9 May 1859 – 15 May 1859

Surveying for Stow near Flint’s Pond. Hear the warbling vireo and oven-bird; yellow- throat vireo (?). One helping me says he scared up a whip-poor-will from the ground. 3 See black birch bloom fallen effete. The first thunder this afternoon.

Wednesday. Golden robin yesterday. Fir- balsam well out in the rain; so say 9th. Pp. M. — To Flint’s Pond. Arum triphyllum out. Almost every one has a little fly or two concealed within. One of the handsomest- formed plants when in flower. Sorrel out in rain, ap- parently a day or two, — say 9th. A blue heron flies away from the shore of the pond. Scirpus planifolius in bloom on Smith’s wooded hill, side of Saw Mill Brook. A partridge-nest, with eleven fresh eggs, at foot of a chestnut, one upon another. It is quite a deep cavity amid the leaves, with some feathers of the bird in it. Young, or fresh-expanding, oak leaves are very hand- some now, showing their colors. It is a leafy mist throughout the forest. Uvularia perfoliata out in rain; say, then, the 9th. Just after plucking it I perceived what I call the meadow fragrance, though in the woods; but I afterward found that this flower was peculiarly fragrant, and its fra- grance like that, so it was probably this which I had perceived. S. was reminded of the lily-of-the-valley by it. The witch-hazel has one of the broadest leaves now. In the path in Stow’s wood-lot, I find apparently Thaspium aureum (Zizia aurea), which will open the first fair day.' Shows quite yellow now. Found in the path in the woods by the Mill Brook ditch, Flint’s Pond, dead, the Coluber punctatus, 134 inches long, but no row of spots in middle of abdomen. The head above blackish with a blackish ring behind the yellow. Tail 3 inches long; breadth of body 5% ; plates 162; scales 55. Above, uniform glossy slate-color, with a yellowish-white band across the occiput; the head above blackish, and a blackish band close behind the yellowish one. Beneath, yellow or buff (whitish under head), with a row of small slanting black spots, one on each side of each abdominal plate except the first ? inch behind the head. In the midst of the path in the woods. I admired the iridescence from its glossy belly. It differs from Storer’s C’. punctatus, for it is not brown above, nor “reddish yellow” beneath, and has no row of spots in middle of the abdomen. In that first thunder-shower, the evening of the 9th, 1 18th in house and probably abroad. the grass evidently erected itself and grew darker, as it were instantaneously. Was it the effect of electricity in the air? It looked very differently from what it had ten minutes before.

Dug up to-day the red-brown dor-bugs. My red oak acorns have sent down long radicles under- ground. A parti-colored warbler hangs dead downward like a goldfinch on our gooseberries, within a few feet of me, apparently about the blossoms.

Friday. Surveying Damon’s Acton lot. Hear the pe-pe and evergreen-forest note, also night- warbler (the last perhaps the 11th). Apple in bloom.

Saturday. Surveying for Damon. Rhodora out, says C. Yorrick heard the 12th. Did I hear a bobolink this morning? C. says he heard a yellow-legs yesterday. Bought a black sucker (? ), just speared at the factory dam, fifteen inches long, blacker than I am used to, I think; at any rate a very good fish to eat, as I proved, while the other common sucker there is said not to be. This had very conspicuous corrugations on the lips. I suspect that their other one is the horned chub. They have speared the former a long time there, and it is getting late for them. Vernal grass quite common at Willis Spring now.

Sunday. Observe Cornus florida involucres. Sarsaparilla flower. Salix discolor seed, or down, begins to blow. A woodcock starts up with whistling sound. I have been struck of late with the prominence of the Viburnum nudum leaf in the swamps, reddish-brown and one inch over, a peculiarly large and mature-looking, firm-looking leaf. = Swamp white oak leafed several days, but generally appears as in winter at a little distance. Salix lucida well out, how long? Nemopanthes flower, apparently a day or two. Now, when the warblers begin to come in numbers with the leafing of the trees, the woods are so open that you can easily see them. They are scarce and silent in a cool and windy day, or found only in sheltered places. I see an oak shoot (or sprout) already grown ten inches, when the buds of oaks and of most trees are but just burst generally. You are surprised to see such a sudden and rapid development when you had but just begun to think of renewed life, not yet of growth. Very properly these are called shoots. This plant has, per- haps, in four or five days accomplished one fourth part [of] its whole summer’s growth. (So on the 4th of June I notice the shoots of the white pine, five to nine inches long, arranged raywise about the terminal one and the end of their branches, having in about a fortnight ac- complished one quarter to one third their whole sum- mer growth. ‘Thus they may be properly said to shoot when their season comes, and then stand to harden and mature before the winter.)