6 October 1856 – 12 October 1856

I notice the effects of some frost this morn- ing in garden. Some pumpkin vines drooping and black. P. M. — Carried Sophia and Aunt up the Assabet.

P. M.—To Smith Chestnut Grove by Turnpike, and Saw Mill. At length I discover some white pine cones, a few, on Emerson Heater Piece trees. They are all open, and the seeds, all the sound ones but one, gone. So September is the time to gather them. The tip of each scale is covered with fresh flowing pitch. The trees and weeds by the Turnpike are all alive this pleasant afternoon with twittering sparrows, Em- erson’s buckthorn hedge especially, and Watts’s weeds adjoining. I observe white-throated sparrows, song sparrows, I think some Fringilla juncorum, etc. (maybe tree sparrows ???). They are all together and keep up a faint warbling, apparently the white-throats and tree sparrows, — if the last are there. A song sparrow utters a full strain. 106 Asters and goldenrods are now scarce; no longer that crowd along the low roadsides. The following is the condition of the asters and goldenrods, judging from my observations on this walk alone. I will only refer to those which were not done September 24th. I speak of their general condi- tion, though a very few specimens here and there may present a different appearance. Swamp stricta, done, some hoary. S. nemoralis, done, many hoary, though a very few flowers linger. S. altissima, done, many hoary, S. puberula, not seen. S. bicolor and variety, probably done (not seen out). S. latifolia, far gone. S. cesta, much the worse for the wear, but freshest of any seen. S. spectosa, not seen (it was in prime Oct. 2d). Diplopappus cornifolius, not seen, probably done.

These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer. This afternoon it was 80°, between three and four, and at 6.30 this evening my chamber is oppressively sultry, and the thermometer on the north side of the house is at 64°. I lie with window wide open under a single sheet most of the night. But I anticipate. The phebe note of the chickadee is now often heard in the yards, and the very Indian summer itself is a similar renewal of the year, with the faint warbling of birds and second blossoming of flowers. Going to E. Hosmer’s by boat, saw quite a flock of wild ducks in front of his house, close by the bridge. While moving the fence to-day, dug up a large red- dish, mummy-like chrysalid or nymph.'

P. M.— To Cliffs. - ‘The Indian summer continues. Solidagos now gener- ally show woolly heads along the fences and brooks. E. Hosmer said yesterday that his father remem- bered when there was but one store in Concord, and that the little office attached to Dr. Heywood’s house, kept by Beatton. I remember the old shutters with names of groceries on them.” Perhaps, then, Jones was the only shopkeeper in his day. I was speaking of it to Farrar, the blacksmith, to-day, and he said, yes, he had heard his father speak of Beatton as “the most honestest man that ever was.” When a child was sent to his store and he could not make change within * half a penny he would stick a row of pins in the child’s sleeve, enough to make all square. He said he had only a keg of molasses and a bladder of snuff when he began. Farrar thought that the spirit manufactured a century ago was not so adulterated and poisonous as that now made. He could remember when delirium tremens was very rare. There was Luke Dodge; he could remember him a drunkard for more than forty years, yet he was now between eighty and ninety. Farrar gave me a wing and foot of a hawk which he shot about three weeks ago as he was sitting on a wood- pile by the railroad, against R. W. E.’s lot. He called it a partridge hawk; said he was about as big as a partridge and his back of a similar color, and had not a white rump. This foot has a sharp shin ' and stout claws, but the wing is much larger than that of the Falco fuscus (or sharp-shinned hawk), being, with the shoulder attached, sixteen inches long, which would make the alar extent some thirty-three inches, which is the size of the F. Pennsylvanicus. ‘This wing corresponds in its markings very exactly with the de- scription of that, and I must so consider it. Peabody does not describe any such bird, and Nuttall describes it as very rare, — apparently he has not seen one, — and says that Wilson had seen only two. Bay-wing sparrows numerous. In the woods I hear the note of the jay, a metallic, clanging sound, some- times a mew. Refer any strange note to him. The scent of decaying leaves after the wet fall is a very agree- able fragrance on all sides in the woods now, like a garret full of herbs. In the path, as I go up the hill beyond the springs, on the edge of Stow’s sprout-land, I find a little snake which somebody has killed with his heel. It is apparently Coluber amenus, the red snake. Brown above, light-red beneath, about eight inches long, but the end of its tail 1s gone (only three quarters of an inch of it left). I count some one hundred and twenty-seven plates. It is‘a conspicuous light red be- neath, then a bluish-gray line along the sides, and above this brown with a line of lighter or yellowish brown down the middle of the back. The sprout-land and stubble behind the Cliffs are all alive with restless flocks of sparrows of various species. I distinguish F. hyemalis, song sparrow, ap- parently F. juncorum or maybe tree sparrows,’ and chip-birds (?). They are continually flitting past and surging upward, two or more in pursuit of each other, in the air, where they break like waves, and pass along with a faint cheep. On the least alarm many will rise from a juniper bush on to a shrub oak above it, and, when all is quiet, return into the juniper, perhaps for its berries. It is often hard to detect them as they sit on the young trees, now beginning to be bare, for they are very nearly the color of the bark and are very cunning to hide behind the leaves. ‘There are appar- ently two other kinds, one like purple finches, another more like large Savannah sparrows. The shrub oak plain is now in the perfection of its coloring, the red of young oaks with the green of spiring birches intermixed. A rich rug. It is perfect Indian summer, a thick haze forming wreaths in the near horizon. The sun is almost shorn of its rays now at mid-afternoon, and there is only a sheeny reflection from the river. The patches of huckleberries on Conantum are now red. Here on the Cliffs are fresh poke flowers and small snapdragon and corydalis. The white goldenrod 1s still common here, and covered with bees. Hveracium veno- sum still. I see pretty dense spreading radical leaves about the pinweeds, apparently recent. A cuckoo is heard. I find that the rough, aes crystalled-surfaced pigeon-egg fungus (one was noticed in report of Octo- ber 5th) are puffballs. The outer thick white coat peels off first. I see it so now, but not in segments like the stellata. A pasture thistle with many fresh flowers and bees on it.

It is interesting to see how some of the few flowers which still linger are frequented by bees and other insects. Their resources begin to fail and they are improving their last chance. I have noticed them of late, especially on white goldenrod and pasture this- tles, etc.; and to-day, on a small watermelon cut open ten days ago, in the garden, I see half a dozen honey- bees, many more flies, some wasps, a grasshopper, and a large handsome butterfly, with dark snuff-colored wings and a stripe of blue eyes on them. The restless bees keep buzzing toward the butterfly, but it keeps them off by opening and shutting its wings, but does not much mind the other insects. I did not suspect such a congregation in the desolate garden. Wasps for some time looking about for winter quarters.