The colors of the oaks are far more distinct now

October 15. 

October 15, 2018

The balm-of-Gileads are half bare. 

I see a few red maples still bright, but they are commonly yellow ones. [no] 

White pines are in the midst of their fall. 

The Lombardy poplars are still quite green and cool. 

Large rock maples are now perhaps in their prime,— later than I supposed, —though some small ones have begun to fall. Some that were green a week ago are now changed. 

The large white oak by path north of Sleepy Hollow is now all red and at height. 

Perhaps half the white ash trees are yellow, and if the mulberry ones were dulled (?) a week ago, the yellow ones, me thinks, are fresher or brighter than ever, but fast falling. 

White birches, though they have lost many leaves, are still, perhaps, as soft a yellow as ever, a fine yellow imbrication seen against the greener forest. They change gradually and last long. 

P. M. — To Walden. 

White oaks are rapidly withering, — the outer leaves.

The small black oaks, too, are beginning to wither and turn brown. Small red oaks, at least, and small scarlet ones, are apparently in their prime in sprout-lands and young woods. The large leaves of the red oaks are still fresh, of mingled reddish or scarlet, yellow, and green, striking for the size of the leaf, but not so uniformly dark and brilliant as the scarlet. The black oak is yellowish, a half-decayed or brownish yellow, and already becoming brown and crisp, though not so much so as the white. The scarlet is the most brilliant of the oaks, finely fingered, especially noticeable in sprout-lands and young woods. The larger ones are still altogether green, or show a deep cool green in their recesses. 

If you stand fronting a hillside covered with a variety of young oaks, the brightest scarlet ones, uniformly deep, dark scarlet, will be the scarlet oaks; the next most uniformly reddish, a peculiar dull crimson (or salmon ?) red, are the white oaks; then the large-leaved and variously tinted red oaks, scarlet, yellow, and green; and finally the yellowish and half-decayed brown leaves of the black oak. 

The colors of the oaks are far more distinct now than they were before. See that white and that black oak,  side by side, young trees, the first that peculiar dull crimson (or salmon) red, with crisped edges, the second a brownish and greenish yellow, much sun still in its leaves. Looking at a young white oak, you see two distinct colors, the brighter or glossier red of the upper surfaces of the inner leaves, as yet not much affected by frost and wind, contrasting with the paler but still crimson tinged under sides of the outmost leaves, blown up by the wind and perhaps partly crisped.

I notice thorn bushes in sprout-lands quite bare. 

The lower leaves of huckleberry bushes and young wild black cherries fall first, but for the most part the upper leaves of apple trees. 

The high blueberries are still a bright or red scarlet.

Goldenrods now pretty generally show their dirty-white pappus together with the still yellow scales, the last preserving some semblance of the flowers. 

Small hickories are the clearest and most delicate yellow in the shade of the woods. 

Cinnamon ferns in Clintonia Swamp are fast losing their leafets. 

Some large dicksonias on the moist hillside there are quite green yet, though nearly prostrate in a large close patch slanting down the hill, and with some faded nearly white. 

The yellow lily in the brook by the Turnpike is still expanding fresh leaves with wrinkled edges, as in the spring. 

The Salix humilis falls, exposing its great cones like a fruit. 

On the sandy slope of the cut, close by the pond, I notice the chips which some Indian fletcher has made. Yet our poets and philosophers regret that we have no antiquities in America, no ruins to remind us of the past. Hardly can the wind blow away the surface anywhere, exposing the spotless sand, even though the thickest woods have recently stood there, but these little stone chips made by some aboriginal fletcher are revealed. 

With them, too, this time, as often, I find the White man’s arm, a conical bullet, still marked by the groove of the rifle, which has been roughened or rucked up like a thimble on the side by which it struck the sand. As if, by some [un]explained sympathy and attraction, the Indian’s and the white man’s arrowheads sought the same grave at last.

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

White pines are in the midst of their fall. See October 14, 1856 (“Pine-needles, just fallen, now make a thick carpet”); October 16, 1854 (“The pines, too, have fallen.”); October 16, 1855 (“How evenly the freshly fallen pine-needles are spread on the ground!”); October 16,1857 (“A great part of the pine-needles have just fallen.”)

Cinnamon ferns in Clintonia Swamp are fast losing their leafets. See October 15, 1856 ("The large ferns are now rapidly losing their leaves except the terminal tuft."); October 17, 1857 ("The cinnamon ferns surrounding the swamp have just lost their leafets, except the terminal ones.")

The humblest fungus betrays a life akin to my own

October 10. 

October 10, 2018

Sunday. P. M. ——-To Annursnack. 

November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush, and the fall and blackening of the pontederia. The leaves of the two former are the greater part fallen, letting in the autumn light to the water, and the ducks have less shelter and concealment. 

As I go along the Groton road, I see afar, in the middle of E. Wood’s field, what looks like a stone jug or post, but my glass reveals it a woodchuck, a great, plump gray fellow, and when I am nearly half a mile off, I can still see him nibbling the grass there, and from time to time, when he hears, perchance, a wagon on the road, sitting erect and looking warily around for approaching foes. I am glad to see the woodchuck so fat in the orchard. It proves that is the same nature that was of yore. 

The autumnal brightness of the foliage generally is less, or faded, since the fading of the maples and hickories, which began about the 5th. Oak leaves generally (perhaps except scarlet?) begin to wither soon after they begin to turn, and large trees (except the scarlet) do not generally attain to brilliancy.[?] 

Apparently Fringilla pusilla yet.

The Salix humilis leaves are falling fast in Wood Turtle Path (A. Hosmer’s), a dry Wood-path, looking curled and slaty-colored about the half-bare stems.

Thus each humble shrub is contributing its mite to the fertility of the globe. 

I find the under sides of the election-cake fungi there covered with pink-colored fleas, apparently poduras, skipping about when it is turned up to the light. 

The simplest and most lumpish fungus has a peculiar interest to us, compared with a mere mass of earth, because it is so obviously organic and related to ourselves, however mute. It is the expression of an idea; growth according to a law; matter not dormant, not raw, but inspired, appropriated by spirit. If I take up a handful of earth, however separately interesting the particles may be, their relation to one another appears to be that of mere juxtaposition generally. I might have thrown them together thus. But the humblest fungus betrays a life akin to my own. It is a successful poem in its kind. There is suggested something superior to any particle of matter, in the idea or mind which uses and arranges the particles. 

Genius is inspired by its own works; it is hermaphroditic. 

I find the fringed gentian abundantly open at 3 and at 4 P. M., — in fact, it must be all the afternoon, — open to catch the cool October sun and air in its low position. Such a dark blue! surpassing that of the male bluebird’s back, who must be encouraged by its presence. [Inclosing it in a mass of the sphagnum near or in which it often grows, I carry it home, and it opens for several days in succession.]

The indigo-weed, now partly turned black and broken off, blows about the pastures like the fiyaway grass.

I find some of those little rooty tubers (?), now woody, in the turtle field of A. Hosmer’s by Eddy Bridge.

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.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 10, 1858

November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush. See note to  October 8, 1858 ("The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish.")

The simplest and most lumpish fungus . . .betrays a life akin to my own. It is a successful poem in its kind. See  February 19, 1854 ("The mind of the universe rather, which we share, has been intended upon each particular object. . .kindred mind with mine that admires and approves decided it so.") See also August 7, 1853 ("The past has been a remarkably wet week, and now the earth is strewn with fungi."); October 22, 1851 ("The rain and dampness have given birth to a new crop of mushrooms.")

Such a dark blue! surpassing that of the male bluebird’s back, who must be encouraged by its presence. See October 19, 1852 ("It is too remarkable a flower not to be sought out and admired each year, however rare. It is one of the errands of the walker, as well as of the bees, for it yields him a more celestial nectar still. It is a very singular and agreeable surprise to come upon this conspicuous and handsome and withal blue flower at this season, when flowers have passed out of our minds and memories")

Thus each humble shrub is contributing its mite to the fertility of the globe. See September 12, 1858 ("Thus gradually and successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, and in the fittest place, and passes away. "); October 14, 1860 (" Consider how many leaves there are to fall each year and how much they must add to the soil. We have had a remarkably fertile year."); October 16, 1857 ("How beautifully they die, making cheerfully their annual contribution to the soil! They fall to rise again; as if they knew that it was not one annual deposit alone that made this rich mould in which pine trees grow. They live in the soil whose fertility and bulk they increase, and in the forests that spring from it. "); October 20, 1853 ("Merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting their graves, whispering all through the woods about it. They that waved so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! So they troop to their graves, light and frisky. They are about to add a leaf's breadth to the depth of the soil. We are all the richer for their decay."); October 29, 1855 ("When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves, returning to dust again. Here are no lying nor vain epitaphs. The scent of their decay is pleasant to me.")

The indigo-weed, now partly turned black and broken off, blows about the pastures like the fiyaway grass. See June 3, 1851 ("I noticed the indigo-weed a week or two ago pushing up like asparagus."); July 10, 1855 ("Indigo out."); July 17, 1852 ("Some fields are covered now with tufts or clumps of indigo- weed, yellow with blossoms, with a few dead leaves turned black here and there."); July 25, 1853 ("Bunches of indigo, still in bloom, more numerously than anywhere that I remember");  August 6, 1858 ("indigo, ' ' 'is still abundantly in bloom. "); August 17, 1851 ("Indigo-weed still in bloom by the dry wood-path-side,");  October 22, 1859 ("In my blustering walk over the Mason and Hunt pastures yesterday, I saw much of the withered indigo-weed which was broken off and blowing about, and the seeds in its numerous black pods rattling like the rattlepod though not nearly so loud"); February 28, 1860 ("As I stood by Eagle Field wall, I heard a fine rattling sound, produced by the wind on some dry weeds at my elbow. It was occasioned by the wind rattling the fine seeds in those pods of the indigo-weed which were still closed, — a distinct rattling din which drew my attention to it, — like a small Indian's calabash. Not a mere rustling of dry weeds, but the shaking of a rattle, or a hundred rattles, beside.")

Pulling up some Diplopappus linariifolius, now done. See August 22, 1859 ("The savory-leaved aster (Diplopappus linariifolius) out; how long?"); September 18, 1856 ("Diplopappus linariifolius in prime.")

https://tinyurl.com/HDT581010

The naturalist accomplishes a great deal by patience

April 15. 

P. M. — To sedge-path Salix humilis. I see many planting now. 

See a pair of woodpeckers on a rail and on the ground a-courting. One keeps hopping near the other, and the latter hops away a few feet, and so they accompany one another a long distance, uttering sometimes a faint or short a-week. 

I go to find hylodes spawn. I hear some now peeping at mid-afternoon in Potter's meadow, just north of his swamp. It is hard to tell how far off they are. At a distance they often appear to be nearer than they are; when I get nearer I think them further off than they are; and not till I get their parallax with my eyes by going to one side do I discover their locality. From time to time one utters that peculiar quavering sound, I suspect of alarm, like that which a hen makes when she sees a hawk. They peep but thinly at this hour of a bright day. 

Wading about in the meadow there, barelegged, I find the water from time to time, though no deeper than before, exceedingly cold, evidently because there is ice in the meadow there still. Having stood quite still on the edge of the ditch close to the north edge of the maple swamp some time, and heard a slight rustling near me from time to time, I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet. 

It was pure reddish-brown above, with a blackish and somewhat bushy tail, a blunt nose, and somewhat innocent-looking head. It crept along toward me and around me, within two feet, in a semicircle, snuffing the air, and pausing to look at me several times. Part of its course when nearest me was in the water of the ditch. It then crawled slowly away, and I saw by the ripple where it had taken to the ditch again. 

Perhaps it was after a frog, like myself. It may have been attracted by the peeping. But how much blacker was the creature I saw April 28th, 1857: A very different color, though the tail the same form. 

The naturalist accomplishes a great deal by patience, more perhaps than by activity. He must take his position, and then wait and watch. It is equally true of quadrupeds and reptiles. Sit still in the midst of their haunts. 

Saw flitting silently through the wood, near the yew, two or three thrushes, much like, at least, the Turdus Wilsonii; a light ring about eyes, and whitish side of throat (?); rather fox-colored or cinnamon tail, with ashy reflections from edges of primaries; flesh-colored legs. Did not see the breast. Could it have been what I have called T. solitarius? Soon after methought I heard one faint wood thrush note (??).

Catch a peeper at Hayden’s Pool. I suspect it may have been a female, for, though I kept it a  day at home, it did not peep. It was a pale fawn-color out of water, nine tenths of an inch long, marked with dusky like this  

though not so distinctly. It could easily climb up the side of a tumbler, and jumped eighteen inches at once. 

Equisetum arvense out by railroad, and probably I saw it out on the 12th, near the factory.

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


See a pair of woodpeckers on a rail and on the ground a-courting . . ., uttering sometimes a faint or short a-week. See April 15, 1855 ("Pigeon woodpecker’s cackle is heard");See also April 22, 1856 ("See a pigeon woodpecker on a fence post. . . . Joins his mate on a tree and utters the wooing note o-week o-week, etc "); April 23, 1855 ("Saw two pigeon woodpeckers approach and, I think, put their bills together and utter that o-week, o-week"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker)

I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet. It was pure reddish-brown above, with a blackish and somewhat bushy tail, a blunt nose, and somewhat innocent-looking head. It crept along toward me and around me, within two feet. See December 2, 1852 ("Above the bridge on the road from Chelmsford to Bedford we see a mink, slender, black, very like a weasel in form. He alternately runs along on the ice and swims in the water, now and then holding up his head and long neck looking at us. Not so shy as a muskrat."); March 26, 1855 ("At the Hubbard Bath, a mink comes teetering along the ice by the side of the river. I am between him and the sun, and he does not notice me. He runs daintily, lifting his feet with a jerk as if his toes were sore. They seem to go a-hunting at night along the edge of the river "); November 13, 1855 (“Going over Swamp Bridge Brook at 3 P. M., I saw in the pond by the roadside, a few rods before me, the sun shining bright, a mink swimming . . . It was a rich brown fur . . . not black as it sometimes appears, especially on ice.”). April 28, 1857 (“It crossed to my side about twenty-five feet off, apparently not observing me, and disappeared in the woods. It was perfectly black, for aught I could see (not brown), some eighteen or twenty inches or more in length from tip to tip, and I first thought of a large black weasel, then of a large black squirrel, then wondered if it could be a pine marten. I now try to think it a mink”); March 13, 1859 ("I commonly saw two or three in a year. "); April 29, 1860 ("I now actually see one small-looking rusty or brown black mink scramble along the muddy shore and enter a hole in the bank.")


The naturalist accomplishes a great deal by patience. See January 21, 1853 (“I must stand still and listen with open ears, far from the noises of the village, that the night may make its impression on me.”); March 27, 1853 ("Stood perfectly still amid the bushes on the shore, before one showed himself. . . and, though I waited about half an hour, would not utter a sound”); July 17, 1854: "I watch them [white lillies] for an hour and a half.”

Saw flitting silently through the wood, near the yew, two or three thrushes. See note to April 24, 1856 ("Behold my hermit thrush, with one companion, flitting silently through the birches.") and April 15, 1859 (" Not being prepared to hear it, I thought it a boy whistling at first.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: The Arrival of the Hermit Thrush

Catch a peeper at Hayden’s Pool. See April 3, 1853 ("At Hayden's I hear hylas on two keys or notes. Heard one after the other, it might be mistaken for the varied note of one.");

Is not the first lightning the forerunner or warranty of summer heat?

April 13. 

Began to rain last evening, and still rains. 

The tree sparrows sing sweetly, canary-like, still.

Hear the first toad in the rather cool rain, 10 A. M.

See through the dark rain the first flash of lightning, in the west horizon, doubting if it was not a flash of my eye at first, but after a very long interval I hear the low rumbling of the first thunder, and now the summer is baptized and inaugurated in due form. Is not the first lightning the forerunner or warranty of summer heat? The air now contains such an amount of heat that it emits a flash. 

Speaking to J. B. Moore about the partridges being run down, he says that he was told by Lexington people some years ago that they found a duck lying dead under the spire of their old meeting-house (since burned) which stood on the Battle-Ground. The weathercock — and it was a cock in this case —- was considerably bent, and the inference was that the duck had flown against it in the night. 

P. M. – To the yew. 

Shepherd's-purse already going to seed; in bloom there some time. Also chickweed; how long? I had thought these would be later, on account of the ground having been so bare, and indeed they did suffer much, but early warm weather forwarded them. 

That unquestionable staminate Salix humilis beyond yew will not be out for three or four days. Its old leaves on the ground are turned cinder-color, as are those under larger and doubtful forms. 

Epigaea abundantly out, maybe four or five days. It was apparently in its winter state March 28th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1858

Hear the first toad in the rather cool rain. See April 13, 1853 ("Pewee days and April showers. First hear toads (and take off coat), a loud, ringing sound filling the air, which yet few notice.") See also April 5, 1857 ("Probably single ones ring earlier than I supposed."): April 5, 1860 ("I hear, a very faint distant ring of toads, which, though I walk and walk all the afternoon, I never come nearer to."); April 15, 1856 ("[ 11 P. M., a still and rather warm night, I am surprised to hear the first loud, clear, prolonged ring of a toad, . . .While all the hillside else, perhaps, is asleep, this toad has just awaked to a new year."); April 18, 1855 ("In the evening hear far and wide the ring of toads, and a thunder-shower with its lightning is seen and heard in the west. "): April 25, 1856 ("The toads have begun fairly to ring at noonday in amid the birches to hear them . . . The voice of the toad, the herald of warmer weather. "); April 29, 1856 ("Do not the toads ring most on a windy day like this?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Ring of Toads

See through the dark rain the first flash of lightning. . . and now the summer is baptized and inaugurated in due form. See April 14, 1858 ("Rains still, with one or two flashes of lightning, but soon over "); April 17, 1856 (" Was awakened in the night by a thunder and lightning shower and hail-storm — the old familiar burst and rumble,. . . a skirmish between the cool rear-guard of winter and the warm and earnest vanguard of summer. Advancing summer strikes on the edge of winter, which does not drift fast enough away, and fire is elicited. Electricity is engendered by the early heats. I love to hear the voice of the first thunder as of the toad .") April 18, 1855 ("In the evening hear far and wide the ring of toads, and a thunder-shower with its lightning is seen and heard in the west. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Lightning

Speaking to about the partridges being run down. See April 12, 1858 ("A partridge standing on the track, between the rails over which the cars had just passed. She had evidently been run down. . . It may be many generations before the partridges learn to give the cars a sufficiently wide berth.")

That unquestionable staminate Salix humilis beyond yew will not be out for three or four days. See April 9, 1858 ("The yew looks as if it would bloom in a day or two, and the staminate Salix humilis in the path in three or four days.") See also April 11, 1860 ("Salix humilis abundantly out, how long?"); April 25, 1857 ("Got to-day unquestionable Salix humilis in the Britton hollow, north of his shanty, but all there that I saw (and elsewhere as yet) [are] pistillate. It is apparently now in prime, and apparently the next to bloom after the various larger and earlier ones, all which I must call as yet S. discolor. This S. humilis is small-catkined and loves a dry soil.")

Epigaea abundantly out. See April 8, 1859 ("The epigaea is not quite out.");April 11, 1860 ("Epigæa abundantly out (probably 7th at least).");  April 15, 1859 ("The epigaea opened, apparently, the 13th.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Epigaea

This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade.

April 9.

April rain at last, but not much; clears up at night.

At 4.30 P.M. to Well Meadow Field.

The yew looks as if it would bloom in a day or two, and the staminate Salix humilis in the path in three or four days. Possibly it is already out elsewhere, if, perchance, that was not it just beginning on the 6th on the Marlborough road. The pistillate appear more forward. It must follow pretty close to the earliest willows.

I hear the booming of snipe this evening, and Sophia says she heard them on the 6th. The meadows having been bare so long, they may have begun yet earlier.

Persons walking up or down our village street in still evenings at this season hear this singular winnowing sound in the sky over the meadows and know not what it is. This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade. 

I heard it this evening for the first time, as I sat in the house, through the window. Yet common and annual and remarkable as it is, not one in a hundred of the villagers hears it, and hardly so many know what it is. Yet the majority know of the Germanians who have only been here once. Mr. Hoar was almost the only inhabitant of this street whom I had heard speak of this note, which he used annually to hear and listen for in his sundown or evening walks.

R. Rice tells me that he has seen the pickerel-spawn hung about in strings on the brush, especially where a tree had fallen in. He thinks it was the pickerel’s because he has seen them about at the time. This seems to correspond with mine of April 3d, though he did [not] recognize the peculiar form of it.

I doubt if men do ever simply and naturally glorify God in the ordinary sense, but it is remarkable how sincerely in all ages they glorify nature. The praising of Aurora, for instance, under some form in all ages is obedience to as irresistible an instinct as that which impels the frogs to peep.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 9, 1858

The yew looks as if it would bloom in a day or two, and the staminate Salix humilis in the path in three or four days. See April 13, 1858 ("That unquestionable staminate Salix humilis beyond yew will not be out for three or four days. Its old leaves on the ground are turned cinder-color, as are those under larger and doubtful forms.")

This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade. See April 9, 1853 ("Evening. -- Hear the snipe a short time at early starlight. . . . Louder than all is heard the shrill peep of the hylodes and the hovering note of the snipe, circling invisible above them all.");  April 9, 1855 ("Some twenty minutes after sundown I hear the first booming of a snipe."); See also April 15, 1856 (" I hear a part of the hovering note of my first snipe, circling over some distant meadow"); April 18, 1854 (" One[snipe] booms now at 3 p. m."); April 18, 1856 ("This evening I hear the snipes generally and peeping of hylas from the door. ")' April 25, 1859 ("The snipe have hovered commonly this spring an hour or two before sunset and also in the morning . . . and they appear to make that sound when descending, — one quite by himself.") and  A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

Pickerel-spawn hung about in strings on the brush. See April 3, 1858 ("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 diameter and one or two feet long, looking like a lady's ruff or other muslin work, on the bottom or on roots and twigs of willow and button-bush")   See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pickerel

Wild, scudding wind-clouds in the north, spitting cold rain or sleet, with the curved lines of falling rain beneath..

April 25.

Saturday. P. M. — Down Turnpike to Smith's Hill and return by Goose Pond. 

Saw a large old hollow log with the upper side [gone], which [made] me doubt if it was not a trough open at the ends, and suggested that the first trough was perhaps such a hollow log with one side split off and the ends closed. 

It is cool and windy this afternoon. 

Some sleet falls, but as we sit on the east side of Smith's chestnut grove, the wood, though so open and leafless, makes a perfect lee for us, apparently by breaking the force of the wind. A dense but bare grove of slender chestnut trunks a dozen rods wide is a perfect protection against this violent wind, and makes a perfectly calm lee. 

I find that I can very easily make a convenient box of the birch bark, at this season at least, when the sap is running, to carry a moss or other thing in safely. I have only to make three cuts and strip off a piece from a clear space some ten inches long, and then, rolling it up wrong side outward, as it naturally curls backward as soon as taken off (the dry side shrinking, the moist swelling) and so keeps its place, I bend or fold the ends back on it, as if it were paper, and so close them, and, if I please, tie it round with a string of the same bark. This is resilient or elastic, and stands out from a plant, and also is not injured by moisture like paper. When the incision is made now, the crystalline drops of sap follow the knife down the tree. This box dries yellow or straw-colored, with large clouds of green derived from the inner bark. 

The inner bark of the Betula populifolia just laid bare is green with a yellow tinge; that of the B. papyracea is buff. The undermost layer of the outer bark of the last, next to the inner bark, is straw-colored and exceedingly thin and delicate, and smoother to the lips than any artificial tissue. 

Bluets numerous and fully out at the Smith hillside between trough and Saw Mill Brook Falls. 

Got to-day unquestionable Salix humilis in the Britton hollow, north of his shanty, but all there that I saw (and elsewhere as yet) [are] pistillate. It is apparently now in prime, and apparently the next to bloom after the various larger and earlier ones, all which I must call as yet S. discolor. This S. humilis is small-catkined and loves a dry soil. 

A correspondent of the Tribune of April 24th, 1857, who signs "Lyndeborough, N. H., April 15, 1857. J. Herrick," says that he taps his sugar maples four feet from the ground so that cattle may not disturb the buckets, and that the sap will run as freely from the topmost branch as from a root. 

"Any one may learn this fact from the red squirrel, who, by the way, is a famous sugar maker, and knows when to tap a tree and where to do it. He performs his tapping in the highest perpendicular limbs or twigs, and leaves the sun and wind to do the evaporating, and in due season and pleasant weather you will see him come round and with great gusto gather his sirup into his stomach." 

The dense, green, rounded beds of mosses in springs and old water-troughs are very handsome now, — intensely cold green cushions. 

Again we had, this afternoon at 2 o'clock, those wild, scudding wind-clouds in the north, spitting cold rain or sleet, with the curved lines of falling rain beneath. The wind is so strong that the thin drops fall on you in the sunshine when the cloud has drifted far to one side. 

The air is peculiarly clear, the light intense, and when the sun shines slanting under the dark scud, the willows, etc., rising above the dark flooded meadows, are lit with a fine straw-colored light like the spirits of trees. 

I see winkle fungi comparatively fresh, whose green and reddish-brown and pale-buff circles above turn to light and dark slate and white, and so finally fade all to white. 

The beds of fine mosses on bare yellow mouldy soil are now in fruit and very warmly red in the sun when seen a little from one side. 

No pages in my Journal are so suggestive as those which contain a rude sketch. 

Suppose we were to drink only the yellow birch sap and mix its bark with our bread, would not its yellow curls sprout from our foreheads, and our breath and persons exhale its sweet aroma? What sappy vigor there would be in our limbs! What sense we should have to explore the swamps with!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 25, 1857

I find that I can very easily make a convenient box of the birch bark . . . See April 13, 1857 ("I peeled a white birch, getting a piece of bark about ten inches long. I noticed that the birch sap was flowing. This bark at once curled back so as to present its yellow side outward. I . . . tied it round with a strip of birch bark, making a very nice and airy box for the creature, which would not be injured by moisture, far better than any paper, . . .")

Again we had, this afternoon at 2 o'clock, those wild, scudding wind-clouds in the north, spitting cold rain or sleet.  See December 14, 1859( "Snow-storms might be classified. .. . there is sleet, which is half snow, half rain.")

Suppose we were to drink only the yellow birch sap. See April 16, 1857 ("Get birch sap, — two bottles yellow birch and five of black birch. ")

Would not its yellow curls sprout from our foreheads. See  January 4, 1853 ("This is like a fair, flaxen haired sister of the dark-complexioned black birch, with golden ringlets."); February 18, 1854 ("The curls of the yellow birch bark form more or less parallel straight lines up and down on all sides of the tree, like parted hair blown aside by the wind, or as when a vest bursts and blows open."); January 26, 1858 ("The yellow birch . . .might be described as a tree whose trunk or bole was covered with golden and silver shavings glued all over it and dangling in curls. ")