Eleven caterpillars of the sphinx moth.

September 14. 

September 14, 2018

Half a dozen Bidens chrysanthemoides in river, not long. 

Picked eleven of those great potato worms, caterpillars of the sphinx moth, off our privet. 

The Glyceria obtusa, about eighteen inches high, quite common, in the meadow west of Brooks Clark’s, has turned a dull purple, probably on account of frosts.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 14, 1858

Bidens chrysanthemoides in river. See September 7, 1857 ("Bidens chrysanthemoides there [Spencer Brook,]; how long?"); September 12, 1859 ("The four kinds of bidens (frondosa, connata, cernua, and chrysanthemoides) abound now, but much of the Beckii was drowned by the rise of the river. Omitting this, . . . the third and fourth are conspicuous and interesting, expressing by their brilliant yellow the ripeness of the low grounds." September 13, 1852 (" The great bidens in the sun in brooks affects me as the rose of the fall. They are low suns in the brook. The golden glow of autumn concentrated, more golden than the sun. How surely this yellow comes out along the brooks in autumn. It yellows along the brook."); September 13, 1859 ("The Bidens chrysanthemoides, now apparently in its prime by the river, now almost dazzles you with its great sunny disk. I feast my eyes on it annually. [Iin this is seen the concentrated heat of autumn."); September 14, 1854 ("The great bidens, the flower and ornament of the riversides at present, and now in its glory, especially at I. Rice’s shore, where there are dense beds. It is a splendid yellow — Channing says a lemon yellow — and looks larger than it is (two inches in diameter, more or less). Full of the sun. It needs a name") ;September 18, 1856 ("On account of freshet I have seen no Bidens Beckii nor chrysanthemoides")

Picked eleven of those great potato worms, caterpillars of the sphinx moth, off our privet. See October 10, 1856 ("While moving the fence to-day, dug up a large reddish, mummy-like chrysalid or nymph of the sphinx moth."); May 5, 1857 ("Have dug up in the garden this season half a dozen of those great leather-colored pupae (with the tongue-case bent round to breast like a long urn-handle) of the sphinx moth. First potato-worm.")

The Glyceria obtusa has turned a dull purple. See September 2, 1858 (“That rich, close, erect-panicled grass of the meadows, apparently for a month in bloom. seems to be Glyceria obtusa. Very common in the meadow west of Brooks Clark’s.")

Thermometers, hygrometers, and barometers. Frogs of Massachusetts

May 6 

I heard from time to time a new note from my Rana palustris in the firkin in my chamber. It was that strong vibratory purr or prr-r-r-a-a-a, as if it began with a p, lasting two or three seconds and sometimes longer. In the firkin near my bed, it sounded just like a vibrating sliver which struck hard and rapidly against the rail [it] belonged to, – dry, like a fine and steady watchman's rattle sounding but little while. I recognized it as a sound I hear along the riverside. It was like the tut tut tut more sharply and very rapidly or closely sounded perchance; perhaps even like the tapping of a woodpecker. Yes, quite like it thus close by. 

This morning that spawn laid night before last has expanded to three and a half inches in diameter. 

P. M. — To Trillium Wood. 

It is a muggy and louring afternoon, and I go looking for toad spawn and for frogs. 

In all cases in which I have noticed frogs coupled this year, — the sylvatica, halecina, and palustris, - the female has been considerably the largest. 

The most common frog that I get sight of along the brooks and ditches this afternoon, and indeed for some weeks in similar localities and even in some parts of the river shore, is what I have called the young R. pipiens, with commonly a dull-green head and sides of head, sometimes bright green, and back dusky-spotted. Can this be the bull frog? Is it not the fontinalis with less bright green and a white throat? Sometimes it is yellow-throated. 

I saw lately in the river a full-grown bullfrog, with, I think, a white throat. I see a Rana sylvatica by a ditch in Stow’s meadow, fifteen rods from the (Trillium) Wood. 

The Salix rostrata staminate flowers are of very peculiar yellow, — a bright, what you might call yellow yellow. 

A boy brings me to-day an Attacus Cecropia moth which has come out of a cocoon in his trunk. It is, I think, the male, a dark brown above, and considerably larger than mine. It must be about seven inches in alar extent. 

Minott remembers the Rana palustris, or yellow legged one, as “ the one that stinks so,” as if that scent were peculiar to it. I suppose it is. He says that the white-legged one (the halecina) was preferred for invalids, i. e. their legs, as being sweeter. He says that there used to be a great many more bullfrogs than there are now, and what has got them he does not know. 

About 9 P. M. I went to the edge of the river to hear the frogs. It was a warm and moist, rather foggy evening, and the air full of the ring of the toad, the peep of the hylodes, and the low growling croak or stertoration of the Rana palustris. Just there, however, I did not hear much of the toad, but rather from the road, but I heard the steady peeping of innumerable hylodes for a background to the palustris snoring, further over the meadow. 

There was a universal snoring of the R. palustris all up and down the river on each side, the very sounds that mine made in my chamber last night, and probably it began in earnest last evening on the river. It is a hard, dry, unmusical, fine watchman’s-rattle-like stertoration, swelling to a speedy conclusion, lasting say some four or five seconds usually. The rhythm of it is like that of the toads’ ring, but not the sound. This is considerably like that of the tree-toad, when you think of it critically, after all, but is not so musical or sonorous as that even. There is an occasional more articulate, querulous, or rather quivering, alarm note such as I have described (May 2d). 

Each shore of the river now for its whole length is all alive with this stertorous purring. It is such a sound as I make in my throat when I imitate the growling of wild animals. I have heard a little of it at intervals for a week, in the warmest days, but now at night it [is] universal all along the river. If the note of the R. halecina, April 3d, was the first awakening of the river meadows, this is the second, —considering the hylodes and toads less (?) peculiarly of the river meadows. Yet how few distinguished this sound at all, and I know not one who can tell what frog makes it, though it is almost as universal as the breeze itself. 

The sounds of those three reptiles now fill the air, especially at night. The toads are most regardless of the light, and regard less a cold day than the R. palustris does. In the mornings now, I hear no R. palustris and no hylodes, but a few toads still, but now, at night, all ring together, the toads ringing through the day, the hylodes beginning in earnest toward night and the palustris at evening. I think that the different epochs in the revolution of the seasons may perhaps be best marked by the notes of reptiles. They express, as it were, the very feelings of the earth or nature. They are perfect thermometers, hygrometers, and barometers. 

One of our cherries opens. 

I heard a myrtle-bird's tull-lull yesterday, and that somebody else heard it four or five days ago. 

Many are catching pouts this louring afternoon, in the little meadow by Walden. 

May 6, 2017

The thinker, he who is serene and self-possessed, is the brave, not the desperate soldier. He who can deal with his thoughts as a material, building them into poems in which future generations will delight, he is the man of the greatest and rarest vigor, not sturdy diggers and lusty polygamists. He is the man of energy, in whom subtle and poetic thoughts are bred. Common men can enjoy partially; they can go a-fishing rainy days; they can read poems perchance, but they have not the vigor to beget poems. They can enjoy feebly, but they cannot create. Men talk of freedom! How many are free to think? free from fear, from perturbation, from prejudice? Nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand are perfect slaves. How many can exercise the highest human faculties? He is the man truly — courageous, wise, ingenious - who can use his thoughts and ecstasies as the material of fair and durable creations. One man shall derive from the fisherman’s story more than the fisher has got who tells it. The mass of men do not know how to cultivate the fields they traverse. The mass glean only a scanty pittance where the thinker reaps an abundant harvest. What is all your building, if you do not build with thoughts? No exercise implies more real manhood and vigor than joining thought to thought. How few men can tell what they have thought! I hardly know half a dozen who are not too lazy for this. They cannot get over some difficulty, and therefore they are on the long way round. You conquer fate by thought. If you think the fatal thought of men and institutions, you need never pull the trigger. The consequences of thinking inevitably follow. There is no more Herculean task than to think a thought about this life and then get it expressed. - Horticulturalists think that they make flower-gardens, though in their thoughts they are barren and flowerless, but to the poet the earth is a flower-garden wherever he goes, or thinks. Most men can keep a horse or keep up a certain fashionable style of living, but few indeed can keep up great expectations. They justly think very meanly of themselves.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 6, 1858

The Salix rostrata staminate flowers are of very peculiar yellow, — a bright, what you might call yellow yellow. See May 5, 1857 ("Staminate Salix rostrata, possibly yesterday.”); 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 . . . willows”); May 2, 1859 (“I see on the Salix rostrata by railroad many honey bees laden with large and peculiarly orange-colored pellets of its pollen.”)

A boy brings me to-day an Attacus Cecropia moth . . . considerably larger than mine. See June 2, 1855 (“I gave it ether and so saved it in a perfect state. As it lies, not spread to the utmost, it is five and nine tenths inches by two and a quarter.”)

I heard a myrtle-bird's tull-lull yesterday, and that somebody else heard it four or five days ago. See May 5, 1857 (“Hear the tull-lull of a myrtle-bird (very commonly heard for three or four days after).”); May 6, 1855 (“Myrtle-birds very numerous just beyond Second Division. They sing like an instrument, teee teee te, t t t, t t t, on very various keys . . . Many white-throated sparrows there.”

In all cases in which I have noticed frogs coupled this year, — the sylvatica, halecina, and palustris, - the female has been considerably the largest. . .The young R. pipiens, with commonly a dull-green head and sides of head, sometimes bright green, and back dusky-spotted. Can this be the bull frog? Is it not the fontinalis with less bright green and a white throat? Sometimes it is yellow-throated. I saw lately in the river a full-grown bullfrog, with, I think, a white throat. . . .the air full of the ring of the toad, the peep of the hylodes, and the low growling croak or stertoration of the Rana palustris. . . .The rhythm of it is like that of the toads’ ring, but not the sound. This is considerably like that of the tree-toad.  See The 10 frog species in Massachusetts. (Mass Audubon) (HDT’s halecina is the northern leopard frog, his fontinalis is the green frog, his hylodes the peeper):

Spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer)[hylodes]

Wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus)[Rana sylvatica]

American toad (Anaxyrus americanus)



Green frog (Lithobates clamitans)[Rana pipiens]

Northern leopard frog (Lithobates pipiens)[Rana halecina]

Pickerel frog (Lithobates palustris)[Rana palustris]

American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus)

Gray treefrog (Hyla versicolor)[tree-toad ]

Eastern spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrookii)


Fowler's toad (Anaxyrus fowleri)

The tull-lull of a myrtle-bird.

May 5. 

Tuesday. Building fence east of house. 

Hear the tull-lull of a myrtle-bird (very commonly heard for three or four days after). 

Have dug up in the garden this season half a dozen of those great leather-colored pupae (with the tongue-case bent round to breast like a long urn-handle) of the sphinx moth. 

First potato-worm. 

Staminate Salix rostrata, possibly yesterday.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 5, 1857

Hear the tull-lull . . .See April 19,1855 ("Hear the tull-lull of the white-throated sparrow in street”); May 4, 1855 ("Myrtle-birds numerous, and sing their tea lee, tea lee in morning. White-throated sparrows here, and numerous”); May 2, 1856 ("The tea lee of the yellow-rump warbler in the street, at the end of a cool, rainy day.”)

Staminate Salix rostrata. 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 . . . willows . . .”); May 6, 1858 (“The Salix rostrata staminate flowers are of very peculiar yellow, — a bright, what you might call yellow yellow.”)

These are the finest days in the year

October 10.

October 10, 2016

These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer. 

This afternoon it is 80°, between three and four, and at 6.30 this evening my chamber is oppressively sultry, and the thermometer on the north side of the house is at 64°. I lie with window wide open under a single sheet most of the night. But I anticipate. 

The phebe note of the chickadee is now often heard in the yards, and the very Indian summer itself is a similar renewal of the year, with the faint warbling of birds and second blossoming of flowers. 

Going to E. Hosmer's by boat, see quite a flock of wild ducks in front of his house, close by the bridge. 

While moving the fence to-day, dug up a large reddish, mummy-like chrysalid or nymph of the sphinx moth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 10, 1856


These are the finest days in the year,. . . . See October 10, 1857 ("The sixth day of glorious weather, which I am tempted to call the finest in the year"). See also July 22, 1851 ("These are our fairest days, which are born in a fog."); May 5, 1852 ("Every part of the world is beautiful today."); May 18, 1852 (The world can never be more beautiful than now”); August 19, 1853 (“A glorious and ever-memorable day.”); December 10, 1853”These are among the finest days in the year”); May 21, 1854 (“the finest days of the year, days long enough and fair enough for the worthiest deeds.”); December 21, 1854 (“We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year.”);  September 18, 1860 ("If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow.").

A renewal of the year, with the faint warbling of birds and second blossoming of flowers.  See October 10, 1851 ("There are many things to indicate the renewing of spring at this season");  October 10, 1853 ("The faint suppressed warbling of the robins sounds like a reminiscence of the spring."); See also September 10, 1857 ("I see lambkill ready to bloom a second time.”); September 16, 1852 (“Some birds, like some flowers, begin to sing again in the fall.”); September 26, 1859 ("So it is with flowers, birds, and frogs a renewal of spring."); October 3, 1858 ("Hear a hylodes peeping on shore."); October 22, 1859 (" I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us.");  October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena re mind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds. . . ."); November 9, 1850 ("I found many fresh violets (Viola pedata) to-day (November 9th) in the woods.").

I lie with window wide open . . . See November 8, 1855 ("I can sit with my window open and no fire.”); October 31, 1854 ("[W]e have had remarkably warm and pleasant Indian summer, with frequent frosts in the morning. Sat with open window for a week.")