These might be called the pewee-days.

August 14. 

P. M. — To the one-arched bridge. 

Hardhacks are probably a little past prime. 

Stopped by the culvert opposite the centaurea, to look at the sagittaria leaves. Perhaps this plant is in its prime (?). Its leaves vary remarkably in form. I see, in a thick patch six or eight feet in diameter, leaves nearly a foot long and others, as long or longer,  with all the various intermediate ones. The very narrow ones, perhaps, around the edge of the patch, being also of a darker green, are not distinguished at first, but mistaken for grass.

Suggesting to C. an Indian name for one of our localities, he thought it had too many syllables for a place so near the middle of the town, — as if the more distant and less frequented place might have a longer name, less understood and less alive in its syllables. 

The Canada thistle down is now begun to fly, and I see the goldfinch upon it. Carduelis. Often when I watch one go off, he flies at first one way, rising and falling, as if skimming close over unseen billows, but directly makes a great circuit as if he had changed his mind, and disappears in the opposite direction, or is seen to be joined there by his mate.

We walked a little way down the bank this side the Assabet bridge. The broad-leaved panic grass, with its hairy sheaths or collars, attracts the eye now there by its perfectly fresh broad leaf. 

We see from time to time many bubbles rising from the sandy bottom, where it is two or more feet deep, which I suspect to come from clams there letting off air. I think I see the clams, and it is often noticed there.

I see a pickerel nearly a foot long in the deep pool under the wooden bridge this side the stone one, where it has been landlocked how long?

There is brought me this afternoon Thalictrum Cornuti, of which the club-shaped filaments (and sepals?) and seed-vessels are a bright purple and quite showy. 

To speak from recollection, the birds which I have chanced to hear of late are (running over the whole list): — 

• The squealing notes of young hawks. 
• Occasionally a red-Wing's tchuck. 
• The link of bobolinks. 
• The chickadee and phebe note of the chickadees, five or six together occasionally. 
• The fine note of the cherry-bird, pretty often. 
• The twitter of the kingbird, pretty often. 
• The wood pewee, with its young, peculiarly common and prominent. 
• Only the peep of the robin. 
• The pine warbler, occasionally. 
• The bay-wing, pretty often. 
• The seringo, pretty often. 
• The song sparrow, often. 
• The field sparrow, often. 
• The goldfinch, a prevailing note, with variations into a fine song. 
• The ground-robin, once of late. 
• The flicker‘s cackle, once of late. 
• The nighthawk, as usual. 

I have not been out early nor late, nor attended particularly to the birds. The more characteristic notes would appear to be the wood pewee’s and the goldfinch’s, with the squeal of young hawks. These might be called the pewee-days.

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

The Canada thistle down is now begun to fly, and I see the goldfinch upon it.  See August 12, 1854 (“I see goldfinches nowadays on the lanceolate thistles, apparently after the seeds.”); August 15, 1854 (“On the top of the Hill I see the goldfinch eating the seeds of the Canada thistle. I rarely approach a bed of them or other thistles nowadays but I hear the cool twitter of the goldfinch about it.“);  August 28, 1856 ("A goldfinch twitters away from every thistle now, and soon returns to it when I am past. I see the ground strewn with the thistle-down they have scattered on every side."); September 4, 1860 (“The goldfinch is very busy pulling the thistle to pieces.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles

The shad-bush in bloom.

May 15. 

7.30 A. M. – Ride to the Shawsheen in the northeast of Bedford. 

Meadow saxifrage well out, many of them, at the tan-yard meadow. 

The Equisetum limosum will apparently (?) open there in two or three days.

Thalictrum dioicum abundant, apparently in prime; how long? It is a very interesting, graceful, and delicate plant, especially the sterile, with its pretty, commonly purple, petal-like sepals, and its conspicuous long yellow anthers in little bare clusters (?), trembling over the meadow. Yet a frail and rather inobvious plant. It grows on moist, commonly rocky slopes next to meadows at the base of hills, or by rocks in rather swampy woods. 

The meadows are now full of sedges in bloom, which shed clouds of pollen and cover my shoes with it. 

The cassia has not come up yet. 

High blueberries well out. 

Hear the evergreen-forest note. 

Also, in rather low ground in Bedford, a note much like the summer yellowbird's, or between that and the redstart, and see the bird quite near, but hopping quite low on the bushes. It looked like the yellowbird with a bluish ash top of head. What was it? [Probably parti-colored warbler.]

The shad-bush in bloom is now conspicuous, its white flags on all sides. Is it not the most massy and conspicuous of any wild plant now in bloom? I see where the farmer mending his fence has just cut one to make part of the fence, and it is stretched out horizontally, a mass of white bloom. 

Measured two apple trees by the road from the middle of Bedford and Fitch’s mill. One, which divided at the ground, was thirteen and a half feet in circumference there, around the double trunk; but another, in a field on the opposite side of the road, was the most remarkable tree for size. 

This tree was exceedingly low for the size of its trunk, and the top rather small. At three feet from the ground it measured ten and a quarter feet in circumference, and immediately above this sent off a branch as big as a large apple tree. It was hollow, and on one side part of the trunk had fallen out. These trees mark the residence of an old settler evidently.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal  May 15, 1858

It looked like the yellowbird with a bluish ash top of head. See May 15, 1856 ("See also, for a moment, in dry woods, a warbler with blue-slate head and apparently all yellow beneath for a minute, nothing else conspicuous; note slightly like tseep, tseep, tseep, tseep, tsit sitter ra-re-ra")  ; May 16, 1858 ("See again the warbler of yesterday. . . . Its note, with little variation, is like twit twit, twit twit, twitter twitter twe. It must be the parti-colored warbler"); and note to May 13, 1856 ("The tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana . . .the parti-colored warbler, and was that switter switter switter switter swit also by it?.”)

Hear the evergreen-forest note. See May 11, 1854 ("Hear the evergreen-forest note"); May 6, 1855 ("The er er twe, ter ter twe, evergreen-forest note.");  June 1, 1854 ("Hear my evergreen-forest note, . . . I get a glimpse of its black throat and, I think, yellow head "); May 30, 1855 ("In the thick of the wood between railroad and Turnpike, hear the evergreen forest note, and see probably the bird,-- black throat, greenish-yellow or yellowish-green head and back, light-slate (?) wings with two white bars. Is it not the black-throated green warbler?”).

The shad-bush in bloom is now conspicuous. See May 9, 1852 ("The first shad-bush, Juneberry, or service-berry (Amclanchier canadensis), in blossom.") and note to May 13, 1852 ("The shad-blossom days in the woods.")

At the cleft rock by the hill just west of this swamp.

September 4.
P. M. – To Bateman’s Pond. 

Rudbeckia laciniata (?) by Dodge's Brook, north of the road; how long? 

Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen. 

The leaves of the light-colored spruce in the spruce swamp are erect like the white! 

Penetrating through the thicket of that swamp, I see a great many very straight and slender upright shoots, the slenderest and tallest that I ever saw. They are the Prinos laevigatus. I cut one and brought it home in a ring around my neck, — it was flexible enough for that, — and found it to be seven and a half feet long and quite straight, eleven fortieths of an inch in diameter at the ground and three fortieths  diameter at the other end, only the last foot or so of this year's growth. It had a light-grayish bark, rough dotted. Generally they were five or six feet high and not bigger than a pipe-stem anywhere. This comes of its growing in dense dark swamps, where it makes a good part of the underwood. 

At the cleft rock by the hill just west of this swamp, — call it Cornel Rock, – I found apparently Aspidium cristatum (?), q. v. 

That is an interesting spot. There is the handsomest and most perfect Cornus circinata there that I know, now apparently its fruit in prime, hardly light-blue but delicate bluish-white. It is the richest-looking of the cornels, with its large round leaf and showy cymes; a slender bush seven or eight feet high. 

There is quite a collection of rare plants there, – petty morel, Thalictrum dioicum, witch hazel, etc., Rhus radicans, maple-leaved viburnum, polypody, Polygonum dumetorum, anychia. There was a strawberry vine falling over the perpendicular face of the rock, - or more than perpendicular, — which hung down dangling in the air five feet, not yet reaching the bottom, with leaves at intervals of fifteen inches. Various rocks scattered about in these woods rising just to the surface with smooth rounded surfaces, showing a fine stratification on its edges. 

The sides of Cornus florida Ravine at Bateman’s Pond are a good place for ferns. There is a Woodsia Ilvensis, a new one to Concord. Petty morel in the ravine, and large cardinal-flowers. 

I see prenanthes radical leaf turned pale-yellow. Arum berries ripe. 

Already, long before sunset, I feel the dew falling in that cold calla swamp.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 4, 1857

Rudbeckia laciniata (?) by Dodge's Brook, north of the road. . . See July 30, 1856 (“Rudbeckia laciniata, perhaps a week.”); August 18, 1852 (“Rudbeckia laciniata, sunflower-like tall cone-flower, behind Joe Clark's”).

Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen. See August 31, 1856 (“The Cornus sericea, with its berries just turning, is generally a dull purple now . . . “); August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river, . . ..”)

The Prinos laevigatus. See June 23, 1856 ("Prinos laevigatus common and just begun to bloom behind R’s house.”)  Smooth winterberry holly (Ilex laevigata) is a deciduous shrub which resembles the closely related common winterberry (Ilex verticillate).. It grows up to 4 m high, with oval leaves which are finely toothed along the edges and shiny on their upper surface (the common winterberry has dull leaves). There are separate male and female flowers, usually on separate plants, in the leaf axils. The staminate flowers occur singly or two together and are borne on long stalks, while the pistillate flowers are solitary and on shorter stalks. See also September 4, 1856  "The fever-bush is conspicuously flower-budded.”) and note to October 2, 1856 (“The prinos berries are in their prime.”)

There is the handsomest and most perfect Cornus circinata there [the bog south of Bateman’s Pond] that I know. . .See September 6, 1856  [at Brattleboro] (“Cornus circinata berries, very light blue or bluish-white. ”)

Cornus florida Ravine at Bateman’s Pond . . .See May 18, 1857 (“ There is a large tree [Cornus florida] on the further side the ravine near Bateman's Pond and another by some beeches on the rocky hillside a quarter of a mile northeast.”)

There is quite a collection of rare plants there . . . Arum berries ripe. . . .Already, long before sunset, I feel the dew falling in that cold calla swamp. See September 4, 1856 ("Splendid scarlet arum berries there now in prime .”); September 2, 1853 ("The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion on a rich ground . . .”); June 7, 1857 (“Pratt has got the Calla palustris, in prime. . .from the bog near Bateman's Pond”);  June 24, 1857 ("I think that this is a cold swamp, i. e. it is springy and shady, and the water feels more than usually cold to my feet.”); June 9, 1857 (“The calla is generally past prime and going to seed.  . . .The water in this Calla Swamp feels cold to my feet, and perhaps this is a peculiarity of it; on the north side a hill. . . .”)

In Painted-Cup Meadow.

May 28 

Rainy. To Painted-Cup Meadow. 

Potentilla argentea, maybe several days. 

Trifolium pratense.

A seringo or yellow-browed (?) sparrow’s nest about ten or twelve rods southwest of house-leek rock, between two rocks which are several rods apart northwest and southeast; four eggs. The nest of coarse grass stubble, lined with fine grass, and is two thirds at least covered by a jutting sod. Egg, bluish-white ground, thickly blotched with brown, yet most like a small ground bird’s egg, rather broad at one end, pretty fresh.

A cricket creaks. 

Hypoxis erecta, maybe a day or two. 

Thalictrum dioicum abundantly out, apparently in prime, male and female, some effete, perhaps a week, near wall in Painted-Cup Meadow, fifteen to eighteen inches high. I think it was a mass of young Thalictrum Cornuti leaves which had that rank, dog-like scent.

Painted-cup pollen a good while ago. 

Saw, under an apple tree, nearly half a pint of some white grub with a light reddish head, like a small potato-worm, one inch long, and part of a snake-skin, making the greater part of the faeces of some animal, — chiefly the grubs, — a formless soft mass. Skunk?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 28, 1856

Painted-Cup Meadow. See June 3, 1853 (“. . . a large meadow full of [painted-cup], and yet very few in the town have ever seen it.”) 

Trifolium pratense. See May 28, 1854 ("Red clover at Clamshell, a day or two.”) 

Hypoxis erecta, maybe a day or two. See  June 15, 1851 ("The Hypoxis erecta, yellow Bethlehem-star, where there is a thick, wiry grass in open path; should be called yellow-eyed grass, methinks."); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Bethlehem-star

May 28. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 28

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

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

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

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2021

And so it always is in April.

April 8. 

Cold as it is and 
has been for several weeks
in all exposed places,

I find it unexpectedly warm
in perfectly sheltered places
where the sun shines.

And so it always is in April.

In a warm and sheltered hollow in the woods, I feel the cold currents drop in from time to time, just as they are seen to ripple a small lake.

But this cold northwest wind is distinct and
separable from the air here warmed by the April sun.


The epigaea is not quite out. The earliest peculiarly woodland herbaceous flowers are epigaea, anemone, thalictrum, and — by the first of May — Viola pedata. These grow quite in the woods amid dry leaves, nor do they depend so much on water as the very earliest flowers. 

I am, perhaps, more surprised by the growth of the Viola pedata leaves, by the side of paths amid the shrub oaks and half covered with oak leaves, than by any other growth, the situation is so dry and the surrounding bushes so apparently lifeless.

The Alnus serrulata is evidently in its prime considerably later than the incana, for those of the former which I notice to-day have scarcely begun, while the latter chance to be done. The fertile flowers are an interesting bright crimson in the sun.

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

Unexpectedly warm in perfectly sheltered places where the sun shines . . .but this cold northwest wind is distinct andseparable from the air here warmed by the April sun. See March 8, 1860 ("Nowadays we separate the warmth of the sun from the cold of the wind and observe that the cold does not pervade all places, but being due to strong northwest winds, if we get into some sunny and sheltered nook where they do not penetrate, we quite forget how cold it is elsewhere."); April 13, 1855 ("A cool wind still, from the snow covered country in the northwest. It is, however, pleasant to sit in the sun in sheltered places."); April 26, 1857 ("At this season still we go seeking the sunniest, most sheltered, and warmest place. . . .There our thoughts flow and we flourish most. .”)

The epigaea is not quite out. The earliest peculiarly woodland herbaceous flowers are epigaea, anemone, thalictrum, and — by the first of May — Viola pedata. See April 8, 1855 ("As to which are the earliest flowers, it depends on the character of the season, and ground bare or not, meadows wet or dry, etc., etc., also on the variety of soils and localities within your reach."); April 10, 1859 ("I might class the twenty-two herbaceous flowers which I have known to be open before the first of May thus: . . .Woodland flowers Epigaea, anemone, and thalictrum.");  May 5, 1860 ("Anemone and Thalictrum anemonoides are apparently in prime about the 10th of May.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Epigaea

The Alnus serrulata is evidently in its prime while the incana chance to be done. See. April 8, 1852 (" I notice the alder, the A. serrulata, in blossom, its reddish-brown catkins now lengthened and loose."); April 8, 1855  (“I find also at length a single catkin of the Alnus incana, with a few stamens near the peduncle discolored and shedding a little dust when shaken; so this must have begun yesterday”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Alders