23 April 1860 – 29 April 1860

The river is only half an inch above summer level. The meadow-sweet and hardhack have begun to leaf.

A cold day, so that the people you meet remark upon it, yet the thermometer is 47 at 2 p. M. . We should not have remarked upon it in March. It is cold for April, being windy withal. I fix a stake on the west side the willows at my boat’s place, the top of which is at summer level and is about ten and a half inches below the stone wharf there. The river is one and one fourth inches above summer level to-day. That rock northwest of the boat’s place is about fifteen inches (the top of it) below summer level. Heron Rock top (just above the junction of the rivers) is thirteen inches above summer level. I judge by my eye that the rock on the north side, ; 4 te where the first bridge crossed the river, is about four inches lower than the last. Mr. Stewart tells me that he has found a gray squir- rel’s nest up the Assabet, in a maple tree. I resolve that I too will find it. I do not know within less than a quarter of a mile where to look, nor whether it is in a hollow tree, or in a nest of leaves. I examine the shore first and find where he landed. I then examine the maples in that neighborhood to see what one has been climbed. I soon find one the bark of which has been lately rubbed by the boots of a climber, and, looking up, see a nest. It was a large nest made of maple twigs, with a centre of leaves, lined with finer, about twenty feet from the ground, against the leading stem of a large red maple. I noticed no particular entrance. When I put in my hand from above and felt the young, they uttered a dull croak-like squeak, and one clung fast to my hand when I took it out through the leaves and twigs with which it was covered. It was yet blind, and could not have been many days old, yet it instinc- tively clung to my hand with its little claws, as if it knew that there was danger of its falling from a height to the ground which it never saw. The idea of clinging was strongly planted in it. There was quite a depth of loose sticks, maple twigs, piled on the top of the nest. No wonder that they become skillful climbers who are born high above the ground and begin their lives in a tree, having first of all to descend to reach the earth. They are cradled in a tree-top, in but.a loose basket, in helpless infancy, and there slumber when their mo- ther is away. No wonder that they are never made dizzy by high climbing, that were born in the top of a tree, and learn to cling fast to the tree before their eyes are open. On my way to the Great Meadows I see boys a-fish- ing, with perch and bream on their string, apparently having good luck, the river is so low. The river appears the lower, because now, before the weeds and grass have grown, we can see by the bare shore of mud or sand and the rocks how low it is. At midsummer we might imagine water at the base of the grass where there was none. I hear the greatest concerts of blackbirds, — red- wings and crow blackbirds nowadays, especially of the former (also the 22d and 29th). The maples and willows along the river, and the button-bushes, are all alive with them. They look like a black fruit on the trees, distributed over the top at pretty equal distances. It is worth while to see how slyly they hide at the base of the thick and shaggy button-bushes at this stage of the water. They will suddenly cease their strains and flit away and secrete themselves low amid these bushes till you are past; or you scare up an unexpectedly large flock from such a place, where you had seen none. ~ I pass a large quire in full blast on the oaks, etc., on the island in the meadow northwest of Peter’s. Sud- denly they are hushed, and I hear the loud rippling rush made by their wings as they dash away, and, looking up, I see what I take to be a sharp-shinned hawk just alight- ing on the trees where they were, having failed to catch one. They retreat some forty rods off, to another tree, and renew their concert there. The hawk plumes him- self, and then flies off, rising gradually and beginning to circle, and soon it joins its mate, and soars with it high in the sky and out of sight, as if the thought of so terres- trial a thing as a blackbird had never entered its head. It appeared to have a plain reddish-fawn breast. The size more than anything made me think it a sharp-shin. When looking into holes in trees to find the squirrel’s nest, I found a pout partly dried, with its tail gone, in one maple, about a foot above the ground. This was prob- ably left there by a mink. Minott says that, being at work in his garden once, he saw a mink coming up from the brook with a pout in her mouth, half-way across his land. The mink, observing him, dropped her pout and stretched up her head, looking warily around, then, taking up the pout again, went onward and went under a rock in the wall by the roadside. He looked there and found the young in their nest, — so young that they were all “red”’ yet.

Hear the ruby-crowned wren in the morn- ing, near George Heywood’s. We have had no snow for a long long while, and have about forgotten it. Dr. Bartlett, therefore, surprises us by telling us that a man came from Lincoln after him last night on the wheels of whose carriage was an inch of | snow, for it snowed there a little, but not here. This is connected with the cold weather of yesterday; the chill- ‘Ing wind came from a snow-clad country. As the saying is, the cold was in the air and had got to come down.

River five eighths of an inch below sum- mer level. P. M. — Row to Conantum. At the stone bridge the lower side outer end of the stone is about a quarter of an inch above summer level. I saw yesterday, and see to-day, a small hawk which I take to be a pigeon hawk. This one skims low along over Grindstone Meadow, close to the edge of the water, and I see the blackbirds rise hurriedly from the button- bushes and willows before him. I am decided by his size (as well as color) and his low, level skimming.! The river meadows are now so dry that E. Wood is burning the Mantatuket one. Fishes are rising to the shad-flies, probably because the river is so low. Luzula a day or two at Clamshell. Strawberry well - out; how long? Viola ovata common. One dandelion white, as if going to seed! Thalictrum anemonoides are abundant, maybe two or three days, at Blackberry | Steep. I see where a robin has been destroyed, probably by a hawk. I think that I see these traces chiefly in the spring and fall. Why so? Columbine, but perhaps ear- lier, for I hear that it has been plucked here. I see, close under the rocks at Lee’s, some new poly- pody flatted out. I stand under Lee’s Cliff. There is a certain summeri- ness in the air now, especially under a warm cliff like this, where you smell the very dry leaves, and hear the pine warbler and the hum of a few insects, — small gnats, etc., — and see considerable growth and green- ness. Though it is still windy, there is, nevertheless, a certain serenity and long-lifeness in the air, as if it were a habitable place and not merely to be hurried through. The noon of the year is approaching. Na- ture seems meditating a siesta. The hurry of the duck migration is, methinks, over. But the woods generally, and at a distance, show no growth yet. There is a large fire in the woods northwest of Concord, just before night. A column of smoke is blown away from it far southeast, and as the twilight ap- proaches, it becomes more and more dun. At first some doubted if it was this side the North River or not, but I saw that Annursnack was this side of it, but I expected our bells would ring presently. One who had Just come down in the cars thought it must be in Groton, for he had left a fire there. And the passengers in the evening train from Boston said that they began to see the smoke of it as soon as they left the city! So hard is 1t to tell how far off a great fire is.’

P. M. — To Ed. Hoar’s, Lincoln. Warm. 65°. ee - f~ The common Salix rostrata on east side railroad, yesterday at least. S. Torreyana a day or two longer. These willows are full of bees and resound with their hum. I see honey-bees laden with large pellets of the peculiar yellow pollen of the S. rostrata. Methinks I could tell when that was in bloom by catching the bees on their return to the hive. Here are also much smaller bees and flies, etc., etc., all attracted by these flowers. As you stand by such a willow in bloom and resound- - ing with the hum of bees in a warm afternoon like this, you seem nearer to summer than elsewhere. Again I am advertised of the approach of a new season, as yesterday. The air is not only warmer and stiller, but has more of meaning or smothered voice to it, now that the hum of insects begins to be heard. You seem to have a great companion with you, are reassured by the scarcely audible hum, as if it were the noise of your own thinking. It is a voiceful and sig- nificant stillness, such as precedes a thunder-storm or a hurricane. ‘The boisterous spring winds cease to blow, the waves to dash, the migrating ducks to vex the air so much. You are sensible of a certain repose in nature. Sitting on Mt. Misery, I see a very large bird of the hawk family, blackish with a partly white head but no white tail,— probably a fish hawk; sailed quite near, looking very large. Large ants at work; how long? Apri 29. River two and seven eighths inches below summer level at 6 a. m. Three plus inches below at night.