In rain to Nawshawtuct.

May 3. 

P. M. -- In rain to Nawshawtuct.

The river rising still.

What I have called the small pewee on the willow by my boat, — quite small, uttering a short tchevet from time to time.

Some common cherries are quite forward in leafing; say next after the black.

The Pyrus arbutifolia, of plants I observed, would follow the cherry in leafing. It just begins to show minute glossy leaves.

The meadow-sweet begins to look fairly green, with its little tender green leaves, making thin wreaths of green against the bare stems of other plants (this and the gooseberry), - the next plant in this respect to the earliest gooseberry in the garden, which appears to be the same with that in the swamp.

I see wood turtles which appear to be full and hard with eggs.

Yesterday I counted half a dozen dead yellow-spotted turtles about Beck Stow's.

There is a small dark native willow in the meadows as early to leaf as the S. alba, with young catkins.

Anemone nemorosa near the ferns and the sassafras appeared yesterday.

The ferns invested with rusty wool (cinnamomea?) have pushed up eight or ten inches and show some of the green leaf.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 3, 1854

What I have called the small pewee on the willow by my boat, See May 3, 1855 ("Small pewee; tchevet, with a jerk of the head."); See also May 7, 1852 ("The first small pewee sings now che-vet, or rather chirrups chevet, tche-vet — a rather delicate bird with a large head and two white bars on wings. The first summer yellow- birds on the willow causeway. The birds I have lately mentioned come not singly, as the earliest, but all at once, i.e. many yellowbirds all over town. Now I remember the yellowbird comes when the willows begin to leave out. (And the small pewee on the willows also.)") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the “Small Pewee"

Some common cherries and Pyrus arbutifolia, etc. leafing. See geneally May 5, 1855 ("The trees and shrubs which I observe to make a show now with their green,. . .in the order of their intensity and generalness — gooseberry, both kinds . . . meadow-sweet . . . Choke-cherry shoots . . . Pyrus, probably arbutifolia, young black cherry,  . . . probably wild red cherry in some places, Salix alba with bracts, some small native willows, cultivated cherry") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Spring leaf-out.

The meadow-sweet begins to look fairly green. See April 24, 1860 ("The meadow-sweet and hardhack have begun to leaf."); May 4, 1852 ("The meadow-sweet begins to leave out")

There is a small dark native willow in the meadows as early to leaf as the S. alba, with young catkins. See May 2, 1855 ("That small native willow now in flower, or say yesterday, just before leaf.") See also April 24, 1855 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf. "); April 27, 1854 ("The Salix alba begins to leaf, and the catkins are three quarters of an inch long. "); 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."); April 30, 1859 (Salix alba leafing, or stipules a quarter of an inch wide; probably began a day or two.")

I see wood turtles which appear to be full and hard with eggs. See June 10, 1858 ("Apparently the E. insculpta are in the very midst of their laying now."); June 20, 1853 ("I see wood tortoises in the path; one feels full of eggs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Turtlw (Emys insculpta)

Yesterday I counted half a dozen dead yellow-spotted turtles about Beck Stow's. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle (Emys guttata)

The other day, behind Simon Brown's house I heard a remarkable echo.

February 11. 

Friday. 

While surveying for J. Moore to day, saw a large wood tortoise stirring in the Mill Brook, and several bodies of frogs  without their hind legs. But Sunday it snowed about a foot deep, — our second, only, important snow this winter, — and now the brook is not only frozen over, but almost completely concealed under drifts, and that reminiscence or prophecy of spring is also buried up. 

While surveying on the Hunt farm the other day, behind Simon Brown's house I heard a remarkable echo. In the course of surveying, being obliged to call aloud to my assistant from every side and almost every part of a farm in succession, and at various hours of a day, I am pretty sure to discover an echo if any exists, and the other day it was encouraging and soothing to hear it. After so many days of comparatively insignificant drudgery with stupid companions, this leisure, this sportiveness, this generosity in nature, sympathizing with the better part of me; somebody I could talk with, — one degree, at least, better than talking with one's self. 

Ah! Simon Brown's premises harbor a hired man and a hired maid he wots not of. Some voice of somebody I pined to hear, with whom I could form a community. I did wish, rather, to linger there and call all day to the air and hear my words repeated, but a vulgar necessity dragged me along round the bounds of the farm, to hear only the stale answers of my chain-man shouted back to me. I am surprised that we make no more ado about echoes. 

They are almost the only kindred voices that I hear. I wonder that the traveller does not oftener remark upon a remarkable echo, — he who observes so many things. There needs some actual doubleness like this in nature, for if the voices which we commonly hear were all that we ever heard, what then? Has it to do with the season of the year?

 I have since heard an echo on Moore's farm. It was the memorable event of the day, that echo I heard, not anything my companions said, or the travelers whom I met, or my thoughts, for they were all mere repetitions or echoes in the worst sense of what I had heard and thought before many times; but this echo was accompanied with novelty, and by its repetition of my voice it did more than double that. 

It was a profounder Socratic method of suggesting thoughts unutterable to me the speaker. There was one I heartily loved to talk with. Under such favorable auspices I could converse with myself, could reflect; the hour, the atmosphere, and the conformation of the ground permitted it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 11, 1853

Saw a large wood tortoise stirring in the Mill Brook. See  March 27. 1855 ("See a wood tortoise in the brook. ")

Sunday it snowed about a foot deep, — our second, only, important snow this winter. See January 14, 1853 ("Snows all day.”)

While surveying on the Hunt farm the other day. See February 1, 1853 (“Surveying the Hunt farm. ”)

That reminiscence or prophecy of spring is also buried up. See February 9, 1854 ("February [belongs] to the spring; it is a snowy March.")

I am pretty sure to discover an echo if any exists. See October 6, 1851 ("In the middle of the pond we tried the echo again.")

There needs some actual doubleness like this in nature, for under such favorable auspices I could converse with myself, See August 8, 1852 ("[I]am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another.")

Wood tortoises on the Assabet

September 19.

Up Assabet.

Do I see wood tortoises on this branch only?

About a week since, Mr. Thurston told me of his being carried by a brother minister to hear some music on the shore of a pond in Harvard, produced by the lapse of the waves on some stones.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 19, 1855

Do I see wood tortoises on this branch only? See September 15, 1855 ("An Emys insculpta which I mistook for dead, under water near shore; head and legs and tail hanging down straight. Turned it over, and to my surprise found it coupled with another. It was at first difficult to separate them with a paddle"); September 16, 1854 ("I see a wood tortoise in the woods. Why is it there now?"); October 21, 1857 (" I saw wood tortoises coupled up the Assabet, the back of the upper above water. It held the lower with its claws about the head, and they were not to be parted. "); November 11, 1859 ("I observed, October 23d, wood turtles copulating in the Assabet."); November 14, 1855 ("A clear, bright, warm afternoon. A painted tortoise swimming under water and a wood tortoise out on the bank.”) Compare March 28, 1857 (".Do I ever see a yellow-spot turtle in the river?"); April 1, 1857 ("Up Assabet. See an Emys guttata sunning on the bank. I had forgotten whether I ever saw it in this river") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta)

This is the most sultry night we have had.

June 20

Monday. 4 A.M.— No fog; sky mostly over cast; drought continues.

I heard the robin first (before the chip-bird) this morning. Heard the chip-bird last evening just after sunset.

10 A.M.– To Assabet Bathing-Place.

I see wood tortoises in the path; one feels full of eggs.

Those great greenish-white puffs on the panicled andromeda are now decaying.

On the swamp-pink they are solid.

The pitchers of the comandra seeds are conspicuous.

Meadow-sweet out, probably yesterday. It is an agreeable, unpretending flower.

Some of the stone nests are a foot above the water now, but uninjured. I can find nothing in them.

The bosky bank shows bright roses from its green recesses; the small white flowers of the panicled andromeda; beneath, yellow lilies.

Found two lilies open in the very shallow inlet of the meadow. Exquisitely beautiful, and unlike anything else that we have, is the first white lily just expanded in some shallow lagoon where the water is leaving it, – perfectly fresh and pure, before the insects have discovered it.

How admirable its purity! how innocently sweet its fragrance!

How significant that the rich, black mud of our dead stream produces the water-lily, — out of that fertile slime springs this spotless purity!

It is remarkable that those flowers which are most emblematical of purity should grow in the mud.

There is also the exquisite beauty of the small sagittaria, which I find out, maybe a day or two, — three transparent crystalline white petals with a yellow eye and as many small purplish calyx-leaves, four or five inches above the same mud.

Coming home at twelve, I see that the white lilies are nearly shut.

The river has been some days full with weeds which drape and trail from my oars — I am now on foot — (the potamogeton), as if it were Charon’s boat, and this a funeral procession down the Cocytus.

8 P.M.— Up North River to Nawshawtuct. The moon full.

June 20, 2020

Perhaps there is no more beautiful scene than that on the North River seen from the rock this side the hemlocks.

As we look up-stream, we see a crescent-shaped lake completely embosomed in the forest.

There is nothing to be seen but the smooth black mirror of the water, on which there is now the slightest discernible bluish mist, a foot high, and thick set alders and willows and the green woods without an interstice sloping steeply upward from its very sur face, like the sides of a bowl.

The river is here for half a mile completely shut in by the forest.

One hemlock, which the current has undermined, has fallen over till it lies parallel with the water, a foot or two above it and reaching two thirds across the stream, its extremity curving upward to the light, now dead.

Here it has been a year or two, and it has only taken the place of others which have successively fallen in and been carried away by the stream. One lies now cast up on the shore.

Some wild roses, so pale now in the twilight that they look exactly like great blackberry blossoms. I think these would look so at midday.

Saw a little skunk coming up the river-bank in the woods at the White Oak, a funny little fellow, about  six inches long and nearly as broad. It faced me and actually compelled me to retreat before it for five minutes. Perhaps I was between it and its hole.

Its broad black tail, tipped with white, was erect like a kitten’s. It had what looked like a broad white band drawn tight across its forehead or top-head, from which two lines of white ran down, one on each side of its back, and there was a narrow white line down its snout.

It raised its back, sometimes ran a few feet forward, sometimes backward, and repeatedly turned its tail to me, prepared to discharge its fluid like the old. Such was its instinct.

And all the while it kept up a fine grunting like a little pig or a squirrel. It reminded me that the red squirrel, the woodchuck, and the skunk all make a similar sound.

Now there are young rabbits, skunks, and probably woodchucks.

Walking amid the bushes and the ferns just after moonrise, I am refreshed with many sweet scents which I cannot trace to their source.

How the trees shoot!

The tops of young pines toward the moon are covered with fine shoots some eighteen inches long. Will they grow much more this year?

There is a peculiarly soft, creamy light round the moon, now it is low in the sky.

The bullfrogs begin about 8.30.

They lie at their length on the surface amid the pads.

I touched one’s nose with my finger, and he only gave a sudden froggish belch and moved a foot or two off.

How hard to imitate their note exactly, — its sonorousness. Here, close by, it is like er er ough, er er er ough, with a sonorous trump which these letters do not suggest.

On our return, having reached the reach by Merrick’s pasture, we get the best view of the moon in the southeast, reflected in the water, on account of the length of the reach.

The creamy light about it is also perfectly reflected; the path of insects on the surface between us and the moon is lit up like fire.

The leafy-columned elms, planted by the river at foot of Prichard’s field, are exceedingly beautiful, the moon being behind them, and I see that they are not too near together, though sometimes hardly a rod apart, their branches crossing and interlacing. Their trunks look like columns of a portico wreathed with evergreens on the evening of an illumination for some great festival.

They are the more rich, because in this creamy light you cannot distinguish the trunk from the verdure that drapes it.

This is the most sultry night we have had.

All windows and doors are open in the village and scarcely a lamp is lit.

I pass many families sitting in their yards.

The shadows of the trees and houses are too extended, now that the moon is low in the heavens, to show the richest tracery.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, June 20, 1853

I see wood tortoises in the path; one feels full of eggs. See June 23, 1858 ("Take two eggs out of the oviduct of an E. insculpta, just run over in the road. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta) 

Coming home at twelve, I see that the white lilies are nearly shut. See July 1, 1852 ("After eating our luncheon I can not find one open anywhere for the rest of the day."); July 11, 1852 ("It is a sufficient reason for walking in the forenoon sometimes that some flowers shut up at noon and do not open again during the day"); July 17, 1854 ("I think that I could tell when it was 12 o'clock within half an hour by the lilies.")

Perhaps there is no more beautiful scene than that on the North River seen from the rock this side the hemlocks. See March 29, 1853 ("A pleasant short voyage is that to the Leaning Hemlocks on the Assabet, just round the Island under Nawshawtuct Hill. The river here has in the course of ages gullied into the hill, at a curve, making a high and steep bank, on which a few hemlocks grow and overhang the deep, eddying basin. For as long as I can remember, one or more of these has always been slanting over the stream at various angles, being undermined by it, until one after another, from year to year, they fall in and are swept away.") See also A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, at the Leaning Hemlocks and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

I touched one’s nose with my finger. See April 18, 1858 ("Perchance you may now scratch its nose with your finger and examine it to your heart's content, for it is become as imperturbable as it was shy before. You conquer them by superior patience and immovableness; not by quickness, but by slowness; not by heat, but by coldness")

The moon full . . . low in the sky. See July 12, 1851 ("The moon shines over the pitch pines, which send long shadows down the hill. ); August 8, 1851 ("The woods and the separate trees cast longer shadows than by day, for the moon goes lower in her course at this season."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June Moonlight

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

A slight bluish mist

over the smooth black water

mirror of green woods.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, This is the most sultry night we have had

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

I hear the first hylodes by chance, but no doubt they have been heard some time.

April 1. 

Sunday. Warm, with the thick haze still concealing the sun. 

Worm-piles abundant this morning. 

Our gooseberry begins to show a little green, but not our currant. 

3 P. M. — Up Assabet in boat. 

There is another fire in the woods this afternoon. It is yet more hazy than before, — about as thick as a fog, and apparently clouds behind it. 

Still warmer than yesterday, — 71 at 3 P. M. 

The river was lowest for March yesterday, viz. just three feet below Hoar's wall. It is so low that the mouths of the musquash-burrows in the banks are exposed with the piles of shells before them. 

Willows about the stump on S. Brown's land are very well out. Are they discolor? 

The red maple buds are considerably expanded, and no doubt make a greater impression of redness. 

A kingfisher seen and heard. 

As we paddle up the Assabet we hear the wood turtles -- the first I have noticed — and painted turtles rustling down the bank into the water, and see where they have travelled over the sand and the mud. This and the previous two days have brought them out in numbers. Also see the sternothærus on the bottom.

The river being so low, we see lines of sawdust perfectly level and parallel to one another on the side of the steep dark bank at the Hemlocks, for thirty rods or more visible at once, reminding you of a coarse chalk line made by snapping a string, not more than half an inch wide much of it, but more true than that would be. The sawdust adheres to the perfectly upright bank and probably marks the standstill or highest water for the time. This level line drawn by Nature is agreeable to behold. 

The large Rana fontinalis sits enjoying the warmth on the muddy shore. I hear the first hylodes by chance, but no doubt they have been heard some time. 

Hear the hum of bees on the maples. 

Rye-fields look green. 

Pickerel dart, and probably have some time. 

The sweet-gale is almost in bloom; say next pleasant day. [It sheds its pollen the same night in my chamber, — from the old mill-site, north side.]

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 1, 1860

The red maple buds are considerably expanded, and no doubt make a greater impression of redness. See April 10, 1853 ( "The male red maple buds now show eight or ten (ten counting everything) scales, alternately crosswise, and the pairs successively brighter red or scarlet, which will account for the gradual reddening of their tops. They are about ready to open.")

As we paddle up the Assabet we hear the wood turtles and painted turtles rustling down the bank into the water, This and the previous two days have brought them out in numbers. See  April 1, 1858 ("See wood turtles coupled on their edges at the bottom, where the stream has turned them up.") See also  March 31, 1858 ("The painted and wood turtles have seemed to be out in surprising abundance at an unusually early date this year, but I think I can account for it. The river is remarkably low," ) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Painted Turtle (Emys picta); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta)

I hear the first hylodes by chance, but no doubt they have been heard some time. See March 23, 1859 ("While reconnoitring there, we hear the peep of one hylodes somewhere in this sheltered recess in the woods."); March 31, 1855 (“I go listening for the croak of the first frog, or peep of a hylodes."); March 31, 1857 (“How gradually and imperceptibly the peep of the hylodes mingles with and swells the volume of sound which makes the voice of awakening nature! If you do not listen carefully for its first note, you probably will not hear it, and, not having heard that, your ears become used to the sound, so that you will hardly notice it at last, however loud and universal."); April 2, 1852 ("I hear a solitary hyla for the first time.")

The river being so low, we see lines of sawdust perfectly level and parallel to one another on the side of the steep dark bank at the Hemlocks. . . .reminding you of a coarse chalk line made by snapping a string, not more than half an inch wide much of it, but more true than that would be. See April 1, 1858 ("The river is at summer level. . . . It is remarkable that the river seems rarely to rise or fall gradually, but rather by fits and starts, and hence the water-lines, as indicated now by the sawdust, are very distinct parallel lines four or five or more inches apart.”) See also November 23, 1853 ("What an engineer this water is! It comes with its unerring level . . . an obvious piece of geometry in nature.") and alao A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, at the Leaning Hemlocks.

The large Rana fontinalis sits enjoying the warmth on the muddy shore. See March 22. 1860 ("The yellow-spot turtle and wood turtle, Rana fontinalis, and painted tortoise come forth."); March 24, 1859 ("There sits also on the bank of the ditch a Rana fontinalis, and it is altogether likely they were this species that leaped into a ditch on the 10th. This one is mainly a bronze brown, with a very dark greenish snout, etc., with the raised line down the side of the back. This, methinks, is about the only frog which the marsh hawk could have found hitherto."); April 5, 1858 ("What I call the young bullfrog, about two and a half inches long, — though it has no yellow on throat. It has a bright-golden ring outside of the iris as far as I can see round it. Is this the case with the bullfrog? May it not be a young Rana fontinalis? No yellow to throat.."); See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Identifying the Green Frog in Spring.

Hear the hum of bees on the maples. See April 1, 1858 ("The white maples are abundantly out to-day. . . .We hold the boat beneath one, surprised to hear the resounding hum of honey-bees, which are busy about them,"); April 1, 1852 ('' Saw the first bee of the season on the railroad causeway,") See also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, White Maple Buds and Flowers

The sweet-gale is almost in bloom; say next pleasant day. See April 22, 1855 ("The blossoms of the sweet-gale are now on fire over the brooks, contorted like caterpillars")

A season for small evergreens.

December 7. 

Wednesday. P. M. — To Trillium Woods and Hubbard's Close. 

In the latter part of November and now, before the snow, I am attracted by the numerous small evergreens on the forest floor, now most conspicuous, especially the very beautiful Lycopodium dendroideum, somewhat cylindrical, and also, in this grove, the variety obscurum of various forms, surmounted by the effete spikes, some with a spiral or screw-like arrangement of the fan-like leaves, some spreading and drooping. It is like looking down on evergreen trees. 

And the L. lucidulum of the swamps, forming broad, thick patches of a clear liquid green, with its curving fingers; also the pretty little fingers of the cylindrical L. clavatum, or club-moss, zig zagging amid the dry leaves; not to mention the spreading openwork umbrellas of the L. complanatum, or flat club-moss, all with spikes still. 

Also the liquid wet glossy leaves of the Chimaphila (winter or snow-loving) umbellata, with its dry fruit. Not to mention the still green Mitchella repens and checkerberry in shelter, both with fruit; gold-thread; Pyrola secunda, with drooping curled-back leaves, and other pyrolas; and, by the brooks, brooklime (?) (I mean such as at Cliff Brook and at brook in E. Hubbard's Swamp).[Golden saxifrage]

There is the mountain laurel, too.

The terminal shield fern is quite fresh and green, and a common thin fern, though fallen. 

I observe the beds of greenish cladonia lichens. 

Saw a wood tortoise stirring in the now open brook in Hubbard's Swamp. 


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 7, 1853

In the latter part of November and now, before the snow, I am attracted by the numerous small evergreens on the forest floor. See October 29, 1858 (“With the fall of the white pine, etc., the Pyrola umbellata and the lycopodiums, and even evergreen ferns, suddenly emerge as from obscurity. If these plants are to be evergreen, how much they require this brown and withered carpet to be spread under them for effect. Now, too, the light is let in to show them.”); November 16, 1858 (“Methinks the wintergreen, pipsissewa, is our handsomest evergreen, so liquid glossy green and dispersed almost all over the woods.”);  November 17, 1858 ("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.") ;  November 19, 1850 ("Now that the grass is withered and the leaves are withered or fallen, it begins to appear what is evergreen the partridge-berry and checkerberry, and winter-green leaves even, are more conspicuous.”); November 27, 1853 ("I observe the Lycopodium lucidulum still of .a fresh, shining green. Checkerberries and partridge-berries are both numerous and obvious now");

The still green Mitchella repens [partridge-berry] and checkerberry in shelter, both with fruit; gold-thread; Pyrola secunda, with drooping curled-back leaves, and other pyrolas. See March 4, 1854 ("In Hubbard's maple swamp I see the evergreen leaves of the gold-thread as well as the mitchella and large pyrola."); March 7, 1855 ("The Pyrola secunda is a perfect evergreen. It has lost none of its color or freshness, with its thin ovate finely serrate leaves, revealed now the snow is gone.”); April 24, 1852 (“Gold-thread, an evergreen, still bright in the swamps.”); May 17, 1857 (“Gold-thread is abundantly out at Trillium Woods.”); July 2, 1859 ("Mitchella repens is abundantly out."); July 3, 1859 ("The Mitchella repens, so abundant now in the north west part of Hubbard's Grove, emits a strong astringent cherry-like scent as I walk over it, now that it is so abundantly in bloom, which is agreeable to me, — spotting the ground with its downy-looking white flowers.”); October 15, 1859 (“The little leaves of the mitchella, with a whitish midrib and veins, lying generally flat on the mossy ground, perhaps about the base of a tree, with their bright-scarlet twin berries sprinkled over them, may properly be said to checker the ground. Now, particularly, they are noticed amid the fallen leaves. ”);  November 16, 1850 (“The partridge-berry leaves checker the ground on the side of moist hillsides in the woods. Are they not properly called checker-berries ?”); November 27, 1853 ("Checkerberries and partridge-berries are both numerous and obvious now.”); December 3, 1853 ("The still green Mitchella repens and checkerberry in shelter, both with fruit");;December 23, 1855 (“At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical(?) leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, . . . checkerberry, wintergreen, . . .”)

Note “checkerberry" is another name for American wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens). See Checkerberry cum Wintergreen. What HDT calls “wintergreen” is Chimaphila umbellata, a/k/a pipsissewa.

The terminal shield fern is quite fresh and green, See October 23, 1857 ("The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum.. . .The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears.”); November 2, 1857 (“The evergreen ferns and lycopodiums now have their day; now is the flower of their age, and their greenness is appreciated. They are much the clearest and most liquid green in the woods”); November 5, 1857 ("The terminal shield fern is the handsomest and glossiest green.”).


Saw a wood tortoise stirring in the now open brook in Hubbard's Swamp. See December 7, 1852 (“ In a ditch near by, under ice half an inch thick, I saw a painted tortoise moving about.”)

Notes from late October

November 11. 

I observed, October 23d, wood turtles copulating in the Assabet, and a flock of goldfinches on the top of a hemlock, — as if after its seeds? 

Also, October 24th, riding home from Acton, I saw the withered leaves blown from an oak by the roadside dashing off, gyrating, and surging upward into the air, so exactly like a flock of birds sporting with one another that, for a minute at least, I could not be sure they were not birds; and it suggested how far the motions of birds, like those of these leaves, might be determined by currents of air, i. e., how far the bird learns to conform to such currents. 

The flat variety of Lycopodium dendroideum shed pollen on the 25th of October. That 's a lycopodium path on north side of Colburn Hill.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 11, 1859

I observed, October 23d, wood turtles copulating in the Assabet.  see . September 15, 1855 ("An Emys insculpta which I mistook for dead, under water near shore; head and legs and tail hanging down straight. Turned it over, and to my surprise found it coupled with another. It was at first difficult to separate them with a paddle"); October 21, 1857 (" I saw wood tortoises coupled up the Assabet, the back of the upper above water. It held the lower with its claws about the head, and they were not to be parted. ") See also September 16, 1854 ("I see a wood tortoise in the woods. Why is it there now?"); November 9, 1855 ("See a painted tortoise and a wood tortoise in different places out on the bank still!”); November 14, 1855 ("A clear, bright, warm afternoon. A painted tortoise swimming under water and a wood tortoise out on the bank.”) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Wood Turtle (Emys insculpta)

A flock of goldfinches on the top of a hemlock, — as if after its seeds?  See November 15, 1859 (“About the 23d of October I saw a large flock of goldfinches (judging from their motions and notes) on the tops of the hemlocks up the Assabet, apparently feeding on their seeds, then falling. They were collected in great numbers on the very tops of these trees and flitting from one to another. Rice has since described to me the same phenomenon ”); See alao January 5, 1860 ("I see where a flock of goldfinches in the morning had settled on a hemlock's top, by the snow strewn with scales, literally blackened or darkened with them for a rod.")

The withered leaves blown from an oak by the roadside dashing off, gyrating, and surging upward into the air, so exactly like a flock of birds. See October 26, 1860 ("This is the season of the fall when the leaves are whirled through the air like flocks of birds.")

The architect of the river builds with sand .

July 19. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

The architect of the river builds with sand chiefly, not with mud. Mud is deposited very slowly, only in the stagnant places, but sand is the ordinary building- material. 

It is remarkable how the river, while it may be encroaching on the bank on one side, preserves its ordinary breadth by filling up the other side. 

Generally speaking, up and down this and the other stream, where there is a swift place and the bank worn away on one side, — which, other things being equal, would leave the river wider there, — a bank or island or bar is being built up on the other, since the eddy where, on one side, sand, etc., are deposited is produced by the rapidity of the current, thus : 


— e. g. north side of Egg Rock, at Hemlocks, at Pigeon Rock Bend, at Swift Place Bank, etc., and on main stream at Ash Tree Bend. 

The eddy occasioned by the swiftness deposits sand, etc., close by on one side and a little offshore, leaving finally a low meadow outside where was once the bed of the river.

There are countless places where the one shore is thus advancing and, as it were, dragging the other after it. 

I dug into that sand-bank, once sand-bar, at the narrow and swift place off Hildreth's, five and a half feet deep, this afternoon. It is more than a rod wide and covered with willows and alders, etc. It is built up four or five feet above the summer level. It is uniformly fine sand, more or less darkened with decayed vegetation, probably much of it sawdust, and it has been deposited this depth here by the eddy at high water within a very recent period. 

The same agent is in a great many places steadily advancing such a bar or bank down the stream a rod or more from the old shore. The more recent and lower extremity of this bank or bar is composed of sawdust and shavings, almost entirely so to a depth of two feet. Before it reaches the surface, pads spring up in it; when [it] begins to appear, pontederia shows itself, and bulrushes, and next black willows, button-bushes, etc. The finest black willows on the river grow on these sand-banks. 

They are also much resorted to by the turtles for laying their eggs. I dug up three or four nests of the Emys insculpta and Sternothcerus odoratus while examining the contents of the bank this afternoon. This great pile of dry sand in which the turtles now lay was recently fine particles swept down the swollen river. 

Indeed, I think that the river once ran from opposite Merriam's to Pinxter Swamp and thence along Hosmer's hard land toward the bridge, and all the firm land north of Pinxter Swamp is such a sand-bank which the river has built (leaving its old bed a low meadow behind) while following its encroaching northeast side. 

That extensive hard land which the river annually rises over, and which supports a good growth of maples and swamp white oaks, will probably be found to be all alluvial and free from stones. The land thus made is only of a certain height, say four to six feet above summer level, or oftener four or five feet. At highest water I can still cut off this bend by paddling through the woods in the old bed of the river. 

Islands are formed which are shaped like the curving ridge of a snow-drift. Stagnant rivers are deep and muddy; swift ones shallow and sandy. 

Scirpus subterminalis, river off Hoar's and Cheney's, not long.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 19, 1859

It is remarkable how the river, while it may be encroaching on the bank on one side, preserves its ordinary breadth by filling up the other side. See June 15, 1852 ("Methinks there is a male and female shore to the river, one abrupt, the other flat and meadowy. Have not all streams this contrast more or less, on the one hand eating into the bank, on the other depositing their sediment? "); July 18, 1852 (" Thus by a natural law a river, instead of flowing straight through its meadows, meanders from side to side and fertilizes this side or that. . . The river has its active and its passive side, its right and left breast.")

Willow gone to seed, its down covers the water – white amid the weeds.

June 15. 

5.30 a. m. — To Island and Hill. 

A young painted tortoise on the surface of the water, as big as a quarter of a dollar, with a reddish or orange sternum. 

I suppose that my skater insect is the hydrometer. 

Found a nest of tortoise eggs, apparently buried last night, which I brought home, ten in all, — one lying wholly on the surface, — and buried in the garden. 

The soil above a dark virgin mould about a stump was unexpectedly hard.

1 P. M. — Up Assabet to Garlic Wall. 

That tall grass opposite the Merrick Swimming-Place is getting up pretty well, and blossoming with a broad and regular spike, for some time. 

June 15, 2024

This is the third afternoon that we have had a rumbling thunder-cloud arise in the east, — not to mention the west, — but all signs have failed hitherto, and I resolve to proceed on my voyage, knowing that I have a tight [roof] in my boat turned up. 

The froth on the alders, andromeda, etc., — not to speak of the aphides, — dirties and apparently spots my clothes, so that it is a serious objection to walking amid these bushes these days. I am covered with this spittle-like froth. 

At the Assabet Spring I must have been near a black and white creeper's nest. It kept up a constant chipping. 

Saw there also, probably, a chestnut-sided warbler. A yellow crown, chestnut stripe on sides, white beneath, and two yellowish bars on wings. 

A red oak there has many large twigs drooping withered, apparently weakened by some insect. May it not be the locust of yesterday? 

Black willow is now gone to seed, and its down covers the water, white amid the weeds. 

The swamp-pink apparently two or even three days in one place. 

Saw a wood tortoise, about two inches and a half, with a black sternum and the skin, which becomes orange, now ochreous merely, or brown. The little painted tortoise of the morning was red beneath. Both these young tortoises have a distinct dorsal ridge. 

The garlic not in flower yet. 

I observed no Nuphar lutea var. Kalmiana on the Assabet. 

7 p. m. — To Cliff by railroad. 

Cranberry. Prinos Icevigatus, apparently two days.

Methinks the birds sing a little feebler nowadays. The note of the bobolink begins to sound somewhat rare. 

The sun has set, or is at least concealed in a low mist. 

As I go up Fair Haven Hill, I feel the leaves in the sprout-land oak, hickory, etc., cold and wet to my hand with the heavy dew that is falling. They look dry, but when I rub them with my hand, they show moist or wet at once. Probably I thus spread minute drops of dew or mist on their surface. It cannot be the warmth of my hand, for when I breathe on them it has no effect. 

I see one or two early blueberries prematurely turning. 

The Amelanchier Botryapium berries are already reddened two thirds over, and are somewhat palatable and soft, — some of them, — not fairly ripe.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 15, 1854

A young painted tortoise . . . as big as a quarter of a dollar. See April 21, 1855 ("Saw a painted turtle not two inches in diameter. This must be more than one year old."); April 24, 1856 ("A young Emys picta, one and five eighths inches long and one and a half wide. I think it must have been hatched year before last. "); August 28, 1856 ("I open the painted tortoise nest of June 10th, and find a young turtle partly out of his shell . . . The upper shell is fifteen sixteenths of an inch plus by thirteen sixteenths. He is already wonderfully strong and precocious."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

Found a nest of tortoise eggs. . . which I brought home . . . and buried in the garden. See September 9, 1854 ("This morning I find a little hole, three quarters of an inch or an inch over, above my small tortoise eggs, and find a young tortoise coming out (apparently in the rainy night) just beneath. It is the Sternotherus odoratus"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus)

This is the third afternoon that we have had a rumbling thunder-cloud arise in the east. . . I resolve to proceed on my voyage, knowing that I have a tight [roof] in my boat turned up. See June 13, 1854 (''I hear the muttering of thunder and see a dark cloud in the west-southwest horizon; am uncertain how far up-stream I shall get. An opposite cloud rises fast in the east-northeast, and now the lightning crinkles and I hear the heavy thunder. "); June 16, 1854 (" Three days in succession, — the 13th, 14th, and 15th, — thunder-clouds, with thunder and lightning, have risen high in the east, threatening instant rain, and yet each time it has failed to reach us. Thus it is almost invariably, methinks, with thunder-clouds which rise in the east; they do not reach us."). See also June 14, 1855 (" It suddenly begins to rain with great violence, and we in haste draw up our boat on the Clamshell shore, upset it, and get under, sitting on the paddles, and so are quite dry while our friends thought we were being wet to our skins. "); June 15, 1860 ("A thunder-shower in the north goes down the Merrimack. ");June 16, 1860  (" Thunder-showers show themselves about 2 P.M. in the west, but split at sight of Concord and go past on each side")

My skater insect. See March 25, 1858 ("Large skaters (Hydrometra) on a ditch"); March 29, 1853 (“Tried several times to catch a skater. Got my hand close to him; grasped at him as quick as possible; was sure I had got him this time; let the water run out between my fingers; hoped I had not crushed him; opened my hand; and lo! he was not there. I never succeeded in catching one.”); September 1, 1852 ("the surface of the pond is perfectly smooth except where the skaters dimple it, for at equal intervals they are scattered over its whole extent, and, looking west, they make a fine sparkle in the sun."); October 11, 1852 ("I could detect the progress of a water-bug over the smooth surface in almost any part of the pond, for they furrow the water slightly,. . . but the skaters slide over it without producing a perceptible ripple. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Water-bug (Gyrinus) and Skaters (Hydrometridae)

Saw probably, a chestnut-sided warbler. A yellow crown, chestnut stripe on sides, white beneath, and two yellowish bars on wings. See May 24, 1854 ("In woods the chestnut-sided warbler, with clear yellow crown and yellow on wings and chestnut sides. It is exploring low trees and bushes, often along stems about young leaves, and frequently or after short pauses utters its somewhat summer-yellowbird like note, say, tchip tchip, chip chip (quick), tche tche ter tchéa, —— sprayey and rasping and faint.”); May 20, 1856 ("I now see distinctly the chestnut-sided warbler (of the 18th and 17th), by Beck Stow’s. It is very lively on the maples, birches, etc., over the edge of the swamp. Sings eech eech eech | wichy wichy | tchea or itch itch itch | witty witty |tchea "); May 23, 1857 (“The chestnut-sided warbler . . .appears striped slate and black above, white beneath, yellow-crowned with black side-head, two yellow bars on wing, white side-head below the black, black bill, and long chestnut streak on side. Its song lively and rather long, about as the summer yellowbird, but not in two bars; tse tse tse \ te tsah tsah tsah \ te sak yer se is the rhythm.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chestnut-sided Warbler

Black willow is now gone to seed, and its down covers the water, white amid the weed.   See  June 10, 1853 ("The fuzzy seeds or down of the black (?) willows is filling the air over the river and, falling on the water, covers the surface.");   June 29, 1857  (""The river is now whitened with the down of the black willow, and I am surprised to see a minute plant abundantly springing from its midst and greening it,. . ., — like grass growing in cotton in a tumbler."); July 9, 1857 ("There is now but little black willow down left on the trees. . . . I think I see how this tree is propagated by its seeds." )See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Propogation of the Willow.

The swamp-pink apparently two or even three days in one place. June 19, 1852 ("Is not this the carnival of the year when the swamp rose and wild pink are in bloom the last stage before blueberries come?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Swamp-pink

Methinks the birds sing a little feebler nowadays. See June 25, 1854 (“Through June the song of the birds is gradually growing fainter.”)

The note of the bobolink begins to sound somewhat rare. See May 12, 1856 ("How much life the note of the bobolink imparts to the meadow! "); June 19, 1853 ("The strain of the bobolink now begins to sound a little rare. It never again fills the air as the first week after its arrival.") A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Bobolink

I see one or two early blueberries prematurely turning. The Amelanchier Botryapium berries are already red. See May 17, 1853 (“The petals have already fallen from the Amelanchier Botryapium, and young berries are plainly forming.”); May 30, 1854 (" I see now green high blueberries, and gooseberries in Hubbard's Close, as well as shad-bush berries and strawberries. "); June 7, 1854 ("I am surprised at the size of green berries. It is but a step from flowers to fruit.")

June 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 15

Willow gone to seed

its down covers the water –

white amid the weeds.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Willow gone to seed

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

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