Eighty-four berries, size of peas, three to six sided, closely wedged together on peduncles three quarters of an inch long.

August 2. 

Hobblebush August 2, 2019

Heavy, long-continued, but warm rain in the night, raising the river already eight or nine inches and disturbing the meadow haymakers. 

John Legross brought me a quantity of red huckleberries yesterday. The less ripe are whitish. I suspect that these are the white huckleberries. 

Sundown. — To Nawshawtuct. 

The waxwork berries are yellowing. 

I am not sure but the bunches of the smooth sumach berries are handsomest when but partly turned, the crimson contrasting with the green, the green berries showing a velvety crimson cheek. 

Geum Virginianum, white avens (June to August, Gray), still in bloom by the sassafras hedge, south side of hill, looks as if it might be a white cinquefoil, with small hook-prickled burs. Put it in June.

Mulgedium out. 

The green fruit of the carrion-flower forms dense, firm, spherical umbels (?) at the end of stems five or six inches long; umbels two inches in diameter, formed, one of them, of eighty-four berries, size of peas, three to six sided, closely wedged together on peduncles three quarters of an inch long. The whole feels hard and solid in the hand.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 2, 1853

The waxwork berries are yellowing. See August 9, 1854 ("Waxwork yellowing.")

The smooth sumach berries are handsomest when but partly turned. See July 24, 1852 (“The smooth sumach berries are red.”): July 31,1856 (“The smooth sumach is pretty generally crimson-berried on the Knoll”);  August 1, 1852 ("Sumach berries now generally red."); August 23, 1858("Smooth sumach berries all turned crimson.")

Geum Virginianum, white avens still in bloom with small hook-prickled burs. See  June 28, 1857 (“Geum Virginianum some time, apparently, past its prime ”); July 16, 1856 (“Geum Virginianum, apparently two or three days.”)

Mulgeium out. See July 24, 1859 ("Mulgedium, how long?"); August 7, 1856 ("Mulgedium, perhaps a fortnight. . . .One mulgedium at Corner Spring is at least ten feet high and hollow all the way. "); August 11, 1856 ("Measured a mulgedium, eight feet three inches long and hollow all the way."); August 12, 1856 ("The mulgedium in that swamp is very abundant and a very stately plant, so erect and soldier-like, in large companies, rising above all else, with its very regular long, sharp, elliptic head and bluish-white flowers.")

The green fruit of the carrion-flower forms dense, firm, spherical umbels. See May 27, 1855 ("Carrion-flower a foot high."); June 11, 1859 ("Carrion-flower up a day or two."); June 16, 1858 ("Carrion-flower, how long? Not long."); August 24, 1858 ("Carrion flower fruit is blue; how long?"); September 3, 1856 ("One carrion-flower berry is turning blue in its dense spherical cluster.") ; September 8, 1852 ("Carrion-flower berries ripe for some days").

If I had been farther off he might have scolded at me.

March 12. 

P. M. — To Hill. 

Observe the waxwork twining about the smooth sumach. It winds against the sun. It is at first loose about the stem, but this ere long expands to and overgrows it. 

Observed the track of a squirrel in the snow under one of the apple trees on the southeast side of the Hill, and, looking up, saw a red squirrel with a nut or piece of frozen apple in his mouth, within six feet, sitting in a constrained position partly crosswise on a limb over my head, perfectly still, and looking not at me, but off into the air, evidently expecting to escape my attention by this trick. 

I stood and watched and chirruped to him about five minutes so near, and yet he did not at once turn his head to look at me or move a foot or wink. The only motion was that of his tail curled over his back in the wind. At length he did change his attitude a little and look at me a moment. Evidently this is a trick they often practice. 

If I had been farther off he might have scolded at me. 

Snowed again last night, as it has done once or twice before within ten days without my recording it, — robin snows, which last but a day or two.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 12, 1857

A red squirrel with a nut or piece of frozen apple in his mouth. See March 18, 1857 ("A red squirrel runs nimbly before me along the wall, his tail in the air at a right angle with his body"); December 16, 1855 ("One sits twirling apparently a dried apple in his paws, with his tail curled close over his back") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

The pulse of the River.

August 2

P. M. — To Hill. 

A green bittern comes, noiselessly flapping, with stealthy and inquisitive looking to this side the stream and then that, thirty feet above the water. This antediluvian bird, creature of the night, is a fit emblem of a dead stream like this Musketicook. 

This especially is the bird of the river. There is a sympathy between its sluggish flight and the sluggish flow of the stream, — its slowly lapsing flight, even like the rills of Musketicook and my own pulse sometimes.  

August 2, 2021

August 2, 2026

Very common now are the few green emerald leafets of the Bidens Beckii, which will ere long yellow the shallow parts. 

Acalypha, apparently not long. 

Dodder, not long (not out 27th of July at railroad bridge), say four or five days. 

A three-ribbed goldenrod by small apple, by wall at foot east side of Hill (S. gigantea ? or one of the two preceding), not nearly out. It differs from my gigantea apparently only in the leaves being perfectly smooth above and the stem smooth and pink (?) glaucous (excepting a little pubescence near the top). Very tall. Vide it by and by. 

The lower leaves of some catnep are now of that delicate lake or claret color. 

Some waxwork leaves have felt the heat and slight drought. Their green is spotted with yellow, distinct yellow and green; others a very delicate clear yellow; others faded quite white.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 2, 1856

A green bittern comes noiselessly flapping. See July 30, 1856 ("A green bittern. . . with heavy flapping flight"); July 31, 1859 ("The small green bitterns are especially numerous."); August 1, 1858 ("So the green bitterns are leaving the nest now"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Green Bittern

Very common now are the few green emerald leafets of the Bidens Beckii, which will ere long yellow the shallow parts. See August 1, 1859 ("The B. Beckii (just beginning to bloom) just shows a few green leafets above its dark and muddy masses, now that the river is low."); ); August 9, 1856 ("All the Bidens Beckii is drowned too, and will be delayed, if not exterminated for this year."); August 11, 1853 ("The weeds still covered by the flood, so that we have no Bidens Beckii."); August 12, 1854 ("The Bidens Beckii yellows the side of the river just below the Hubbard Path, but is hardly yet in fullest flower generally."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bidens Beckii

A three-ribbed goldenrod . . . differs from my gigantea. See July 31, 1856  ("The Solidago gigantea (?), three-ribbed, out a long time at Walden shore by railroad, more perfectly out than any solidago I have seen. I will call this S. gigantea, yet it has a yellowish-green stem, slightly pubescent above, and leaves slightly rough to touch above, rays small, about fifteen"); August 16, 1858 ("A three-ribbed goldenrod on railroad causeway, two to three feet high, abundantly out"); August 21, 1856 ("The prevailing solidagos now are . . .2d, the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea (apparently truly the last)")

Waxwork leaves have felt the heat. See August 9, 1854 (""Walden" published. Elder-berries. 

Waxwork yellowing.")

August 2. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  August 2

A green bittern comes

noiselessly flapping – sluggish

pulse of the river.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The pulse of the River

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560802

You see the dark eye and shade of June on the river as well as on land.

June 6. 

P. M.— Up Assabet by boat to survey Hosmer’s field. 

On the Island I hear still the redstart—tsip tsip tsip tsip, tsit-i-yet, or sometimes tsip tsip tsip tsip, tse vet. A young male. It repeats this at regular intervals for a long time, sitting pretty still now. 

Waxwork open and pollen one or two days. 

I notice a clam lying up, and two or three cleared or light-colored places, apparently bream-nests commenced.

June 6, 2018

You see the dark eye and shade of June on the river as well as on land, and a dust-like tint on river, apparently from the young leaves and bud-scales, covering the waters, which begin to be smooth, and imparting a sense of depth. 

Blue-eyed grass maybe several days in some places. 

One thimble-berry blossom done— probably several days. 

There are now those large swarms of black-winged millers a half-inch long, with two long streamers ahead, fluttering three to six inches over the water; not long, methinks; also other insects. 

I see a yellow-spotted tortoise twenty rods from river, and a painted one four rods from it which has just made a hole for her eggs. 

Two catbirds’ nests in the thickest part of the thicket on the edge of Wheeler’s meadow near Island. One done laying (I learn after); four eggs, green, —much darker green than the robin’s and more slender in proportion. This is loosely placed in the forks of a broad alternate or silky cornel bush, about five feet from the ground, and is composed of dead twigs and a little stubble, then grape vine bark, and is lined with dark root-fibres. 

Another, eight rods beyond, rests still more loosely on a Viburnum dentatum and birch; has some dry leaves with the twigs, and one egg,—about six feet high. The bird hops within five feet.

The white maple keys are about half fallen. It is remarkable that this happens at the time the emperor moth (cecropia) comes out. 

Carex crinita, a few days, along bank of Assabet. 

Whiteweed, Merrick’s pasture shore, these two or three days. 

The Salix cordata (which apparently blossomed some days after the S. sericea) is very common on Prichard’s shore and also Whiting’s. Also at the last place is a small shrub, ——a little of it, — perhaps S. lucida, which apparently blossomed about same time, or a day or two after, the sericea.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 6, 1855

On the Island I hear still the redstart—tsip tsip tsip tsip, tsit-i-yet, or sometimes tsip tsip tsip tsip, tse vet. A young male.  See  June 4, 1855 ("Redstarts still very common in the Trillium Woods (yesterday on Assabet also). Note tche, tche, tche vit, etc.”); May 29, 1855 ("— a-che che che, che- á, or tche tche tche , tche - a, or ah tche tche tche, chit-i- vet ? It is very small, not timid, but incessantly changing its position on the pitch pines, etc. Some a pure dull white, some tawny - white, beneath; some cinereous, others more dusky still, above . . .  a very deeply forked or divided tail with a broad black tip beneath, and toward the roots a fire-brick-color . . . It is undoubtedly young males and the females of the redstart, described by Wilson, — very different from the full-plumaged  black males"); See also J.J. Audubon ("The young males of this species do not possess the brilliancy and richness of plumage which the old birds display, until the second year, the first being spent in the garb worn by the females . . . Notwithstanding their want of full plumage, they breed and sing the first spring like the old males.") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The American Redstart

Two catbirds’ nests in the thickest part of the thicket . . . Another, eight rods beyond. See June 6, 1856 ("A catbird nest on shore of Andromeda and in shrub oak, three feet high, twigs and bark shreds lined with root-fibres; three eggs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Catbird nests

The dark eye and shade of June. See  June 4, 1855 ("Dark shadows on field and wood are the more remarkable by contrast with the light yellow-green foliage now, and when they rest on evergreens they are doubly dark, like dark rings about the eyes of June."); June 4, 1860 ("A grateful but thin shade, like a coarse sieve, so open that we see the fluttering of each leaf in its shadow.”); June 9. 1856 ("Now I notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,—the black elm-tops and shadows of June. It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath. It suggests houses that lie under the shade, the repose and siesta of summer noons, the thunder-cloud, bathing, and all that belongs to summer.") June 11, 1856 ("I observe and appreciate the shade, as it were the shadow of each particular leaf on the ground. I think that this peculiar darkness of the shade, or of the foliage as seen between you and the sky, is not accounted for merely by saying that we have not yet got accustomed to clothed trees, but the leaves are rapidly acquiring a darker green, are more and more opaque, and, besides, the sky is lit with the intensest light. It reminds me of the thunder-cloud and the dark eyelash of summer. ");  June 26, 1854 ("I am struck, as I look toward the Dennis shore from the bathing-place, with the peculiar agreeable dark shade of June, a clear air, and bluish light on the grass and bright silvery light reflected from fresh green leaves.");June 30, 1860 ("The shadows under the edge of woods are less noticed now because the woods themselves are darker.”); July 3, 1854 ("The leaves have so multiplied that you cannot see through the trees; these are solid depths of shade, on the surface of which the light is variously reflected.”)

Blue-eyed grass maybe several days in some places. See May 29, 1852 ("Blue-eyed grass [in bloom]."); May 29, 1853 ("That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention"); May 29, 1856 (“Blue-eyed grass, probably to-morrow.”); May 31, 1854 (“Blue-eyed grass, apparently in pretty good season.”)); July 6, 1851("Blue-eyed grass is now rarely seen. “) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, blue-eyed grass

Those large swarms of black-winged millers a half-inch long, See. May 31, 1859 (" Small black flies or millers over river, with long feelers, flying low in swarms now"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring (millers, perla, shad-flies or ephemera)

I see a yellow-spotted tortoise twenty rods from river, and a painted one four rods from it which has just made a hole for her eggs. See June 6, 1854 ("The painted tortoises are nowadays laying their eggs. "); June 11, 1854 ("I saw a yellow-spotted tortoise come out, — undoubtedly to lay its eggs, — which had climbed to the top of a hill as much as a hundred and thirty feet above any water. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta);  and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)

The white maple keys are about half fallen. It is remarkable that this happens at the time the emperor moth (cecropia) comes out. See May 29, 1854 ("The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream like the wings of great insects."); May 30, 1853 ("The white maple keys falling and covering the river. "); June 2, 1855  ("From that cocoon of the Attacus cecropia which I found. . . came out this forenoon a splendid moth. "); June 2, 1856 ("White maple keys conspicuous. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Maple Keys

The Salix cordata (which apparently blossomed some days after the S. sericea) is very common on Prichard’s shore. See June 6, 1856 ("The S. cordata is another of the ochre-flowered ones."); See also May 11, 1856 ("The Salix sericea at Island rock is out, also the S. cordata off Prichard’s, both apparently with S. alba."); May 14, 1858 ("The Salix sericea, large and small, and the petiolaris or loose-catkinned . . . are now out of bloom.The rostrata not quite done . . . SThe alba not quite done. S. pedicellaris by railroad about done, and the Torreyana done.")

June 6.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 6.

The dark eye and shade

of June seen on the river

as well as on land.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The dark eye and shade of June 

 A Book of the Seasons , by Henry Thoreau

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

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

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550606

"Walden" published.

August 9

Wednesday – To Boston.

"Walden" published. Elder-berries. 

Waxwork yellowing.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 9, 1854

"Walden" published. See March 28, 1854 ("Got first proof of "Walden.”); August 2, 1854 ("Fields to-day sends me a specimen copy of my "Walden." It is to be published on the 12th. "); See also  August 17, 1851  ("Ah! if I could so live that . . . when small fruits are ripe, my fruits might be ripe also! that I could match nature always with my moods ! that in each season when some part of nature especially flourishes, then a corresponding part of me may not fail to flourish! "); August 9, 1853 ("This is the season of small fruits. I trust, too, that I am maturing some small fruit as palatable in these months, which will communicate my flavor to my kind."); August 18, 1853 (“[N]ow is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit?”); June 17, 1854 (“The season of small fruits has arrived. We are a little saddened, because we begin to see the interval between our hopes and their fulfillment.”)

Elder-berries. See August 11, 1856 ("Elder-berries in a day or two."); August 15, 1852 ("Elder-berry ripe."); August 22, 1852 ("The elder bushes are weighed down with fruit partially turned"); August 23, 1856 ("Elder-berries, now looking purple, are weighing down the bushes along fences by their abundance. "); August 24, 1851 ("Elderberries are ripe."); August 27, 1859 (" Elder-berry clusters swell and become heavy and therefore droop, bending the bushes down, just in proportion as they ripen. "); August 29, 1854 ("The cymes of elder-berries, black with fruit, are now conspicuous."); August 31, 1853 ("Great black cymes of elder berries now bend down the bushes."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Elder-berries

Waxwork yellowing. [Climbing Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens) ] See August 2, 1853 ("The waxwork berries are yellowing."); August 2, 1856 ("Some waxwork leaves have felt the heat and slight drought. Their green is spotted with yellow, distinct yellow and green; others a very delicate clear yellow; others faded quite white."); August 31, 1852 ("Waxwork berries orange now,")

August 9. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 9

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, "Walden" published

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-540809