The stake-driver is at it in his favorite meadow.

 

June 20. 


7 P. M. – To Hubbard Bathing-Place.

The blue-eyed grass is shut up. When does it open?

Some blue flags are quite a red purple, — dark wine color.

Identified the Iris prismatica, Boston iris, with linear leaves and round stem.

The stake-driver is at it in his favorite meadow.

I followed the sound. At last I got within two rods, it seeming always to recede and drawing you like a will-o '-the-wisp further away into the meadows.

When thus near, I heard some lower sounds at the beginning, much more like striking on a stump or a stake, a dry hard sound; and then followed the gurgling, pumping notes, fit to come from a meadow.

This was just within the blueberry and Pyrus arbutifolia (choke-berry) bushes, and when the bird flew up alarmed, I went to the place, but could see no water, which makes me doubt if water is necessary to it in making the sound. Perhaps it thrusts its bill so deep as to reach the water where it is dry on the surface.

It sounds the more like wood chopping or pumping, because you seem to hear the echo of the stroke or the reverse motion of the pump handle.

I hear them morning and evening. After the warm weather has come, both morning and evening you hear the bittern pumping in the fens.

It does not sound loud near at hand, and it is remarkable that it should be heard so far. Perhaps it is pitched on a favorable key. Is it not a call to its mate? Methinks that in the resemblance of this note to rural sounds, to sounds made by farmers, the protection, the security, of the bird is designed.

Minott says: “I call them belcher-squelchers. They go slug-toot, slug-toot, slug-toot.”

Dry fields have now a reddish tinge from the seeds of the grass.

Lying with my window open, these warm, even sultry nights, I hear the sonorously musical trump of the bullfrogs from time to time, from some distant shore of the river, as if the world were given up to them. By those villagers who live on the street they are never seen and rarely heard by day, but in the quiet sultry nights their notes ring from one end of the town to another.

It is as if you had waked up in the infernal regions. I do not know for a time in what world I am. It affects my morals, and all questions take a new aspect from this sound.

At night bullfrogs lie on the pads and answer to one another all over North America; undoubtedly there is an incessant and uninterrupted chain of sound, troomp, troomp, troomp, from the Atlantic to the Pacific (vide if they reach so far west), further than Britain's morning gun.

It is the snoring music of nature at night. When you wake thus at midnight and hear this sonorous trump from far in the horizon, you need not go to Dante for an idea of the infernal regions. It requires the night air, this sound.

How allied to a pad in place, in color, --for his greenish back is the leaf and his yellow throat the flower, in form, with his sesquipedality of belly! (And other, white-bellied frogs are white lilies. Through the summer he lies on the pads, or with his head out, and in the winter buries himself at their roots (?).The bull paddock! His eyes like the buds of the Nuphar Kalmiana.

Methinks his skin would stand water without shrinking forever. Gloves made of it for rainy weather, for trout-fishers !

Frogs appear slow to make up their minds, but then they act precipitately. As long as they are here, they are here, and express no intention of removing; but the idea of removing fills them instantaneously, as nature, abhorring, fills a vacuum. Now they are fixed and imperturbable like the Sphinx, and now they go off with short, squatty leaps over the spatter-dock, on the irruption of the least idea. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 20, 1852

The stake-driver is at it in his favorite meadow. See  April 24, 1854 (" As I stand still listening on the frosty sleepers at Wood's crossing by the lupines, I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. ”);. May 9, 1853 ("The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow. "); June 15, 1851 ("The sound of the stake-driver at a distance, — like that made by a man pumping in a neighboring farmyard, watering his cattle, or like chopping wood before his door on a frosty morning, and I can imagine like driving a stake in a meadow. The pumper. . . .before I was further off than I thought, so now I was nearer than I thought"); October 26, 1858 ("[Minott] says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot.” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau American Bittern (the Stake-Diver)

At night bullfrogs lie on the pads and answer to one another all over North America; undoubtedly there is an incessant and uninterrupted chain of sound, troomp, troomp, troomp, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. See June 20, 1853 ("The bullfrogs begin about 8.30. They lie at their length on the surface amid the pads."); See also November 10, 1860 ("I can realize how this country appeared when it was discovered - a full-grown oak forest stretching uninterrupted for miles, consisting of sturdy trees from one to three and even four feet in diameter, whose interlacing branches form a complete and uninterrupted canopy.")

June 20. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 20

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

An evening for poets to describe.

June 14.

Saturday.

Full moon last night.

Set out on a walk to Conantum at 7 P. M. A serene evening, the sun going down behind clouds, a few white or slightly shaded piles of clouds floating in the eastern sky, but a broad, clear, mellow cope left for the moon to rise into. An evening for poets to describe.

Met a man driving home his cow from pasture and stopping to chat with his neighbor; then a boy, who had set down his pail in the road to stone a bird most perseveringly, whom I heard afterward behind me telling his pail to be quiet in a tone of assumed anger, because it squeaked under his arm.

As I proceed along the back road I hear the lark still singing in the meadow, and the bobolink, and the gold robin on the elms, and the swallows twittering about the barns.

A small bird chasing a crow high in the air, who is going home at night.

All nature is in an expectant attitude.

Before Goodwin's house, at the opening of the Sudbury road, the swallows are diving at a tortoise-shell cat, who curvets and frisks rather awkwardly, as if she did not know whether to be scared or not.

And now, having proceeded a little way down this road, the sun having buried himself in the low cloud in the west and hung out his crimson curtains,  I hear, while sitting by the wall, the sound of the stake-driver at a distance, — like that made by a man pumping in a neighboring farmyard, watering his cattle, or like chopping wood before his door on a frosty morning, and I can imagine like driving a stake in a meadow.

The pumper.

I immediately went in search of the bird, but, after going a third of a mile, it did not sound much nearer, and the two parts of the sound did not appear to proceed from the same place.  What is the peculiarity of these sounds which penetrate so far on the keynote of nature? At last I got near to the brook in the meadow behind Hubbard's wood, but I could not tell if were further or nearer than that. When I got within half a dozen rods of the brook, it ceased, and I heard it no I suppose that I scared it.  As before I was further off than I thought, so now I was nearer than I thought.  It is not easy to understand how so small a creature can make so loud a sound by merely sucking in or throwing out water with pump-like lungs.

As yet no moon, but downy piles of cloud scattered here and there in the expectant sky.

Saw a blue flag blossom in the meadow while waiting for the stake-driver. 

It was a sound as of gulping water.

Where my path crosses the brook in the meadow there is a singularly sweet scent in the heavy air bathing the brakes, where the brakes grow, — the fragrance of the earth, as if the dew were a distillation of the fragrant essences of nature.

When I reach the road, the farmer going home from town invites me to ride in his high set wagon, not thinking why I walk, nor can I shortly explain. He remarks on the coolness of the weather.

The angelica is budded, a handsome luxuriant plant.

And now my senses are captivated again by a sweet fragrance as I enter the embowered willow causeway, and I know not if it be from a particular plant or all together, — sweet-scented vernal grass or sweet-briar.

Now the sun is fairly gone, I hear the dreaming frog, [toad?] and the whip-poor-will from some darker wood, — it is not far from eight,— and the cuckoo. The song sparrows sing quite briskly among the willows, as if it were spring again, and the blackbird's harsher note resounds over the meadows, and the veery's comes up from the wood.

Fishes are dimpling the surface of the river, seizing the insects which alight.

A solitary fisherman in his boat inhabits the scene.

As I rose the hill beyond the bridge, I found myself in a cool, fragrant, dewy, up-country, mountain morning air, a new region. When I had issued from the willows on to the bridge, it was like coming out of night into twilight, the river reflected so much light.)

The moon was now seen rising over Fair Haven and at the same time reflected in the river, pale and white like a silvery cloud, barred with a cloud, not promising how it will shine anon.

Now I meet an acquaintance coming from a remote field in his hay-rigging, with a jag of wood; who reins up to show me how large a woodchuck he has killed, which he found eating his clover. But now he must drive on, for behind comes a boy taking up the whole road with a huge roller drawn by a horse, which goes lumbering and bouncing along, getting out of the way of night,— while the sun has gone the other way, — and making such a noise as if it had the contents of a tinker's shop in its bowels, and rolls the whole road smooth like a newly sown grain-field.

In Conant's orchard I hear the faint cricket-like song of a sparrow saying its vespers, as if it were a link between the cricket and the bird. The robin sings now, though the moon shines silverly, and the veery jingles its trill.

I hear the fresh and refreshing sound of falling water, as I have heard it in New Hampshire. It is a sound we do not commonly hear.

I see that the whiteweed is in blossom, which, as I had not walked by day for some time, I had not seen before.

How moderate, deliberate, is Nature! How gradually the shades of night gather and deepen, giving man ample leisure to bid farewell to-day, conclude his day's affairs, and prepare for slumber!

The twilight seems out of proportion to the length of the day. Perchance it saves our eyes.

Now for some hours the farmers have been getting home. Since the alarm about mad dogs a couple of years ago there are comparatively few left to bark at the traveller and bay the moon. All nature is abandoned to me.

You feel yourself — your body, your legs, — more at night, for there is less beside to be distinctly known, and hence perhaps you think yourself more tired than you are.

I see indistinctly oxen asleep in the fields, silent in majestic slumber, like the sphinx, — statuesque, Egyptian, reclining. What solid rest! How their heads are supported! 

A sparrow or a cricket makes more noise.

From Conant's summit I hear as many as fifteen whip poor-wills — or whip-or-I-wills — at once, the succeeding cluck sounding strangely foreign, like a hewer at work elsewhere.

The moon is accumulating yellow light and triumphing over the clouds, but still the west is suffused here and there with a slight red tinge, marking the path of the day. Though inexperienced ones might call it night, it is not yet.

Dark, heavy clouds lie along the western horizon, exhibiting the forms of animals and men, while the moon is behind a cloud. Why do we detect these forms so readily? — whales or giants reclining, busts of heroes, Michael-Angelic.

There is the gallery of statuary, the picture gallery of man, — not a board upon an Italian's head, but these dark figures along the horizon, the board some Titan carries on his head. What firm and heavy outlines for such soft and light material!

How sweet and encouraging it is to hear the sound of some artificial music from the midst of woods or from the top of a hill at night, borne on the breeze from some distant farmhouse, — the human voice or a flute! That is a civilization one can endure, worth having. I could go about the world listening for the strains of music: Men use this gift but sparingly, methinks.

What should we think of a bird which had the gift of song but used it only once in a dozen years, like the tree which blossoms only once in a century?

Now the dorbug comes humming by, the first I have heard this year.

In three months it will be the Harvest Moon. I cannot easily believe it. Why not call this the Traveller's Moon?  It would be as true to call the last (the May) the Planter's Moon as it is to call September's the Harvest Moon, for the farmers use one about as little as the other.

Perhaps this is the Whip-poor-will's Moon.

The bullfrog now, which I have not heard before, this evening.

It is nearly nine.

They are much less common and their note more intermittent than that of the dreamers.

I scared up a bird on a low bush, perchance on its nest. It is rare that you start them at night from such places.

Peabody says that the nighthawk retires to rest about the time the whip-poor-will begins its song. The whip poor-will begins now at 7.30. I hear the nighthawk after 9 o'clock.

He says it flies low in the evening, but it also flies high, as it must needs do to make the booming sound.

I hear the lowing of cows occasionally, and the barking of dogs.

The pond by moonlight, which may make the object in a walk, suggests little to be said.

Where there was only one firefly in a dozen rods, I hastily ran to one which had crawled up to the top of a grass head and exhibited its light, and instantly another sailed in to it, showing its light also; but my presence made them extinguish their lights. The latter retreated, and the former crawled slowly down the stem.

It appeared to me that the first was a female who thus revealed her place to the male, who was also making known his neighborhood as he hovered about, both showing their lights that they might come together.  It was like a mistress who had climbed to the turrets of her castle and exhibited there a blazing taper for a signal, while her lover had displayed his light on the plain. If perchance she might have any lovers abroad.

Not much before 10 o'clock does the moonlight night begin.

When man is asleep and day fairly forgotten, then is the beauty of moonlight seen over lonely pastures where cattle are silently feeding.

Then let me walk in a diversified country, of hill and dale, with heavy woods one side, and copses and scattered trees and bushes enough to give me shadows.

Returning, a mist is on the river. The river is taken into the womb of Nature again.

Now is the clover month, but haying is not yet begun.

Evening. — Went to Nawshawtuct by North Branch. 

Overtaken by a slight shower. The same increased fragrance from the ground-sweet-fern, etc.-as in the night, and for the like reason probably.

The houstonias still blossom freshly, as I believe they continue to do all summer.

The fever-root in blossom; pictured in Bigelow's “Medical Botany."

Triosteum perfoliatum, near the top of Hill, under the wall, looks somewhat like a milkweed.

The Viburnum dentatum, very regularly toothed, just ready to blossom; sometimes called arrow-wood.

Nature seems not [to] have designed that man should be much abroad by night, and in the moon proportioned the light fitly. By the faintness and rareness of the light compared with that of the sun, she expresses her intention with regard to him.



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 14, 1851

I hear, while sitting by the wall, the sound of the stake-driver at a distance,. . . .  The pumper. See April 24, 1854 ("I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself.”); May 9, 1853 ("The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow."); May 20, 1856 ("See and hear a stake-driver in the swamp. It took one short pull at its pump and stopped."); October 26, 1858 ("[Minott] says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot. ” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot.”)

And now my senses are captivated again by a sweet fragrance as I enter the embowered willow causeway, and I know not if it be from a particular plant or all together. See June 20, 1853 ("Walking amid the bushes and the ferns just after moonrise, I am refreshed with many sweet scents which I cannot trace to their source.")

Fishes are dimpling the surface of the river, seizing the insects which alight. See June 9, 1854 ("The fishes continue to leap by moonlight. A full moon."); June 2, 1860 ("Water-bugs dimple the surface now quite across the river, in the moonlight, for it is a full moon.")

The moon was now seen rising and at the same time reflected in the river, pale and white like a silvery cloud. See June 30, 1852 ("Moon nearly full; rose a little before sunset. . . . At first a mere white cloud,"); April 30, 1852 ("Then when I turned, I saw in the east, just over the woods, the modest, pale, cloud-like moon, two thirds full, looking spirit-like on these daylight scenes.")  See also May 28, 1853 ("Last night in the dark [the lupines]were all a pale, whitish color like the moon by day — a mere dull luminousness, as if they reflected light absorbed by day. ")

The moon is accumulating yellow light and triumphing over the clouds. See June 1, 1852 ("You can never foretell the fate of the moon, -- whether she will prevail over or be obscured by the clouds half an hour hence. The traveller's sympathy with the moon makes the drama of the shifting clouds interesting.")

The contents of creatures' stomachs

April 16. 

Horace Mann says that he killed a bullfrog in Walden Pond which had swallowed and contained a common striped snake which measured one foot and eight inches in length.

Says he saw two blue herons (?) go over a fortnight ago.

He brought me some days ago the contents of a stake driver's stomach or crop. It is apparently a perch (?), some seven inches long originally, with three or four pebble-shaped, compact masses of the fur of some very small quadruped, as a meadow mouse, some one fourth inch thick by three fourths in diameter, also several wing-cases of black beetles such as I see on the meadow flood.

He brought me also some time ago the contents of a black duck's crop (killed at Goose Pond), -- green gobbets of fine grass (?) or weeds (?), apparently from the bottom of the pond (just then begun to spring up), but I have not yet examined these out of the bottle.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 16, 1861

Horace Mann says that he killed a bullfrog which had swallowed and contained a common striped snake. See May 19, 1856 ("Saw a small striped snake in the act of swallowing a Rana palustris, within three feet of the water. The snake, being frightened, released his hold, and the frog hopped off to the water. ")

Says he saw two blue herons go over.  See April 14, 1859 ("You have not seen our weedy river, you do not know the significance of its weedy bars, until you have seen the blue heron wading and pluming itself on it"); April 15, 1855 ("We have a fine view of a blue heron, standing erect and open to view on a meadow island, by the great swamp south of the bridge."); April 29, 1854 ("I meet a blue heron flying slowly down stream. He flaps slowly and heavily, his long, level, straight and sharp bill projecting forward, then his keel-like neck doubled up, and finally his legs thrust out straight behind.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron and April 16, 1855 ("At sunset, the mountains, after this our warmest day as yet, have a peculiar soft mantle of blue haze, pale blue as a blue heron.")

To paddle now at evening when the water is smooth and the air begins to be warm.

May 9. 

May 9, 2020

Since I returned from Haverhill not only I find the ducks are gone but I no longer hear the chill lill of the blue snowbird or the sweet strains of the fox-colored sparrow and the tree sparrow. The robin's strain is less remarkable. 

I have devoted most of my day to Mr. Alcott. He is broad and genial but indefinite; some would say feeble; forever feeling about vainly in his speech and touching nothing. But this is a very negative account of him for he thus suggests far more than the sharp and definite practical mind. The feelers of his thought diverge — such is the breadth of their grasp — not converge; and in his society almost alone I can express at my leisure with more or less success my vaguest but most cherished fancy or thought. There are never any obstacles in the way of our meeting. He has no creed. He is not pledged to any institution. The sanest man I ever knew; the fewest crotchets after all has he? 

It has occurred to me while I am thinking with pleasure of our day's intercourse, “Why should I not think aloud to you?” Having each some shingles of thought well dried we walk and whittle them trying our knives and admiring the clear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine. We wade so gently and reverently or we pull together so smoothly that the fishes of thought are not scared from the stream but come and go grandly like yonder clouds that float peacefully through the western sky. When we walk it seems as if the heavens — whose mother-oʻ-pearl and rainbow tints come and go form and dissolve — and the earth had met together and righteousness and peace had kissed each other. I have an ally against the arch-enemy. A blue robed man dwells under the blue concave. The blue sky is a distant reflection of the azure serenity that looks out from under a human brow. We walk together like the most innocent children going after wild pinks with case-knives. Most with whom I endeavor to talk soon fetch up against some institution or particular way of viewing things theirs not being a universal view. They will continually bring their own roofs or — what is not much better — their own narrow skylights between us and the sky when it is the unobstructed heavens I would view. Get out of the way with your old Jewish cobwebs. Wash your windows. 

Saw on Mr. Emerson's firs several parti-colored warblers or finch creepers (Sylvia Americana) a small blue and yellow bird somewhat like but smaller than the indigo-bird; quite tame about the buds of the firs now showing red; often head downward. Heard no note. He says it has been here a day or two. 

At sundown paddled up the river. The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow. 

The greenest and rankest grass as yet is that in the water along the sides of the river. The hylodes are peeping. 

I love to paddle now at evening when the water is smooth and the air begins to be warm. 

The rich warble of blackbirds about retiring is loud and incessant not to mention the notes of numerous other birds. The black willow has started but not yet the button-bush. Again I think I heard the night-warbler. 

Now at starlight that same nighthawk or snipe squeak is heard but no hovering. 

The first bat goes suddenly zigzag overhead through the dusky air; comes out of the dusk and disappears into it. 

That slumbrous snoring croak far less ringing and musical than the toad' s (which is occasionally heard) now comes up from the meadows edge. 

I save a floating plank which exhales and imparts to my hands the rank scent of the muskrats which have squatted on it. I often see their fresh green excrement on rocks and wood. 

Already men are fishing for pouts. 

This has been almost the first warm day; none yet quite so warm. Walking to the Cliffs this afternoon I noticed on Fair Haven Hill a season stillness as I looked over the distant budding forest and heard the buzzing of a fly.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 9, 1853

I no longer hear the chill lill of the blue snowbird or the sweet strains of the fox-colored sparrow and the tree sparrow. See April 17, 1855 ("The fox-colored sparrows seem to be gone, and I suspect that most of the tree sparrows and F. hyemalis, at least, went yesterday.")

I have devoted most of my day to Mr. Alcott. See July 4, 1855 ("So we have to spend the day in Boston, —at Athenaeum gallery, Alcott’s, and at the regatta. Lodge at Alcott’s, who is about moving to Walpole."); September 11, 1856  ("Walked over what Alcott calls Farm Hill, east of his house."); January 17, 1860 ("Alcott said well the other day that this was his definition of heaven, 'A place where you can have a little conversation.'")

Several parti-colored warblers or finch creepers (Sylvia Americana) a small blue and yellow bird quite tame about the buds of the firs now showing red; often head downward. Heard no note. See May 9, 1858  ("The parti-colored warbler . . .— my tweezer-bird, – making the screep screep screep note. It is an almost incessant singer . . . utters its humble notes, like ah twze twze twze, or ah twze twze twze twze."). See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the parti-colored warbler (Sylvia Americana)

 The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow. See  May 9, 1857 ("Hear stake-driver"), See also  April 24, 1854 (" As I stand still listening . . . I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself.”)..

That slumbrous snoring croak far less ringing and musical than the toad's now comes up from the meadows edge. See May 8. 1857 ("The full moon rises, and I paddle by its light, It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs (which I suspect to be Rana palustris).. . . Their croak is very fine or rapid, and has a soft, purring sound at a little distance")

It invites us to walk in the yard and inspect the springing plants.

April 17.

I hear this forenoon the soothing and simple, though monotonous, notes of the chip-bird, telling us better than our thermometers what degree of summer warmth is reached; adds its humble but very pleasant contribution to the steadily increasing quire of the spring. It perches on a cherry tree, perchance, near the house, and unseen, by its steady che-che-che-che-che che, affecting us often without our distinctly hearing it, it blends all the other and previous sounds of the season together. It invites us to walk in the yard and inspect the springing plants.

The evenings are very considerably shortened. We begin to be more out of doors, the less housed, think less, stir about more, are fuller of affairs and chores, come in chiefly to eat and to sleep.

The amelanchier flower-buds are conspicuously swollen.

Willows (Salix alba) probably (did not four or five days ago).

P. M. – Sail to Ball’s Hill.

It is quite warm — 67 at 2 P. M. — and hazy, though rather strong and gusty northwest wind.
We land at the Holt and walk a little inland. It is unexpectedly very warm on lee side of hilltop just laid bare and covered with dry leaves and twigs. See my first Vanessa Antiopa. 

Looking off on to the river meadow, I noticed, as I thought, a stout stake aslant in the meadow, three or more rods off, sharp at the top and rather light-colored on one side, as is often the case; yet, at the same time, it occurred to me that a stake-driver often resembled a stake very much, but I thought, nevertheless, that there was no doubt about this being a stake. I took out my glass to look for ducks, and my companion, seeing what I had, and asking if it was not a stake-driver, I suffered my glass at last to rest on it, and I was much surprised to find that it was a stake-driver after all. The bird stood in shallow water near a tussock, perfectly still, with its long bill pointed upwards in the same direction with its body and neck, so as perfectly to resemble a stake aslant. If the bill had made an angle with the neck it would have been betrayed at once.

Its resource evidently was to rely on its form and color and immobility solely for its concealment. This was its instinct, whether it implies any conscious artifice or not.

I watched it for fifteen minutes, and at length it relaxed its muscles and changed its attitude, and I observed a slight motion; and soon after, when I moved toward it, it flew. It resembled more a piece of a rail than anything else, — more than anything that would have been seen here before the white man came.

It is a question whether the bird consciously coöperates in each instance with its Maker, who contrived this concealment. I can never believe that this resemblance is a mere coincidence, not designed to answer this very end — which it does answer so perfectly and usefully.

The meadows are alive with purring frogs.

J. Brown says that he saw martins on his box on the 13th and 14th, and that his son saw one the 8th(?).

I notice now and of late holes recently dug, — woodchuck? or fox?

Lake grass was very long — a foot or two — and handsome, the 15th.

Heard a pigeon woodpecker on the 16th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1860

The soothing and simple, though monotonous, notes of the chip-bird, telling us better than our thermometers what degree of summer warmth is reached. See April 17, 1856 ("Hear a chip-bird high on an elm this morning,. . . You would not be apt to distinguish the note of the earliest."). See also  April 9, 1853 ("The chipping sparrow, with its ashy-white breast and white streak over eye and undivided chestnut crown, holds up its head and pours forth its che che che che che che.");   April 27, 1852  ("Heard also a chipping sparrow (F. socialis).") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Chipping Sparrow (Fringilla socialis ).

The amelanchier flower-buds are conspicuously swollen. See April 13, 1856  ("Also the amelanchier flower-buds are bursting."); April 18, 1855 ("The shad-bush flower-buds, beginning to expand, look like leaf-buds bursting now.")

Willows (Salix alba) probably. See April 29, 1855 ("For two or three days the Salix alba, with its catkins (not yet open) and its young leaves, or bracts (?), has made quite a show, before any other tree, —a pyramid of tender yellowish green in the russet landscape.")

It is unexpectedly very warm on lee side of hilltop just laid bare and covered with dry leaves and twigs. See my first Vanessa Antiopa. See March 21, 1853 ("On the warm, dry cliff, looking south over Beaver Pond, I am surprised to see a large butterfly, black with buff-edged wings, so tender a creature to be out so early ."); March 28, 1857 ("The broad buff edge of the Vanessa Antiopa's wings harmonizes with the russet ground it flutters over,");   April 9, 1853 ("You see the buff-edged . . . in warm, sunny southern exposures on the edge of woods or sides of rocky hills and cliffs, above dry leaves and twigs."); April 16, 1855 ("A great many of the large buff-edged are fluttering over the leaves in wood-paths this warm afternoon."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Buff-edged Butterfly


It was a stake-driver after all. See October 26, 1858 ("[Minott] says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot. ” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, American Bittern (the Stake-Diver)

It is a question whether the bird consciously coöperates in each instance with its Maker, who contrived this concealment. See February 19, 1854 (''Each and all such disguises and other resources remind us that not some poor worm's instinct merely, as we call it, but the mind of the universe rather, which we share, has been intended upon each particular object. All the wit in the world was brought to bear on each case to secure its end. ")

The meadows are alive with purring frogs. See  April 17, 1855 ("To-day I see a Rana palustris — I think the first."  Rana palustris. Pickerel frog (Lithobates palustris) See also April 11, 1854 ("Hear a slight snoring of frogs on the bared meadows. Is it not the R. palustris? This the first moon to walk by.”); April 30, 1858 ('It is some what more softly purring, with frequently a low quivering, chuckling, or inquisitive croak, . . . I suspect it is the R. palustris, now breeding."); May 2, 1859  ("I heard yesterday, and perhaps for several days, the soft purring sound of what I take to be the Rana palustris, breeding, though I did not this time see the frog."); May 3, 1857 ("I hear the soft, purring, stertorous croak of frogs on the meadow. "); May 8. 1857 ("It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs (which I suspect to be Rana palustris). . . . Their croak is very fine or rapid, and has a soft, purring sound at a little distance."); May 8, 1857 ("The full moon rises, and I paddle by its light. It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs "); June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th, viz.: -• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.• Hylodes cease to peep.• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.")

J. Brown says that he saw martins on his box on the 13th and 14th, and that his son saw one the 8th(?). See April 17, 1854 ("Every shopkeeper makes a record of the arrival of the first martin or bluebird to his box. . . .: John Brown, merchant, tells me this morning that the martins first came to his box on the 13th, he "made a minute of it." Beside so many entries in their day-books and ledgers, they record these things")

I notice now and of late holes recently dug. See April 17, 1855 ("See a woodchuck. His deep reddish-brown rear, somewhat grizzled about, looked like a ripe fruit mellowed by winter. . . .They have several holes under Lee’s Cliff.")")

Heard a pigeon woodpecker on the 16th. Compare March 17, 1858 ("Ah! there is the note of the first flicker, a prolonged, monotonous wick-wick-wick-wick-wick-wick, etc.,); April 8, 1855 ("Hear and see a pigeon woodpecker, something like week-up week-up."); April 12. 1860 ("Hear a pigeon woodpecker' s prolonged cackle."); April 14, 1856 ("Hear the flicker’s cackle on the old aspen, and his tapping sounds afar over the water.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Woodpecker (flicker).

Now are the days to go a-berrying

July 18.

JULY 18, 2014

Sonchus oleraceus well in bloom. 

8.30 a. m. — To Sudbury meadows with W. E. C. by boat.

Hardhack in bloom perhaps a day or two. The button-bush beginning to open generally. The late, or river, rose spots the copses over the water, — a great ornament to the river's brink now. Three utricularias and perhaps the horned also common now. Rhexia, a day or two. The pads are now much eaten. 

Thoroughwort. Meadow haying has commenced. There is no pause between the English and meadow haying. There are thousands of yellow butterflies on the pontederia flowers, and of various colors on the button-bush. 

In the Sudbury meadows are dense fields of pipes three feet high bordering the river. The common large rush, flowering at top, makes black-looking squads there. The fields of pontederia are in some places four or five rods wide and almost endless, but, crossing from side to side on shore, are the open white umbels of the hemlock, and now the sium begins to show. 

These meadows, with their meandering stream, through whose weeds it is hard to push a boat, are very wild. 

The stake-driver and the virescens rise and go off with sluggish flight from time to time. 

What is that continual dry chucking sound heard about the pads? The darting of a fish, or of an insect? 

The heart-leaves are eaten and turned dark, but the less decayed part in the centres, still green, is of the form and appearance of the less cut leaves of the Ranunculus Purshii, — either leading to or following after that. As they decay, such a leaf as the less divided ones of the R. Purshii is left, or promises to be left, — is suggested. 

That smaller narrow-leaved polygonum which forms the first and lower rank in the river is in many places in blossom, rose-colored, whitish. 

What is that rather tall, coarse kind of aster, with a few broad rays, in the copse behind Bittern Cliff?  Is it Diplopappus cornifolius ? 

Now are the days to go a-berrying.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 18, 1853



Rhexia, a day or two. See July 18, 1852 ("The petals of the rhexia have a beautiful clear purple with a violet tinge."); and note to August 5, 1858 ("I cannot sufficiently admire the rhexia, one of the highest-colored purple flowers, but difficult to bring home in its perfection, with its fugacious petals.")

There are thousands of yellow butterflies on the pontederia flowers, See July 18, 1852(" The pontederias are alive with butterflies.")

The fields of pontederia are in some places four or five rods wide and almost endless. See July 18, 1852 ("The pontederias are now in their prime . . .They are very freshly blue. In the sun, when you are looking west, they are of a violaceous blue.")


Now are the days to go a-berrying. See July 18, 1854 ("As I go along the Joe Smith road, every bush and bramble bears its fruit; the sides of the road are a fruit garden; blackberries, huckleberries, thimble-berries, fresh and abundant, no signs of drought; all fruits in abundance; the earth teems")

July 18. See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 18

A Book of 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

That interesting small blue butterfly is apparently just out

April 30. 

 P. M. — Sail to Holden Swamp.

April 30, 2019

The warmest afternoon yet. Sat in sun without fire this forenoon. The wind has at length been easterly without rain following. 

Fishes, especially pickerel, lie up in greater numbers, though Haynes thinks the water is still too cold for them. See a bream. 

A small willow some ten rods north of stone bridge, east side, bloomed yesterday. Salix alba leafing, or stipules a quarter of an inch wide; probably began a day or two. 

Luzula campestris is almost out at Clamshell. Its now low purplish and silky-haired leaves are the blooming of moist ground and early meadow-edges. 

See two or three strawberry flowers at Clamshell.

The 27th and to-day are weather for a half-thick single coat. This old name is still useful. 

There is scarcely a puff of wind till I get to Clamshell; then it rises and comes from the northwest instead of northeast and blows quite hard and fresher. 

See a stake-driver. 

Land at Holden Wood. 

That interesting small blue butterfly (size of small red) is apparently just out, fluttering over the warm dry oak leaves within the wood in the sun. Channing also first sees them to-day. The moment it rests and closes its wings, it looks merely whitish-slate, and you think at first that the deeper blue was produced by the motion of its wings, but the fact is you now see only their undersides which thus [sic] whitish spotted with black, with a dark waved line next the edge. 

This first off-coat warmth just preceding the advent of the swamp warblers (parti-colored, red start, etc.) brings them out. I come here to listen for warblers, but hear or see only the black and white creeper and the chickadee. 

Did I not hear a tree sparrow this forenoon? 

The Viburnum nudum around the edge of the swamp, on the northern edge of the warm bays in sunny and sheltered places, has just expanded, say two days, the two diverging leafets being an inch long nearly, — pretty yellowish-brown leafets in the sun, the most noticeable leafiness here now, just spotting and enlivening the dead, dark, bare twigs, under the red blossoms of the maples. 

It is a day for many small fuzzy gnats and other small insects. Insects swarm about the expanding buds. 

The viburnum buds are so large and long, like a spear-head, that they are conspicuous the moment their two leafets diverge and they are lit up by the sun. They unfold their wings like insects and arriving warblers. These, too, mark the season well. You see them a few rods off in the sun, through the stems of the alders and maples. 

That small curled grass in tufts in dry pastures and hills, spoken of about a month ago, is not early sedge. 

I notice under the southern edge of the Holden Wood, on the Arrowhead Field, a great many little birches in the grass, apparently seedlings of last year, and I take up a hundred and ten from three to six or seven inches high. They are already leafed, the little rugose leafets more than half an inch wide, or larger than any wild shrubs or trees, while the larger white birches have not started. I could take up a thousand in two or three hours. I set ten in our yard. 

Channing saw ducks — he thinks female sheldrakes ! — in Walden to-day. 

Julius Smith says he saw a little hawk kill a robin yesterday.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 30, 1859

Sat in sun without fire this forenoon. See April 30, 1852 ("To-night for the first time I sit without a fire.")

That interesting small blue butterfly fluttering over the warm dry oak leaves within the wood in the sun. See note to April 19, 1860 ("See the small blue butterfly hovering over the dry leaves") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  Blue Butterfly in Spring

The manifold ways in which the light is reflected to us

November 17

November 17, 2015

November 17, 2018

The ground has remained frozen since the morning of the 12th. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

The polypody on the rock is much shrivelled by the late cold. The edges are curled up, and it is not nearly so fair as it was ten days ago. 

I see a small botrychium in the swampy wood west of river, opposite Emerson’s field, quite fresh, not at all injured. 

The musquash are more active since the cold weather. I see more of them about the river now, swimming back and forth across the river, and diving in the middle, where I lose them. They dive off the round-backed, black mossy stones, which, when small and slightly exposed, look much like themselves. In swimming show commonly three parts with water between. One sitting in the sun, as if for warmth, on the opposite shore to me looks quite reddish brown. They avail themselves of the edge of the ice now found along the sides of the river to feed on. 

Much Lycopodium complanatum did not shed pollen on the 3d, and the Lycopodium dendroideum var. obscurum sheds it only within a very few days  (was apparently in its prime yesterday). So it would seem that these lycopodiums, at least, which have their habitat on the forest floor and but lately attracted my attention there (since the withered leaves fell around them and revealed them by the contrast of their color and they emerged from obscurity), —it would seem that they at the same time attained to their prime, their flowering season. It was coincident with this prominence. 

Leaving my boat, I walk through the low wood west of Dove Rock, toward the scarlet oak. The very sunlight on the pale-brown bleached fields is an interesting object these cold days. I naturally look toward [it] as to a wood-fire. 

Not only different objects are presented to our attention at different seasons of the year, but we are in a frame of body and of mind to appreciate different objects at different seasons. I see one thing when it is cold and another when it is warm. 

Looking toward the sun now when an hour high, there being many small alders and birches between me and it for half a dozen rods, the light reflected from their with closely concentric lines, of which I see about one fourth, on account of the upward curve of the twigs on each side, and the light not being reflected to me at all from one side of the trees directly in front of me. The light is thus very pleasantly diffused. 

We are interested at this season by the manifold ways in which the light is reflected to us. 

Ascending a little knoll covered with sweet-fern, shortly after, the sun appearing but a point above the sweet-fern, its light was reflected from a dense mass of the bare downy twigs of this plant in a surprising manner which would not be believed if described. It was quite like the sunlight reflected from grass and weeds covered with hoar frost. Yet in an ordinary light these are but dark or dusky looking twigs with scarcely a noticeable downiness. Yet as I saw it, there was a perfect halo of light resting on the knoll as I moved to right or left. 

A myriad of surfaces are now prepared to reflect the light. This is one of the hundred silvery lights of November. The setting sun, too, is reflected from windows more brightly than at any other season. “November Lights" would be a theme for me. 

I am surprised to see a stake-driver fly up from the weeds within a stone’s throw of my boat’s place. It drops its excrement from thirty feet in the air, and this falling, one part being heavier than another, takes the form of a snake, and suggests that this may be the origin of some of the stories of this bird swallowing a snake or eel which passed through it.

Nature is moderate and loves degrees. 

Winter is not all white and sere. Some trees are evergreen to cheer us, and on the forest floor our eyes do not fall on sere brown leaves alone, but some evergreen shrubs are placed there to relieve the eye. Mountain laurel, lambkill, checkerberry, Wintergreen, etc., etc., etc., and a few evergreen ferns scattered about keep up the semblance of summer still. 

Aspidium spinulosum

As for the evergreen ferns, I see now —

• Common polypody (though shrivelled by cold where exposed). 
• Asplenium trichomanes. 
• A. ebeneum.  
• Aspidium spinulosum (?). large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister’s Spring, on 16th. 
• A. cristatum (?), Grackle Swamp on the 15th, with oftener what I take to be the narrower and more open sterile frond. 
• A. marginale (common). 
• A. achrostichoides (terminal shield).

The first one and the last two are particularly handsome, the last especially, it has so thick a frond.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 17, 1853 

The polypody on the rock. See November 16, 1853 ("I now take notice of the green polypody on the rock. ") See alss A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Shield Fern

Not only different objects are presented to our attention at different seasons of the year, but we are in a frame of body and of mind to appreciate different objects at different seasons. See June 11, 1851 (“Hardly two nights are alike. . . .No one, to my knowledge, has observed the minute differences in the seasons.”); May 23, 1853 ( Every new flower that opens, no doubt, expresses a new mood of the human mind.”;  October 26, 1857 (“The seasons and all their changes are in me. . . . My moods are thus periodical, not two days in my year alike.”); November 3, 1853 ("There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference.”); May 6, 1854 ("I can be said to note the flower's fall only when I see in it the symbol of my own change. When I experience this, then the flower appears to me.”);   June 6, 1857 (“A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. . . . Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. ”); August 7, 1853("The objects I behold correspond to my mood”);April 24, 1859  (" There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season....The moods and thoughts of man are revolving just as steadily and incessantly as nature's.”); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Moods and Seasons of the Mind.

The setting sun, too, is reflected from windows more brightly than at any other season. See November 13, 1858 ("Now for twinkling light reflected from unseen windows in the horizon in the early twilight”)

The hundred silvery lights of November. See November 17, 1859 (“How fair and memorable this prospect when you stand opposite to the sun, these November afternoons, and look over the red andromeda swamp”) See also October 25, 1858 (“Also I notice, when the sun is low, the light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light.”); November 2, 1853( "We come home in the autumn twilight . . . — clear white light, which penetrates the woods”);  November 10, 1858 (""This a November phenomenon, — the silvery light reflected from a myriad of downy surfaces . . . A cool and silvery light is the prevailing one;); November 11, 1851 (" Every withered blade of grass and every dry weed, as well as pine-needle, reflects light. . . . the sun shines in upon the stems of trees which it has not shone on since spring.): November 11, 1853 ("Bracing cold, and exhilarating sunlight on russet and frosty fields.”); .November 14, 1853("The clear, white, leafless twilight of November"); November 15, 1859 ("I see several musquash-cabins off Hubbard Shore distinctly outlined as usual in the November light"); November 20, 1858 ("The glory of November is in its silvery, sparkling lights”)

Ascending a little knoll covered with sweet-fern, the sun appearing but a point above the sweet-fern .there was a perfect halo of light resting on the knoll as I moved to right or left. See December 7, 1857 (“I would rather sit at this table with the sweet-fern twigs between me and the sun than at the king’s.”)

I am surprised to see a stake-driver fly up. See September 20, 1855("The great bittern, as it flies off from near the rail road bridge, filthily drops its dirt and utters a low hoarse kwa kwa; then runs and hides in the grass, and I land and search within ten feet of it before it rises. “); and note to April, 25 1858 ("Goodwin says he heard a stake-driver several days ago.")

Nature is moderate and loves degrees. See June 14, 1851 ("How moderate, deliberate, is Nature!"); January 26, 1858 ("Nature loves gradation.")

As for the evergreen ferns, I see now —

• Common polypody  [Polypodium virginianum — rock polypody] (though shrivelled by cold where exposed)
• Asplenium trichomanes [maidenhair spleenwort].
• A. ebeneum [or Asplenium platyneuron – ebony spleenwort or brownstem spleenwort].
• Aspidium spinulosum (?) [or Dryopteris carthusiana or Polypodium spinulosum, –  spinulose shield fern, spinulose woodfern or toothed wood fern] large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister’s Spring, on 16th.
• A. cristatum (?) [or Dryopteris cristata – crested wood fern], Grackle Swamp on the 15th, with oftener what I take to be the narrower and more open sterile frond.
• A. marginale (common) [or Dryopteris marginalis, – marginal shield fern or marginal wood fern]
• A. achrostichoides (terminal shield)[or Polystichum acrostichoides, – Christmas fern]

See September 30, 1859 ("Of the twenty-three ferns which I seem to know here, seven may be called evergreens."). See also August 30, 1853  ('I find at this time in fruit: (1) Polypodium vulgare,

. . .( 5 ) Asplenium Trichomanes ( dwarf spleenwort), also ( 6 ) A. ebeneum ( ebony spleenwort ),. . .(8) Dryopteris marginalis  marginal shield fern), (9) Polystichum acrostichoides (terminal shield fern). . . Nos . 1, 5 , 6 , and 8 common at Lee's Cliff . No.. . . 9 at Brister's Hill.")  See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Polypody, Marginal Shield Fern, Terminal Shield Fern; A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Aspidium spinulosum  & Aspidium cristatum; A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort

The last especially[ handsome], it has so thick a frond. See July 29, 1853 ("Brister's Hill. There are some beautiful glossy, firm ferns there, – Polytichum acrostichoides (?), shield fern. Nature made ferns for pure leaves, to show what she could do in that line.")

Note: Did HDT observe Dryopteris intermedia? Although intermediate woodfern (Dryopteris intermedia) a/k/a "evergreen woodfern" is a common evergreen fern, Henry's only reference to “intermediate fern" is likely a mistranscription of "interrupted fern" (Osmunda claytoniana. The Botanical Index to Thoreau's Journal. See May 13, 1860 (“The intermediate ferns and cinnamon, a foot and a half high, have just leafeted out.”) Compare May 12, 1858 ("The cinnamon and interrupted ferns are both about two feet high in some places."); May 23, 1860 (" Interrupted fern fruit probably a day or two, and cinnamon, say the same or just after."); May 26, 1855 ("Interrupted fern pollen the 23d; may have been a day or two. Cinnamon fern to-day.")

November 17.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November 17

November 17, 2015

The manifold ways

at this season that light is 

reflected to us.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  The manifold ways in which the light is reflected to us

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-531117