26 April 1852 – 2 May 1852

Chickweed (Séellaria media), naturalized, shows its humble star-like white flowers now on rather dirty weather-worn branches in low, damp gardens. Also the smaller white flowers of the shepherd’s-purse, which is already six or eight inches high, in the same places, 27. e. Cheney’s garden. Both, according to Dewey, introduced and naturalized. What they call April weather, threatening rain not- withstanding the late long-continued rains. P. M.—Rambled amid the shrub oak hills beyond Hayden’s. Lay on the dead grass in a cup-like hollow sprinkled with half-dead low shrub oaks. As I lie flat, looking close in among the roots of the grass, I perceive that its endless ribbon has pushed up about one inch and is green to that extent, — such is the length to which the spring has gone here, — though when you stand up the green is not perceptible. It is a dull, rain dropping and threatening afternoon, inclining to drowsiness. I feel as if I could go to sleep under a hedge. The land- scape wears a subdued tone, quite soothing to the feelings; no glaring colors. I begin now to leave off my greatcoat. The frogs at a distance are now so numerous that, instead of the distinct shrill peeps, it is one dreamy sound. It is not easy to tell where or how far off they are. When you have reached their pool, they seem to recede as you advance. As you squat by the side of the pool, you still see no motion in the water, though your ears ring with the sound, seemingly and probably within three feet. I sat for ten minutes on the watch, waving my hand over the water that they might betray themselves, a tortoise, with his head out, a few feet off, watching me all the while, till at last I caught sight of a frog under a leaf, and caught and pocketed him; but when I looked afterward, he had escaped. The moment the dog stepped into the water they stopped. They are very shy. Hundreds filled the air with their shrill peep. Yet two or three could be distinguished by some peculiarity or variation in their note. Are these different ? The Viola ovata budded. Saw pollywogs two or three inches long.

Heard the field or rush sparrow this morn- ing (Fringila juncorum), George Minott’s “ huckle- berry-bird.” It sits on a birch and sings at short intervals, apparently answered from a distance. It is clear and sonorous heard afar; but I found it quite impossible to tell from which side it came; sounding like phe, phe, phe, pher-pher-tw-tw-tw-t-t-t-t, — the first three slow and loud, the next two syllables quicker, and the last part quicker and quicker, becoming a clear, sonorous tml or rattle, like a spoon in a saucer. Heard also a chipping sparrow (fF. socialis). It has rained a little in the night. The landscape is still dark and wet. The hills look very dank, but I notice that some houses, one yellow one especially, look much better in this light. The aments of the balm-of-Gilead are just beginning to appear (are they the male or female?),' with the * [This is altered in pencil to read, “they are female.”’] large leaf-bud in the centre. The leaves in the last are larger and more developed than those of any tree which I have noticed this season. ‘The bud is filled with “a fragrant, viscid balsam,’’ which is yellowish and dif- ficult to wash from the fingers. It is an agreeable fragrance at this season. A nearer approach to leaves than in any tree? Is that a golden willow by the stone bridge, with bright-yellow twigs (the most westerly on the south) and reddish-tipped catkins, five eighths of an inch long, just appearing before leaves (male or female ?) ? The balsam of the balm-of-Gilead buds appears to protect the early expanding leaves from the wet. Should I not have mentioned the butcher-bird, the downy woodpecker or sapsucker, and the white- breasted nuthatch among the winter birds? Also the quail and partridge, etc. 2.30 p. Mc— To Conantum va railroad bridge. The Corner road still impassable to foot-travellers. Water eighteen or twenty inches deep; must have been two feet deeper. Observed the spotted tortoise in the water of the meadow on J. Hosmer’s land, by riverside. Bright-yellow spots on both shell and head, yet not regularly disposed, but as if, when they were finished in other respects, the maker had sprinkled them with a brush. This fact, that the yellow spots are common to the shell and the head, affected me considerably, as evincing the action of an artist from without; spotted with reference to my eyes. One, I suppose the male, was larger than the other, with a depressed and lghter- colored sternum. That smallest willow, sage-lhke, and another, red- dish osier-like, are just beginning to show their cat- kins in rather dry places. I see another similar to last, with female catkins already in bloom; also another, low and yellowish, with half-inch elliptical catkins showing red anthers within the down. Baomyces roseus does not show in dry weather. The Viola pedata is advancing. What is that weed the under side of whose radical leaves is now a claret-color, by a sandy path- S, ) side?! At the spring by the Corner road, the grass is now of [what] I must call a fiery green. It is an eye-salve, a collyrium, to behold it. Here, where the snow cannot le long on the ground, vegetation has made great progress. The common angelica is a foot high, the skunk-cabbage leaves five inches broad, the wood anemone is budded, and a thimble-berry or rose leaved out; and several smaller green weeds there are. It is not only warmer for the water, but it is sheltered from the wind. Saw what I take to be the barn swallow. Some of the mosses bear now a green fruit. On Conantum Cliffs, whose seams dip to the north- west at an angle of 50° (?) and run northeast and southwest, I find to-day for the first time the early saxifrage (Saxifraga vernalis) in blossom, growing high and dry in the narrow seams, where there is no soil for it but a little green moss. Following thus early after the bare rock, it is one of the first flowers, not only in the spring of the year, but in the spring of the world. It can take advantage of a perpendicular cliff where the snow cannot lie and fronting the south. In exactly the same places grows the columbine, now well budded and seven or eight inches high. The higher up the rock and the more sheltered and sunny the location, the earlier they are. Also the first plantain-leaved everlasting (Gray’s Antennaria plantaginifolia) is in blossom in a sheltered place in the grass at the top of the rock. The thimble-berry and the sweet-briar are partly leaved out in the crevices of the rock, and the latter emits its fra- grance. The half-open buds of the saxifrage, showing the white of the petals in a corymb or cyme, on a-short stem, surrounded by its new leaves mingled with the purplish tips of the calyx-leaves, is handsomer than when it is fully expanded. This is a place to look for early blossoms of the saxifrage, columbine, and plan- tain-leaved everlasting, — the first two especially. The crevices of the rock (cliff) make natural hothouses for them, affording dryness, warmth, and shelter. It is astonishing how soon and unexpectedly flowers appear, when the fields are scarcely tinged with green. Yesterday, for instance, you observed only the radical leaves of some plants; to-day you pluck a flower. See the first downy woodpecker, or sapsucker, tapping an elm. He taps very rapidly, then turns his head as if listening to hear the worm; plainly is not now making a hole. Do we see him in the winter? What is that alarmed, loud, short, whistling note that I hear? A woodpecker ? | Found the first Gnaphaloum purpureum, purplish cud- weed, on Conantum by the edge of a rock. Its humble, woolly, purplish-white flower, close to the ground amid its greenish leaves, downy and white on the under side, is the more interesting for appearing at this time, especially if it is seen with the dew on it, though it bears transportation. A little purplish button, ES the larger central shoot or bud being sur- rounded by five others smaller. Its leaves have not three nerves. The hickory buds show a little yel- low; the black birch buds and the bass-wood look fresh. There are large clouds and extensive shadows on land and the broad water, and a cheerful bright light on the russet grass (I am still on Conantum), which all together make our landscape appear larger-featured than usual. Gooseberry bushes in the garden have leaved out partly.

I scarcely know why I am excited when, in M. Huc’s book, I read of the country of the Mongol Tartars as the “ Land of Grass,” but I am, as much as if I were a cow.’ 2.30 p. Mc — To Cliffs and Heywood’s Brook. Are not the flowers which appear earliest in the spring the most primitive and simplest? They have been in this town thus far, as I have observed them this spring, putting them down in the order in which I think they should be named, using Gray’s names: — Symplocarpus jatidus (well advanced Feb. 13th, ’51)? Alnus incana April 11 “ serrulata 8 * Drive about the 10th of May to Ashburnham. ? N. B. Spring of ’51 ten days or more earlier. [ 4] Acer rubrum ' April 9 one by Red Bridge [ 5] Salix, willow, earliest 12 [ 6] Ulmus Americana ? 15 one, Cheney’s (others ten days or fourteen later) [ 7] Populus tremulordes 15 [ 8] Corylus * 16 perhaps before the last ® [ 9] Carex Pennsylvanica * 22 Caltha palustris 25 many Stellaria media § 26 Cheney’s garden Capsella Bursa-pastoris 96“ $ Taraxacum Dens-leonis 25 one in water (seen by another the 20th) Equisetum arvense 25 in water Gnaphalium purpureum 27 (about April 16th, ’51) Saxifraga Virginiensis 27 (April 22d, ’51) ~ Antennaria plantaginijolia 27 Ranunculus fascicularis 28 only two (abundant April 22d, 51) All but the 3d, 8th, 11th, 12th observed in the very best season, and these within a day (?) of their flowering.* I observe that the first six are decidedly water or water-loving plants, and the 10th, 13th, and 14th were found in the water and are equally if not more confined to that element. The 7th and 8th belong to the cooler zones of the earth, the 7th, according to Emerson, as far north as 64° and comes up (is it this ?) on burnt lands first and will grow in dry, cool, dreary places. ‘The 9th ona dry, warm rocky hillside, — the earliest (?) grass to blossom,— also the 18th; the 11th and 12th in cold, damp gardens, like the earth first ° N. B. Is the Hepatica triloba found here? made dry land; the 15th and 17th on dry (scantily clad with grass) fields and hills, hardy; the 16th, sunny bare rocks, in seams on moss, where also in a day or two the columbine will bloom. The 18th is also indebted to the warmth of the rocks. This may, perhaps, be nearly the order of the world’s creation. Thus we have in the spring of the year the spring of the world represented. — Such were the first localities afforded for plants,— water-bottoms, bare rocks, and scantily clad lands, and land recently bared of water. The spotted tortoise is spotted on shell, head, tail, and legs. Fresh leaves of a neottia pale and not dis- tinctly veined. Red Solomon’s-seal berries on their short stems prostrate on the dead leaves, some of them plump still. One man has turned his cows out to pas- ture. Have not seen the slate-colored snowbird for a few days. I am getting my greatcoat off, but it is a cold and wintry day, with snow-clouds appearing to draw water, but cold water, surely, or out of the north side of the well; a few flakes in the air; drawing snow as well as water. From Fair Haven the landscape all in shadow, apparently to the base of the mountains, but the Peterboro hills are in sunshine and unexpectedly are white with snow (no snow here, unless in some hol- lows in the woods), reflecting the sun, more obvious for the sunshine. I never saw them appear so near. It is startling thus to look into winter. How suddenly the flowers bloom! Two or three days ago I could not, or did not, find the leaves of the crow- foot. To-day, not knowing it well, I looked in vain, till at length, in the very warmest nook in the grass above the rocks of the Cliff, I found two bright-yellow blos- soms, which betrayed the inconspicuous leaves and all. The spring flowers wait not to perfect their leaves before they expand their blossoms. The blossom in so many cases precedes the leaf; so with poetry? They flash out. In the most favorable locality you will find flowers earlier than the May goers will believe. This year, at least, one flower (of several) hardly precedes another, but as soon as the storms were over and plea- sant weather came, all blossomed at once, having been retarded so long. This appears to be particularly true of the herbaceous flowers. How much does this happen every year? There is no important change in the color of the woods yet. There are fewer dry leaves; buds color the maples; and, perhaps, the bark on some last year’s shoots, as the willows, is brighter; and some willows, covered with catkins, and even alders, maples, elms, and poplars show at a distance. The earth has now a greenish tinge, and the ice, of course, has universally given place to water for a long time past. ‘These are general aspects. The Veratrum viride at Well Meadow is fifteen or sixteen inches high, the most of a growth this year. The angelica (?) at the Corner Spring is pretty near it. I suppose the geese are all gone. And the ducks? Did the snowbirds go off with the pleasant weather ? Standing above the first little pond east of Fair Haven, this bright reflecting water surface is seen plainly at a higher level than the distant pond. It has a singu- lar but pleasant effect on the beholder to see consider- able sheets of water standing at different levels. Plea- sant to see lakes like platters full of water. Found a large cockle(?)-shell by the shore of this little pond. It reminds me that all the earth is seashore, — the sight of these little shells inland. It is a beach I stand on. Is the male willow on the east end of this pondlet — cat- kins about three quarters of an inch long and just bursting, commonly on the side and always before any leaves — the brittle gray willow (Salix grisea)? That small, flat, downy gnaphalium in sandy paths, — is it the fragrant life-everlasting? The andromeda re- quires the sun. It is now merely a dull reddish brown with light (grayish?) from the upper surface of the leaves. Frog-spawn a mass of transparent jelly bigger than the two fists, composed of contiguous globules or eyes, with each a little squirming pollywog (?) in the centre, a third of an inch long. Walden is yellowish (apparently) next the shore, where you see the sand, then green in still shallow water, then, or generally, deep-blue.' This as well under the railroad, and now that the trees have not leaved out, as under pines.’ That last long storm brought down a coarse, ele- phantine sand foliage in the Cut. Slumbrous orna- ments for a cave or subterranean temple, such as at Elephantium? I see no willow leaves yet. A maple by Heywood’s meadow has opened its sterile blossoms. . [A pencilled interrogation-point in parentheses follows the word “blue.” , Weldon, p. 196 ; Riv. 276.] Why is this (and maples generally) so much later than the Red Bridge one? ! A week or more ago I made this list of early willows in Massachusetts, according to Gray, putting Emer- son in brackets : — Salix tristis (sage willow). S. humilis (low bush willow); S. Muhlenbergiana ; S. contfera. S. discolor (glaucous willow) ; [two-colored willow, bog willow]; S. sensiliva. S. ertocephala (silky-headed willow); S. prinoides (?); S. crassa; “closely resembles the last,” 2. e. S. discolor; [woolly-headed swamp]. S. sericea (silky-leaved willow) ; S. grisea; [brittle gray].

Observed a fire yesterday on the railroad, —— Emerson’s Island that was. The leaves are dry enough to burn; and I see a smoke this afternoon in the west horizon. There is a slight haziness on the woods, as I go to Mayflower Road at 2.30 p. M., which advances me further into summer. Is that the arrow- head, so forward with its buds, in the Nut Meadow ditch? The ground is dry. I smell the dryness of the woods. Their shadows look more inviting, and I am reminded of the hum of bees. The pines have an appearance which they have not worn before, yet not easy to describe. The mottled light (sunlight) and shade, seen looking into the woods, is more like sum- mer. But the season is most forward at the Seeond Division Brook, where the cowslip is in blossom, — and nothing yet planted at home, — these bright-yel- low suns of the meadow, in rich clusters, their flowers contrasting with the green leaves, from amidst the all- producing, dark-bottomed water. A flower-fire burst- ing up, as if through crevices in the meadow. ‘They are very rich, seen in the meadow where they grow, and the most conspicuous flower at present, but held in the hand they are rather coarse. But their yellow and green are really rich, and in the meadow they are the most delicate objects. Their bright yellow is some- thing incredible when first beheld. There is still con- siderable snow in the woods, where it has not melted since winter. Here is a small reddish-topped rush (is it the Juncus effusus, common or soft rush??), now a foot high, in the meadow with the cowslips. It is the greatest growth of the grass form I have seen. The butterflies are now more numerous, red and blue- black or dark velvety. The art of life, of a poet’s life, is, not having anything to do, to do something. People are going to see Kossuth, but the same man does not attract me and George Loring. If he could come openly to Boston without the knowledge of Boston, it might be worth my while to go and see him. The mayflower on the point of blossoming. I think I may say that it will blossom to-morrow. The blos- soms of this plant are remarkably concealed beneath the leaves, perhaps for protection. It is singularly un- pretending, not seeking to exhibit or display its simple beauty. It is the most delicate flower, both to eye and to scent, as yet. Its weather-worn leaves do not adorn it. If it had fresh spring leaves it would be more fa- mous and sought after. Observed two thrushes arrived which I do not know. I discover a hawk over my head by his shadow on the ground; also small birds. The acorns among the leaves have been sprouted for a week past, the shells open and the blushing (red) meat exposed at the sprout end, where the sprout is already turning toward the bowels of the earth, already think- ing of the tempests which it is destined as an oak to withstand, if 1t escapes worm and squirrel. Pick these up and plant them, if you would make a forest. Old Mr. Francis Wheeler thinks the river has not risen so high as recently for sixty-three years; that was in June!! that it was then higher. Noah Wheeler never saw it so high as lately. I think it doubtful if it was higher in 1817. F. Wheeler, Jr., saw dandelions in bloom the 20th of April. Garfield’s folks used them for greens. They grew in a springy place behind Brigham’s in the Corner. The Fringilla hyemalis still here, though apparently not so numerous as before. The Populus grandiden- tata in blossom, the sterile (?) flowers, though I cannot count, at most, more than five or six stamens. I ob- serve the light-green leaves of a pyrola (?) standing high on the stem in the woods, with the last year’s fruit; the “one-sided” or else the “oval-leaved,” I think. As I come home over the Corner road, the sun, now getting low, is reflected very bright and silvery from the water on the meadows, seen through the pines of Hubbard’s Grove. The causeway will be passable on foot to-morrow.

2p. mM.— Down the Boston road and across to Turnpike, etc., etc. The elms are now generally in blossom and Cheney’s elm still also. The last has leaf-buds which show the white. Now, before any leaves have appeared, their blossoms clothe the trees with a rich, warm brown color, which serves partially for foliage to the street- walker, and makes the tree more obvious. Held in the hand, the blossoms of some of the elms are quite rich and variegated, now purple and yellowish specked with the dark anthers and two light styles. I know not why some should be so much earlier than others. It is a beautiful day, —a mild air, — and all farmers and gardeners out and at work. Now is the time to set trees and consider what things you will plant in your garden. Yesterday I observed many fields newly plowed, the yellow soil looking very warm and dry in the sun; and one boy had fixed his handkerchief on a stick and elevated it on the yoke, where it flapped or streamed and rippled gayly in the wind, as he drove his oxen dragging a harrow over the plowed field. I see now what I should call a small-sized bullfrog in the brook in front of Alcott’s house that was. The sweet- gale is in blossom. Its rich reddish-brown buds have expanded into yellowish and brown blossoms, all male blossoms that I see. Those handsome buds that I have observed are the male blossom buds then. This has undoubtedly been in bloom a day or two in some places. I saw yesterday a large-sized water-bug; to- day many in the brook; yesterday a trout; to-day shin- ers, I think. The huckleberry-bird sings. When I look | hence to the hills on the Boston road under which the inhabitants are beginning to plant in their gardens, the air is so fine and peculiar that I seem to see the hills and woods through a mirage. I am doubtful about their distance and exact form and elevation. The sound of a spade, too, sounds musical on the spring air. (To-night for the first time I sit without a fire.) One plower in a red flannel shirt, who looks pictur- esquely under the hill, suggests that our dress is not commonly of such colors as to adorn the landscape. (To-night and last night the spearer’s light is seen on the meadows; he has been delayed by the height of the water.) I like very well to walk here on the low ground on the meadow; to see the churches and houses in the horizon against the sky and the now very blue Mt. Wachusett seeming to rise from amid them. When you get still further off on the lowest ground, you see distant barns and houses against the horizon, and the mountain appears to preside over this vale alone, which the adjacent hills on right and left fence in. The season advances by fits and starts; you would not believe that there could be so many degrees to it. If you have had foul and cold weather, still some advance has been made, as you find when the fair weather comes, — new lieferungs of warmth and sum- meriness, which make yesterday seem far off and the dog-days or midsummer incredibly nearer. Yester- day I would not have believed that there could have been such an improvement on that day as this is, short of midsummer or June.

5 a. m.— To Cliffs. A smart frost in the night, the plowed ground and platforms white with it. I hear the little forked-tail chipping sparrow (Fringilla socialis) shaking out his rapid tchi-tchi-tcht-tchi-tchi-tchi, a little jingle, from the oak behind the Depot. I hear the note of the shy Sa- vannah sparrow (f’. Savanna),' that plump bird with a dark-streaked breast that runs and hides in the grass, whose note sounds so like a cricket’s in the grass. (I used to hear it when I walked by moonlight last sum- mer.) I hear it now from deep in the sod, — for there is hardly grass yet. The bird keeps so low you do not see it. You do not suspect how many there are till at length their heads appear. The word seringo reminds me of its note, — as if it were produced by some kind of fine metallic spring. It is an earth-sound. It is a moist, lowering morning for the mayers. ‘The sun now shines under a cloud in the horizon, and his still yel- low light falls on the western fields, as sometimes on the eastern after a shower in a summer afternoon. Nuttall says the note of the chipping sparrow is “ given from time to time in the night like the reverie of a dream.” Have I not heard it when spearing? Is not that the tree sparrow which I have heard in the fall (in com- pany with the F. hyemalis), which also clucks like a hen? Nuttall says they sing s’weedit s’weedit weet. I hear a lark in the meadow. Hayden is sowing his oats. There is not much rye sown in the spring. There is the old picture in the fables, the sower stepping over plowed ground and the yellowish grain in a regularly formed shower in the air. I do not hear the peep of the frogs at this time. Found the first violet, which would open to-day, — either V. sagittata var. ovata,' or V. cucullata, for the leaves are not toothed at base nor arrow-shaped as in the first, yet they are hairy and I should say petiole-margined. Still, like the latter, they are rolled in at base and the scape is four-angled(??). I found this violet under a bank by a pool-side. I think it cucullata. The woods have a * [(“Either” and “or V. cucullata” crossed out in pencil. See p. 83.] damp smell this morning. I hear a robin amid them, yet there are fewer singers to be heard than on a very pleasant morning some weeks ago. The low early blue- berry, June berry, is now well budded. The grass ground, low ground at least, wears a good green tinge now. There are no leaves on the woods. The river is high over the meadows. There is a thin gauze-like veil over the village (I am on Fair Haven Hill), probably formed of the smokes. As yet we have had no morning fogs to my knowledge. I hear the first towhee finch. He says to-wee, to-wee, and another, much farther off than I supposed when I went in search of him, says whip your ch-r-r-r-r-r-r, with a metallic ring. I hear the first catbird also, mewing, and the wood thrush, which still thrills me, — a sound to be heard in a new country, —from one side of a clearing. I think I heard an oven-bird just now, — wicher wicher whicher wich.’ I am on the Cliff. It is about six. The flicker cackles. I hear a woodpecker tapping. The tinkle of the huckleberry-bird comes up from the shrub oak plain. He commonly lives away from the habitations of men, in retired bushy fields and sprout-lands. A partridge bursts away from under the rock below me on quivering wings, like some moths I have seen. We have, then, flowers, and the song of birds before the woods leave out, —like poetry. When leaving the woods I heard the hooting of an owl, which sounded very much like a clown calling to his team. Saw two large woodpeckers on an oak. I am tempted to say that they were other and larger than the flicker, but I have been deceived in him before. 5p. Ms— To Red Bridge. The smell of our fresh meadows, from which the flood has in some measure receded, reminds me of the scent of salt marshes, to which it corresponds. A coarse grass is starting up, all the greener and more luxuriant for the freshet, one foot high. I hear a new kind of stertorous sound from the meadow; a new frog? The flowers (male) of the maple by the bridge are all dried up, and its buds are just expanding into leaves, while red maples are in their flowering prime. I find by the leaves that this is probably a white maple. The purple finch is come to Minott’s neighborhood. I saw it. I rarely see it elsewhere than about R. W. E.’s. Are they not attracted hither by his fir trees? (I think it was * not the tree sparrow which I used to hear in rainy weather.) E. Wood, Senior, says it was in 1818 the river was so high, and that Sted. Buttrick marked it, but thinks the last flood an inch or two higher. Wood has observed that the North River will rise first, and he has seen the South Branch flowing up-stream faster than ever he saw it flowing down. Tells a story of barrels that floated once from where Loring’s factory is to the old Lee or Barrett house meadow. The little peeping frogs which I got last night resem- ble the description of the Hylodes Pickeringii and in some respects the peeping hyla, but they are probably the former, though every way considerably smaller (vide pencil mark in report). Mine are about three quarters of an inch long as they sit, seven eighths if stretched; thigh five sixteenths, leg same; tarsus and toes one half; four-fingered and five-toed with small tubercles on the ends of them. Some difference in their color; one is like a pale oak leaf at this season, streaked with brown; two others more ashy. Two have crosses like \7” this on back, A of dark brown. On the Js head thus, aN, with transverse bands on the legs. I kee (them in a tumbler. Peep at iced a eine and evening, occasionally at oth- er times. One that got out in the evening on to the carpet was found soon after by his peeping on the piano. They easily ascend the glass of the window; jump eighteen inches and more. When they peep, the loose wrinkled skin of the throat is swelled up into a globular bubble, very large and trans- parent and quite round, except on the throat side, be- hind which their little heads are lost, mere protuberances on the side of this sphere; and the peeping wholly ab- sorbs them; their mouths shut, or apparently so. Will sit half a day on the side of a smooth tumbler. Made that trilling note in the house. Remain many hours at the bottom of the water in the tumbler, or sit as long on the leaves above. A pulse in the throat always, except in one for an hour or two apparently asleep. They change their color to a darker or lighter shade, chameleon-like.

6 a. M.—Is not the chipping sparrow the commonest heard in the village streets in the mornings now, sitting on an elm or apple tree? Was it the black and white warbler that I saw this morning? It did not stop to creep round the trunks; was very shy. Or was © it the myrtle-bird? Might it have been the log-cock woodpecker that I saw yesterday morning? Reptiles must not be omitted, especially frogs; their croaking is the most earthy sound now, a rustling of the scurf of the earth, not to be overlooked in the awakening of the year. It is such an earth-sound. The flowers of Cheney’s elm are not only much ear- lier and larger than others, but the peduncles are in separate bundles proceeding from a common short pe- duncle. There appears to be such a difference, the tree is made of a different form and appearance. I can easily break off a twig from its branches, which hang very low. Vide the rough-barked elm in the swamp, — if it is not the corky elm. The balm-of-Gilead begins to show its male (?) catkins. The commonplaces of one age or nation make the poetry of another. I think that my seringo-bird has not the marks of the Savannah sparrow. Looks like a chip-bird; or did I see a spot on its breast? That white maple, methinks, has a smoother bark than the red ones. P. M. — To Conantum. The handsome blood-red lacquered marks on the edge and under the edge of the painted tortoise’s shell, like the marks on a waiter, concentric, few colors like it in nature. This tortoise, too, like the guttata, painted on these parts of its shell and on legs and tail in this style, but throat bright yellow stripes, sternum dull yel- lowish or buff. It hisses like the spotted. Tortoises everywhere coupling. Is the male the large and flatter, with depressed sternum? It so seems? There is some regularity in the guttata’s spots, — generally a straight row on back. Some of the spots are orange sometimes on the head. Brought home two little frogs which I have described in the Report (q. v.) but cannot make out. Are they young? The andromeda is ready to bloom. The yel- low lily is budded. The little frogs peep more or less during the day, but chiefly at evening twilight, rarely in the morning. They peep at intervals. One begins, then all join in over the whole pond, and they suddenly stop all together. If you would obtain insight, avoid anatomy. I am pretty sure that is the myrtle-bird I see and hear on the Corner road, picking the blossoms of the maple, with the yellow crown and black throat or cheeks. It sings pe-te-te-te-ter twe’, emphasizing the last and repeating the second, third, and fourth fast. The little frogs I kept three days in the house peeped at evening twilight, though they had been silent all day; never failed; swelled up their little bagpipes, transpar- ent, and as big as a small cherry or a large pea. Saw a bird on the willows, very shy, which may be the in- digo-bird, but I am not sure. The Equisetum arvense is now in bloom (the male flowers) all over the rail- road embankment, coloring it yellowish (?).