count with a microscope, taking much pains, is about seventy, and on one side these are included within a radius of nine fortieths of an inch, of which a little more than half is heart-wood, or each layer on this side is less than one three-hundredth of an inch thick. The bark was three fortieths of an inch thick. It was quite round and easy to cut, it was so fresh. 

If the fir thirty inches in circumference grew no faster than that an inch and an eighth in diameter, then it was about five hundred and forty-nine years old. If as fast as the little spruce, it would be nearly fourteen hundred years old. 

When half-way down the mountain, amid the spruce, we saw two pine grosbeaks, male and female, close by the path, and looked for a nest, but in vain. They were remarkably tame, and the male a brilliant red orange, —neck, head, breast beneath, and rump,—blackish wings and tail, with two white bars on wings. (Female, yellowish.) 

The male flew nearer inquisitively, uttering a low twitter, and perched fearlessly within four feet of us, eying us and pluming himself and plucking and eating the leaves of the Amelanchier oligocarpa on which he sat, for several minutes. The female, meanwhile, was a rod off. 

They were evidently breeding there. Yet neither Wilson nor Nuttall speak of their breeding in the United States. 

At the base of the mountain, over the road, heard (and saw), at the same place where I heard him the evening before, a splendid rose-breasted grosbeak singing. I had before mistaken him at first for a tanager, then for a red-eye, but was not satisfied; but now, with my glass, I distinguished him sitting quite still, high above the road at the entrance of the mountain-path in the deep woods, and singing steadily for twenty minutes. 

It was remarkable for sitting so still and where yesterday. It was much richer and sweeter and, I think, more powerful than the note of the tanager or red-eye. It had not the hoarseness of the tanager, and more sweetness and fullness than the red-eye. Wilson does not give their breeding-place. Nuttall quotes Pennant as saying that some breed in New York but most further north. They, too, appear to breed about the White Mountains. 

Heard the evergreen-forest note on the sides of the mountains often. 

Heard no robins in the White Mountains. 

Rode on and stopped at Morrison’s (once Tilton’s) Inn in West Thornton. 

Heracleum lanatum in Notch and near, very large, some seven feet high. 

Observed, as we rode south through Lincoln, that the face of cliffs on the hills and mountains east of the river, and even the stems of the spruce, reflected a pink light at sunset.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 15, 1858

Two pine grosbeaks, male and female, . . .the male a brilliant red orange, —neck, head, breast beneath, and rump,—blackish wings and tail, with two white bars on wings. See December 24, 1851 (“Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds . . .with red or crimson reflections, more beautiful than a steady bright red would be. The note I heard, a rather faint and innocent whistle of two bars.”)

A splendid rose-breasted grosbeak singing. See May 25, 1854 ("Hear and see . . . the rose-breasted grosbeak, a handsome bird with a loud and very rich song, in character between that of a robin and a red-eye. . . . Rose breast, white beneath, black head and above, white on shoulder and wings.”); May 24, 1855 (“Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. At first think it a tanager, but soon I perceive its more clear and instrumental — should say whistle, if one could whistle like a flute; a noble singer, reminding me also of a robin; clear, loud and flute-like; . . . Song not so sweet as clear and strong.”); May 21, 1856 (“What strong colored fellows, black, white, and fiery rose-red breasts! Strong-natured, too, with their stout bills. A clear, sweet singer, like a tanager but hoarse somewhat, and not shy.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak

July 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau July 15

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 same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air.

May 26. 

Pink azalea in garden. 

Mountain-ash a day; also horse-chestnut the same. Beach plum well out, several days at least. 

Wood pewee, and Minott heard a loon go laughing over this morning. 

The vireo days have fairly begun. They are now heard amid the elm-tops. 

Thin coats and straw hats are worn. I have noticed that notional nervous invalids, who report to the community the exact condition of their heads and stomachs every morning, as if they alone were blessed or cursed with these parts; who are old betties and quiddles, if men; who can't eat their break fasts when they are ready, but play with their spoons, and hanker after an ice-cream at irregular hours; who go more than half-way to meet any invalidity, and go to bed to be sick on the slightest occasion, in the middle of the brightest forenoon, — improve the least opportunity to be sick ; — I observe that such are self-indulgent persons, without any regular and absorbing employment. They are nice, discriminating, experienced in all that relates to bodily sensations. They come to you stroking their wens, manipulating their ulcers, and expect you to do the same for them. Their religion and humanity stick. They spend the day manipulating their bodies and doing no work; can never get their nails clean. 

Some of the earliest willows about warm edges of woods are gone to seed and downy. 

P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook. 

It is very hazy after a sultry morning, but the wind is getting east and cool. 

The oaks are in the gray, or a little more, and the silvery leafets of the deciduous trees invest the woods like a permanent mist. At the same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air. 

I see the common small reddish butterflies. 

Very interesting now are the red tents of expanding- oak leaves, as you go through sprout-lands, — the crimson velvet of the black oak and the more pinkish white oak. The salmon and pinkish-red canopies or umbrellas of the white oak are particularly interesting. 

The very sudden expansion of the great hickory buds, umbrella-wise. 

Now, at last, all leaves dare unfold, and twigs begin to shoot. 

As I am going down the footpath from Britton's camp to the spring, I start a pair of nighthawks (they had the white on the wing) from amid the dry leaves at the base of a bush, a bunch of sprouts, and away they flitted in zigzag noiseless flight a few rods through the sprout-land, dexterously avoiding the twigs, uttering a faint hollow what, as if made by merely closing the bill, and one alighted flat on a stump. 

On those carpinus trees which have fertile flowers, the sterile are effete and drop off. 

The red choke-berry not in bloom, while the black is, for a day or more at least. 

Roadside near Britton's camp, see a grosbeak, apparently female of the rose-breasted, quite tame, as usual, brown above, with black head and a white streak over the eye, a less distinct one beneath it, two faint bars on wings, dirty-white bill, white breast, dark spotted or streaked, and from time [to time] utters a very sharp chirp of alarm or interrogation as it peers through the twigs at me. 

May 26, 2018

A lady's-slipper. At Cliffs, no doubt, before. 

At Abel Brooks's (or Black Snake, or Red Cherry, or Rye) Hollow, hear the wood thrush. 

In Thrush Alley, see one of those large ant-hills, recently begun, the grass and moss partly covered with sand over a circle two feet in diameter, with holes two to five inches apart, and the dry sand is dark-spotted with the fresh damp sand about each hole. 

My mother was telling to-night of the sounds which she used to hear summer nights when she was young and lived on the Virginia Road, — the lowing of cows, or cackling of geese, or the beating of a drum as far off as Hildreth's, but above all Joe Merriam whistling to his team, for he was an admirable whistler. 

Says she used to get up at midnight and go and sit on the door-step when all in the house were asleep, and she could hear nothing in the world but the ticking of the clock in the house behind her.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 26, 1857

Pink azalea in garden. See May 26, 1860 ("Our pink azalea”); May 25, 1856 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden."); May 29, 1855("Azalea nudiflora in garden”); May 17, 1854 ("Azalea nudiflora in woods begins to leaf now.");May 31, 1853 ("I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora.”) [Rhododendron periclymenoides , pinxterbloom azalea]

Wood pewee. See note to May 26, 1852 ("I hear the pea-wai, the tender note.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Wood-Pewee

It is very hazy after a sultry morning, but the wind is getting east and cool. See May 26, 1855 (“Again a strong cold wind from the north by west, turning up the new and tender pads”); May 26, 1860 (“Overcast, rain-threatening; wind northeast and cool”)

At the same season with this haze of buds comes also the kindred haziness of the air. See May 15, 1860 ("At this season there is thus a mist in the air and a mist on the earth.") May 15, 1854 ("The aspect of oak and other woods at a distance is somewhat like that of a very thick and reddish or yellowish mist about the evergreens."); May 27, 1855 ("How important the dark evergreens now seen through the haze in the distance and contrasting with the gauze-like, as yet thin-clad deciduous trees").

A lady's-slipper. At Cliffs, no doubt, before. See May 27, 1852 ("Ladies'-slippers out. They perfume the air.”); May 30, 1856 (“The lady’s-slipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th”).

May 26. See  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 26

To Fair Haven Pond with Blake and Brown.

May 25. 
10 A. M.—To Fair Haven Pond with Blake and Brown.

I found five arrowheads at Clamshell Hill. 

Saw, just before, on the flat meadow on the right, feeding on the edge of the meadow just left bare, along with the peetweets, a bird a size larger with an apparently light-brown back, a ring or crescent of black on its breast and side of neck, and a black patch including the eye. Can it be the Charadrius semipalmatus? or else Wilsonius? It looks like the latter in Wilson’s larger plates. It reminded me of the piping plover, but was not so white; and of the killdeer, but was not so large. 

Pyrus on side of Fair Haven Hill, yesterday at least.

Huckleberry there, yesterday also at least. 

On the Cliffs, orobanche; Veronica arvensis, the little one on the rocks there, well out. Also low blackberry on the rocks a day or two. 

Blackburnian warbler and rose-breasted grosbeak. 

Lupines, apparently yesterday. 

Young phoebes in the Baker house. The bird flitted out as we entered. I reached to an old shelf and felt the warm but callow young. 

Azalea nudiflora in garden. 

Polygala, fringed, by path beyond Hubbard Grove; how long?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 25, 1856

Rose-breasted grosbeak. See May 25, 1854 ("a handsome bird with a loud and very rich song, in character between that of a robin and a red-eye.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Azalea nudiflora in garden. See June 2, 1855 ("The Azalea nudiflora now in its prime.”); May 29, 1855 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden") and May 31, 1853 ("I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora.")

Two splendid rose-breasted grosbeaks.

May 21. 

Wednesday. P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook. 

Chelidonium.

Rubus triflorus abundantly out at the Saw Mill Brook; how long? 

A robin’s nest without mud, on a young white oak in woods, with three eggs. 

Saw two splendid rose-breasted grosbeaks with females in the young wood in Emerson’s lot. What strong colored fellows, black, white, and fiery rose-red breasts! Strong-natured, too, with their stout bills. A clear, sweet singer, like a tanager but hoarse somewhat, and not shy. 

The redstarts are inquisitive and hop near. 

solomon’s seal
May 21, 2016

The Polygonatum pubescens there, in shade, almost out; perhaps elsewhere already. 

At the trough near Turnpike, near Hosmer’s Spring, the (perhaps) Stellaria borealis of the 15th. I am still in doubt whether it is a stellaria or cerastium. This is quite smooth, four to five inches high, spreading and forking,with a single flower each fork, on a long peduncle; square-stemmed, oblong—lanceolate leaves, slightly ciliate and connate: ten stamens, five long, five short. Aspect of a smooth cerastium, but this has four to seven styles, oftenest perhaps five, all apetalous, except one petal shorter than the calyx; leaves one-nerved, sepals three-nerved! The bare and small plants are reddish stemmed. Can it be Stellaria longipes? 

The buck-bean in Everett’s Pool abundantly out, say four or five days. It is earlier than at B. Stow’s.

Myosotis laxa by Turnpike, near Hosmer Spring, may have been out several days; two or three at least.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 21, 1856

The Polygonatum pubescens there, in shade, almost out; perhaps elsewhere already . See ; May 12, 1855 ("One flower of the Polygonatum pubescent open there [under Lee’s Cliff]; probably may shed pollen to-morrow.”);  May 22, 1856 ("Polygonatum pubescens at rock. "); May 25, 1852 ("Clustered Solomon's-seal, Polygonatum pubescens ready to bloom."); See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Solomon's Seal

A clear, sweet singer . . . May 25, 1854 ("a handsome bird with a loud and very rich song, in character between that of a robin and a red-eye”)

Found in this walk, of nests, one tanager, two bay wing, one blue jay, one catbird, and a Maryland yellow-throat.

June 8

P. M. —Goose Pond. 

High blueberry. 

A crow two thirds grown tied up for a scarecrow. 

A tanager’s nest in the topmost forks of a pitch pine about fifteen feet high, by Thrush Alley; the nest very slight, apparently of pine needles, twigs, etc.; can see through it; bird on. 

In that pitch pine wood see two rabbit forms, very snug and well-roofed retreats formed by the dead pine-needles falling about the base of the trees, where they are upheld on the dead stubs from the butt at from six inches to a foot from the ground, as if the carpet of the forest floor were puffed up there. Gnawed acorn-shells in them. 

Two Fringilla pusilla nests in my old potato-field, at the foot of little white pines each; made of dried grass lined with hair, snug in the sod. Four eggs to each; one lot nearly hatched; with reddish brown spots, especially toward larger end, but a. light opening quite at that end; smaller, slenderer, and less spotted than the song sparrow’s. The bird is ash side head, ferruginous above, mahogany bill and legs, two whitish bars. Eggs do not agree with account? Nuttall says this bird’s eggs are so thick with ferruginous as to appear almost wholly of that color! 

A jay’s nest with three young half fledged in a white pine, six feet high, by the Ingraham cellar, made of coarse sticks. 

J\

June 8, 2018

Hear, I am pretty sure, a rose-breasted grosbeak sing. 

See apparently a summer duck in Goose Pond. C. says he saw two other dark ducks here yesterday.

A great many devil’s-needles in woods within a day or two. 

A catbird’s nest on the peninsula of Goose Pond — four eggs — in a blueberry bush, four feet from ground, close to water; as usual of sticks, dry leaves, and bark lined with roots. 

What was that little nest on the ridge near by, made of fine grass lined with a few hairs and containing five small eggs (two hatched the 11th), nearly as broad as long, yet pointed, white with fine dull-brown spots especially on the large end—nearly hatched? The nest in the dry grass under a shrub, remarkably concealed.

Found in this walk, of nests, one tanager, two bay wing, one blue jay, one catbird, and the last named. (June 11.—It is a Maryland yellow-throat.)

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 8, 1855

A crow two thirds grown tied up for a scarecrow. Compare September 23, 1852 ("Passing a corn-field the other day, close by a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the owner of the farm.")

[In Robinson Crusoe (1719), Crusoe hangs dead crows in his patch of corn in order to frighten away other birds daring to enter the area. It worked: “…I could never see a bird near the place as long as my scarecrows hung there.” This, though not the modern idea of a scarecrow, is thought by some to be probably the first time the word “scarecrow” appeared in literature.  ~The Myth and History of Scarecrows]

A tanager’s nest in the topmost forks of a pitch pine about fifteen feet high, by Thrush Alley; the nest very slight, apparently of pine needles, twigs, etc.; can see through it; bird on. See .June 11, 1855 (" In order to get the deserted tanager’s nest at the top [of] a pitch pine which was too weak to climb, we carried a rope in our pockets and took three rails a quarter of a mile into the woods, and there rigged a derrick, by which I climbed to a level with the nest, and I could see if there were eggs in it. I have the nest. Tied the three tops together and spread the bottoms")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager

A great many devil’s-needles in woods within a day or two.  See June 6, 1857 ("I see many great devil's-needles in an open wood, — and for a day or two, — stationary on twigs, etc., standing out more or less horizontally like thorns, holding by their legs and heads(?). They do not incline to move when touched, and their eyes look whitish and opaque, as if they were blind.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Devil's-needle

A catbird’s nest on the peninsula of Goose Pond. . . as usual of sticks, dry leaves, and bark lined with roots. See June 6, 1855 ("Two catbirds’ nests in the thickest part of the thicket on the edge of Wheeler’s meadow near Island. One. . .composed of dead twigs and a little stubble, then grape vine bark, and is lined with dark root-fibres."); June 6, 1855 ("Another . . . has some dry leaves with the twigs, and one egg,—about six feet high."); June 9, 1855 ("A catbird’s nest, three eggs, in a high blueberry, four feet from ground, with rather more dry leaves than usual"); June 9, 1855 ("Catbird’s nest, one egg, on a blueberry bush, three feet from ground, of (as usual) sticks, leaves, bark, roots. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Catbird nests

What was that little nest on the ridge near by, made of fine grass lined with a few hairs and containing five small eggs . . . nearly as broad as long, yet pointed, white with fine dull-brown spots especially on the large end . . .? See June 7, 1857 ("A nest well made outside of leaves, then grass, lined with fine grass, very deep and narrow, with thick sides, with four small somewhat cream-colored eggs with small brown and some black spots chiefly toward larger end.. . .It was a Maryland yellow-throat. Egg fresh. She is very shy and will not return to nest while you wait, but keeps up a very faint chip in the bushes or grass at some distance.”); June 10, 1858 ("The usual small deep nest (but not raised up) of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches. The bird flits out very low and swiftly and does not show herself, so that it is hard to find the nest or to identify the bird. ”);  June 12, 1859 ("To Gowing's Swamp . . .Maryland yellow-throat four eggs, fresh, in sphagnum in the interior omphalos.")

Two Fringilla pusilla nests in my old potato-field, at the foot of little white pines each; made of dried grass lined with hair, snug in the sod.  See May 18, 1855 ("At Clamshell a bay-wing sparrow’s nest, four eggs (young half hatched) -- some black-spotted, others not. ");  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 Bay-Wing Sparrow (Fringilla graminea) and The Field Sparrow (Fringilla juncorum aka Spizella pusilla)

A jay’s nest with three young half fledged in a white pine, six feet high . . . made of coarse sticks.  See June 5, 1856 ("A blue jay’s nest on a white pine, eight feet from ground, next to the stem, of twigs lined with root-fibres; three fresh eggs, dark dull greenish, with dusky spots equally distributed all over, . . .”) 

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

The first summer clouds, piled in cumuli with silvery edges

May 24 

A. M. -— To Beck Stow’s. 

Buttonwood not open. Celandine pollen. Butternut pollen, apparently a day or two. 

Black oak pollen yesterday, at least. Scarlet oak the same, but a little later. The staminate flowers of the first are on long and handsome tassels for three or four inches along the extremities of last year’s shoots, depending five inches (sometimes six) by four in width and quite dense and thick. 

The scarlet oak tassels are hardly half as long; the leaves, much greener and smoother and now somewhat wilted, emit a sweet odor, which those of the black do not. Both these oaks are apparently more forward at top, where I cannot see them.

Mountain-ash open apparently yesterday.

In woods the chestnut-sided warbler, with clear yellow crown and yellow on wings and chestnut sides. It is exploring low trees and bushes, often along stems about young leaves, and frequently or after short pauses utters its somewhat summer-yellowbird like note, say, tchip tchip, chip chip (quick), tche tche ter tchéa, —— sprayey and rasping and faint. Another, further off. 

Bog Rosemary

Andromeda Polifolia now in prime, but the leaves are apt to be blackened and unsightly, and the flowers, though delicate, have a feeble and sickly look, rose white, somewhat crystalline. Its shoots or new leaves, unfolding, say when it flowered or directly after, now one inch long. 

Buck-bean just fairly begun, though probably first the 18th; a handsome flower, but already when the raceme is only half blown, some of the lowest flowers are brown and withered, deforming it. What a pity!

Juniperus repens pollen not even yet; apparently to-morrow. Apparently put back by the cold weather.

Beach plum pollen probably several days in some places; and leaves begun as long. 

Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. At first think it a tanager, but soon I perceive its more clear and instrumental — should say whistle, if one could whistle like a flute; a noble singer, reminding me also of a robin; clear, loud and flute-like; on the oaks, hill side south of Great Fields. Black all above except white on wing, with a triangular red mark on breast but, as I saw, all white beneath this. Female quite different, yellowish olivaceous above, more like a muscicapa. Song not so sweet as clear and strong. Saw it fly off and catch an insect like a flycatcher. 

An early thorn pollen (not Crus-Galli) apparently yesterday. 

Pick up a pellet in the wood-path, of a small bird’s feathers, one inch in diameter and loose; nothing else with them; some slate, some yellow. 

Young robins some time hatched. 

Hear a purple finch sing more than one minute without pause, loud and rich, on an elm over the street. Another singing very faintly on a neighboring elm. 

Conant fever-bush had not begun to leaf the 12th. 

I seem to have seen, among sedges, etc., (1) the Carex Pennsylvanica; also (2) another similar, but later and larger, in low ground with many more pistillate flowers nearly a foot high, three-sided and rough culm (the first is smooth); also (3) an early sedge at Lee’s Cliff with striped and pretty broad leaves not rigid, perhaps on 554th page of Gray; (4) the rigid tufted are common in meadows, with cut-grass-like leaves. Call it C. stricta, though not yet more than a foot high or eighteen inches. 

Of Juncacea, perhaps Luzula campestris, the early umbelled purple-leaved, low. 

And, apparently, of grasses, foxtail grass, on C. ’s bank. 

Naked azalea shoots more than a week old, and other leaves, say a week at least. 

P. M. —— To Cliffs. 

Wind suddenly changes to south this forenoon, and for first time I think of a thin coat. It is very hazy in consequence of the sudden warmth after cold, and I cannot see the mountains. 

Chinquapin pollen. Lupine not yet. Black scrub oak tassels, some reddish, some yellowish. 

Just before six, see in the northwest the first summer clouds, methinks, piled in cumuli with silvery edges, and westward of them a dull, rainy looking cloud advancing and shutting down to the horizon; later, lightning in west and south and a little rain. 

Another kind of frog spawn at Beck Stow’s.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 24, 1855

In woods the chestnut-sided warbler, with clear yellow crown and yellow on wings and chestnut sides. See May 23, 1857 ("It appears striped slate and black above, white beneath, yellow-crowned with black side-head, two yellow bars on wing, white side-head below the black, black bill, and long chestnut streak on side. Its song lively")' . June 15, 1854  ("At the Assabet Spring  . . . Saw there also, probably, a chestnut-sided warbler. A yellow crown, chestnut stripe on sides, white beneath, and two yellowish bars on wings") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chestnut-sided Warbler

Andromeda Polifolia now in prime. See May 24, 1854 ("Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime. . . A timid botanist would never pluck it.")

Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. At first think it a tanager . . . Black all above except white on wing, with a triangular red mark on breast. See. May 21, 1856 (" What strong colored fellows, black, white, and fiery rose-red breasts! Strong-natured, too, with their stout bills. A clear, sweet singer, like a tanager but hoarse somewhat, and not shy");  May 25, 1854 (" Hear and see by the sassafras shore the rose-breasted grosbeak, a handsome bird with a loud and very rich song, in character between that of a robin and a red-eye. It sings steadily like a robin. Rose breast, white beneath, black head and above, white on shoulder and wings")  See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Young robins some time hatched. See June 10, 1853 ("We hear the cool peep of the robin calling to its young, now learning to fly."); June 18, 1854 ("I think I heard the anxious peep of a robin whose young have just left the nest.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Robins in Spring

Just before six, see in the northwest the first summer clouds, methinks, piled in cumuli with silvery edges, and westward of them a dull, rainy looking cloud advancing and shutting down to the horizon. See May 25, 1860 "I see in the east the first summer shower cloud, a distinct cloud above, and all beneath to the horizon the general slate-color of falling rain.") and note to May 11, 1854 ("There is a low, dark, blue-black arch, crescent-like, in the horizon, sweeping the distant earth there with a dusky, rainy brush.”)

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

Just before six the

first summer clouds, methinks --

piled in cumuli.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first summer clouds

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

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

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550524