29 June 1857 – 5 July 1857

A. M. — Up Assabet with Blake. Allium Canadense in house and probably in field.' The river is now whitened with the down of the black willow, and I am surprised to see a minute plant abun- dantly springing from its midst and greening it, — where it has collected in denser beds against some ob- stacle as a branch on the surface, — like grass grow- ing in cotton in a tumbler.’ P. M. — Walk to Lee’s Cliff. Small rough sunflower, the common, at Bittern Cliff. Where I took shelter under the rock at Lee’s Cliff, a phoebe has built her nest, and it now has five eggs in it, nearly fresh.

A. M. — To Ball’s Hill. Yesterday afternoon it was remarkably cool, with wind, it being easterly, and I anticipated a sea-turn. There was a little, a blue mistiness, ere long. The cool- ness continues, and this morning the sky is full of clouds, but they look to me like dog-day clouds and not rain- threatening. It does not rain.

P. M. — To Gowing’s Swamp. Flannery says that there was a frost this morning in Moore’s Swamp on the Bedford road, where he has potatoes. He observed something white on the pota- toes about 3.30 a. M. and, stooping, breathed on and melted it. Minott says he has known a frost every month in the year, but at this season it would be a black frost, which bites harder than a white one. The Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, not yet quite in prime. ‘This is commonly an inconspicuous bush, eight to twelve inches high, half prostrate over the sphagnum in which it grows, together with the andro- medas, European cranberry, etc., etc., but sometimes twenty inches high quite on the edge of the swamp. It has a very large and peculiar bell-shaped flower, with prominent ribs and a rosaceous tinge, and is not to be mistaken for the edible huckleberry or blueberry blos- som. ‘The flower deserves a more particular descrip- tion than Gray gives it. But Bigelow says well of its corolla that it is “remarkable for its distinct, five an- gled form.” Its segments are a little recurved. The calyx-segments are acute and pink at last; the ra- cemes, elongated, about one inch long, one-sided; the corolla, narrowed at the mouth, but very wide above; the calyx, with its segments, pedicels, * and the whole raceme (and indeed the leaves somewhat), glandular-hairy. Calla palustris (with its convolute point like the cul- tivated) at the south end of Gowing’s Swamp. Hav- | ing found this in one place, I now find it in another. Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual ray, 2. e., we are not look- ing for it. So, in the largest sense, we find only the world we look for. I hear many Maryland yellow-throats about the edge of this swamp, and even[?]near their nests. In- deed, I find one or two old ones suspended much like a red-wing’s amid the water andromeda. ‘They are quite small and of such material as this bird chooses. I see amid the Andromeda Polifolia pure bright crim- son leaves, and, looking closely, find that in many in- stances one branch, affected by a kind of disease, bears very handsome light-crimson leaves, two or three times as wide as usual, of the usual white color beneath, which contrast strangely with the slender green and glaucous ones on the contiguous branches. The water andromeda has similar crimson leaves, only proportion- ally larger and coarser, showing the dots. These are very common. Those of the Polzfolia far more delicate. Pogonia ophioglossoides apparently in a day or two.

Minott says that old Joe Merriam used to tell of his shooting black ducks in the Dam meadows and what luck he had. One day he had shot a couple of ducks and was bringing them home by the legs, when he came to a ditch. As he had his gun in the other hand, and the ditch was wide, he thought he would toss the ducks over before he jumped, but they had no sooner struck the ground than they picked themselves up and flew away, which discouraged him with respect to duck-shooting. M. says that my pool in Gowing’s Swamp used to be called Duck Pond, though he does not know of ducks settling there. Perhaps they did anciently. He once fell into a deep hole when going after blueberries in the town (?) swamp beyond his own meadow. He stepped on to some “water-brush” (probably water andromeda), and suddenly sank very deep, spraining his hand, which he put out to save himself. He once killed a black duck in Beck Stow’s Swamp, but could not get it on account of the water. Somebody else got a boat and got it. Thus the ducks and geese will fre- quent a swamp where’ there is considerable water, in the spring. Minott was sitting in his shed as usual, while his hand- some pullets were perched on the wood within two feet of him, the rain having driven them to this shelter. There always were poor and rich as now, —in that first year when our ancestors lived on pumpkins and raccoons, as now when flour is imported from the West.

P. M.— Up Assabet with Brown and Rogers. Saw many pickerel near the boat. At length, near the upper Assabet bath place, I observed, “Stop! Was that a big pickerel we just passed?” for it was so large I could hardly believe my eyes and thought it must have been a stake. We dropped back and found it to be a pickerel, which apparently would weigh four pounds, and it appeared slightly wounded about the head. We struck him three times with a paddle, and once he nearly jumped into the boat, but at last we could not find him. It seemed out of proportion to the small stream. We ought to have used a pointed or hooked stick to secure him; might have hooked him under the gills. I have heard of small fishes being caught in a slip-noose of grass. Close by I detected in the weeds the back of a large mud turtle exposed and, after ascer- taining which end was his tail, — for he lay perfectly still, — I took him into the boat. His back was singu- larly gibbous or bulged up, he having been evidently wounded once. His approach and aspect drove my companions to the end of the boat. To-day is warm again, but for nearly a week many people have sat by a fire.

A. M. — To Lee’s Cliff by boat. Potentilla arguta abundantly out. Partridges big as quails. At Clamshell I found three arrowheads and a small Indian chisel for my guests. Rogers determined the rate of the boat’s progress by observing by his second-hand how long the boat was going its length past a pad, calling the boat’s length so much. For some days I have seen great numbers of black- ish spiny caterpillars stripping the black willows, some full-grown on June 30th and some now not more than three quarters of an inch long. When looking at a blackbird’s nest I pricked my hand smartly on them several times; in fact the nest was pretty well pro- tected by this chevaux-de-frise. Are they the cater- pillars of the Vanessa Antiopa ? ' That new ravine at Clamshell is so enlarged that bank swallows already use its sides, and I feel some young there. After leaving my companions at the Lee Bridge road, I pushed up Well Meadow Brook a few rods, through the weeds. I saw by the commotion that great numbers of fishes fled before me and concealed themselves amid the weeds or in the mud. The mud was all stirred up by them. Some ran partly ashore. Higher up, when I had left the boat and walked up the brook on the quaking shore, I found a bay and pool connected with the brook all alive with them, and ob- served two or three caught partly high and dry by their heedless haste, in a shallow and very weedy place. These were young pickerel two or three inches long. I suspect that all, or the greater part, were pickerel, and that they commonly breed in such still weedy basins in deep muddy meadows. Comara palustris apparently in prime. A pheebe’s nest with four eggs half hatched, at stone bridge.