4 October 1852 – 10 October 1852

Was told at Bunker Hill Monument to-day that Mr. Savage saw the White Mountains several times while working on the monument. It required very clear weather in the northwest and a storm clearing up here.

P. M.— To Great Meadows. I find no fringed gentian. Perhaps the autumnal tints are as bright and interesting now as they will be. Now is the time to behold the maple swamps, one mass of red and yellow, all on fire, as it were; these and the blood-red huckleberries are the most conspicuous; and then, in the village, the warm brownish-yellow elms, and there and elsewhere the dark-red ashes. The green pines springing out of huckleberries on the hillsides look as if surrounded by red or vermilion paint. I notice the V2ola ovata, houstonia, Ranunculus repens, caducous polygala, small scratch-grass polygonum, au- tumnal dandelion (very abundant, yellowing the low turfy grounds and hills), small bushy white aster, a few goldenrods, Polygonum hydropiperoides and the unknown flowerless bidens, soapwort gentian (now turned dark purple), yarrow, the white erigeron, red clover, hedge-mustard. The muskrats have begun to erect their cabins. They begin soon after the pontede- rias are dead (??). Sawone done. Do they build them in the night? Hear and see larks, bluebirds, robins, song sparrows. Also see painted tortoises and shad frogs. There must be an abundance of mast this year. I could gather up nearly a bushel of acorns under one white oak, out of their cups, and, I think, quite good to eat. They are earlier to fall than the walnuts. It is encouraging to see a large crop of acorns, though we do not use them. ‘The white maples turn yellowish, though some boughs are red. I sit on Poplar Hill. It is a warm Indian-summerish afternoon. ‘The sun comes out of clouds, and lights up and warms the whole scene. It is perfect autumn. I see a hundred smokes arising through the yellow elm- tops in the village, where the villagers are preparing for tea. It is the mellowing year. The sunshine harmonizes with the imbrowned and fiery foliage. Did Russell call my red globular fungus geiropo- dium [?], ete. ?

P. M.— Walden. Canada snapdragon, a few flowers at top. Everlast- ings, field trefoil, shepherd’s-purse, door-grass, white goldenrod, fresh tansy, veiny-leaved hawkweed, also that which seems to run from this into Gronovit (prob- ably the former). Aster undulatus (?), with delicate purplish or lilac-tinted flowers, has those heart-shaped, crenate leaves with a claret under surface. Bushy gerardia budded still. The autumnal tints about the pond are now perfect. Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of some of the ma- ples which stand by the shore and extend their red banners over the water. Why should so many be yel- low? I see the browner yellow of the chestnuts on Pine Hall. The maples and hickories are a clearer yellow. Some white oaks are red. The shrub oaks are bloody enough for a ground. The red and black oaks are yet green. As I was paddling along the north shore, after hav- ing looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly a loon, sailing toward the middle, a few rods in front, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself. I pursued with a paddle and he dived, but when he came up I was nearer than before. He dived again, but I miscalcu- lated the direction he would take, and we were fifty rods apart when he came up, and again he laughed long and loud. He managed very cunningly, and I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. Some- times he would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, as if he had passed directly under the boat. So long-winded was he, so unweariable, that he would immediately plunge again, and then no wit could divine where in the deep pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a fish, perchance passing under the boat. He had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in its deepest part. A newspaper authority says a fisherman — giving his name — has caught loon in Seneca Lake, N. Y., eighty © feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout. Miss Cooper has said the same. Yet he appeared to know his course as surely under water as on the surface, and swam much faster there than he sailed on the surface. It was surprising how serenely he sailed off with un- ruffed bosom when he came to the surface. It was as well for me to rest on my oars and await his reappear- ing as to endeavor to calculate where he would come up. When I was straining my eyes over the surface, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh be- hind me. But why, after displaying so much cunning, did he betray himself the moment he came to the sur- face with that loud laugh? His white breast enough betrayed him. He was indeed a silly loon, I thought. Though he took all this pains to avoid me, he never failed to give notice of his whereabouts the moment he came to the surface. After an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as willingly, and swam yet farther than at first. Once or twice I saw a ripple where he ap- proached the surface, just put his head out to recon- noitre, and instantly dived again. I could commonly hear the plash of the water when he came up, and so also detected him. It was commonly a demoniac laugh- ter, yet somewhat like a water-bird, but occasionally, when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like a wolf than any other bird. This was his looning. As when a beast puts his muzzle to the ground and deliberately howls; perhaps the wild- est sound I ever heard, making the woods ring; and I concluded that he laughed in derision of my efforts, confident of his own resources. Though the sky was overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see where he broke the surface if I did not hear him. His white breast, the stillness of the air, the smoothness of the water, were all against [him]. At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged unearthly howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain. I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon and his god was angry with me. How sur- prised must be the fishes to see this ungainly visitant from another sphere speeding his way amid their schools! * I have never seen more than one at a time in our pond, and I believe that that is always a male.

'Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies’-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter- and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque- foil, mayweed. My rainbow rush must be the Juncus militaris, not yet colored.

Burdock, Ranunculus acris, rough hawk- weed. A drizzling rain to-day. The air is full of fall- ing leaves. The streets are strewn with elm leaves. The trees begin to look thin. The butternut is perhaps the first on the street to lose its leaves. Rain, more than wind, makes the leaves fall. Glow-worms in the evening.