At New Bedford.

December 9

At New Bedford. 

See a song sparrow and a pigeon woodpecker. Dr. Bryant tells of the latter picking holes in blinds, and also in his barn roof and sides in order to get into it; holes in the window sashes or casings as if a nail had been driven into them. 

Asked a sailor at the wharf how he distinguished a whaler. He said by the “davits,” large upright timbers with sheaves curving over the sides to hold up the boats (a merchantman has only a few and small at the stern); also by the place for the man to stand at masthead (crosstrees, I should say they were) and look out for whales, which you do not see on a merchant-ship; i. e., the crosstrees of the latter are very slight . . .

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

See a song sparrow.  See January 15, 1857 ("I saw, to my surprise, that it must be a song sparrow, . . taken refuge in this shed”); January 28, 1857("Am again surprised to see a song sparrow sitting for hours on our wood-pile in the yard.”). Also January 22, 1857 ("Minott tells me that Sam Barrett told him once when he went to mill that a song sparrow took up its quarters in his grist-mill and stayed there all winter.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)

Asked a sailor at the wharf. See December 25, 1854 (“At New Bedford see casks of oil covered with seaweed to prevent fire. The weed holds moisture. Town not lively; whalers abroad at this season.”)

Eggs at Natural History Rooms.

December 7

Boston Society of Natural History 

(c. 1847-1863),

Mason Street, Boston

\
To Boston. At Natural History Rooms. 

December 7, 2018

The egg of Turdus solitarius is light-bluish with pale brown spots. This is apparently mine which I call hermit thrush, though mine is redder and distincter brown spots. 

The egg of Turdus brunneus (called hermit thrush) is a clear blue. 

The rail’s egg (of Concord, which I have seen) is not the Virginia rail’s, which is smaller and nearly pure white, nor the clapper rail’s, which is larger. Is it the sora rail’s (of which there is no egg in this collection)? 

My egg found in R. W. E’s garden is not the white throated sparrow’s egg. 

Dr. Bryant calls my seringo (i. e. the faint-noted bird) Savannah sparrow. 

He says Cooper’s hawk is just like the sharp-shinned, only a little larger commonly. He could not tell them apart. 

Neither he nor Brewer can identify eggs always. Could match some gulls’ eggs out of another basket full of a different species as well as out of the same basket.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, December 7, 1858

The egg of Turdus solitarius is apparently mine which I call hermit thrush, though mine is redder and distincter brown spots. See June 12, 1857 (“The egg of the Turdus solitarius is lettered "Swamp Robin."”); June 21, 1858 ("Talked with Mr. Bryant at the Natural History Rooms... The egg of the Turdus solitarius in the collection is longer, but marked very much like the tanager’s, only paler-brown");  June 22, 1858 ("[Edward Bartlett]Says the bird was a thrush of some kind. The egg is one inch by five eighths, rather slender, faint-blue, and quite generally spotted with distinct rather reddish brown, inclining to small streaky blotches, though especially at the larger end; not pale-brown like that described [June 21]. Can it be the Turdus solitarias? I have the egg.");

The egg of Turdus brunneus (called hermit thrush) is a clear blue. See June 21, 1858 ("Talked with Mr. Bryant at the Natural History Rooms . . .They have also the egg of the T. brunneus, the other hermit thrush, not common here."); September 29, 1855 ("At Natural History Library saw Dr. Cabot, who says that he has heard either the hermit, or else the olivaceous, thrush sing,—very like a wood thrush, but softer. Is sure that the hermit thrush sometimes breeds hereabouts.”).; June 12, 1857 ("At Natural History Rooms.. . . The wood thrush's is a slender egg, a little longer than a catbird's and uniform greenish-blue. . . . The egg of the hermit thrush [which variety?] is about as big as that of Wilson's thrush, but darker green.”) Also see note to April 24, 1856 ("Behold my hermit thrush, with one companion, flitting silently through the birches.")

The rail’s egg (of Concord, which I have seen) is not the Virginia rail’s, which is smaller and nearly pure white, nor the clapper rail’s, which is larger. Is it the sora rail’s? See September 7, 1858 ("Storrow Higginson brings from Deerfield this evening some eggs to show me, — among others apparently that of the Virginian rail. It agrees in color, size, etc., according to Wilson, and is like (except, perhaps, in form) to one which E. Bartlett brought me a week or ten days ago, which dropped from a load of hay carried to Stow’s barn! So perhaps it breeds here. Also a smaller egg of same form, but dull white with very pale dusky spots, which may be that of the Carolina rail."); September 18, 1858 (" Rallus Carolinus . . .in Virginia is called the sora"); September 21, 1858 (" the eggs of the Rallus Virginianus,labelled by Brewer, but much smaller than those I have seen, and nearly white, with dull-brown spots! Can mine be the egg of the R. crepitons [Clapper rail], though larger than mine?")

My egg found in R. W. E’s garden is not the white throated sparrow’s egg. See June 12 1857 ("At Natural History Rooms. — The egg found on ground in R. W. E.'s garden some weeks since cannot be the bobolink's, for that is about as big as a bay-wing's but more slender, dusky-white, with numerous brown and black blotches")

Dr. Bryant calls my seringo (i. e. the faint-noted bird) Savannah sparrow. See June 26, 1856 ("[S]aw, apparently, the F. Savanna near their nests (my seringo note), restlessly flitting about me from rock to rock within a rod."); April 22, 1856 ("The seringo also sits on a post, with a very distinct yellow line over the eye,_and the rhythm of its strain is ker chick | ker che | ker-char—r-r-r-r | chick, the last two bars being the part chiefly heard."); and note to August 11, 1858 (" I heard there abouts the seringo note."); See also Guide to Thoreau’s Birds "(Thoreau frequently called the Savannah Sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis the seringo or seringo-bird, but he also applied the name to other small birds.”); April 27, 1859 (“Hear and see the seringo in fields next the shore. No noticeable yellow shoulder, pure whitish beneath, dashed throat and a dark-brown line of dashes along the sides of the body.”)

He says Cooper’s hawk is just like the sharp-shinned, only a little larger . See May 17, 1860 ("J. Farmer sends me to - day what is plainly Cooper's hawk. ") 

Go out at 9 A. M. to see the glaze.

December 6

Go out at 9 A. M. to see the glaze. 

It is already half fallen, melting off. The dripping trees and wet falling ice will wet you through like rain in the woods. It is a lively sound, a busy tinkling, the incessant brattling and from time to time rushing, crashing sound of this falling ice, and trees suddenly erecting themselves when relieved of their loads. 

It is now perfect only on the north sides of woods which the sun has not touched or affected. Looking at a dripping tree between you and the sun, you may see here or there one or another rainbow color, a small brilliant point of light. 

Yesterday it froze as it fell on my umbrella, converting the cotton cloth into a thick stiff glazed sort of oilcloth, so that it was impossible to shut it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 6, 1858

To see the glaze. See December 5, 1858 ("Snowed yesterday afternoon, and now it is three or four inches deep and a fine mizzle falling and freezing . . . so that there is quite a glaze."); December 5, 1859 ("There is a slight mist in the air and accordingly some glaze on the twigs and leaves"); December 24, 1854 ("Some three inches of snow fell last night and this morning, concluding with a fine rain, which produces a slight glaze, the first of the winter. "); December 26, 1855 ("After snow, rain, and hail yesterday and last night, we have this morning quite a glaze, there being at last an inch or two of crusted snow on the ground, the most we have had."); February 6, 1857 ("Down railroad to see the glaze, the first we have had this year, but not a very good one."); February 8, 1856 ("But yesterday’s snow turning to rain, which froze as it fell, there is now a glaze on the trees, giving them a hoary look, icicles like rakes’ teeth on the rails, and a thin crust over all the snow.”) See also Yesterday's ice storm today and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December Days

Yesterday it froze as it fell on my umbrella, converting the cotton cloth into a thick stiff glazed sort of oilcloth, so that it was impossible to shut it. December 31, 1852 (“It is a sort of frozen rain this afternoon, which does not wet one, but makes the still bare ground slippery with a coating of ice, and stiffens your umbrella so that it cannot be shut.")

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

Here or there one or

another rainbow color –

a small point of light.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Go out to see the glaze.

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

tinyurl.com/HDT581206

The stiffened ice-coated weeds and grasses recall past winters.

December 5. 

Some sugar maples, both large and small, have still, like the larger oaks, a few leaves about the larger limbs near the trunk. 

P. M. — To Walden. 

Snowed yesterday afternoon, and now it is three or four inches deep and a fine mizzle falling and freezing to the twigs and stubble, so that there is quite a glaze. The stiffened ice-coated weeds and grasses on the causeway recall past winters. These humble withered plants, which have not of late attracted your attention, now arrest it by their very stiffness and exaggerated size. Some grass culms eighteen inches or two feet high, which nobody noticed, are an inexhaustible supply of slender ice-wands set in the snow. The grasses and weeds bent to the crusty surface form arches of various forms. It is surprising how the slenderest grasses can support such a weight, but the culm is buttressed by an other icy culm or column, and the load gradually taken on. 

In the woods the drooping pines compel you to stoop. In all directions they are bowed down, hanging their heads. 

The large yellowish leaves of the black oak (young trees) are peculiarly conspicuous, rich and warm, in the midst of this ice and snow, and on the causeway the yellowish bark of the willows gleams warmly through the ice. 

The birches are still upright, and their numerous parallel white ice-rods remind me of the recent gossamer-like gleams which they reflected. 

How singularly ornamented is that salamander! Its brightest side, its yellow belly, sprinkled with fine dark spots, is turned downward. Its back is indeed ornamented with two rows of bright vermilion spots, but these can only be detected on the very closest inspection, and poor eyes fail to discover them even then, as I have found.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1858

The stiffened ice-coated weeds and grasses on the causeway recall past winters.See December 26, 1855("The weeds and grasses, being so thickened by this coat of ice, appear much more numerous in the fields. It is surprising what a bristling crop they are."); December 5, 1859 ("The perfect silence -- the stillness and motionless of the twigs and of the very weeds and withered grasses; it is as if the whispering and creaking earth were muffled on her axle")

That salamander! See December 3, 1858 ("The salamander above named, found in the water of the Pout’s Nest, is the Salamandra symmetrica It is some three inches long, brown (not dark-brown) above and yellow with small dark spots beneath, and the same spots on the sides of the tail; a row of very minute vermilion spots, not detected but on a close examination, on each side of the back")

I walk with unbuttoned coat, taking in the influences of the hour.

December 3

December 3, 2011

P. M. — To Walden. 

A deliciously mild afternoon, though the ground is covered with snow. The cocks crowed this morning as of yore.

I carry hatchet and rake in order to explore the Pout’s Nest for frogs and fish, —the pond not being frozen. A small part of that chink of the 26th is not yet frozen, and is crowded with pollywogs, mostly of large size, and very many have legs more or less developed. 

With my small iron rake, about a foot long by four inches wide, I jerk on to the ice at one jerk forty five pollywogs, and more than as many more fall into the water. Many of the smallest pollywogs have bright copper-red bellies, prettily spotted, while the large are commonly pale-yellow, either clear or spotted. Many are dying. They have crowded so thickly along the open chink three or four inches wide by the side of a boat in the ice that, when I accidentally rock it, about a hundred are washed out on to the ice. 

One salamander among them, and four of the new breams, much larger, darker, and richer-colored than any I had found. 

I have often seen pollywogs in small numbers in the winter, in spring-holes, etc., but never such crowding to air-holes in the ice. All that is peculiar in this case is that this small pond has recently been cut off from the main pond by the falling of the water and that it is crowded with vegetable matter, chiefly target-weed, so that apparently the stagnant water has not only killed the breams and perch (of which last I find three dead) but many pollywogs, and compels others to seek the surface. 

As I return home by the Shanty Field and the railroad, I cannot help contrasting this evening with the 30th (on Fair Haven Hill-side). Now there is a genial, soft air, and in the west many clouds of purplish dove color. I walk with unbuttoned coat, taking in the influences of the hour. Coming through the pitch pines east of the Shanty Field, I see the sun through the pines very yellow and warm-looking, and every twig of the pines and every weed is lit with yellow light (not silvery). 

The other night the few cloudy islets about [the] setting sun (where it had set) were glitteringly bright afar through the cold air. Now (when I get to the causeway) all the west is suffused with an extremely rich, warm purple or rose-color, while the edges of what were dove-colored clouds have a warm saffron glow, finally deepening to rose or damask when the sun has set. The other night there was no reddening of the clouds after sunset, no afterglow, but the glittering clouds were almost immediately snapped up in the crisped air. 

I improve every opportunity to go into a grist-mill, any excuse to see its cobweb-tapestry. I put questions to the miller as an excuse for staying, while my eye rests delighted on the cobwebs above his head and per chance on his hat. 

The salamander above named, found in the water of the Pout’s Nest, is the Salamandra symmetrica It is some three inches long, brown (not dark-brown) above and yellow with small dark spots beneath, and the same spots on the sides of the tail; a row of very minute vermilion spots, not detected but on a close examination, on each side of the back; the tail is waved on the edge (upper edge, at least); has a pretty, bright eye. Its tail, though narrower, reminds me of the pollywog. Why should not it lose its tail as well as that?

The largest of the four breams (vide November 26th) two and nine twentieths inches long, by one inch broad and nine twentieths thick. The back, sides forward, tail, and anal fin black or blackish or very dark; the transverse dark bars few and indistinct except in middle of fish; sides toward tail yellowish-Olive. Rear of abdomen has violet reflections (and about base of anal fin). Operculums tinged, streaked, and spotted with golden, coppery, greenish, and violet reflections. A vertical dark mark or line, corresponding to the stripes, through the eye. Iris copper-color or darker. 

The others, about two inches long, are differently colored, not so dark, more olive, and distinctly barred. The smallest are the lightest-colored, but the larger on the whole richer, as well as darker. The fins, especially the dorsal, caudal, and anal, are remarkably pretty, in color a fine network of light and dark. The lower jaw extends about three fortieths of an inch beyond the upper. The rich dark, almost black, back, with dark-barred sides alternating with yellowish olive, and the fine violet purple reflections from the sides of the abdomen, like the nacre of a shell, as coin-like they lie flat in a basin, — such jewels they swam between the stems (clothed in transparent jelly) of the target-weed. 

R. W. E. saw quite a flock of ducks in the pond (Walden) this afternoon;

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 3, 1858

I have often seen pollywogs in small numbers in the winter, in spring-holes, etc., but never such crowding to air-holes in the ice. See December 21, 1857 ("They appear to keep in motion in such muddy pond-holes, where a spring wells up from the bottom till midwinter, if not all winter.”)

Four of the new breams, much larger, darker, and richer-colored than any I had found. See November 26, 1858 (" a great many minnows about one inch long . . . shaped like bream, but had the transverse bars of perch.”); November 27, 1858 ("I got seventeen more of those little bream of yesterday. “); November 30, 1858 (“How wild it makes the pond and the township to find a new fish in it!”)

The 30th (on Fair Haven Hill-side). . . .there was no reddening of the clouds after sunset, no afterglow, but the glittering clouds were almost immediately snapped up in the crisped air. See December 2, 1858 ("[November 30th] was at the same time the most brilliant of sunsets, the clearest and crispiest of winter skies."); November 30, 1858 ("At sunset, we saw a large, long, dusky cloud in the northwest horizon, apparently just this side of Wachusett, or at least twenty miles off, which was snowing, when all the rest was clear sky ") 

All the west is suffused with an extremely rich, warm purple or rose-color, while the edges of what were dove-colored clouds have a warm saffron glow, finally deepening to rose or damask when the sun has set. See December 14, 1852 ("Ah, who can tell the serenity and clarity of a New England winter sunset?"); See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets

December 3. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 3

This mild afternoon

I walk with unbuttoned coat

taking in the the hour.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Taking in the influences of the hour

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-581203

When I first saw that snow-cloud, all the rest was clear sky.

December 2

When I first saw that snow-cloud it stretched low along the northwest horizon, perhaps one quarter round and half a dozen times as high as the mountains, and was remarkably horizontal on its upper edge, but that edge was obviously for a part of the way very thin, composed of a dusky mist which first suggested snow. 

When, soon after, it had risen and advanced and was plainly snowing, it was as if some great dark machine was sifting the snow upon the mountains. 

There was at the same time the most brilliant of sunsets, the clearest and crispiest of winter skies. 

We have had every day since similar slight flurries of snow, we being in their midst.

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

When I first saw that snow-cloud. See November 30, 1858 (“We saw a large, long, dusky cloud in the northwest horizon, apparently just this side of Wachusett, or at least twenty miles off, which was snowing, when all the rest was clear sky. . . . It was a rare and strange sight, that of a snow -storm twenty miles off on the verge of a perfectly clear sky. Thus local is all storm, surrounded by serenity and beauty”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December Days and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets

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

Snow cloud stretched along

the horizon sifting snow 

upon the mountains 

and at the same time

the most brilliant of sunsets –

clearest winter skies. 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  When I first saw that snow-cloud.

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-5812202

A snow-cloud just this side of Wachusett.

November 30.

The river may be said to have frozen generally last night.

The short afternoons are come. Yonder dusky cloud mass in the northwest will not be wafted across the sky before yonder sun that lurks so low will be set. We see purple clouds in the east horizon. 

But did ever clouds flit and change, form and dissolve, so fast as in this clear, cold air?

Coming over the side of Fair Haven Hill at sunset, we saw a large, long, dusky cloud in the northwest horizon, apparently just this side of Wachusett, or at least twenty miles off, which was snowing, when all the rest was clear sky. 

It was a complete snow-cloud. 

It looked like rain falling at an equal distance, except that the snow fell less directly and the upper outline of a pat lof the cloud more like that of a dusky mist. It was [not] much of a snow-storm, just enough to partially obscure the sight of the mountains about which it was falling, while the cloud was apparently high above them, or it may have been a little this side. 

The cloud was of a dun color, and at its south end, near where the sun was just about to set, it was all aglow on its under side with a salmon fulgor, making it look warmer than a furnace at the same time that it was snowing. 

In short, I saw a cloud, quite local in the heavens, whose south end rested over the portals of the day, twenty and odd miles off, and was lit by the splendor of the departing sun, and from this lit cloud snow was falling. 

. . .. It was a rare and strange sight, that of a snow-storm twenty miles off on the verge of a perfectly clear sky. Thus local is all storm, surrounded by serenity and beauty. 

The terrestrial mountains were made ridiculous beneath that stupendous range. . . .

But it was merely an extensive flurry, though it may have lasted twenty minutes. Before we had got home I saw it in the east still further off, — not having seen it pass us, — a pale ethereal film, almost dissolved in the sky, as in distinct as a fabulous island. 

In these clear, cold days fear no cloud. They vanish and dissolve before the cloud-consuming air.

A cloud, then, which glows high above the portals of the day seven or eight minutes before the sun disappears, may be some twenty miles off only.

I cannot but see still in my mind’s eye those little striped breams poised in Walden’s glaucous water.  (continued)....

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 30, 1858

The river may be said to have frozen generally last night. See November 30, 1855 (“River skimmed over behind Dodd’s and elsewhere. Got in my boat. River remained iced over all day.”); November 30, 1854 ("Sail down river. No ice, but strong cold wind . . .")

The short afternoons are come. See note to December 11, 1854 (“The morning and the evening twilight make the whole day.”)

Lit by the splendor of the departing sun, . . . a snow-storm twenty miles off on the verge of a perfectly clear sky. See December 2, 1858 ("It was at the same time the most brilliant of sunsets, the clearest and crispiest of winter skies."); December 3, 1858 ("The 30th . . . .there was no reddening of the clouds after sunset, no afterglow, but the glittering clouds were almost immediately snapped up in the crisped air.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Sunsets

A large, long, dusky cloud in the northwest horizon, apparently just this side of Wachusett, or at least twenty miles off. See November 12, 1852 (" a narrow white cloud resting on every mountain and conforming exactly to its outline — . . . distinct white caps resting on the mountains this side, for twenty miles along the horizon.”); January 27, 1858 (“I saw a cloud more distant than the mountain.”); See November 30, 1852 ("From Pine Hill, Wachusett is seen over Walden.”)

Thus local is all storm, surrounded by serenity and beauty. See January 17, 1852 (“”Those western vistas through clouds to the sky show the clearest heavens, clearer and more elysian than if the whole sky is comparatively free from clouds. As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. Some see only clouds there; some behold there serenity, purity, beauty ineffable.”); August 9, 1860("a beautiful and serene object, a sort of fortunate isle in the sunset sky, the local cloud of the mountain.”); August 7, 1860 ("I am struck by the localness of the fogs. . . .If we awake into a fog it does not occur to us that the inhabitants of a neighboring town may have none.”); June 3, 1858 ("It was pleasant enough to see one man’s farm in the shadow of a cloud, — which perhaps he thought covered all the Northern States, — while his neighbor’s farm was in sunshine.”)