16 May 1859 – 22 May 1859

Monday. Surveying Damon’s farm and factory lot. Our corydalis was out the 13th. Hear a tanager to-day, and one was seen yesterday. Sand cherry out. Ranunculus abortivus well out (when ?), southwest angle of Damon’s farm. Hear a bobolink and kingbird, and find sparrows’ nests on the ground. At eve the first spark of a nighthawk.

Surveying for Stow in Lincoln. Two-leaved Solomon’s-seal. I hear of young song sparrows and young robins since the 16th. That hand- some spawn of Ed. Emerson’s aquarium — minute transparent ova in a double row on the glass or the stones — turns out to be snail-spawn, it having just hatched, and there was no salamander-spawn, as I thought on the 18th of April. Not Paludina decisa, but the smaller and simpler one.

Our Azalea nudiflora flowers. It is a warm, muggy, rainy evening, when the night- hawks commonly spark and the whip-poor-will is heard.

Sunday. A warm, drizzling day, the tender yellow leafets now generally conspicuous, and contrast- ing with the almost black evergreens which they have begun to invest. The foliage is never more conspicuously a tender yellow than now. This lasts a week from this date, and then begins to be confounded with the older green. We have had rain for three or four days, and hence the tender foliage is the more yellow. Swallows fly low. The Ranunculus bulbosus is abun- dant. I see that by the very severe frost of about the 15th, or full of the moon, a great many leaves were killed, as young oaks, cultivated grapes,’ butternuts, ferns, etc., etc., which now show brown or blackish.?