8 May 1854 – 14 May 1854

A. M. seni Nawshawtuct. A female red-wing. I have not seen any before Hear a yellowbird in the direction of the willows. Its note coarsely represented by che-che-che-char-char- char. No great flocks of blackbirds on tree-tops now, nor so many of robins. Saw a small hawk flying low, about size of a robin — tail with black bars — prob- ably a sparrow hawk; probably the same I have seen before. Saw one at Boston next day; mine was the pigeon hawk,’ slaty above (the male) and.coarsely barred with black on tail. I saw these distinct bars at a dis- tance as mine flew. It appeared hardly larger than a robin. Probably this the only hawk of this size that I have seen this season. The sparrow hawk is a rather reddish brown and finely and thickly barred above with black.‘ Missouri currant. I hear the voices of farmers driving their cows past to their up-country pastures now. The first of any consequence go by now. P. M. — By boat to Fair Haven. The water has fallen a foot or more, but I cannot get under the stone bridgé, so haul over the road. There is a fair and strong wind with which to sail up- stream, and then I can leave my boat, depending on the wind changing to southwest soon. It is long since I have sailed on so broad a tide. How dead would the globe seem, especially at this season, if it were not for these water surfaces! We are slow to realize water, —the beauty and magic of it. It is interestingly strange to us forever. Immortal water, alive even in the superficies, restlessly heaving now and tossing me and my boat, and sparkling with life! I look round with a thrill on this bright fluctuating surface on which no man can walk, whereon is no trace of footstep, unstained as glass. When I got off this end of the Hollowell place I found myself in quite a sea with a smacking wind directly aft. I felt no little exhila- ration, mingled with a slight awe, as I drove before this strong wind over the great black-backed waves I judged to be at least twenty inches or two feet high, cutting through them, and heard their surging and felt them toss me. I was even obliged to head across them and not get into their troughs, for then I could ? Could the Boston pigeon hawk have been barred with black? hardly keep my legs. They were crested with a dirty- white foam and were ten or twelve feet from crest to crest. They were so black, — as no sea I have seen, — large and powerful, and made such a roaring around me, that I could not but regard them as gambolling monsters of the deep. They were melainat — what is the Greek for waves? This is our black sea. You see a perfectly black mass about two feet high and perhaps four or five feet thick and of indefinite length, round- backed, or perhaps forming a sharp ridge with a dirty- white crest, tumbling like a whale unceasingly before you. Only one of the epithets which the poets have applied to the color of the sea will apply to this water, —melaina, péAawa OéAacoa. I was delighted to find that our usually peaceful river could toss me so. How much more exciting than to be planting potatoes with those men in the field! What a different world! The waves increased in height till [I] reached the bridge, the impulse of wind and waves increasing with the breadth of the sea. It is remarkable that it requires a very wide expanse to produce so great an undula- tion. The length of this meadow lake in the direction of the wind is about a mile, its breadth varying from a mile to a quarter of a mile, and the great commotion is toward the southerly end. Yet after passing the bridge I was surprised to find an almost smooth ex- panse as far as I could see, though the waves were about three inches high at fifty rods’ distance. I lay awhile in that smooth water, and though I heard the waves lashing the other side of the causeway I could hardly realize what a sea I [had] just sailed through. It sounded like the breakers on the seashore heard from terra firma. Lee’s Cliff is now a perfect natural rockery for flowers. ‘These gray cliffs and scattered rocks, with upright faces below, reflect the heat like a hothouse. The ground is whitened with the little white cymes of the saxifrage, now shot up to six or eight inches, and more flower-like dangling scarlet columbines are seen against the gray rocks, and here and there the earth is spotted with yellow crowfoots and a few early cinque- foils (not to mention houstonias, the now mostly effete sedge, the few Viola ovata, — whose deep violet is another kind of flame, as the crowfoot is yellow, — hanging their heads low in the sod, and the as yet inconspicuous veronica); while the early Amelanchier Botryapvum overhangs the rocks and grows in the shelves, with its loose, open-flowered racemes, curv- ing downward, of narrow-petalled white flowers, red on the back and innocently cherry-scented,—as if it had drunk cherry-bounce and you smelled its breath. To which is to be added the scent of bruised catnep and the greenness produced by many other forward herbs, and all resounding with the hum of insects. And all this while flowers are rare elsewhere. It is as if you had taken a step suddenly a month forward, or had entered a greenhouse. The rummy scent of the different cherries is remarkable. The Veronica serpyllifolia out, say yesterday. Not observed unless looking for it, like an infant’s hood, — its pretty little blue-veined face. Cerastiwm viscosum, apparently to- day first. At I returned I saw, in the Miles meadow, on the bottom, two painted tortoises fighting. Their sternums were not particularly depressed. The smaller had got firmly hold of the loose skin of the larger’s neck with his jaws, and most of the time his head was held within the other’s shell; but, though he thus had the “upper hand,” he had the least command of himself and was on his edge. They were very moderate, — for the most part quite still, as if weary, — and were not to be scared by me. Then they struggled a lit- tle, their flippers merely paddling the water, and I could hear the edges of their shells strike together. I took them out into the boat, holding by the smaller, which did not let go of the larger, and so raising both together. Nor did he let go when they were laid in the boat. But when I put them into the water again they instantly separated and concealed themselves. The hornbeam ‘has lost its leaves; in this respect put it before the white oak and, for [the] present, after the other oaks, judging from buds. Fever-bush well out now.

Tuesday. 'To Boston and Cambridge. Currant in garden, but ours may be a late kind. Purple finch still here. Looking at the birds at the Natural History Rooms, I find that I have not seen the crow blackbird at all yet this season. Perhaps I have seen the rusty-black- bird, though I am not sure what those slaty-black ones are, as large as the red-wings, nor those pure-black fellows, unless rusty blackbirds. I think that my black- birds of the morning of the 24th may have been cow- birds. Sat on end of Long Wharf. Was surprised to ob- serve that so many of the men on board the shipping were pure countrymen in dress and habits, and the seaport is no more than a country town to which they come a-trading. I found about the wharves, steering the coasters and unloading the ships, men in farmer’s dress. As I watched the various craft successively un- furling their sails and getting to sea, I felt more than for many years inclined to let the wind blow me also to other climes. Harris showed me a list of plants in Hovey’s Maga- zine (I think for ’42 or *43) not in Bigelow’s Botany, — seventeen or eighteen of them, among the rest a pine I have not seen, etc., etc., g. v. That early narrow curved-winged insect on ice and river which I thought an ephemera he says is a Szalis, or maybe rather a Perla. Thinks it the Donatia palmata I gave him. Says the shad-flies (with streamers and erect wings) are ephemere. He spoke of Podura nivalis, I think mean- ing ours. Planted melons.

Now in the mornings I hear the chip- bird under my windows at and before sunrise. War- bling vireo on the elms. The chimney swallow. A peach out in yard, where it had been covered by the snow. The cultivated cherry in bloom. 8 a. M.— To Tall’s Island, taking boat at Cliffs. Had some rain about daylight, which I think makes the weather uncertain for the day. Damp, April-like mistiness in the air. I take an umbrella with me. The Salix alba — and also one or two small native ones by river of similar habits — their catkins together with their leaves make the greatest show now of any trees (which are indigenous or have fairly established themselves), though a very few scattered young trembles suddenly streak the hillsides with their tender green in some places; and perhaps young balm-of-Gileads show in some places;' but with the willows it is gen- eral and from their size and being massed together they are seen afar. The S. alba, partly, indeed, from its commonness and growing together, is the first of field trees whose growth makes an impression on the careless and distant observer, —a tender yellowish green. (The mountain-ash, horse-chestnut, and per- haps some other cultivated trees, indeed, if we regard them separately and their leaves alone, which are much larger, are now ahead of the willows.) The birches of all kinds with catkins begin to show-a light green. The inquisitive yorrick of the Wilson’s thrush, though I hear no veery note. This at entrance of Deep Cut. The oven-bird, and note loud and unmistakable, making the hollow woods ring. This is decidedly smaller than what I have taken to be the hermit thrush. The black and white creeper, unmistakable from its creeping habit. It holds up its head to sing sharp and fine te che, te che, te che, te che, te che, te che, te ché. The oven-bird’s note is much louder, broader, and more swinging. The latter sits on a low twig quite within the wood. Yesterday was a quite warm day, and these new birds I hear directly after it. Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum first put out, and I see a humblebee about some others which are not open, knocking at their doors, which, if open, would be too small for him to enter. Viola pedata already numerous —say yesterday without doubt —at Lupine Knoll, paler than the ovata, — their pale faces. The field sparrow resembles a more slender tree sparrow without the spot on breast, with a light-colored bill and legs and feet, ashy-white breast, and beneath eye a drab, callow look. Note, phe phe phe phe phe phe, phe phe- e-e-e-e; holds up its head the while. Thorns are leaf- ing. Viola blanda by Corner road at brook and below Cliff Hill Spring. Canoe birch and white ditto leaf- ing. There is a dew or rather rain drop in the centre of the sun-dial (lupine) leaf, where its seven or eight leafets meet, over the sand, Cornel (sericea) leafing along river. I hear the fine, wiry mew of the song spar- row. A catbird mewing. Saw coupled on a hillock by the water two what I should have called black snakes, —a uniform very dark brown, the male much the smallest. The under side — what little I noticed of the rear of the latter — was a bluish slate; but, when they ran into the water, I observed dull-yellowish transverse bars on the back of the female (did not observe the other there), and, when I turned over the male, had a glimpse of a reddish or orange belly. Were they water adders or black snakes ? The largest was perhaps between three and four feet. If that is the leaf of the arrow-wood which looks so much like a cornel, it will rank next to the Vibur- num nudum. Vide plant by bridge. In Boston yesterday an ornithologist said signifi- cantly, “If you held the bird in your hand —;” but T would rather hold it in my affections. The wind is southwest, and I have to row or paddle up. ‘The shad-bush in blossom is the first to show like a fruit tree,—- like a pale peach, — on the hill- sides, seen afar amid gray twigs, amid leafless shrub oaks, etc., before even its own leaves are much ex- panded. I dragged and pushed my boat over the road at Deacon Farrar’s brook, carrying a roller with me. It is warm rowing with a thick coat. Heard the first regular bullfrog trump, not very loud, however, at the swamp white oaks southwest of Pantry. Heard the night-warbler. Saw three ducks on Sudbury meadows still, one partly white, the others all dusky, — prob- ably black ducks. As to the first, with a large dark head and white breast and sides, I am not sure whether it was a golden-eye, or whistler. Dined at Tall’s Island. The tupelo terminates abruptly, as if mutilated at top, and the slender, strag- gling branches decline thence downward, often longer than the tree is high. The shores of these meadows do not invite me to land on them; they are too low. A lake requires some high land close to it. Meeting-House Hill is the most accessible hereabouts. Anemones common now; they love to grow under brush or tree- tops which the choppers have left. Shad leaves develop fast. Pitch pines started for two or three days in some places, the largest shoots now four inches. Returning stopped at Rice’s. He was feeding his chickens with Indian meal and water. While talking with him heard bobolinks. I had seen what looked hke a great stake just sticking out above the surface of the water on the meadows and again covered as if it were fastened at one end. It finally disappeared and probably was a large mud turtle. Rice told me that he had hunted them. You go a little later in this month,—a calm forenoon when the water is smooth, — and “the wind must be south,’’—and see them on the surface. Deacon Farrar’s meadow in time of flood (I had come through this) was a good place. It began to sprinkle, and Rice said he had got “to bush that field” of grain before it rained, and I made haste back with a fair wind and umbrella for sail. Were those cowbirds in Miles’s meadow, about or near the cow? Alders generally have fairly begun to leaf. I came on rapidly in a sprinkling rain, which ceased when I reached Bittern Cliff, and the water smoothed somewhat. I saw many red maple jp* blossoms on the surface. 'Their keys now droop ~ gracefully about the stems. A fresh, growing ¥ scent comes from the moistened earth and vege- tation, and I perceive the sweetness of the willows on the causeway. Above the railroad bridge I saw a kingfisher twice sustain himself in one place, about forty feet above the meadow, by a rapid motion of his wings, somewhat like a devil’s-needle, not pro- gressing an inch, apparently over a fish. Heard a tree- toad. » Shad-bush in Blossom si v.

6 a. m.— To Laurel Hillside by Walden. Earliest gooseberry in garden open. Heard a Mary- land yellow-throat about alders at Trillium Woods, where I first heard one last year, but it finds the alders cut down in the winter. Yellow birch apparently open, its leaf as forward as the blossom (comparatively — with other birches). Many small swallows hovering over Deep Cut, — probably bank swallows (?). Hear the golden robin. It is wonderful how surely these distin- guished travellers arrive when the season has sufficiently revolved. Prunus Americana, Canada plum, yesterday at least, at Mr. Brooks’s. A common plum to-day. To sum up leafing of trees, etc., since May 5th, add these : — Creeping juniper. Larch; bundles fairly separated on some trees May 6th; open slowly. Early blueberry. Amelanchier Botryapium. It came forward fast. High blackberry. Young rock maple. 66 red 66 ‘© white (?) [maple]. Alders generally. Ostrya. Some trembles suddenly leafed. Balm-of-Gileads. Some thorns. Yellow birch. Canoe “ White “ Canada plum, I think here. Pitch pine; some shoots now four inches long. Norway [pine]? Cornus sericea. P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook. White pines have started; put them with pitch. Nepeta just out. I am ina little doubt about the wrens (I do not refer to the snuff-colored one), whether I have seen more than one. All that makes me doubt is that I saw a ruby, or perhaps it might be called fiery, crest on the last — not golden. Amelanchier oblongifolia, say yesterday, probably the one whose fruit I gathered last year. It does not leaf till it flowers. Sweet-gale has just begun to leaf. The willows on the Turnpike now resound with the hum of bees, and I hear the yellowbird and Mary- land yellow-throat amid them. These yellow birds are concealed by the yellow of the willows. The cornels generally have fairly started, excepting the C. florida (have not noticed the bunch-berry and round-leaved), and for aught I have seen yet may be placed in the order of their flowering, — alternate, panicled, sericea, putting all on the day of the sericea, 2. e. yesterday. Wild red cherry in road near Everett’s open. The most forward oak leafets are, I think, in one place a red, say just started, but I see shrub oak and swamp white catkins in a few places an inch long. Some shrub oak flower-buds are yellowish, some reddish. The Thalictrum anemonovdes is a perfect and regular white star, but methinks lacks the inter- esting red tinge of the other. Some young chestnuts have begun —the lower branches — and are earlier than any oaks. White birches are suddenly leafing in some places, so as to make an open veil or gauze of green against the other trees. Young hornbeams just before cornels; the old ones just begun to leaf. Various slender ferns, without wool, springing appar- ently at Saw Mill Brook; some quite dark; also brake a foot high. The arrow-wood has just begun. The young black birch leafing with others. While at the Falls, I feel the air cooled and hear the muttering of distant thunder in the northwest and see a dark cloud in that direction indistinctly through the wood. That distant thunder-shower very much cools our atmosphere. And I make haste through the woods homeward via Hubbard’s Close. Hear the evergreen-forest note. The true poet will ever live aloof from society, wild to it, as the finest singer is the wood thrush, a forest bird. The shower is apparently going by on the north. There is a low, dark, blue-black arch, crescent-like, in the horizon, sweeping the distant earth there with a dusky, rainy brush, and all men, like the earth, seem to wear an aspect of expectation. There is an uncommon stillness here, disturbed only by a rush of the wind from time to time. In the village I meet men making haste to their homes, for, though the heavy cloud has gone quite by, the shower will probably strike us with its tail. Rock maple keys, etc., now two inches long, probably been out some days. Those by the path on Common not out at all. Now I have got home there is at last a still cooler wind with a rush, and at last a smart shower, slanting to the ground, without thunder. My errand this afternoon was chiefly to look at the gooseberry at Saw Mill Brook. We have two kinds in garden, the earliest of same date to leaf with that in the swamp, but very thorny, and one later just open. The last is apparently the same with that by Everett’s, also just open, and with that this side of E. Wood’s. I also know one other, 7. e. the one at Saw Mill Brook, plainly distinct, with long petioled and glossy heart-shaped leaves, but as yet I find no flowers. I will call this for the present the swamp gooseberry.* Stellaria media, apparently not long. Butternut beginning to leaf. Over meadows in boat at sunset to Island, etc. The rain is over. ‘There is a bow in the east. The earth is refreshed; the grass is wet. The air is warm again and still. The rain has smoothed the water to a glassy smoothness. It 1s very beautiful on the water now, the breadth of the flood not yet essentially di- minished. The ostrya will apparently shed its pollen to-morrow. High blueberry is just leafing. I see the kingbird. It is remarkable that the radical leaves of goldenrod should be already so obvious, e. g. the broad- leaved at Saw Mill Brook. What need of this haste? Now at last I see crow blackbirds without doubt. They have probably been here before, for they are put down under April in the bird book (for ’37). They fly as if carrying or dragging their precious long tails, broad at the end, through the air. Their note is like a great rusty spring, and also a hoarse chuck. On the whole I think they must have been rusty grackles which I mistook for this bird, and I think I saw their silvery irides; look like red-wings without the red spot. Ground-ivy just begins to leaf. I am surprised to find the great poplar at the Island conspicuously in leaf, — leaves more than an inch broad, from top to bottom of the tree, and are already fluttering in the wind, —and others near it — conspicuously be- fore any other native tree, as tenderly green, wet, and glossy as if this shower had opened them. ‘The full- grown white maples are as forward in leafing now as the young red and sugar ones are now, only their leaves are smnaller than the last. Put the young, at a venture, after the low blackberry, the old just before the other maples. The balm-of-Gilead is rapidly ex- panding, and I scent it in the twilight twenty rods off. The earliest of our indigenous trees, then, to leaf conspicuously is the early tremble. (‘The one or more willows which leaf when they flower, like the Salix alba, with their small leaves, are shrubs, hardly trees.) Next to it, —close upon it,— some white birches, and, apparently close upon this, the balm-of-Gilead and white maple. Two days, however, may include them all. The wild red cherry and black cherry, though earlier to begin, are not now conspicuous, but I am not sure that some of the other birches, where young im favorable places, may not be as forward as the white.’ But the S. alba, etc., precede them all. It is surprising what an electrifying effect this shower appears to have had. It is like the christening of the summer, and I suspect that summer weather may be always ushered in in a similar manner, — thunder-shower, rainbow, smooth water, and warm night. A rainbow on the brow of summer. Nature has placed this gem on the brow of her daughter. Not only the wet grass looks many shades greener in the twilight, but the old pine- needles also. The toads are heard to ring more gen- erally and louder than before, and the bullfrogs trump regularly, though not very loudly, reminding us that they are at hand and not drowned out by the freshet. All creatures are more awake than ever. Now, some time after sunset, the robins scold and sing (but their great singing time is earlier in the season), and the Maryland yellow-throat is heard amid the alders and willows by the waterside, and the peetweet and black- birds, and sometimes a kingbird, and the tree-toad somewhat. | Sweet-briar just beginning to leaf generally (?).

5.30 a. m. — To Nawshawtuct. Quite a fog risen up from the river. I cannot see over it from the hill at 6 a. m. The first I have seen. The grass is now high enough to be wet. I see many perfectly geometrical cobwebs on the trees, with from twenty-six to thirty-odd rays, six inches to eighteen in diameter, but no spiders. I suspect they were spun this last warm night very generally. No insects in them yet. They are the more conspicuous for being thickly strewn with minute drops of the mist or dew, like a chain of beads. Are they not meteorologists ? A robin’s nest in an apple tree with three eggs, —first nest I have seen,—also a red-wing’s nest—bird about it did not look in — before the river is low enough for them to build on its brink. Vola cucullata: apparently to-day first, near the sassafrases. A small white birch catkin. Fir balsam just begins fairly to loosen bundles. Were they blue-winged teal flew by? for there was a large white spot on the sides aft. I think I scared up the same last night. Fever-root up four or five inches. Is not this the first day of summer, when first I sit with the window open and forget fire? and hear the golden robin and kingbird, etc., etc.? not to mention the bobolink, vireo, yellowbird, etc., and the trump of bullfrogs heard last evening. P. M. — To climbing fern. I have seen a little blue moth a long time. My thick sack is too much yesterday and to-day. The golden robin makes me think of a thinner coat. I see that the great thrush, — brown thrasher, — from its markings, is still of the same family with the wood thrush, etc. These genera are very curious. A shrub or bear oak beginning to leaf. Am struck with the fact that the Assabet has relieved itself of its extra waters to a much greater extent than the main branch. Woolly aphides on alder. Large black birches, not quite leafing nor in bloom. In one bunch of Viola ovata in Ministerial Swamp Path counted eleven, an unusual number. What are those handsome conical crimson-red buds not burst on the white [szc] spruce? The leaves of the larch begin to make a show. Mosquito. The climbing fern is evergreen—only the flowering top dies—and spreads by horizontal roots. I perceive no growth yet. The Amelanchier oblongifolia has denser and smaller ra- cemes, more erect (?), broader petalled, and not tinged with red on the back. Its downy leaves are now less conspicuous and interesting than the other’s. On the whole it is not so interesting a variety. The bear-berry is well out, perhaps a quarter part of them. May 6th, I thought it would open in a day or two; say, then, the 8th. At last I hear the veery strain. Why not as soon as the yorrick? WHeard again the evergreen-forest note. It is a slender bird, about size of white-eyed vireo, with a black throat and I think some yellow above, with dark and light beneath, in the tops of pines and oaks. The only warblers at all like it are black-throated green, black-throated blue, black-poll, and golden- winged, and maybe orange-crowned.

The portion of the peach trees in bloom in our garden shows the height of the snow-drifts in the winter. 4 p.m. — To V. Muhlenbergii Brook. The bass suddenly expanding its little round leaves; probably began about the 11th. Uvularias, amid the dry tree-tops near the azaleas, apparently yesterday. Saw the crow blackbird fly over, turning his tai] in the wind into a vertical position to serve for a rudder, then sailing with it horizontal. The great red maples begin to leaf, and the young leafets of the red (?) oaks up the Assabet on Hosmer’s land, and one at Rock, now begin to be conspicuous. Waxwork begins te leaf. The sand cherry, judging from what I saw yesterday, will begin to flower to-day. As for the birds, I have not for some time noticed crows in flocks. The voices of the early spring birds are silenced or drowned in multitude of sounds. The black ducks are probably all gone. Are the rusty grackles still here? Birds generally are now building and sitting. Methinks I heard one snipe night before last? I have not noticed the pine warbler nor the myrtle-bird for a fortnight. The chip-sparrow is lively in the morning. I suspect the purple finches are all gone within a few days. The black and white creeper is musical nowadays, and thrushes and the catbird, etc., etc. Goldfinch heard pretty often. Insects have just begun to be troublesome. Young Populus grandidentata just opening. Panicled andromeda leaf to-morrow; not for three or four days generally.

P. M.— To Hill by boat. A St. Domingo cuckoo, black-billed with red round eye, a silent, long, slender, graceful bird, dark cinna- mon (?) above, pure white beneath. It is in a leisurely manner picking the young caterpillars out of a nest (now about a third of an inch long) with its long, curved bill. Not timid. Black willows have begun to leaf, — if they are such in front of Monroe’s. White ash and common elm began to leaf yesterday, if I have not named the elm before. The former will apparently open to-morrow. The black ash, 2. e. that by the river, may have been open a day or two. Apple in bloom. Swamp white oak perhaps will open to-morrow.'! Celtis has begun to leaf. I think I may say that the white oak leaves have now fallen; saw but one or two small trees with them day before yesterday. Sumach began to leaf, say yesterday. Pear opened, say the 12th. The leafing goes on now rapidly, these warm and moist showery days.