2 July 1855 – 8 July 1855

Young bobolinks are now fluttering over the meadow, but I have not been able to find a nest, so concealed in the meadow-grass. At 2 p. ma. — Thermometer north side of house . 93° Air over river at Hubbard’s Bath . . . . . 88° Water six feet from shore and one foot deep . 843° “near surface in middle, where up toneck . 834° «« at bottom in same place, pulling it up quickly 833° Yet the air on the wet body, there being a strong south- west wind, feels colder than the water.

4p. M.— Air out-of-doors generally, 86°. On the sand between rails in the Deep Cut, 103°. Near the surface of Walden, fifteen rods from shore, 80°. Three feet below the surface there, and every- where nearer shore (and probably further from it), 78°.

To Boston on way to Cape Cod with C. The schooner Melrose was advertised to make her first trip to Provincetown this morning at eight. We reached City (? ) Wharf at 8.30. “Well, Captain Crocker, how soon do you start?” “To-morrow morning at 9 o'clock.” “But you have advertised to leave at 8 this morning.” “TI know it, but we are going to lay over till to-morrow.” !!! So we had to spend the day in Boston, — at Atheneum gallery, Alcott’s, and at the regatta. Lodged at Alcott’s, who is about moving to Walpole.

In middle of the forenoon sailed in the Melrose. We hugged the Scituate shore as long as possible on account of wind. The great tupelo on the edge of Scituate is very conspicuous for many miles about Minot’s Rock. Scared up a flock of young ducks on the Bay, which have been bred hereabouts. Saw the petrel.' Went to Gifford’s Union House (the old Tailor’s Inn) in Provincetown. They have built a town-house since I was here — the first object seen in making the port. Talked with Nahum Haynes, who is making fisherman’s boots there. He came into the tavern in the evening. I did not know him — only that he was a Haynes. He remembered two mud turtles caught in a seine with shad on the Sudbury meadows forty years ago, which would weigh a hundred pounds each. Asked me, “Who was that man that used to live next to Bull’s, — acted as if he were crazy or out?” Talked with a man who has the largest patch of cranberries here, — ten acres, — and there are fifteen or twenty acres in all. The fishermen sell lobsters fresh for two cents apiece.

Rode to North Truro very early in the stage Provincetown WU Pets 40 Ht he OY Sf or covered wagon, on the new road, which is just finished as far as East Harbor Creek. Blackfish on the shore. Walked from post-office to lighthouse. Fog till eight or nine, and short grass very wet. Board at James Small’s, the lighthouse, at $3.50 the week.

Smilax glauca in blossom, running over the shrubbery. Honkenya peploides, sea sandwort, just out of bloom on beach. The thick-leaved and dense- tufted, upright plant Salsola Kali, saltwort, prickly and glaucous, in bloom. Beach pea (Lathyrus marv- timus) going out of bloom.’ ! [Cape Cod, pp. 164, 167; Riv. 196, 200.]

A northeasterly storm. A great part of beach bodily removed and a rock five feet high exposed [The fruit of the shad-bush. See Cape Cod, p. 203; Riv. 244.] ? I saw its burs early in October in New Bedford. $ It is Smilacina racemosa. * Out July 10th. [Cape Cod, p. 135; Riv. 160.] ® (Cape Cod, p. 167; Riv. 200.] — before invisible — opposite lighthouse. The black- throated bunting common among the shrubbery. Its note much like the Maryland yellow-throat’s, — wittichee te tchea, tche te tchea, tche.' The Corema Conradii, broom crowberry, is quite common at edge of higher bank just south of the light- house. It is now full of small green fruit, smal] pin- head size. It spreads from a centre, raying out and rooting every four or five inches. It forms peculiar handsome-shaped mounds, four or five feet in diam- eter by nine inches or a foot high, very soft springy beds to lie on, — a woodman’s bed already spread.” I am surprised at the number of large light-colored toads everywhere hopping over these dry and sandy fields. Went over to Bay side. That pond at Pond Village three eighths of a mile long and densely filled with cat-tail flag seven feet high. Many red-wing black- birds in it. Small says there are two kinds of cat-tail there, one the barrel flag for coopers, the other shorter for chairs; he used to gather them.* See the killdeer a dozen rods off in pasture, anxious about its eggs or young, with its shrill squeaking note, its ring of white about its neck and two black crescents on breast. They are not so common and noisy as in June. A milkweed out some days. Hudsonia tomentosa, the downy, still lingering, and ericoides even yet up to 17th. The last is perhaps the most common. ! [Cape Cod, p. 131; Riv. 156.] 7 [Cape Cod, p. 167; Riv. 200.]