The forests were in fact commonly referred to as the locus neminis, or “place of no one”.

Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives.

The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it.

Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion;

for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. (Henry David Thoreau, Walden – Economy, pg. 22)

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