20 July 1857 – 26 July 1857

To Boston on way To Marine Woops. At Natural History Library. Holbrook makes the Emys terrapin to be found from Rhode Island to Florida and South America. “The only Emys common to North and South America.” So did not know it was found at New Bedford. Was not my Freetown turtle (vide April 13th) Holbrook’s Kinosternon Pennsylvan- wum ? In his plate the edges of the scales are of more waving lines than those of the Sternotherus; it has more brown or reddish yellow both above and below; its tail appears more sharply horny. ‘There is no yel- low line on its neck. The sternum is considerably larger (in proportion to carapax) as well as broader behind, and the plates connecting it with the upper shell are much wider. In the generic account the difference from the Sternotherus is that the jaws are hooked (I see no difference in the plates) and the “sternum sub- divided into three sections, anterior and posterior movable; ” and the “supplemental plates very large.”’ Under this species he says the shell is “ecarinate;” “vertebral plates depressed, sub-imbricate.” “ Length of shell, 34 inches; breadth of shell, 2 inches 10 lines; elevation, 1? inches; length of sternum, 3 inches 2 lines.”” “The living animal has a slight odour of musk that is not disagreeable.” Found in Atlantic States from Florida to latitude 41°. Thinks Hitchcock mis- took it for Sternotherus in his Geology. Found in the West, and Say says, high up the Missouri. According to De Kay, it is found sparingly in the southern counties of New York, and he says, “It has a strong musky smell.” Of the Sternotherus he says, “There appear to be two varieties, of which one is smooth on the shell, while the other is sub-carinate.”’ Length of shell of Sternotherus, 2-5, inches; height, 14;; of Kinosternon, 4 and 1,8. (Vide April 13th.) De Kay does not describe the Cistuda Blandingii as found in New York. 5 p. M.— Take cars for Portland. Very hot and dusty; as much need of a veil in the cars to exclude cin- ders as in the woods to keep off mosquitoes. Riding in the cars this weather like sitting in the flue of a chimney. Take steamer at Portland. Delayed by fog in night off coast of Maine.!

Tuesday. 1. mM. At Bangor. — Thatcher’s moose-horns hanging in his barn spread two feet eight inches. There is one more prong on one side than the other. This is small.

Wednesday. I am struck by the appear- ance of large canoe birch trees, even about houses, as an ornamental tree, and they are very enlivening, their trunks white as if whitewashed, though they rarely escape being barked and so disfigured more or less by mischievous fingers. ‘Their white boles are in keeping with the fresh, cool air. At a mile and a half north of Bangor, passed the spot, at Treat’s Falls, where the first settler and fur- trader, one Treat, lived... . We wanted to get one! who was temperate and re- liable, an older man than we had before, well skilled in Indian lore. I was warned not to employ an In- dian on account of their obstinacy and the difficulty of understanding one another, and on account of their dirty habits in cooking, etc., but it was partly the In- dian, such as he was, that I had come to see. The difficulty is to find one who will not get drunk and detain you wherever liquor is to be had. Some young white men of Oldtown named Pond were named as the very ones for us. But I was bent on having an Indian at any rate. While we were talking with Polis, a young, very dark- complexioned Indian, named something like Nicholai Orson, came up, and Polis said, “He go with you.” We found that the latter wanted to go very much, said he knew the country and all about it. But I said, “We don’t know you.” He was too dark-colored, as if with African blood, — P. said they did not mix with them, —and too young for me. While I was talking with him, Thatcher ‘ took Polis aside and in- quired the other’s character, when P. frankly told him that he would n’t do for us at all, that he was a very good fellow except that he would get drunk whenever he had a chance. . . . T. said he would get away from Nicholai with as few words as possible. So T. saying to N. that if we wanted him we would call-again in a couple of hours, we departed.” . . . A light india-rubber coat is useful, but you cannot work in it in warm weather, for your underclothes will be just as wet with perspiration as if dipped in water before you know it, and, beside, I wore off the rubber against the cross-bars behind my back. You could not wear india-rubber pants in addition unless you sat perfectly still in cool weather. The only india-rubber bags we could find in Bangor were no better than a canvas bag, the rubber rapidly cracking and peeling off, letting in water and dirtying the contents. They would have been an imposition if the seller had not admitted that they would not hold water, and asserted that he could not make one that would. Doubted; far better ones could be home-made of good india-rubber cloth. Called on a Mr. Coe, part proprietor (?) of the Chamberlain Farm, so called, on Chamberlain Lake (spoke of it as “our farm”), who gave us some ad- vice as to our outfit. Said he should like to have the making up of our packs, thinking we should take too many things. Told of one who, having to walk a few days through the woods, began by loading himself with some fifteen pounds of shot. The rule is to carry as little as possible. Advised us to go on foot, carry but few supplies, and replenish at the different camps we might find. He hastily scribbled this memoran- dum for us: — “Axe Canoe Blankets Fry-pan Teakettle Dippers Tea Salt Hard-bread and pork * Pepper Matches Ammunition and lines and hooks Camphor ”

Thursday. Some fifteen caribou were taken by one (?) man about Moosehead last winter. . . . [Mr. Leonard, of Bangor, a sportsman,] said that the horns of a moose would spread four feet, some- times six; would weigh thirty or forty pounds (the hide, fifty); squirrels and mice ate the horns when shed. (They told me that the horns were not grown at this season.) . . . [Leonard told] also of some pan- thers which appeared near a house in Foxcroft. . . . I observed from the stage many of the Fringilla hyemalis flitting along the fences, even at this season, whence I conclude that they must breed here. Also, between Monson and the lake, the now very handsome panicles of the red elder-berry, so much earlier than the black, the most showy objects by the roadside. In one place the tree-cranberry in a yard, already reddening, though nowhere else after was it nearly so early. . . . There were two public houses near together,! and they wanted to detain us at the first, even took off some of our baggage in spite of us; but, on our pro- testing, shouted, “Let them go! let them go!” as if it was any of their business. Whereupon we, thanking them for the privilege, rode on, leaving P. behind, who, I knew, would follow his canoe. Here we found a spacious house, quite empty, close to the lake, with an attentive landlord, which was what we wanted. A bright wood fire soon burned in the ample barroom, very comfortable in that fresh and cool atmosphere, and we congratulated ourselves on having escaped the crowd at the other house. Fogg, the landlord, said that there was scarcely any hemlock about the lake. Here was an Indian who came to talk with Polis, who made canoes, had made those two for Leonard. . . . He said that he used the red cedar of uplands (7. e. arbor-vite ?) for ribs, etc.

Friday. As we paddled along, we saw many peetweets, also the common iris or blue flag, along the rocky shore, and here and afterwards great fields of epilobium or fire-weed, a mass of color. .. . P. said that Bematinichtik meant high land gen- erally and no particular height. . . . Near this island, or rather some miles southwest of it, on the mainland, where we stopped to stretch our legs and look at the vegetation, I measured a canoe birch, five and a half feet in circumference at two and a half from the ground... . I was disappointed to find my clothes under my india- rubber coat as completely wetted by perspiration as they could have been by rain, and that this would always be the consequence of working in such a garment, at least in warm weather. .. . We looked down on the unpretending buildings and grounds of the Kineo House, as on a little flat map, oblong-square, at our feet... . It ‘ suggested to me how unexplored still are the realms of nature, that what we know and have seen is always an insignificant portion. We may any day take a walk as strange as Dante’s imaginary one to L’ Inferno or Paradiso.

Saturday. Very early this morning we heard the note of the wood thrush, on awaking, though this was a poor singer. I was glad to find that this prince of singers was so common in the wilderness. . .. The shores of this lake are rocky, rarely sandy, and we saw no good places for moose to come out on, 1. e. no meadows. What P. called Caucomgomoc Moun- tain, with a double top, was seen north over the lake in mid-forenoon. Approaching the shore, we scared up some young dippers with the old bird. Like the shecorways, they ran over the water very fast. Land- ing on the east side, four or five miles north of Kineo, I noticed roses (R. nitida) in bloom, and, as usual, an abundance of rue (Thalictrum Cornutt) along the shore. The wood there was arbor-vite, spruce, fir, white pine, etc. The ground and rotting trunks, as usual, covered with mosses, some strange kinds, — various wild feather and leaf-like mosses, of rank growth, that were new or rare to me,—and an abundance of Clintonia bore- ahs... .. The Indian started off first with the canoe and was soon out of sight, going much faster than an ordinary walk. We could see him a mile or more ahead, when his canoe against the sky on the height of land between Moosehead and the Penobscot was all that was to be seen about him... . Here, among others, were the Aster Radula, just in bloom; large-flowered bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora), in fruit. The great purple orchis (Platanthera fimbriata), very splendid and perfect ones close to the rails. I was surprised to see it in bloom so late. Vaccinium Cana- dense; Dalibarda repens, stillin bloom; Pyrola secunda, out of bloom; Ovwalis Acetosella, still occasionally in flower; Labrador tea (Ledum latifolium), out of bloom; Kalmia glauca, etc., etc., close to the track. A cousin of mine and his son met with a large male moose on this carry two years ago, standing within a few rods of them, and at first mistook him for an ox. They both fired at him, but to no purpose. As we were returning over the track where I had passed but a few moments before, we started a par- tridge with her young partly from beneath the wooden rails. While the young hastened away, she sat within seven feet of us and plumed herself, perfectly fearless, without making a noise or ruffling her feathers as they do in our neighborhood, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to observe whether she flew as quietly as other birds when not alarmed. We ‘observed her till we were tired, and when we compelled her to get out of our way, though she took to wing as easily as if we had not been there and went only two or three rods, into a tree, she flew with a considerable whir, as if this were unavoidable in a rapid motion of the wings. . . . Here was a canoe on the stocks, in an earlier stage of its manufacture than I had seen before, and I noticed it particularly. ‘The St. Francis Indian was paring down the long cedar stmps, or lining, with his crooked knife. As near as I could see, and understand him and Polis, they first lay the bark flat on the ground, outside up, and two of the top rails, the inside and thickest ones, already connected with cross-bars, upon it, in order to get the form; and, with logs and rocks to keep the bark in place, they bend up the birch, cutting down slits in the edges from within three feet of the ends and perpendicularly on all sides about the rails, mak- ing a square corner at the ground; and a row of stakes three feet high is then driven into the ground all around, to hold the bark up in its place. They next lift the frame, 2. e. two rails connected by cross-bars, to the proper height, and sew the bark strongly to the rails with spruce roots every six inches, the thread passing around the rail and also through the ends of the cross- bars, and sew on strips of bark to protect the sides in the middle. ‘The canoe is as yet carried out square down at the ends (not ), and is per- 3 fectly flat on the —7 Beer (This canoe had advanced thus far.) Then, as near as I could learn, they shape the ends (?), put in all the lining of long thin strips, so shaped and shaved as just to fit, and fill up the bark, pressing it out and shaping the canoe. Then they put in the ribs and put on the outer or thinnest rail over the edge of the bark. ... Our path up the bank here led by a large dead white pine, in whose trunk near the ground were great square- cornered holes made by the woodpeckers, probably the red-headed. They were seven or eight inches long by four wide and reached to the heart of the tree through an inch or more of sound wood, and looked like great mortise-holes whose corners had been somewhat worn and rounded by a loose tenon. The tree for some dis- tance was quite honeycombed by them. It suggested woodpeckers on a larger scale than ours, as were the trees and the forest... . . Returning, we found the tree cranberry in one place still in bloom. The stream here ran very swiftly and was hard to paddle against.