8 August 1859 – 14 August 1859

P. M. — Up Assabet. I perceive that rocks on the bottom stretch across from Mantatuket Point to the Island, and probably make the ancient core of the shoals and islands, and the river has cut through above and between them and made them islands, just as it at high water cuts off and makes an island of Mantatuket Rock itself; 7. e., the shallows below the junction are to be considered as the point of the hill, at least the rocky portion of them.

I see under the railroad bridge a mass of meadow which lodged there last spring, not revealed till this low water, and this is now dense with a thrifty growth of bulrushes. Minott says that some used to wonder much at the windings of the Mill Brook and could not succeed in accounting for them, but his Uncle Ben Prescott settled the difficulty by saying that a great eel came out of Flint’s Pond and rooted its way through to the river and so made the channel of the Mill Brook.

A. M. — Up Assabet to stone bridge. This river is so shallow that you can easily push up it with a paddle, but the other is commonly too deep for this. As I paddle up this stream this forenoon, the river gently rising as usual in the forenoon (in consequence of raising the gates of the various mill-ponds on and near to it, which had been shut in the night), I meet with many a clam which comes floating down in mid- stream, nicely poised on the water with its pearly con- cave side uppermost. ‘These have been opened and left by the musquash during the night on the shore, or often on rocks in the stream, and now the water rising gently sets them afloat, as with care you can float an iron pot. But soon a stronger wind or eddy will cause the water to break over them and they will at once sink to the bottom. Last night it lay half buried in mud and sand at the bottom. The musquash has devoured its tenant, and now it floats seaward, a pearly skiff set afloat by the industrious millers. I met with as many as a dozen of them coming down the stream this forenoon, \Z the valves at an angle of 45° [sic], sometimes a single valve, but the least touch of my oars would sink them. The musquash are eating clams quite fast there. Those lately opened are generally quite small. Is it be- cause of the season or the stream? When I raked the river the other day, all the clams I caught had closed their shells on the teeth of the rake which entered them, just as they catch sea clams with a pointed stick.

P.M.— To Barrett’s Bar. The zizania now makes quite a show along the river, overtopping the withered heads of the early canary grass. When I reached the upper end of this weedy bar, at about 3 p.M., this warm day, I noticed some light- colored object in mid-river, near the other end of the bar. At first I thought of some large stake or board standing amid the weeds there, then of a fisherman in a brown holland sack, referring him to the shore be- yond. Supposing it the last, I floated nearer and nearer till I saw plainly enough the motions of the person, whoever it was, and that it was no stake. Looking through my glass thirty or forty rods off, I thought cer- tainly that I saw C., who had just bathed, making sig- nals to me with his towel, for I referred the object to the shore twenty rods further. I saw his motions as he wiped himself, — the movements of his elbows and his towel. Then I saw that the person was nearer and therefore smaller, that it stood on the sand-bar in mid- stream in shallow water and must be some maiden [in] a bathing-dress, — for it was the color of brown holland web, — and a very peculiar kind of dress it seemed. But about this time I discovered with my naked eye that it Feito’ was a blue heron standing in very shallow water amid the weeds of the bar and pluming itself. I had not noticed its legs at all, and its head, neck, and wings, being constantly moving, I had mistaken for arms, elbows, and towel of a bather, and when it stood stiller its shapely body looked like a peculiar bathing-dress. I floated to within twenty-five rods and watched it at my leisure. Standing on the shallowest part of the bar at that end, it was busily dressing its feathers, passing its bill like a comb down its feathers from base to tip. From its form and color, as well as size, it was singularly distinct. Its great spear-shaped head and bill was very conspicuous, though least so when turned toward me (whom it was eying from time to time). It coils its neck away upon its back or breast as a sailor might a rope, but occasionally stretches itself to its full height, as tall as a man, and looks around and at me. Growing shy, it begins to wade off, until its body is partly immersed amid the weeds, — potamogetons, — and then it looks more like a goose. The neck is continually varying in length, as it is doubled up or stretched out, and the legs also, as it wades in deeper or shallower water.