E. E. BENTON.
NO ONE perhaps ever lived who excelled Henry D. Thoreau as a general observer of nature. He patiently and with minute care examined both animate and inanimate creation, and wrote down an accurate account of his observations, noting particularly the effects produced by the changes in the seasons. He worked diligently to discover the first sign of spring, with results not wholly satisfactory. In one place he asks: "What is the earliest sign of spring? The motions of worms and insects? The flow of sap in trees and the swelling of buds? Do not the insects awake with the flow of the sap? Bluebirds, etc., probably do not come till the insects come out. Or are there earlier signs in the water, the tortoises, frogs, etc.?"
He found that whenever there was a warm spell during the winter some forms of vegetation, particularly the grasses and water plants, would begin to grow, and some would even bloom in favorable locations, as the skunk cabbage. He did not fully settle the question as to what would begin to grow first in the spring, whether it was the catkins of the swamp willow or the stems and leaves of the equisetum in the pool, or something else.
A list of the most striking phenomena observed by Thoreau in early spring is given below, and is extracted from his journals, written when he lived near Boston, during the years 1840 to 1860. In each case the earliest date mentioned by Thoreau is given, there being a difference of about a month between the earliest and latest spring. Many of these phenomena and the order in which they occur are common to a large extent of country, including the eastern and northern central states. Thus, the skunk cabbage is the first flower in all this region. A few notes are added, showing variations.
February 21—Sap of the red maple flowing. This was in 1857. It does not usually flow until the second week in March.
February 23—Yellow-spotted tortoise seen.
February 24—The bluebird, "angel of the spring," arrives; also the song-sparrow. The phebe or spring note of the chickadee, a winter bird, heard.
"The bluebird and song-sparrow sing immediately on their arrival, and hence deserve to enjoy some preëminence. They give expression to the joy which the season inspires, but the robin and blackbird only peep and tchuck at first, commonly, and the lark is silent and flitting. The bluebird at once fills the air with his sweet warbling, and the song-sparrow, from the top of a rail, pours forth his most joyous strain."
March 1—The catkins of the willow and aspen appear to have started to grow.