7 July 1856 – 13 July 1856

3 p. M.— To Baker Farm by boat. River down to lower side of long rock. When I landed on Hosmer flat shore, started a large water adder, apparently running on the bank. It ran at once into the river and was lost under the pads. Ranunculus reptans is abundantly out at mouth of brook, Bakershore. Is that small sparganium there, now abundantly out, about eighteen inches high, with leaves narrow and convex below, concave above, the same species with the larger? Some in press. Got the downy woodpecker’s nest, some days empty.” Find several large and coarse Potentilla arguta, two and a half feet high and more, at Bittern Cliff, nearly out of bloom. Flowers in crowded corymbs. They are white, not yellow, as Gray calls them. In the side- hill wood-lot (or spring wood-lot) behind, where the wood was cut last winter, poke-leaved milkweed (As- clepias phytolaccoides), apparently a day or two, and Circea alpina, some days, a foot high with opaque leaves and bracts (in press). This I find to be the same with the small, also bracted, one at Corner Spring (whose leaves were perhaps more transparent when in shade, but which now grows larger in sun).' Sophia saw this afternoon two great snap-turtles fighting near the new stone bridge, making a great commotion in the river and not regarding the spectators, she and another, and a teamster who stopped his team to observe them. | Sam Wheeler, who did not know there were snap- turtles here, says he saw opposite to his boarding- house, on the sidewalk, in New York, the other day, a green turtle which weighed seven hundred and twenty pounds, which in a short time dropped eggs enough to fill a vessel some feet in diameter. He partook of some of the soup made of it, and there were several eggs in it, which were luscious.

Yesterday a heavy rain. A. M. — To Laurel Glen. Chenopodium album, by railroad. Succory a week or more, by railroad causeway. Stachys aspera well out two or three days, low ground. Chimaphila umbellata, some days. Pyrola elliptica, how long? P. chlorantha done, near part of Cut woods. P. rotundifolia (how long?), Cut woods hollow. Galiwm triflorum of Bige- low (?), prostrate, from one centre, Laurel Glen hillside; how long? But the branches are not three-flowered, but have three pedicels and one, two, or all of them (com- monly but one) are subdivided into two. Also G. cir- cezans gone to seed. I have pressed apparently Ga- lium lanceolatum. Sericocarpus conyzoides, Deep Cut path. Asclepias obtusifolia, which was out well on the 5th, has a bloom, and the curved horns are elevated above the flower. See and hear young barn swallows about. 5 p. mM. — Up Assabet.

A. M.— To Tarbell Swamp Hill all day with W. E. C. Landed at path end, Great Meadows. No haying there yet. In the now isolated ditches, etc., there [are] thousands of little pouts about one inch long, more or less. The water is muddy, and I see no old ones. They are rather difficult to catch (like minnows generally, but less so), but I got two and have them in spirit. I scare up several apparent snipes (?), which go off with a crack. ‘They are rather heavy-looking, like woodcocks, but have gray breasts. Are probing the meadow. Quite numerous there. The Ludwigia spherocarpa, which had been out apparently a week on the 6th of August, 1855, shows hardly a sign of a flower yet. So it will hardly open before August Ist. The grass on the islets in those pools is much flattened in many places by the turtles, which lie out sunning on it. They tumble in before me, and by the sound and marks of one I suspect it a snap- turtle. They are commonly E. picta. Bathed and lunched under the oak at Tarbell’s first shore. It is about as cool a place as you can find, where you get the southwest breeze from over the broad meadow, for it draws through the valley behind. While sitting there, saw, some twenty-five rods up-stream, amid the pads on the south side, where we had passed, several apparently young ducks, which soon disappeared again in the meadow-grass. Saw them hereabouts August 6th last year. They regularly breed hereabouts, and the broad meadow affords lurking-places. The meadow is so broad and level that you see shadows of clouds on it as on the sea. A great snap-turtle floated by us with his head out, in midstream, reconnoitring us. Rambled over the hill at angle. Allium out some time on the shore. I have only seen it here, methinks, and on the Assabet shores. Hear now the link of bobolinks, and see quite a flock of red-wing blackbirds and young (?). The water milk- weed, or Asclepias pulchra.

P. M.— Down Turnpike to Red Lily Meadow. Hear the plaintive note of young bluebirds, a reviv- ing and gleaming of their blue ray. In Moore’s meadow by Turnpike, see the vetch in purple patches weighing . down the grass, as if a purple tinge were reflected there. White vervain. Smooth sumach, apparently yesterday. Rueis beginning now to whiten the meadows on all hands. The Ranunculus aquatilis appears to be about done, though it may have been submerged by the rain of yesterday. I see hardly one freshly open, and it [is] quite moist and lowering yet. By the myosotis ditch there, is an abundance of Galiwm trifidum (apparently obtusum or latvfolium, in press). It is densely massed and quite prickly, with three corolla-lobes. As yet I think I have observed only two varieties of G. trifidum, smooth and rough. Lactuca sanguinea, some time, with dark-purple stem, widely branched. Pycnanthemum muticum and the narrow-leaved, not long.’ In the still wet road on the hill, just beyond Lincoln bound, a short-tailed shrew (Sorex brevicaudus of Say), dead after the rain. I have found them thus three or four times before. It is 44 inches long; tail 1+; head and snout, 1+. Roundish body. Lead-color above, somewhat lighter beneath, with a long snout, 3 inch be- yond lower jaw, incisors black, delicate light-colored (almost silvery) mustachial bristles, and also from lower lip; nose emarginate; nails long and slender, a purple bar across each; ears white and concealed in the fur; the nostrils plainly perforated, though Emmons says that in the specimens of Sorex he had seen he could detect no perforations with a microscope. It has a peculiar but not very strong muskiness. There was an insect-wing in its mouth. Its numerous teeth distinct. Have I not com- monly noticed them dead after rain? Iam surprised to read in Emmons that it was first observed in Missouni, and that he has “not been able to meet with it” and doubts its existence in the State; retains it on the au- thority of former catalogues; says it nests on the surface and is familiar with water. In spirits.* Red lilies in prime, single upright fiery flowers, their throats how splendidly and variously spotted, hardly two of quite the same hue and not two spotted alike, —leopard-spotted, — averaging a foot or more in height, amid the huckleberry and lambkill, etc., in the moist, meadowy pasture. Apparently a bluebird’s egg in a woodpecker’s hole in an apple tree, second brood, just laid. In collection. Parsnip at Bent’s orchard; how long? Also on July 5th, almost out. Agrimony well out. Chestnut in prime. See LEysimachia quadrifolia with from three to five (or six?) leaves in a whorl. Iberis wmbellata, candytuft, roadside, Tuttle’s, naturalized; how long? New plant.

P. M.— To Corner Spring.