The earth itself appears to me as a ripe purple fruit.

September 4. 

P. M. — To Well Meadow and Walden.

The purple culms and spikes of the crab-grass or finger-grass, spreading and often almost prostrate under our feet in sandy paths and causeways, are where the purple cuticle of the earth again shows itself, and we seem to be treading in our vintage whether we will or not. Earth has donned the purple. 

When, walking over some dry field (some time since), I looked down and saw the yellowish tuft of the Fimbristylis capillaris, with its spreading inverted cone of capillary culms, like the upper half of an hour-glass, but still more, when, pacing over the sandy railroad causeway, I look down and find myself treading on the purple culms of the crab-grass, I am reminded of the maturity of the year. 

We have now experienced the full effects of heat such as we have in this latitude. The earth itself appears to me as a ripe purple fruit, — though somewhat dusty here, — and I may have rubbed the bloom off with my feet. But if Bacchus can ever stand our climate, this must be his season. 

Topping the corn, which has been going on some days, now reveals the yellow and yellowing pumpkins. This is a genuine New England scene. The earth blazes not only with sun-flowers but with sun-fruits. 

The four-leaved loosestrife, which is pretty generally withering and withered, seems to have dried up, — to suffer peculiarly from the annual drought, — perhaps both on account of its tenuity and the sandiness or dryness of its locality. 

The Lycopodium complanatum sheds pollen [sic]. 

Where are the robins and red-wing blackbirds of late? I see no flocks of them; not one of the latter, and only a few solitary robins about wild cherry trees, etc.

 A few yew berries, but they appear (?) to be drying up. The most wax-like and artificial and surprising of our wild berries, — as surprising as to find currants on hemlocks. 

In the Well Meadow Swamp, many apparent Aster miser, yet never inclining to red there (in the leaf) and sometimes with larger flowers (five eighths of an inch [in] diameter) and slenderer cauline leaves than common, out apparently almost as long as miser elsewhere. 

The swamp thistle (Cirsium muticum) is apparently in its prime. One or two on each has faded, but many more are to come. Some are six feet high and have radical leaves nearly two feet long. Even these in the shade have humblebees on them. 

You see small flocks of ducks, probably wood ducks, in the smaller woodland ponds now and for a week, as I at Andromeda Ponds, and can get nearer to them than in the spring. 

The Cornus sericea and C. paniculata are rather peculiar for turning to a dull purple on the advent of cooler weather and frosts, in the latter part of August and first part of September. The latter, which grows at the bottom of our frostiest hollows, turns a particularly clear dark purple, an effect plainly attributable to frost. 

I see it this afternoon in the dry, deep hollow just west of the middle Andromeda Pond. 

I think I see two kinds of three-ribbed goldenrod (beside Canadensis), both being commonly smooth-stemmed below and downy above, but one has very fine or small rays as compared with the other. They appear to be both equally common now. The fine-rayed at Sedge Path. 

See a very large mass of spikenard berries fairly ripening, eighteen inches long. 

Three kinds of thistles are commonly out now, — the pasture, lanceolate, and swamp, — and on them all you are pretty sure to see one or two humblebees. They be come more prominent and interesting in the scarcity of purple flowers. (On many you see also the splendid goldfinch, yellow and black (?) like the humble-bee.) The thistles beloved of humblebees and goldfinches. 

Three or four plants are peculiar now for bearing plentifully their fruit in drooping cymes, viz. the elder berry and the silky cornel and the Viburnum Lentago and Solanum Dulcamara. 

The other cornels do not generally come to droop before they lose their fruit. Nor do the viburnums droop much. The fruit of the Cornus sericea is particularly interesting to me, and not too profuse, — small cymes of various tints half concealed amid the leaves.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 4, 1859

The purple culms and spikes of the crab-grass or finger-grass. See September 4, 1858 ("P[anicum]. sanguinale, crab grass, finger grass, or purple panic grass")

The earth blazes not only with sun-flowers but with sun-fruits. See October 6, 1857 ("The very pumpkins yellowing in the fields become a feature in the landscape, and thus they have shone, maybe, for a thousand years here.")

Where are the robins and red-wing blackbirds of late? I see no flocks of them; not one of the latter. See September 20, 1859 ("Where are the red-wings now? I have not seen nor heard one for a long time")

The swamp thistle (Cirsium muticum) is apparently in its prime. See July 29, 1857 (" [the Maine Woods--} Cirsium muticum, or swamp thistle, abundantly in bloom."); September 13, 1854 ("I find the large thistle (Cirsium muticum) out of bloom,")

 The Cornus sericea and C. paniculata are rather peculiar for turning to a dull purple on the advent of cooler weather and frosts, in the latter part of August and first part of September. The fruit of the Cornus sericea is particularly interesting to me, and not too profuse, — small cymes of various tints half concealed amid the leaves. See September 4, 1857 ("Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen").; September 1, 1854 ("The Cornus sericea berries are now in prime, of different shades of blue, lighter or darker, and bluish white."); 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.”)

Three kinds of thistles are commonly out now, — the pasture, lanceolate, and swamp, — . . . The thistles beloved of humblebees and goldfinches. See September 4, 1860  ("The goldfinch is very busy pulling the thistle to pieces") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles.See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau the Goldfinch

Thus gradually and successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, and in the fittest place, and passes away

September 12. 

Sunday. P. M. — To Cliffs.

The handsome crimson-tipped hazelnut burs now and for some time have reminded us that it was time to gather these nuts. They are worth gathering, if only to see the rich color of the fruit brought together in a quantity.

Lycopodium complanatum, how long? 

Have seen the pigeon’s-egg fungus in pastures some time. 

Yew berries still hold on. 

The cinnamon fern has begun to yellow and wither. How rich in its decay! Sic transit gloria mundi! Die like the leaves, which are most beautiful in their decay. 

Thus gradually and successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, and in the fittest place, and passes away. Amid the October woods we hear no funereal bell, but the scream of the jay. Coming to some shady meadow’s edge, you find that the cinnamon fern has suddenly turned this rich yellow. Thus each plant surely acts its part, and lends its effect to the general impression. 

See petty morel berries ripe. 

Woodsia llvensis under the cave at Cliffs in fruit. 

Very heavy rain all yesterday afternoon, and to-day it is somewhat cooler and clearer and the wind more northwesterly, and I see the unusual sight of ripples  or waves curving up-stream off Cardinal Shore, so that the river might seem to be flowing that way. 

The mountains are of a darker blue. 

The spring on the west side of Fair Haven Hill is nearly dry; there is no stream flowing from it. What a disappointment to a herd of cows to find their accustomed spring dry! 

Even in that little hollow on the hill side, commonly moistened by the spring, grow the soft rush, rhyncospora, etc. What an effect a little moisture on a hillside produces, though only a rod square! The Juncaceoe and Cyperaceoa soon find it out and establish themselves there. 

The Panicum filiforme is very abundant in that old mullein-field of Potter’s, by the Corner road. Its slender culms are purple, and, seen in the right light, where they stand thick, they give a purple gleam to the field. More purple far than the P. sanguinale. 

Some small red maples by water begun to redden. 

In Hubbard’s ditched meadow, this side his grove, I see a great many large spider’s webs stretched across the ditches, about two feet from bank to bank, though the thick woven part is ten or twelve inches. They are parallel, a few inches or a foot or more apart, and more or less vertical, and attached to a main cable stretched from bank to bank. They are the yellow-backed spider, commonly large and stout but of various sizes. I count sixty-four such webs there, and in each case the spider occupies the centre, head downward. This is enough, methinks, to establish the rule. They are not afraid of turning their brains then. Many insects must be winging their way over this small river. It reminds me of the Indians catching ducks at Green Bay with nets in old times.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 12, 1858

Lycopodium complanatum, how long? See August 31, 1857  ("Lycopodium complanatum out, how long?")

Yew berries still hold on. See August 10, 1858 ("Am surprised to find the yew with ripe fruit (how long ?),. . . It fruits very sparingly, the berries growing singly here and there, on last year’s wood, and hence four to six inches below the extremities of the upturned twigs. It is the most surprising berry that we have")

The cinnamon fern has begun to yellow and wither. See September 27, 1857 ("The large common ferns (either cinnamon or interrupted) are yellowish, and also many as rich a deep brown now as ever."); September 6, 1854("The cinnamon ferns along the edge of woods next the meadow are many yellow or cinnamon, or quite brown and withered.")

Woodsia llvensis under the cave at Cliffs in fruit. See September 4, 1857 ("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. ")

Tobacco-pipes now in their prime.

August 10

August 10, 2018

P. M. — To yew, etc. 

It is cloudy and misty dog-day weather, with a good deal of wind, and thickening to occasional rain this afternoon. This rustling wind is agreeable, reminding me, by its unusual sound, of other and ruder seasons. The most of a storm you can get now is rather exhilarating. The grass and bushes are quite wet, and the pickers are driven from the berry-field. The rabbit’s-foot clover is very wet to walk through, holding so much water. The fine grass falls over from each side into the middle of the woodland paths and wets me through knee-high. 

I see many tobacco-pipes, now perhaps in their prime, if not a little late, and hear of pine-sap. The Indian pipe, though coming with the fungi and suggesting, no doubt, a close relation to them, — a sort of connecting link between flowers and fungi, — is a very interesting flower, and will bear a close inspection when fresh. The whole plant has a sweetish, earthy odor, though Gray says it is inodorous. 

I see them now on the leafy floor of this oak wood, in families of twelve to thirty sisters of various heights,—from two to eight inches,— as close together as they can stand, the youngest standing close up to the others, all with faces yet modestly turned downwards under their long hoods. Here is a family of about twenty-five within a diameter of little more than two inches, lifting the dry leaves for half their height in a cylinder about them. 

They generally appear bursting up through the dry leaves, which, elevated around, may serve to prop them. Springing up in the shade with so little color, they look the more fragile and delicate. They have very delicate pinkish half-naked stems with a few semitransparent crystalline-white scales for leaves, and from the sinuses at the base of the petals without (when their heads are drooping) more or less dark purple is reflected, like the purple of the arteries seen on a nude body. They appear not to flower only when upright. Gray says they are upright in fruit. They soon become black-specked, even before flowering. 

Am surprised to find the yew with ripe fruit (how long ?),— though there is a little still small and green, — where I had not detected fertile flowers. It fruits very sparingly, the berries growing singly here and there, on last year’s wood, and hence four to six inches below the extremities of the upturned twigs. It is the most surprising berry that we have: first, since it is borne by an evergreen, hemlock-like bush with which we do not associate a soft and bright-colored berry, and hence its deep scarlet contrasts the more strangely with the pure, dark evergreen needles; and secondly, because of its form, so like art, and which could be easily imitated in wax, a very thick scarlet cup or mortar with a dark-purple (?) bead set at the bottom. My neighbors are not prepared to believe that such a berry grows in Concord. 

I notice several of the hylodes hopping through the woods like wood frogs, far from water, this mizzling [day]. They are probably common in the woods, but not noticed, on account of their size, or not distinguished from the wood frog. 

I also saw a young wood frog, with the dark line through the eye, no bigger than the others. 

One hylodes which I bring home has a perfect cross on its back,— except one arm of it. 

 spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer)

The wood thrush’s was a peculiarly woodland nest, made solely of such materials as that unfrequented grove afforded, the refuse of the wood or shore of the pond. There was no horsehair, no twine nor paper nor other relics of art in it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 10, 1858

Springing up in the shade with so little color, they generally appear bursting up through the dry leaves, which, elevated around, may serve to prop them.They soon become black-specked, even before flowering. See July 30, 1854 ("The tobacco-pipes are still pushing up white amid the dry leaves, sometimes lifting a canopy of leaves with them four or five inches."); September 21, 1857 ("an abundance of tobacco-pipe, which has begun to turn black at the tip of the petals and leaves. ")

A young wood frog, with the dark line through the eye, See September 12, 1857 ("I brought it close to my eye and examined it. . . . There was a conspicuous dark-brown patch along the side of the head")

One hylodes which I bring home has a perfect cross on its back. See October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — . . . the peeping of the hylodes for some time ,,,"); November 30, 1859 ("As I go home at dusk on the railroad causeway, I hear a hylodes peeping.")

The wood thrush’s was a peculiarly woodland nest. See July 31, 1858 ("Got the wood thrush’s nest of June 19th.")

August 10. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau , August 10

 

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

I see the heart beating in the embryo fish.

April 14. 

Rains still, with one or two flashes of lightning, but soon over. 

The yew plucked yesterday blossoms in house to day. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

The river is a little higher on account of rain. 

I see much sweet flag six or eight inches long, floating, it having been cut up apparently by musquash. (The 17th I see much of the sparganium cut up close to the bottom along a musquash-path at the bottom of a meadow where there was one foot of water.) 

My Rana halecina spawn in tumbler is now flatted out and begins to betray the pollywog form. I had already noticed a little motion in it from time to time, but nothing like the incessant activity of the embryo fishes.  

I find no suckers’ nests yet. There has been no rise of the river of any consequence. 

At Ed. Hoar's in the evening. I look at one of his slides through a microscope, at the infusorial skeletons of the navicula and dumb-bell infusoria etc. etc. with his microscope I see the heart beating in the embryo fish and the circulations distinctly along the body.

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

The river is a little higher on account of rain. See April 14, 1855 (“The river has been steadily rising since the first of April.”)

My Rana halecina spawn in tumbler is now flatted out and begins to betray the pollywog form. See April 7, 1858 (“ Putting some of the Rana halecina spawn in a tumbler of water. . . .”); April 17, 1858 (“The Rana halecina spawn in tumbler begins to struggle free of the ova”); April 18, 1858 (“Put some R. halecina spawn which has flatted out in a ditch on Hubbard’s land.”);April 19, 1858 ("I find that my Rana halecina spawn in the house is considerably further advanced than that left in the meadows.")

I see the heart beating in the embryo fish and the circulations distinctly along the body. See April 7, 1858 (" I see the embryo, already fish-like (?), curved round the yolk, with a microscope"); April 16, 1858 (" For more than a week the embryos have been conspicuously active, as they lie curved in the egg. This morning I found that they were suddenly hatched, and more than half of them were free of the egg.")

. 

Is not the first lightning the forerunner or warranty of summer heat?

April 13. 

Began to rain last evening, and still rains. 

The tree sparrows sing sweetly, canary-like, still.

Hear the first toad in the rather cool rain, 10 A. M.

See through the dark rain the first flash of lightning, in the west horizon, doubting if it was not a flash of my eye at first, but after a very long interval I hear the low rumbling of the first thunder, and now the summer is baptized and inaugurated in due form. Is not the first lightning the forerunner or warranty of summer heat? The air now contains such an amount of heat that it emits a flash. 

Speaking to J. B. Moore about the partridges being run down, he says that he was told by Lexington people some years ago that they found a duck lying dead under the spire of their old meeting-house (since burned) which stood on the Battle-Ground. The weathercock — and it was a cock in this case —- was considerably bent, and the inference was that the duck had flown against it in the night. 

P. M. – To the yew. 

Shepherd's-purse already going to seed; in bloom there some time. Also chickweed; how long? I had thought these would be later, on account of the ground having been so bare, and indeed they did suffer much, but early warm weather forwarded them. 

That unquestionable staminate Salix humilis beyond yew will not be out for three or four days. Its old leaves on the ground are turned cinder-color, as are those under larger and doubtful forms. 

Epigaea abundantly out, maybe four or five days. It was apparently in its winter state March 28th.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1858

Hear the first toad in the rather cool rain. See April 13, 1853 ("Pewee days and April showers. First hear toads (and take off coat), a loud, ringing sound filling the air, which yet few notice.") See also April 5, 1857 ("Probably single ones ring earlier than I supposed."): April 5, 1860 ("I hear, a very faint distant ring of toads, which, though I walk and walk all the afternoon, I never come nearer to."); April 15, 1856 ("[ 11 P. M., a still and rather warm night, I am surprised to hear the first loud, clear, prolonged ring of a toad, . . .While all the hillside else, perhaps, is asleep, this toad has just awaked to a new year."); April 18, 1855 ("In the evening hear far and wide the ring of toads, and a thunder-shower with its lightning is seen and heard in the west. "): April 25, 1856 ("The toads have begun fairly to ring at noonday in amid the birches to hear them . . . The voice of the toad, the herald of warmer weather. "); April 29, 1856 ("Do not the toads ring most on a windy day like this?") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Ring of Toads

See through the dark rain the first flash of lightning. . . and now the summer is baptized and inaugurated in due form. See April 14, 1858 ("Rains still, with one or two flashes of lightning, but soon over "); April 17, 1856 (" Was awakened in the night by a thunder and lightning shower and hail-storm — the old familiar burst and rumble,. . . a skirmish between the cool rear-guard of winter and the warm and earnest vanguard of summer. Advancing summer strikes on the edge of winter, which does not drift fast enough away, and fire is elicited. Electricity is engendered by the early heats. I love to hear the voice of the first thunder as of the toad .") April 18, 1855 ("In the evening hear far and wide the ring of toads, and a thunder-shower with its lightning is seen and heard in the west. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Lightning

Speaking to about the partridges being run down. See April 12, 1858 ("A partridge standing on the track, between the rails over which the cars had just passed. She had evidently been run down. . . It may be many generations before the partridges learn to give the cars a sufficiently wide berth.")

That unquestionable staminate Salix humilis beyond yew will not be out for three or four days. See April 9, 1858 ("The yew looks as if it would bloom in a day or two, and the staminate Salix humilis in the path in three or four days.") See also April 11, 1860 ("Salix humilis abundantly out, how long?"); April 25, 1857 ("Got to-day unquestionable Salix humilis in the Britton hollow, north of his shanty, but all there that I saw (and elsewhere as yet) [are] pistillate. It is apparently now in prime, and apparently the next to bloom after the various larger and earlier ones, all which I must call as yet S. discolor. This S. humilis is small-catkined and loves a dry soil.")

Epigaea abundantly out. See April 8, 1859 ("The epigaea is not quite out.");April 11, 1860 ("Epigæa abundantly out (probably 7th at least).");  April 15, 1859 ("The epigaea opened, apparently, the 13th.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Epigaea

This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade.

April 9.

April rain at last, but not much; clears up at night.

At 4.30 P.M. to Well Meadow Field.

The yew looks as if it would bloom in a day or two, and the staminate Salix humilis in the path in three or four days. Possibly it is already out elsewhere, if, perchance, that was not it just beginning on the 6th on the Marlborough road. The pistillate appear more forward. It must follow pretty close to the earliest willows.

I hear the booming of snipe this evening, and Sophia says she heard them on the 6th. The meadows having been bare so long, they may have begun yet earlier.

Persons walking up or down our village street in still evenings at this season hear this singular winnowing sound in the sky over the meadows and know not what it is. This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade. 

I heard it this evening for the first time, as I sat in the house, through the window. Yet common and annual and remarkable as it is, not one in a hundred of the villagers hears it, and hardly so many know what it is. Yet the majority know of the Germanians who have only been here once. Mr. Hoar was almost the only inhabitant of this street whom I had heard speak of this note, which he used annually to hear and listen for in his sundown or evening walks.

R. Rice tells me that he has seen the pickerel-spawn hung about in strings on the brush, especially where a tree had fallen in. He thinks it was the pickerel’s because he has seen them about at the time. This seems to correspond with mine of April 3d, though he did [not] recognize the peculiar form of it.

I doubt if men do ever simply and naturally glorify God in the ordinary sense, but it is remarkable how sincerely in all ages they glorify nature. The praising of Aurora, for instance, under some form in all ages is obedience to as irresistible an instinct as that which impels the frogs to peep.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 9, 1858

The yew looks as if it would bloom in a day or two, and the staminate Salix humilis in the path in three or four days. See April 13, 1858 ("That unquestionable staminate Salix humilis beyond yew will not be out for three or four days. Its old leaves on the ground are turned cinder-color, as are those under larger and doubtful forms.")

This “booming” of the snipe is our regular village serenade. See April 9, 1853 ("Evening. -- Hear the snipe a short time at early starlight. . . . Louder than all is heard the shrill peep of the hylodes and the hovering note of the snipe, circling invisible above them all.");  April 9, 1855 ("Some twenty minutes after sundown I hear the first booming of a snipe."); See also April 15, 1856 (" I hear a part of the hovering note of my first snipe, circling over some distant meadow"); April 18, 1854 (" One[snipe] booms now at 3 p. m."); April 18, 1856 ("This evening I hear the snipes generally and peeping of hylas from the door. ")' April 25, 1859 ("The snipe have hovered commonly this spring an hour or two before sunset and also in the morning . . . and they appear to make that sound when descending, — one quite by himself.") and  A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

Pickerel-spawn hung about in strings on the brush. See April 3, 1858 ("a curious kind of spawn. It was white, each ovum about as big as a robin-shot or larger, with mostly a very minute white core, no black core, and these were agglutinated together in the form of zigzag hollow cylinders, two or three inches in diameter and one or two feet long, looking like a lady's ruff or other muslin work, on the bottom or on roots and twigs of willow and button-bush")   See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pickerel

No doubt on almost every such warm bank now you will find a snake lying out.

April 2.

P. M. – To yew and R. W. E.'s Cliff. 

April 2, 2018

At Hubbard’s Grove I see a woodchuck. He waddles to his hole and then puts out his gray nose within thirty feet to reconnoitre.

It is too windy, and the surface of the croaker pool is too much ruffled, for any of the croakers to be lying out, but I notice a large mass of their spawn there well advanced.

At the first little sluiceway just beyond, I catch a large Rana halecina, which puffs itself up considerably, as if it might be full of spawn. I must look there for its spawn. It is rather sluggish; cannot jump much yet. It allows me to stroke it and at length take it up in my hand, squatting still in it.

Who would believe that out of these dry and withered banks will come violets, lupines, etc., in profusion?

At the spring on the west side of Fair Haven Hill, I startle a striped snake. It is a large one with a white stripe down the dorsal ridge between two broad black ones, and on each side the last a buff one, and then blotchy brown sides, darker toward tail; beneath, greenish-yellow. This snake generally has a pinkish cast.

There is another, evidently the same species but not half so large, with its neck lying affectionately across the first, — I may have separated them by my approach, – which, seen by itself, you might have thought a distinct species. The dorsal line in this one is bright-yellow, though not so bright as the lateral ones, and the yellow about the head; also the black is more glossy, and this snake has no pink cast.

No doubt on almost every such warm bank now you will find a snake lying out. The first notice I had of them was a slight rustling in the leaves, as if made by a squirrel, though I did not see them for five minutes after. The biggest at length dropped straight down into a hole, within a foot of where he lay. They allowed me to lift their heads with a stick four or five inches without stirring, nor did they mind the flies that alighted on them, looking steadily at me without the slightest motion of head, body, or eyes, as if they were of marble; and as you looked hard at them, you continually forgot that they were real and not imaginary.

The hazel has just begun to shed pollen here, perhaps yesterday in some other places. This loosening and elongating of its catkins is a sufficiently pleasing sight, in dry and warm hollows on the hillsides. It is an unexpected evidence of life in so dry a shrub.

On the side of Fair Haven Hill I go looking for bay wings, turning my glass to each sparrow on a rock or tree. At last I see one, which flies right up straight from a rock eighty [or] one hundred feet and warbles a peculiar long and pleasant strain, after the manner of the skylark, methinks, and close by I see another, apparently a bay-wing, though I do not see its white in tail, and it utters while sitting the same subdued, rather peculiar strain.

See how those black ducks, swimming in pairs far off on the river, are disturbed by our appearance, swimming away in alarm, and now, when we advance again, they rise and fly up-stream and about, uttering regularly a crack cr-r-rack of alarm, even for five or ten minutes, as they circle about, long after we have lost sight of them. Now we hear it on this side, now on that.

The yew shows its bundles of anthers plainly, as if it might open in four or five days.

Just as I get home, I think I see crow blackbirds about a willow by the river.

It is not important that the poet should say some particular thing, but should speak in harmony with nature. The tone and pitch of his voice is the main thing. It appears to me that the wisest philosophers that I know are as foolish as Sancho Panza dreaming of his Island. Considering the ends they propose and the obstructions in their path, they are even. One philosopher is feeble enough alone, but observe how each multiplies his difficulties, – by how many unnecessary links he allies himself to the existing state of things. He girds himself for his enterprise with fasting and prayer, and then, instead of pressing forward like a light-armed soldier, with the fewest possible hindrances, he at once hooks himself on to some immovable institution, as a family, the very rottenest of them all, and begins to sing and scratch gravel towards his objects. Why, it is as much as the strongest man can do decently to bury his friends and relations without making a new world of it. But if the philosopher is as foolish as Sancho Panza, he is also as wise, and nothing so truly makes a thing so or so as thinking it so.

Approaching the side of a wood on which were some pines, this afternoon, I heard the note of the pine warbler, calling the pines to life, though I did not see it. It has probably been here as long as I said before.

Returning, I saw a sparrow-like bird flit by in an orchard, and, turning my glass upon it, was surprised by its burning yellow. This higher color in birds surprises us like an increase of warmth in the day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 2, 1858

A woodchuck waddles to his hole and then puts out his gray nose. See April 2, 1856 ("A woodchuck has been out under the Cliff, and patted the sand, cleared out the entrance to his burrow.”)

A bay wing warbles a peculiar long and pleasant strain. Close by I see another, and it utters while sitting the same subdued, rather peculiar strain. See  April 13, 1856 (“I hear a bay-wing on the railroad fence sing, the rhythm somewhat like, char char (or here here), che che, chip chip chip (fast), chitter chitter chitter chit (very fast and jingling), tchea tchea (jinglingly). It has another strain, considerably different, but a second also sings the above. Two on different posts are steadily singing the same, as if contending with each other, notwithstanding the cold wind”); See also April 8, 1859 (“ See the first bay-wing hopping and flitting along the railroad bank, but hear no note as yet.”); April 12, 1857 (“I think I hear the bay-wing here.”); April 13, 1855(“See a sparrow without marks on throat or breast, running peculiarly in the dry grass in the open field beyond, and hear its song, and then see its white feathers in tail; the bay-wing”);  April 15, 1859 (“The bay-wing now sings — the first I have been able to hear”). See April 13, 1854 ("Did I see a bay-wing?"); May 12, 1857 ("As the bay-wing sang many thousand years ago, so sang he to-night.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

It is not important that the poet should say some particular thing, but should speak in harmony with nature. See  May 23, 1853 (“The poet must bring to Nature the smooth mirror in which she is to be reflected.”)

Approaching the side of a wood on which were some pines, this afternoon, I heard the note of the pine warbler, calling the pines to life, though I did not see it. See April 2, 1853 ("The edge of the wood is not a plane surface, but has depth. Hear and see what I call the pine warbler, --vetter vetter vetter vetter vet, -- the cool woodland sound.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler

Each new year is a surprise to us.

 
March 18

 7 A.M. – By river. 

Almost every bush has its song sparrow this morning, and their tinkling strains are heard on all sides. You see them just hopping under the bush or into some other covert, as you go by, turning with a jerk this way and that, or they flit away just above the ground, which they resemble. It is the prettiest strain I have heard yet. 

Melvin is already out in his boat for all day, with his white hound in the prow, bound up the river for musquash, etc., but the river is hardly high enough to drive them out. 

March 18, 2018

P. M. – To Fair Haven Hill via Hubbard’s Bath. 

How much more habitable a few birds make the fields! At the end of winter, when the fields are bare and there is nothing to relieve the monotony of the withered vegetation, our life seems reduced to its lowest terms. But let a bluebird come and warble over them, and what a change! 

• The note of the first bluebird in the air answers to the purling rill of melted snow beneath. It is eminently soft and soothing, and, as surely as the thermometer, indicates a higher temperature. It is the accent of the south wind, its vernacular. It is modulated by the south wind. 

• The song sparrow is more sprightly, mingling its notes with the rustling of the brash along the watersides, but it is at the same time more terrene than the bluebird. 

• The first woodpecker comes screaming into the empty house and throws open doors and windows wide, calling out each of them to let the neighbors know of its return. But heard further off it is very suggestive of ineffable associations which cannot be distinctly recalled, – of long-drawn summer hours, – and thus it, also, has the effect of music. I was not aware that the capacity to hear the woodpecker had slumbered within me so long.

• When the blackbird gets to a conqueree he seems to be dreaming of the sprays that are to be and on which he is to perch. 

• The robin does not come singing, but utters a somewhat anxious or inquisitive peep at first. The song sparrow is immediately most at home of any that I have named. 

I see this afternoon as many as a dozen bluebirds on the warm side of a wood. 

At Hubbard's shore, where a strong but warm westerly wind is blowing, the shore is lined for half a rod in width with pulverized ice, or “brash,” driven against it. 

At Potter's sand-hill (Bear Garden), I see, on the southeast side of the blue-curls, very distinct and regular arcs of circles (about a third of a circle), scored deep in the sand by the tops of these weeds, which have been blown about by the wind, and these marks show very surely and plainly how the wind has been blowing and with what force and flakiness. 

The rather warm but strong wind now roars in the wood — as in the maple swamp — with a novel sound. I doubt if the same is ever heard in the winter. It apparently comes at this season, not only to dry the earth but to wake up the trees, as it were, as one would awake a sleeping man with a smart shake. Perchance they need to be thus wrung and twisted, and their sap flows the sooner for it. 

Perfectly dry sand even is something attractive now, and I am tempted to tread on and to touch it, as a curiosity. Skunks’ tracks are everywhere now, on the sand, and the little snow that is left. 

The river is still closed with ice at Cardinal Shore, so Melvin must have stopped here at least; but there is a crescent of “brash ” there, which the waves blown up-stream have made, half a dozen rods wide. It is even blown a rod on to the solid ice. The noise made by this brash undulating and grating upon itself, at a little distance, is very much like the rustling of a winrow of leaves disturbed by the winds. A little farther off it is not to be distinguished from the roar of the wind in the woods. 

Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again it is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence. How happens it that the associations it awakens are always pleasing, never saddening; reminiscences of our sanest hours? The voice of nature is always encouraging. 

The blackbird — probably grackle this time —wings his way direct above the swamp northward, with a regular tchuck, carrier haste, calling the summer months along, like a hen her chickens. 

When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim. 

It is a spring landscape, and as impossible a fortnight ago as the song of birds. It is a deeper and warmer blue than in winter, methinks. The snow is off the mountains, which seem even to have come again like the birds. 

The undulating river is a bright-blue channel between sharp-edged shores of ice retained by the willows. The wind blows strong but warm from west by north, so that I have to hold my paper tight when I write this, making the copses creak and roar; but the sharp tinkle of a song sparrow is heard through it all. 

But ah! the needles of the pine, how they shine, as I look down over the Holden wood and westward! Every third tree is lit with the most subdued but clear ethereal light, as if it were the most delicate frostwork in a winter morning, reflecting no heat, but only light. And as they rock and wave in the strong wind, even a mile off, the light courses up and down there as over a field of grain; i. e., they are alternately light and dark, like looms above the forest, when the shuttle is thrown between the light woof and the dark web, weaving a light article, – spring goods for Nature to wear. 

At sight of this my spirit is like a lit tree. It runs or flashes over their parallel boughs as when you play with the teeth of a comb. The pine tops wave like squirrels' tails flashing in the air. Not only osiers but pine-needles, methinks, shine in the spring, and arrowheads and railroad rails, etc., etc. Anacreon noticed the same. 

Is it not the higher sun, and cleansed air, and greater animation of nature? There is a warmer red to the leaves of the shrub oak, and to the tail of the hawk circling over them. 

I sit on the Cliff, and look toward Sudbury. I see its meeting-houses and its common, and its fields lie but little beyond my ordinary walk, but I never played on its common nor read the epitaphs in its graveyard, and many strangers to me dwell there. How distant in all important senses may be the town which yet is within sight! We see beyond our ordinary walks and thoughts. With a glass I might perchance read the time on its clock. How circumscribed are our walks, after all! With the utmost industry we cannot expect to know well an area more than six miles square, and yet we pretend to be travellers, to be acquainted with Siberia and Africa! 

Going by the epigaea on Fair Haven Hill, I thought I would follow down the shallow gully through the woods from it, that I might find more or something else. There was an abundance of checkerberry, as if it were a peculiar locality for shrubby evergreens. At first the checkerberry was green, but low down the hill it suddenly became dark-red, like a different plant, as if it had been more subject to frost there, it being more frosty lower down. Where it was most turned, that part of the leaf which was protected by another overlapping it was still pure bright-green, making a pretty contrast when you lifted it. 

Eight or ten rods off I noticed an evergreen shrub with the aspect or habit of growth of the juniper, but, as it was in the woods, I already suspected it to be what it proved, the American yew, already strongly budded to bloom. This is a capital discovery. 

I have thus found the ledum and the taxus this winter and a new locality of the epigaea.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 18, 1858

The note of the first bluebird in the air answers to the purling rill of melted snow beneath . . . It is modulated by the south wind. See March 9, 1852 ("I hear and see bluebirds, come with the warm wind."); March 17, 1858 ("Hear the first bluebird. A remarkably warm and pleasant day with a south or southwest wind . . .  The air is full of bluebirds. I hear them far and near on all sides of the hill, warbling in the tree-tops, though I do not distinctly see them . . . four species of birds have all come in one day, no doubt to almost all parts of the town. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Listening for the Bluebird

The rather warm but strong wind now roars in the wood to wake up the trees,  and their sap flows the sooner for it. See March 9, 1852 (“These March winds, which make the woods roar and fill the world with life and bustle, appear to wake up the trees out of their winter sleep and excite the sap to flow.”)

When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim. See May 17, 1853 ("I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world.”); May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised  thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”) ; October 7, 1857 ("When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape.”). See also note to June 3, 1850 ("The landscape is a vast amphitheatre rising to its rim in the horizon.")

The robin does not come singing, but utters a somewhat anxious or inquisitive peep at first. See March 18, 1853 ("He does not sing as yet . . . the robin and blackbird only peep and chuck at first."); March 18, 1859 ("Three days ago, the 15th, we had steady rain with a southerly wind. . . and the peep of the robin was heard through the drizzle and the rain.") See also  February 27, 1857 (" Before I opened the window this cold morning, I heard the peep of a robin, that sound so often heard in cheerless or else rainy weather, so often heard first borne on the cutting March wind or through sleet or rain, as if its coming were premature. "); March 8, 1855 ("I hear the hasty, shuffling, as if frightened, note of a robin from a dense birch wood . . . This sound reminds me of rainy, misty April days in past years."); March 12, 1854 ("I hear my first robin peep distinctly at a distance. No singing yet."); March 17, 1858 ("I hear a faint note far in the wood which reminds me of the robin. Again I hear it; it is he, — an occasional peep.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the anxious peep of the early robin

Each new year is a surprise to us. See December 29, 1851 (" What a fine and measureless joy the gods grant us thus, letting us know nothing about the day that is to dawn! This day, yesterday, was as incredible as any other miracle.")

The sharp tinkle of a song sparrow is heard through it all. See March 18, 1857 ("I now again hear the song sparrow’s tinkle along the riverside, probably to be heard for a day or two.”)March 18, 1852 ("I hear the song sparrow's simple strain, most genuine herald of the spring.”)

I have thus found the ledum this winter. See February 4, 1858 (“As usual with the finding of new plants, I had a presentiment that I should find the ledum in Concord.”)

Going by the epigaea on Fair Haven Hill, I thought I would follow down the shallow gully through the woods from it, that I might find more or something else. See September 8, 1858 ("It is good policy to be stirring about your affairs, for the reward of activity and energy is that if you do not accomplish the object you had professed to yourself, you do accomplish something else. So, in my botanizing or natural history walks, it commonly turns out that, going for one thing, I get another thing.")

A new locality of the epigaea. See February 7, 1858 (“I am surprised to find the epigaea on this hill, at the northwest corner of C. Hubbard’s (?) lot.”)

March 18. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, March 18

The snow is off the

mountains, which seem to have come

again like the birds,

their blue scalloped rim

a deeper and warmer blue

than winter, methinks.

A spring landscape as

impossible a fortnight

ago as birdsong.

The note of each bird

remembered like a dream when

we hear it again.

How happens it that

each new year is always

a pleasing surprise?

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Each new year is a surprise 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 © 2009-2025

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