17 September 1855 – 23 September 1855

Up Assabet. Do I see wood tortoises on this branch only? About a week since, Mr. Thurston told me of his being carried by a brother minister to hear some music on the shore of a pond in Harvard, produced by the lapse of the waves on some stones.

First decisive frost, killing melons and beans, browning button-bushes and grape leaves. P. M. — Up main stream. The great bittern, as it flies off from near the rail- road bridge, filthily drops its dirt and utters a low hoarse kwa kwa; then runs and hides in the grass, and I land and search within ten feet of it before it rises. See larks in flocks on meadow. See blackbirds (grackle or red-wing or crow blackbird ?). Tried to trace by the sound a mole cricket, — think- ing it a frog, —- advancing from two sides and looking where our courses intersected, but in vain. Opened a new and pretty sizable muskrat-house with no hollow yet made in it. Many tortoise-scales upon it. It is a sort of tropical vegetation at the bottom of the river. The palm-like potamogeton, — or ostrich- plumes.

Stopped at the old Hunt house with Ricket- son and C. The rafters are very slender, of oak, yet quite sound; the laths of split cedar (?), yet long and straight and as thin or thinner than our sawed ones. Between the boards and plastering, in all the lower story, at least, large-sized bricks are set on their edges in clay. Was it not partly to make it bullet-proof? They had apparently been laid from within after boarding, — from the fresh marks of the boards on the clay. An Egyptian-shaped fireplace or frame in the chamber and painted or spotted panels to the door. / \ Large old-fashioned latches and bolts, blacksmith-made? The upper story projects in front and at ends seven or eight inches over the lower, and the gables above a foot over this. No weather-boards at the corners.

Many tortoise-scales about the river now. Some of my driftwood — floating rails, etc. — are scented with muskrats; have been their perches; and also covered with a thick clear slime or jelly.

Small sparrows, with yellow on one side above eye in front and white belly, erectile (?) crown divided by a light line. Those weeds, etc., on the bared meadow come up spontaneously. 8 p. mM. —I hear from my chamber a screech owl about Monroe’s house this bright moonlight night, — a loud, piercing scream, much like the whinner of a colt perchance, a rapid trill, then subdued or smothered a note or two. A little wren-like (or female goldfinch) bird on a willow at Hubbard’s Causeway, eating a miller; with bright-yellow rump when wings open, and white on tail. Could it have been a yellow-rump warbler?