13 September 1858 – 19 September 1858

P. M. — Sail to Fair Haven Pond. It is a fine September day. The river is still rising on account of the rain of the 16th and is getting pretty well over the meadows. As we paddle westward, toward Col- lege Meadow, I perceive that a new season has come. The air is incredibly clear. The surface of both land and water is bright, as if washed by the recent rain and then seen through a much finer, clearer, and cooler air. The surface of the river sparkles. I am struck by the soft yellow-brown or brown-yellow of the black willows, stretching in cloud-shaped wreaths far away along the edges of the stream, of a so much mellower and maturer tint than the elms and oaks and most other trees seen above and beyond them. It is remarkable that the but- ton-bushes beneath and mingling with them are of ex- actly the same tint and in perfect harmony with them. They are like two interrupted long brown-yellow masses of verdure resting on the water, a peculiarly soft and warm yellow. This is, perhaps, the most interesting autumnal tint as yet. Above the railroad bridge, with our sail set, wind north-northwest, we see two small ducks, dusky, — per- haps dippers,’ or summer ducks, — and sail within four rods before they fly. They are so tame that for a while we take them for tame ducks. The pads are drowned by the flood, but I see one pon- tederia spike rising blue above the surface. Elsewhere the dark withered pontederia leaves show themselves, and at a distance look like ducks, and so help conceal them. For the ducks are now back again in numbers, since the storm and freshet. We can just go over the ammannia meadow. It is a wonderful day. As I look westward, this fine air — “gassy,”’ C. calls it — brings out the grain of the hills. I look into the distant sod. ‘This air and sun, too, bring out all the yellow that is in the herbage. The very grass or sedge of the meadow is the same soft yellow with the willows, and the button-bush harmonizes with them. It is as if the earth were one ripe fruit, like a muskmelon yellowed in the September sun; 7. ¢., the sedges, being brought between me and the sun, are seen to be ripe like the cucumbers and muskmelons in the garden. The earth is yellowing in the September sun. It occurs to me to put my knee on it, press it gently, and hear if it does not crack within as if ripe. Has it not, too, a musty fra- grance, as a melon? At Clamshell we take the wind again, and away we glide. I notice, along the edge of the eastern meadow wood, some very light-colored and crisped-looking leaves, apparently on small maples, or else swamp white oaks, as if some vine ran over the trees, for the leaves are of a different color from the rest. This must be the effect of frost, I think. The sedge and wool-grass all slant strongly southward or up the stream now, which makes a strange impression on the sailor, but of late the wind has been north and stronger than the sluggish current of the river. The small white pines on the side of Fair Haven Hill now look remarkably green, by contrast with the sur- rounding shrubbery, which is recently imbrowned. You are struck by their distinct liquid green, as if they had but just sprung up there. All bright colors seem brighter now for the same reason, 12. e. from contrast with the duller browns and russets. The very cows on the hill- side are a brighter red amid the pines and the brown hazels. The perfectly fresh spike of the Polygonum am- phibium attracts every eye now. It is not past its prime. C. thinks it is exactly the color of some candy. Also the Polygala sanguinea on the bank looks redder than usual. Many red maples are now partly turned dark crimson along the meadow-edge. Near the pond we scare up twenty or thirty ducks, and at the pond three blue herons. They are of a hoary blue. One flies afar and alights on a limb of a large white pine near Well Meadow Head, bending it down. I see him standing there with outstretched neck. Finding grapes, we proceeded to pluck them, tempted more by their fragrance and color than their flavor, though some were very palatable. We gathered many without getting out of the boat, as we paddled back, and more on shore close to the water’s edge, piling them up in the prow of the boat till they reached to the top of the boat, — a long sloping heap of them and very handsome to behold, being of various colors and sizes, for we even added green ones for variety. Some, however, were mainly green when ripe. You cannot touch some vines without bringing down more single grapes in a shower around you than you pluck in bunches, and such as strike the water are lost, for they do not float. But it is a pity to break the handsome clusters. . Thus laden, the evening air wafting the fragrance of the cargo back to us, we paddled homeward. The cooler air is so clear that we see Venus plainly some time before sundown. The wind had all gone down, and the water was perfectly smooth. The sunset was uncommonly fair. Some long amber clouds in the horizon, all on fire with gold, were more glittering than any jewelry. An Orient city to adorn the plates of an annual could not be contrived or imagined more gorgeous. And when you looked with head inverted the effect was increased tenfold, till it seemed a world of enchantment. We only regretted that it had not a due moral effect on us scapegraces. Nevertheless, when, turning my head, I looked at the willowy edge of Cyanean Meadow and onward to the sober-colored but fine-grained Clamshell Hills, about which there was no glitter, I was inclined to think that the truest beauty was that which surrounded us but which we failed to discern, that the forms and colors which adorn our daily life, not seen afar in the horizon, are our fairest jewelry. The beauty of Clamshell Hill, near at hand, with its sandy ravines, in which the cricket chirps. This is an Occidental city, not less glorious than that we dream of in the sunset sky. It chanced that all the front-rank polygonum, with its rosaceous spikes, was drowned by the flood, but now, the sun having for some time set, with our backs to the west we saw the light reflected from the slender clear white spikes of the P. hydropiperoides (now in its prime), which in large patches or masses rise about a foot above the surface of the water and the other polygonum. Under these circumstances this polygonum was very — pretty and interesting, only its more presentable part rising above the water. Mr. Warren brings to me three kinds of birds which he has shot on the Great Meadows this afternoon, v2z.: two Totanus flavipes, such as I saw the 8th (there were eight in the flock, and he shot seven), one Rallus Caro- linus, and one peetweet. I doubt if I have seen any but the T. flavipes here, since I have measured this.’ Wil- son says that this does not penetrate far inland, though he sees them near Philadelphia after a northeast storm. The above rail corresponds to the land rail or corn- crake of Europe in form and habits. In Virginia is called the sora; in South Carolina, the coot. It is the game rail of the South, and the only species of the genus Crex in America. Note kuk kuk kuk. Go to Hudson’s Bay and thereabouts to breed. This was a male, having a black throat and black about base of bill. Peabody says that they are seen here only in the autumn on their return from the north, though Brewer thinks their nest may be found here. In the genus Crez, the bill is stout and shorter than the head. In fRallus (as in R. Virgi- nianus), it is longer than the head and slender. In the latter, too, the crown and whole upper parts are black, streaked with brown; the throat, breast, and belly, orange-brown; sides and vent, black tipped with white; legs and feet, dark red-brown; none of which is true of the f. Carolinus. I notice that the wing of the peetweet, which is about two inches wide, has a conspicuous and straight-edged white bar along its middle on the under side for half its length. It is seven eighths of an inch wide and, being quite parallel with the darker parts of the wing, it ‘produces that singular effect in its flying which I have noticed. This line, by the way, is not mentioned by Wil- son, yet it is, perhaps, the most noticeable mark of the bird when flying! The under side of the wings is com- monly slighted in the description, though it is at least as often seen by us as the upper. Wilson says that “the whole lower parts are beautifully marked with roundish spots of black, . . . but the young are pure white be- low.”’ May I not have made the young the T. solitarius ? But the young are white-spotted on wings. I think that I see a white-throated sparrow this after- noon.

P. M. — To Annursnack. Solidago puberula, apparently in prime and hand- some, roadside, Colburn’s Hill. I noticed the black willows quite imbrowned on the 10th, and the button-bushes beginning to look yellowish. A. Hosmer is pleased because from the cupola of his new barn he can see a new round-topped mountain in the northwest. Is curious to know what one it is. Says that if he lived as near Annursnack as Heywood does, he should go up it once a week, but he supposes that Hey- wood does not go up it more than once a year. What is that grass still in bloom a foot or more in height in Heywood’s potato-field, some fifty rods west of house- leek ? It 1s somewhat like what I have wrongly called Danthonia spicata, but with a longer and a round spike, etc., etc. Vide press. There is a man there mowing the Panicum Crus-galli, which is exceedingly rank and dense, completely concealing the potatoes, which have never been hoed, it was so wet. He saves this grass and says the cattle like it well. I notice that the large ant-hills, though they prevent bushes and ferns from growing where they are built, keeping open a space four to seven feet wide in their midst, do not keep out grass, but they are commonly little grassy mounds with bare tops.

Sunday. P.M.— To Cassandra Ponds. We go through Sedge Hollow. See a small hole, per- haps a skunk’s, in that hollow, and, about the mouth, fragments of a hornets’ or wasps’ nest. I knew that foxes were said to tear in pieces these nests for the sake of the grubs or old hornets left in them. Perhaps the skunk does. These dry, sedgy hollows are peculiar and interesting tome. The fine, thick sedge makes a soft bed to recline on, and is recurved and lodging like a curly head. These dry hollows, side by side with the deeper and wet ones, are surrounded by hazel bushes and panicled andromeda instead of alders and willows. There is this sort of ana- logy to the wet ones, or ponds. In the lowest part, even here, I perceive that a different and coarser kind of sedge grows. Along the middle and bottom of the hollows is the indistinct trail of wild animals — foxes, etc. — and sportsmen. C. thinks this might be called Fox Path. As I stand on the shore of the most westerly Cassandra Pond but one, I see in the air between me and the sun those interesting swarms of minute light-colored gnats,' looking like motes in the sun. These may be allied to the winter gnat of Kirby and Spence. Do they not first appear with cooler and frosty weather, when we have had a slight foretaste of winter? ‘Then in the clear, cool air they are seen to dance. These are about an eighth of an inch long, with a greenish body and two light-colored plumes in front; the wings not so long as the body. So I think they are different from those over the river in the spring. I see a dozen of these choirs within two or three rods, their centres about six feet above the surface of the water andromeda. These separate communities are narrow horizontally and long vertically, about eighteen inches wide and densest in the middle, regularly thin- ning to nothing at the edges. ‘These individuals are con- stantly gyrating up and down, cutting figures of 8 like the water-bug, but LO OO keeping nearly about the same place. It is to me a very agreeable reminder of cooler weather. Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately. In spring it makes its due impres- sion, and for a long time will not have done echoing, as it were, through our minds. It is even as if the atmos- phere were in an unfavorable condition for this kind of music. Every musician knows how much depends on this. Going through low woods I see a white, dusty or mealy-looking mildew on the leaves, — oaks, etc., — the effects of the dog-days or mould season.