2 May 1853 – 8 May 1853

Cattle are going up country. Hear the tull-lull of the chickadee (?).2. The currant in bloom. The Canada plum just ready, probably to-day.* 8 a. mM. — To Walden and Cliffs. The sound of the oven-bird. Caterpillar nests two or three inches in:diameter on wild cherries; cater- pillars one third of an inch long. The Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum appeared yester- day. The vacillans, resinosum (?), and early high blueberry will bloom in a few days. Vide Cerasus pumila by shanty path, and wild red ditto, as early. The white birch leaves are beginning to expand and are shining with some sticky matter. I must attend to their fragrance. In a warm place on the Cliffs one of their catkins shows its anthers, the golden pendant. The woods and paths next them now ring with the silver jingle of the field sparrow, the medley of the brown thrasher, the honest gut vive of the chewink, or his jingle from the top of a low copse tree, while his * [The word “chickadee” is crossed out and “‘myrtle-bird” sub- stituted, which latter is in turn crossed out and replaced by “‘white- throat sparrow.” ‘The final correction would seem to have been made some years after the original entry, for in January, 1858, we find Thoreau getting what appears to be his first intimation as to the real authorship of this song (see Journal, vol. x.). In the manuscript notes of the excursion to the Maine Woods in 1857, the song of the white-throat is still attributed to the “ myrtle-bird.”’] mate scratches in the dry leaves beneath; the black and white creeper is hopping along the oak boughs, head downward, pausing from time to time to utter its note like a fine, delicate saw-sharpening; and ever and anon rises clear over all the smooth, rich melody of the wood thrush. Could that have been a jay? I think it was some large, uncommon woodpecker that uttered that very loud, strange, cackling note. The dry woods have the smell of fragrant everlast- ing. I am surprised by the cool drops which now, at 10 o’clock, drop from the flowers of the amelanchier, while other plants are dry, as if these had attracted more moisture. The white pines have started. The indigo-bird and mate; dark throat and light beneath, and white spot on wings, which is not de- scribed; a hoarse note, and rapid the first two or three syllables, — twe twe twee, dwelling on the last, or twe twe twe twee-e, or as if an r in it, tre, etc., not musical. The myrtle-bird, which makes me think the more that I saw the black and yellow warbler on Sunday. I find apparently two varieties of the amelanchier, —the first I noticed, with smooth reddish delicate leaves and somewhat linear petals and loose racemes, petals sometimes pinkish; the second to-day, perhaps a little later than the first, leaves light-colored and downy and petals broader and perhaps not quite so long as the first, racemes more crowded. I am not sure that this is the variety oblongifoliwm of Gray.' It is stated in the Life of Humboldt that he proved “that the expression, ‘the ocean reflects the sky,’ was a purely poetical, but not a scientifically correct one, as the sea is often blue when the sky is almost totally covered with light white clouds.” He used Saussure’s cyanometer even to measure the color of the sea. This might probably be used to measure the intensity of the color of blue flowers like lupines at a distance. Humboldt speaks of its having been proved that pine pollen falls from the atmosphere. .

P. M.— To Nut Meadow Brook and Cor- ner Spring. Choice plum in gardens. The Salix alba is con- spicuous and interesting in the landscape now, some bright yellow, truly golden (staminate?), some green- ish, filling the air of causeways with a sweet scent. The whole landscape is many shades greener for the rain, almost a blue green. The leafing of the trees has commenced, and the forms of some, accordingly, begin to be defined. Some, however, like the large maples, elms, etc., look heavy and are defined by their samare and not yet by their leaves, which are not comparatively forward. I perceive the strong odor of horse-mint, rising dark above the brooks. Hear the loud echoing note of the peet-weet-weet-weet-weet. Viola cucullata at John Hosmer’s ditch by Clamshell Hill. Four large robin’s eggs in an apple tree. A ground-bird’s nest with eggs. Equisetum sylvaticum in front of Hos- mer’s Gorge. I have seen no ducks since I returned from Haverhill on the 29th April. There are pretty large leaves on the young red maples (which have no flowers), disposed crosswise, as well as on the sugar maple, but not so with larger flowering maples. The maple-tops begin to look red now with the growing keys, at a distance,—crescents of red. Uvularia sessilifolia just begun. Common knawel, apparently for some time, though Bigelow says July (?). Those long spear-shaped buds of the viburnum have ex- panded into dark but handsome leaves rather early; probably Viburnum nudum. As I walk through the village at evening, when the air is still damp after the rainy morning, I perceive and am exhilarated by the sweet scent of expanding leaves. 'The woods are beginning to be in the gray now; leaves and flower-buds generally expanding, cov- ered with a mealy or downy web (which now reminds me of those plants like gnaphalium, swathed in cotton), a clean dirt, which whitens the coat of the walker. May. Forenoon.— Up North River to stone-heaps.

P. M.— To Annursnack. A long row of elms just set out by Wheeler from his ? [This was Thoreau’s rendering of the veery’s call-note.] gate to the old Lee place. The planting of so long a row of trees which are so stately and may endure so long deserves to be recorded. In many localities a much shorter row, or even a few scattered trees, set out sixty or a hundred years since, is the most conspicuous as well as interesting relic of the past in sight. Nothing more proves the civility of one’s ancestors. The Ribes floridum, wild black currant, just begun by the wooden bridge just this side of the Assabet stone bridge, with dotted leaves. The thimble-berry and high blackberry leaves are among the most forward. That large reddish-stemmed cornel shows now narrow green buds tipped with reddish, three quarters of an inch long by one quarter wide. Some thrashers are plainly better singers than others. How surprising and interesting this cluster of leek buds on the rock in the Jesse Hosmer farm, com- posed of thick, succulent green leaves, cactus-like, tipped with dull purple, in buds from a half-inch to three inches in diameter! What tenacity of life! Its leaves so disposed (from circumference to centre) as to break joints. Some place it on a gate-post to grow high and dry above the earth for a curiosity. It may be a convenient symbol. At the foot of Annursnack, rising from the Jesse Hosmer meadow, was surprised by the brilliant pale scarlet flowers of the painted-cup (Castilleja coccinea) just coming into bloom. Some may have been out a day or two. Methinks this the most high-colored and brilliant flower yet, not excepting the columbine. In color it matches Sophia’s cactus blossoms exactly. It is all the more interesting for being a painted leaf and not petal, and its spidery leaves, pinnatifid with linear divisions, increase its strangeness. It is now from three to six inches high, rising from the moist base of the hill. It is wonderful what a variety of flowers may grow within the range of a walk, and how long some very conspicuous ones may escape the most dili- gent walker, if you do not chance to visit their localities the right week or fortnight, when their signs are out. It is a flaming leaf. The very leaf has flowered; not the ripe tints of autumn, but the rose in the cheek of infancy; a more positive flowering. Still more abun- dant on the same ground was the Erigeron bellidifolius, robin’s-plantain,' with a pale-purple ray still erect, like a small thimble, not yet horizontal. This, then, its very earliest date. Neither of these did I see last year, and I was affected as if I had got into a new botanical district. A kind of mint,? shoots now six or eight inches high, with a velvety purple or lake under surface to leaves. They have cut off the woods, and with them the shad-bush, on the top of Annursnack, but laid open new and wider prospects. ‘The landscape is in some respects more interesting because of the overcast sky, threatening rain; a cold southwest wind. I am struck and charmed by the quantity of forest, especially in the southwest, after having witnessed the bareness of the Haverhill country. It is as if every farmer had a beautiful garden and boundless plantations of trees and shrubs, such as no imperial wealth can surpass. The pyramidal pine-tops are now seen rising out of a reddish mistiness of the deciduous trees just burst- ing into leaf. A week ago the deciduous woods had not this misty look,’ and the evergreens were more sharply divided from them, but now they have the appearance of being merged in or buoyed up in a mist. I am not [szc] sure what is the cause of the reddish line around the lower edges of the wood. It is plainly the red maple, and in many places, no doubt, the shrub oak. The oaks are plainly more gray already and some trees greenish. Vide again after a week. The catkins of the black birch appear more advanced than those of the white birch. They are very large, four inches long, half a dozen gracefully drooping at the ends of the twigs bent down by their weight, con- spicuous at a distance in wisps, as if dry leaves left on, very rich golden. The yellow birch is the first I have noticed fully in bloom, —considerably in advance of the others. Its flowers smell like its bark. Methinks the black and the paper birch next, and then the white, or all nearly together. The leaves of the papyracea unfold like a fan and are sticky. How fresh and glossy! And the catkins I gather shed pollen the next morn- ing. Some hickory buds are nearly two inches long. The handsome finely divided leaves of the pedicularis are conspicuous. It is now budded amid the painted-cups. The fruit of the Populus grandidentata appears puffed up and blasted into a large bright yellow [sic], like some * [Two interrogation-points in pencil here.] plums some seasons. The thorn bushes have so far 2 leaved out on the north side of Annursnack as ae to reveal their forms, as I look up the hill and see iy them against the light. They are remarkably uni- form, somewhat like this, the leading shoot finally rising above the rest, somewhat like a broad poplar.