11 June 1855 – 17 June 1855

How’s morus, staminate flowers appar- ently only a day or two (pollen); the pistillate a long . time. The locust apparently two or three days open. When I would go a-visiting I find that I go off the fashionable street — not being inclined to change my dress —to where man meets man and not pol- ished shoe meets shoe. According to Holland’s “History of Western Massa- chusetts,” in Westfield, “In 1721, it was voted that the pews next the pulpit should be highest in dig- nity. The next year it was voted that persons should be seated in the meeting house according to their age and estate, and that so much as any man’svestate is increased by his negroes, ‘that shall be left out.’ If a man lived on a hired farm, ‘or hath obtained his property by marrying’a widow, it shall be reckoned only one- third,’ that is, he shall have only one-third as much dignity as if he owned his farm, or had acquired his money by his own industry.” ? What if we feel a yearning to which no breast an- — swers? I walk alone. My heart is full. Feelings im- pede the current of my thoughts. I knock on the earth for my friend. I expect to meet him at every turn; but no friend appears, and perhaps none is dreaming of me. Iam tired of frivolous society, in which silence is forever the most natural and the best manners. I would fain walk on the deep waters, but my companions will only walk on shallows and puddles. I am naturally silent in the midst of twenty from day to day, from year to year. I am rarely reminded of their presence. Two yards of politeness do not make society for me. One complains that I do not take his jokes. I took them before he had done uttering them, and went my way. One talks to me of his apples and pears, and I depart with my secret untold. His are not the apples that tempt me. Now (September 16, ’55), after four or five months of invalidity and worthlessness, I begin to feel some stirrings of life in me. Is not that carex, Pennsylvanica-like, with a long spike (one inch long by one half-inch wide), C. bullata? What a difference between one red-wing blackbird’s egg and another’s! C. finds one long as a robin’s, but narrow, with large black spots on larger end and on side, on or between the bushes by riverside; another much shorter, with a large black spot on the side. Both pale-blue ground. The early willows at the bridge are apparently either S. discolor or eriocephala, or both. I have noticed the green oak-balls some days. Now observe the dark evergreen of June. The target leaf is eaten above. In order to get the deserted tanager’s nest at the top [of] a pitch pine which was too weak to climb, we car- ried a rope in our pockets and took three rails a quarter of a mile into the woods, and there rigged a derrick, by which I climbed to a level with the nest, and I could see if there were eggs in it. I have the nest. Tied the three tops together and spread the bottoms. Carex cephalophora (?}) on Heywood’s Peak. That fine, dry, wiry wild grass in hollows in woods and sprout-lands, never mown, is apparently the C. Penn- sylvanica, or early sedge. There are young bluebirds.

Tuesday. Down river to swamp east of Poplar Hill. I hear the toad, which I have called “spray frog” falsely, stall. He sits close to the edge of the water and is hard to find —hard to tell the direction, though you may be within three feet. I detect him chiefly by the motion of the great swelling bubble in his throat. A peculiarly rich, sprayey dreamer, now at 2 Pp. M.! How serenely it ripples over the water! What a lux- ury life is to him! I have to use a little geometry to detect him. Am surprised at my discovery at last, while C. sits by incredulous. Had turned our prow to shore to search. This rich, sprayey note possesses all the shore. - It diffuses itself far and wide over the water and enters into every crevice of the noon, and you cannot tell whence it proceeds. Young red-wings now begin to fly feebly amid the button-bushes, and the old ones chatter their anxiety. At mouth of Mill Brook, a red-wing’s nest tied on to that thick, high grass and some low willow, eighteen inches from ground, with four eggs variously marked, full of young. In a hedge thicket by meadow near Peter’s Path, a catbird’s nest, one egg; as usual in a high blueberry, in the thickest and darkest of the hedge, and very loosely built beneath on joggle-sticks. In the thick swamp behind the hill I look at the vireo’s nest which C. found on the 10th, within reach on a red maple forked twig, eight feet from ground. He took one cowbird’s egg from it, and I now take the other, which he left. There is no vireo’s egg, and it is said they always desert their nest when there are two cowbird’s eggs laid in it. I saw a red-eye lurking near. Have the nest. Near by, in a part of the swamp which had been cleared and then burnt apparently by accident, we find the nest of a veery on a tussock eight inches high, which like those around has been burnt all off close and black. The nest is directly in the top, the outside burnt. It contains three eggs, which have been scorched, discolored, and cooked, — one cracked by the heat, though fresh. Some of the sedge has since sprung up green, eight inches high, around here and there. All the lower part of the nest is left, an inch thick with dead leaves, — maple, etc., —and well lined with moss stems (??). It is a dry swamp. In a high blueberry bush, on the Poplar Hill-side, four feet from ground, a catbird’s nest with four eggs, forty feet high up the hill. They even follow the blue- berry up-hill. A field sparrow’s nest with three young, on a Vac- cinium vacillans, rose, and grass, six inches from ground, made of grass and hair. A Carya tomentosa hickory on the hill well out, and froth on the nuts, almost all out and black; perhaps three or four days. A hawthorn grows near by, just out of bloom, twelve feet high — Crategus Oxyacantha. A veronica at Peet- weet Rock; forget which kind. A crow blackbird’s nest high in an elm by riverside just below the Island. C. climbed to it and got it. I have it. There were eggs. Bottom of mud and coarse grass and sedge, lined with finer grass and dry weed stems. Another in an elm rear of Loring’s, in a recess where a limb was once broken off, open on one side, eighteen feet high. Young with heads out almost ready to fly. Nuttall says of the cowbird’s egg, “If the egg be deposited in the nest alone, it is uniformly forsaken; ” has seen “sometimes 2 of these eggs in the same nest, but in this case one of them commonly proves abortive.” “Is almost oval, scarcely larger than that of the Blue- bird.” He says it is “thickly sprinkled with points and confluent touches of olive brown, of two shades, some- what more numerous at the greater end, on a white ground tinged with green. But in some of these eggs the ground is almost pure white, and the spots nearly black.” ?

C. finds a pigeon woodpecker’s nest in an apple tree, five of those pearly eggs, about six feet from the ground; could squeeze your hand in. Also a peetweet’s, with four eggs, in Hubbard’s meadow beyond the old swamp oak site; and two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside.

Thursday. Up river. | See young red-wings; like grizzly-black vultures, they are still so bald. See many empty red-wing nests now amid the Cornus sericea. The bluebird’s nest high in the black willow at Sassafras Shore has five eggs. The gold robin’s nest, which I could pull down within reach, just beyond, has three eggs. I have one. I told C. to look into an old mortise-hole in Wood’s Bridge for a white-bellied swallow’s nest, as we were paddling under; but he laughed, incredulous. I in- sisted, and.when he climbed up he scared out the bird. Five eggs. “You see the feathers about, do you not?” Yes,” said he. Kalmiana lily, several days. ‘The little galium in meadow, say one day. A song sparrow’s (? ) nest in ditch bank under Clamshell, of coarse grass lined with fine, and five,eggs nearly hatched and a peculiar dark end to them. Have one or more and the nest. The bird evidently deserted the nest when two eggs had been taken. Could not see her return to it, nor find her on it again after we had flushed her. A kingbird’s nest with four eggs on a large horizontal stem or trunk of a black willow, four feet high, over the edge of the river, amid small shoots from the willow; outside of mikania, roots, and knotty sedge, well lined with root- fibres and wiry weeds. Viburnum dentatum, apparently not long, say two days, and carrion-flower the same. Looked at the peetweet’s nest which C. found yes- terday. It was very difficult to find again in the broad open meadow; no nest but a mere hollow in the dead cranberry leaves, the grass and stubble ruins, under a little alder. The old bird went off at last from under us; low in the grass at first and with wings up, making a worried sound which attracted other birds. I fre- quently noticed others afterward flying low over the meadow and alighting and uttering this same note of alarm. ‘There [were] only four eggs in this nest yester- day, and to-day, to C.’s surprise, there are the two eggs which he left and a young peetweet beside; a gray pinch of down with a black centre to its back, but already so old and precocious that it runs with its long legs swiftly off from squatting beside the two eggs, and hides in the grass. We have some trouble to catch it. How came it here with these eggs, which will not be hatched for some days? C. saw nothing of it yes- terday. J. Farmer says that young peetweets run at once like partridges and quails, and that they are the only birds he knows that do. These eggs were not addled (I had opened one, C. another). Did this bird come from another nest, or did it belong to an earlier brood? Eggs white, with black spots here and there all over, dim at great end. A cherry-bird’s nest and two eggs in an apple tree fourteen feet from ground.' One egg, round black spots and a few oblong, about equally but thinly dispersed over the whole, and a dim, internal, purplish tinge about the large end. It is difficult to see anything of the bird, for she steals away early, and you may neither see nor hear anything of her while examining the nest, and so think it deserted. Approach very warily and look out for them a dozen or more rods off. It suddenly began to rain with great violence, and we in haste drew up our boat on the Clamshell shore, upset it, and got under, sitting on the paddles, and so were quite dry while our friends thought we were being wet to our skins. But we had as good a roof as they. It was very pleasant to lie there half an hour close to the edge of the water and see and hear the great drops patter on the river, each making a great bubble; the rain seemed much heavier for it. The swallows at once and numerously began to fly low over the water in the rain, as they had not before, and the toads’ spray rang in it. After it began to hold up, the wind veered a little to the east and apparently blew back the rear of the cloud, and blew a second rain somewhat in upon us. As soon as the rain was over I crawled out, straight- ened my legs, and stumbled at once upon a little patch of strawberries within a rod, —the sward red with them. These we plucked while the last drops were thinly falling. Silene antirrhina out on Clamshell, how long?

Friday. To Moore’s Swamp. Robin’s nest in apple tree, twelve feet high — young nearly grown. Hair-bird’s nest on main limb of an apple tree, horizontal, ten feet high. Many pollywogs an inch long. In the swamp a catbird’s nest in the darkest and thickest part, in a high blueberry, five feet from ground, two eggs; bird comes within three feet while I am looking. Viburnum nudum, how long? Not long. Wool(? )-grass. I see a strange warbler still in this swamp. A chest- nut and gray backed bird, five or six inches long, with a black throat and yellow crown; note, chit chit chill le le, or chut chut a wutter chut a wut, che che. Crimson frosting on maple leaves. The swamp pyrus twigs are in some places curving over and swollen, and curling up at ends, forming bunches of leaves.

Saturday. ‘The cherry-bird’s egg was a satin color, or very pale slate, with an internal or what would be called black-and-blue ring about large end. P. M. — To Hubbard’s Grove, on river. — A sparrow’s nest with four gray eggs in bank beyond ivy tree. Four catbirds half fledged in the green-briar near bathing-place, hung three feet from ground. Examined a kingbird’s nest found before (13th) in a black willow over edge of river, four feet from ground. Two eggs. West of oak in Hubbard’s meadow. Cat- bird’s nest in an alder, three feet from ground, three fresh eggs. See young and weak striped squirrels nowadays, with slender tails, asleep on horizontal boughs above their holes, or moving feebly about; might catch them. Redstarts in the swamp there. Also see there a blue yellow-green-backed warbler, with an orange breast and throat, white belly and vent, and forked tail — indigo-blue head, etc. Ground-nut, how long? A painted tortoise just burying three flesh-colored eggs in the dry, sandy plain near the thrasher’s nest. It leaves no trace on the surface. Find near by four more about this business. When seen they stop stock- still in whatever position, and stir not nor make any noise, just as their shells may happen to be tilted up.