6 June 1859 – 12 June 1859

P. M.— To Well Meadow. Yellow wood-sorrel out. Umbelled thesium, how long ? Red avens, how long? Stellaria longifolia, at Well Meadow Head, how long? Cardamine rhomboidea has green seed. Hear of a kingfisher’s nest, just found in a sand- bank behind Abner Buttrick’s, with six fresh eggs, of which I have one. The boy said it was six or seven feet deep in the bank.

Wednesday. Notice that one of these little silvery scales on a stone is now empty of eggs; how long? See a painted turtle beginning to lay. She has merely scratched the ground a little, and moistened it very much. This must be to make it adherent. It is at the same time beginning to rain. See lightning-bugs to-night. ; Noticed yesterday, dancing before our chamber win- dows, swarms of little plumed gnats with white wings and a reddish body forward. One on my book at night incessantly leaps backward. It seems to be a kind of Chironomus.

Thursday. A boy shows me one of three (apparent) hen-hawk’s eggs, fresh, obtained on the 6th from a pine near Breed’s house site.

Friday. Surveying for D. B. Clark on “College Road,” so called in Peter Temple’s deed in 1811, Clark thought from a house so called once stand- ing on it. Cut a line, and after measured it, in a thick wood, which passed within two feet of a blue jay’s nest which was about four feet up a birch, beneath the leafy branches and quite exposed. The bird sat perfectly still with its head up and bill open upon its pretty large young, not moving in the least, while we drove a stake close by, within three feet, and cut and measured, being about there twenty minutes at least.

P. M. — To Owl Swamp. Lambkill flower. Carrion-flower up a day or two. Panicum latvfolium (not out) grows by riverside at Dakin’s Brook. Ferns generally were killed by the frost of last month, e. g. brakes, cinnamon fern, flowering and sensitive ferns, and no doubt others. I smell the strong sour scent of their decaying. Galium triflorum, how long? In one grove pitch pine shoots are from seven to nine tenths as long as last year’s growth. When I return, about 5 p. m., the shad-flies swarm over the river in considerable numbers, but there are very few at sundown. Hemlocks are about at height of their beauty, with their fresh growth.

Sunday. P. M. — To Gowing’s Swamp. I am struck with the beauty of the sorrel now, e. g. Lepidium campestre field. What a wholesome red! It is densest in parallel lines according to the plowing or cultivation. There is hardly a more agreeable sight at this season. Maryland yellow-throat four eggs, fresh, in sphagnum in the interior omphalos.