2 July 1860 – 8 July 1860

A. M. — To lilies above Nut Meadow. The phalaris heads are now closed up, and it looks like another kind of grass, — those heads which stood so whitish some eighteen inches above their broad green leaves. The bayonet rush is not quite out. The lilies are not yet in prime. A large one measures six and a half inches over by two and a half high. Nowadays hear from my window the constant tittering of young golden robins, and by the river fields the alarm note of the peetweets, concerned about their young. Does not the summer régime of the river begin say about July Ist, when the black willow is handsome and the beds of front-rank polygonum are formed above ~ water ? Yesterday I detected the smallest grass that I know, apparently Festuca tenella (?), apparently out of bloom, in the dry path southwest of the yew, — only two to four inches high, like a moss.

2Pe.m.— To Holbrook’s meadow and Turn- pike to try springs. Looked for the marsh hawk’s nest (of June 16th, q. v.) in the Great Meadows. It was in the very midst of the sweet-gale (which is three feet high), occupying an opening only a foot or two across. We had much difficulty in finding it again, but at last nearly stumbled on to a young hawk. There was one as big as my fist, resting on the bare, flat nest in the sun, with a great head, staring eyes, and open gaping or panting mouth, yet mere down, grayish-white down, as yet; but I detected another which had crawled a foot one side amid the bushes for shade or safety, more than half as large again, with small feathers and a yet more angry, hawk-like look. How naturally anger sits on the young hawk’s head! It was 3.30 Pp. Mm., and the old birds were gone and saw us not. Meanwhile their callow young lie panting under the sweet-gale and rose bushes in the swamp, waiting for their parents to fetch them food. June is an up-country month, when our air and landscape is most like that of a more mountainous region, full of freshness, with the scent of ferns by the wayside. The scheuchzeria is full of green fruit fully grown at Gowing’s. It forms the upright grass-like plant next the more open pool, rising amid the floating sphagnum, with the spatulate sundew interspersed with it, and a very little of the leaden-sheathed eriophorum and a sprig or two of cassandra. The Glyceria aquatica has been out some time and is now apparently done at Holbrook’s meadow. The Agrostis scabra, the fine, long, slender branched fly-away grass, almost out, in what was Moore’s Swamp by Bedford road. Also, in the ditch on the south side the road there, partly procumbent at base, a rather delicate and pale rough-flowered grass with (in this case) the paleze so projecting at tip as to give it a dentate appearance. I called it last year the Poa dentata of ‘Torrey. Now in its prime here, and larger specimens in the ditch by the Corner road, south side, southwest of stump fence, say ten days. The paleze have a white or scarious tip and just below it a dark transverse line.

Gentle rain in the night (last). The white pine shoot which on the 19th of June had grown sixteen and a quarter inches and on the 27th twenty and three quarters is now twenty-three and an eighth inches long. 2 p.M.— Look at springs toward Dugan’s and White Pond. Standing on J. P. Brown’s land, south side, I ob- served his rich and luxuriant uncut grass-lands north- « ward, now waving under the easterly wind. It is a beautiful Camilla, sweeping like waves of light and shade over the whole breadth of his land, like a low steam curling over it, imparting wonderful life to the landscape, like the light and shade of a changeable garment, waves of light and shade pursuing each other over the whole breadth of the landscape like waves hastening to break on a shore. It is an interesting feature, very easily overlooked, and suggests that we are wading and navigating at present in a sort of sea of grass, which yields and undulates under the wind like water; and so, perchance, the forest is seen to do from a favorable position. None of his fields is cut yet. Early, there was that flashing light of waving pine in the horizon; now, the Camilla on grass and grain. Juncus bufonius, probably several days in some places. The sedgy hollows, table-lands, and frosty places in the woods now most beautiful, the sedge most fresh and yellowish-green, a soft, dry bed to recline on. For ex- ample, that place south of Ledum Swamp, the sedge, especially in the old path, falling every way like cow- licks on an unkempt head. When we enter it from the west, with the sun shining between thundery clouds, it is all lit with a blaze of yellow light, like a pasture on Mt. Washington, nearer the sun than usual. How beautiful the dark-green oak leaves now! How dark the chincapin oak leaves! Now the pines are almost indistinguishable by color amid the deciduous trees. The large johnswort now begins to be noticed gen- erally, — a July yellow. Scared up a young bobolink, which flies a couple of rods only. A few toads still ring at evening, and I still notice, on the rocks at White Pond, the pine pollen yellowing them, though it fell some time ago. 7 P. M., river is one and three eighths above summer level.

Rain last night and all to-day. I notice of late the Osmunda regalis fully grown, fresh and handsome.

Rained last night, as well as all yesterday and some of the night before. ‘Three quarters of an inch has fallen. 6 A. M., river two and seven sixteenths above summer level. 7 p.m., three and five eighths above summer level. Thus three quarters of an inch has raised it only two and a quarter inches.

7 A.M. River two and a half above summer level. East wind and hazy. I see a flock of some twenty-five crows. Probably the young are just grown. Agrostis scabra. Cyperus filiculmis, a day. Rhynco- spora fusca, apparently beginning (see stigmas). Glyceria elongata at little snapping turtle or Hemlock ditch, apparently done, say ten days; panicle not narrow now, more than G. fluitans. ; Have begun to gather currants three or four days. Notice few ripe blueberries. June 30th, July 3d, 4th, 6th, and 7th, I carried round a thermometer in the afternoon and ascertained the temperature of the springs, brooks, etc.

Yesterday was quite hazy, with an east wind. This morning there is a cold mist, which soon becomes rain, — at 2.30 p.m. The thermometer is at 66°, and some sit by fires.