16 January 1860 – 22 January 1860

P. M. — Down Boston road around Quail Hill. Very warm, — 45° at 2 p. M. There is a tender crust on the snow, and the sun is brightly reflected from it. Looking toward Billerica from the cross-road near White’s, the young oaks on the top of a hill in the horizon are very red, perhaps seven or eight miles off and directly opposite to the sun, far more red, no doubt, than they would appear near at hand, really bright red; but nowhere else that I perceive. ' It is an aerial effect, depending on their distance and elevation and being opposite to the sun, and also contrasted with the snowy ground. Looking from Smith’s Hill on the Turnpike, the hills eight or ten miles west are white, but the moun- tains thirty miles off are blue, though both may be equally white at the same distance. I see a flock of tree sparrows busily picking some- thing from the surface of the snow amid some bushes. I watch one attentively, and find that it is feeding on the very fine brown chaffy-looking seed of the panicled andromeda. It understands how to get its dinner, to make the plant give down, perfectly. It flies up and alights on one of the dense brown panicles of the hard berries, and gives it a vigorous shaking and beating with its claws and bill, sending down a shower of the fine chaffy-looking seed on to the snow beneath. It lies very distinct, though fine almost as dust, on the spotless snow. It then hops down and briskly picks up from the snow what it wants. How very clean and agreeable to the imagination, and withal abundant, is this kind of food! How delicately they fare! These dry persistent seed-vessels hold their crusts of bread until shaken. The snow is the white table-cloth on which they fall. No anchorite with his water and his crust fares more simply. It shakes down a hundred times as much as it wants at each shrub, .and shakes the same or another cluster after each’ successive snow. How bountifully Nature feeds them! No wonder they come to spend the winter with us, and are at ease with regard to their food. These shrubs ripen an abun- dant crop of seeds to supply the wants of these immi- grants from the far north which annually come to spend the winter with us. How neatly and simply it feeds! This shrub grows unobserved by most, only known to botanists, and at length matures its hard, dry seed- . vessels, which, if noticed, are hardly supposed to con- tain seed. But there is no shrub nor weed which is not known to some bird. Though you may have never noticed it, the tree sparrow comes from the north in the winter straight to this shrub, and confidently shakes its panicle, and then feasts on the fine shower of seeds that falls from it.

Another mild day. P. M. — To Goose Pond and Walden. | Sky overcast, but a crescent of clearer in the northwest. I see on the snow in Hubbard’s Close one of those rather large flattish black bugs some five \ / eighths of an inch long, with feelers and a wh "sort of shield at the forward part with an Z ~ orange mark on each side of it. In the \ spring-hole ditches of the Close I see many little water-bugs (Gyrinus) gyrating, and some under water. It must be a common phenomenon there in mild weather in the winter. IT look again at that place of squirrels (of the 13th). As I approach, I have a glimpse of one or two red squir- rels gliding off silently along the branches of the pines, etc. They are gone so quickly and noiselessly, perhaps keeping the trunk of the tree between you and them, that [you] would not commonly suspect their presence if you were not looking for them. But one that was on the snow ascended a pine and sat on a bough with its back to the trunk as if there was nothing to pay. Yet when FI moved again he scud up the tree, and glided across on some very slender twigs into a neigh- boring tree, and so I lost him. Here is, apparently, a settlement of these red squirrels. There are many holes through the snow into the ground, and many more where they have probed and dug up a white pine cone, now pretty black and, for aught I can see, with abortive or empty seeds; yet they patiently strip them on the spot, or at the base of the trees, or at the entrance of their holes, and evidently find some good seed. The snow, however, is strewn with the empty and rejected seeds. They seem to select for their own abode a hillside where there are half a dozen rather large and thick white pines near enough together for their aerial travelling, and then they burrow numerous holes and depend on finding (apparently) the pine cones which they cast down in the summer, before they have opened. In the fall they construct a nest of grass and bark-fibres, moss, etc., in one of the trees for winter use, and so apparently have two resources. I walk about Ripple Lake and Goose Pond. I see the old tracks of some foxes and rabbits about the edge of these ponds (over the ice) within a few feet of the shore. I think that I have noticed that animals thus commonly go round by the shore of a pond, whether for fear of the ice, or for the shelter of the shore, 7. e. not to be seen, or because their food and game is found there. But a dog will oftener bolt straight across. When I reached the open railroad causeway return- ing, there was a splendid sunset. The northwest sky at first was what you may call a lattice sky, the fair weather establishing itself first on that side in the form of a long and narrow crescent, in which the clouds, which were uninterrupted overhead, were broken into long bars parallel to the horizon, thus: — Alcott said well the other day that this was his defini- tion of heaven, “A place where you can have a little conversation.”

2 p. M. — To Fair Haven Pond, on river. Thermometer 46; sky mostly overcast. The temperature of the air and the clearness or seren- ity of the sky are indispensable to a knowledge of a day, so entirely do we sympathize with the moods of nature. It is important to know of a day that is past whether it was warm or cold, clear or cloudy, calm or windy, etc. They are very different seasons in the winter when the ice of the river and meadows and ponds is bare, — blue or green, a vast glittering crystal, and when it is all covered with snow or slosh; and our moods correspond. The former may be called a crystalline winter. Standing under Lee’s Cliff, several chickadees, ut- tering their faint notes, come flitting near to me as usual. They are busily prying under the bark of the pitch pines, occasionally knocking off a piece, while they cling with their claws on any side of the limb. Of course they are in search of animal food, but I see one suddenly dart down to a seedless pine seed wing on the snow, and then up again. C. says that he saw them busy about these wings on the snow the other [day], so I have no doubt that they eat this seed. There is a springy place in the meadow near the Conantum elm. The sky in the reflection at the open reach at Hub- bard’s Bath is more green than in reality, and also darker-blue, and the clouds are blacker and the purple more distinct.

P. M. — Down river. 2 p. Mm. — Thermometer 38. Somewhat cloudy at first. The open water at Barrett’s Bar is very small com- pared with that at Hubbard’s Bath yesterday, and I think it could not have frozen much last night. It is evident mere shallowness is not enough to pre- vent freezing, for that shallowest space of all, in middle of river at Barrett’s Bar, has been frozen ever since the winter began. It is the swifter though deeper, but not deep, channels on each side that remain open.

2 Pp. M.— 39°. Up Assabet. The snow and ice under the hemlocks is strewn with cones and seeds and tracked with birds and squirrels. What a bountiful supply of winter food is here pro- vided for them! No sooner has fresh snow fallen and covered up the old crop than down comes a new supply all the more distinct on the spotless snow. Here comes a little flock of chickadees, attracted by me as usual, and perching close by boldly; then, descending to the snow and ice, I see them pick up the hemlock seed which lies all around them. Occasionally they take one to a twig and hammer at it there under their claws, perhaps to separate it from the wing, or even the shell. The snowy ice and the snow on shore have been black- ened with these fallen cones several times over this winter. The snow along the sides of the river is also all dusted over with birch and alder seed, and I see where little birds have picked up the alder seed. At R. W. E.’s red oak I see a gray squirrel, which has been looking after acorns there, run across the river. The half-inch snow of yesterday morning shows its tracks plainly. They are much larger and more like a rabbit’s than I expected. ae aD — = => 9 & => ~ The squirrel runs in an undulating manner, though it is a succession of low leaps of from two and a half to three feet. Each four tracks occupy a space some six or seven inches long. Each foot-track is very distinct, showing the toes and protuberances of the foot, and is from an inch and a half to an inch and three quarters long. The clear interval between the hind and fore feet is four to five inches. The fore feet are from one and a half to three inches apart in the clear; the hind, one to two inches apart. I see that what is probably the track of the same squirrel near by is sometimes in the horseshoe form, 7. e., when its feet are all brought close together: the open side still forward. I must have often 4 4 mistaken this fora rabbit. But is not the bottom of the rabbit’s foot so hairy that I should never see these distinct marks or protuberances ? This squirrel ran up a maple till he got to where the stem was but little bigger than his body, and then, getting behind the gray-barked stem, which was almost exactly the color of its body, it clasped it with its fore feet and there hung motionless with the end of its tail blowing in the wind. As I moved, it steadily edged round so as to keep the maples always between me and it, and I only saw its tail, the sides of its body project- ing, and its little paws clasping the tree. It remained otherwise perfectly still as long as I was thereabouts, or five or ten minutes. There was a leafy nest in the tree.

P. M.— Up river to Fair Haven Pond; return via Andromeda Ponds and railroad. Overcast, but some clear sky in southwest horizon; mild weather still. Where the sedge grows rankly and is uncut, as along the edge of the river and meadows, what fine coverts are made for mice, etc., at this season! It is arched over, and the snow rests chiefly on its ends, while the middle part is elevated from six inches to a foot and forms a thick thatch, as it were, even when all is covered with snow, under which the mice and so forth can run freely, out of the way of the wind and of foxes. After a pretty deep snow has just partially melted, you are surprised to find, as you walk through such a meadow, how high and lightly the sedge lies up, as if there had been no pressure upon it. It grows, perhaps, in dense tufts or tussocks, and when it falls over, it forms a thickly thatched roof. Nature provides shelter for her creatures in various ways. If the musquash, etc., has no longer extensive fields of weed and grass to crawl in, what an extensive range it has under the ice of the meadows and river- sides! for, the water settling directly after freezing, an icy roof of indefinite extent is thus provided for it, and it passes almost its whole winter under shelter, out of the wind and invisible to men. The ice is so much rotted that I observe in many places those lunar-shaped holes, and dark places in the ice, convex up-stream, some- | times double-lunar. : 7 . I perceive that the open places in the river do not preserve the same relative importance that they had December 29th. Then the largest four or five stood in this order: (1) below boat’s place, (2) below junction, (3) Barrett’s Bar, (4) Clamshell or else Hubbard’s Bath. Now it is (1) below junction, (2) Hubbard’s Bath orelse Clamshell. I do not know but Clamshell is as large as Hubbard’s Bath. Which of the others is largest I am not quite sure. In other words, below junction and Hubbard’s Bath (Gf not also Clamshell, not seen) retain about their former size, while below boat’s place and Barrett’s Bar have been diminished, especially be- low boat’s place. Birds are commonly very rare in the winter. They are much more common at some times than at others. I see more tree sparrows in the beginning of the winter (especially when snow is falling) than in the course of it. I think that by observation I could tell in what kind of weather afterward these were most to be seen. Crows come about houses and streets in very cold weather and deep snows, and they are heard cawing in pleasant, thawing winter weather, and their note is then a pulse by which you feel the quality of the air, 2. e., when cocks crow. For the most part, lesser redpolls and pine grosbeaks do not appear at all. Snow buntings are very wandering. ‘They were quite numerous a month ago, and now seem to have quit the town. They seem to ramble about the country at will. C. says that he followed the track of a fox all yes- terday afternoon, though with some difficulty, and then lost it at twilight. I suggested that he should begin next day where he had left off, and that following it up thus for many days he might catch him at last. “By the way,’ I asked, “did you go the same way the fox did, or did you take the back track?” “Oh,” said he, “I took the back track. It would be of ne use to go the other way, you know.” Minott says that a hound which pursues a fox by ™. scent cannot tell which way he is going; that the fox is very cunning and will often return on its track over which the dog had already run. It will ascend a high rock and then leap off very far to one side; so throw the dogs off the scent for a while and gain a breathing- spell. I see, in one of those pieces of drifted meadow (of last spring) in A. Wheeler’s cranberry meadow, a black willow thus transplanted more than ten feet high and five inches in diameter. It is quite alive. The snow-fleas are thickest along the edge of the wood here, but I find that they extend quite across the river, though there are comparatively few over the mid- die. There are generally fewer and fewer the further you are from:the shore. Nay, I find that they extend quite across Fair Haven Pond. There are two or three inches of snow on the ice, and thus they are revealed. There are a dozen or twenty to a square rod on the very middle of the pond. When I approach one, it commonly hops away, and if it gets a good spring it hops a foot or more, so that it is at first lost to me. Though they are scarcely the twentieth of an inch long they make these surprising bounds, or else conceal themselves by entering the snow. We have now had many days of this thawing weather, and I believe that these fleas have been gradually hopping further and further out from the shore. To-day, perchance, it is water, a day or two later ice, and no fleas are seen on it. Then snow comes and covers the ice, and if there is no thaw for a month, you see no fleas for so long. But, at least soon after a thaw, they are to be seen on the centre of ponds at least half a mile across. Though this is my opinion, it is by no means certain that they come here thus, for I am prepared to believe that the water in the middle may have had as many floating on it, and that these were afterward on the surface of the ice, though unseen, and hence under the snow when it fell, and ready to come up through it when the thaw came. But what do they find to eat in apparently pure snow so far from any land? Has their food come down from the sky with the snow? They must themselves be food for many creatures. This must be as peculiarly a winter animal as any. It may truly be said to live in snow. I see some insects a of about this form on the snow: J J I scare a partridge that was eat- ing the buds and ends of twigs of the Vaccinium vacillans on a hillside. At the west or nesza end of the largest Andromeda Pond, I see that there has been much red ice, more than I ever saw, but now spoiled by the thaw and snow. The leaves of the water andromeda are evidently more appressed to the twigs, and showing the gray under sides, than in summer. )