8 March 1852 – 14 March 1852

A warm spring rain in the night. 3 p. M. — Down the railroad.

I was reminded, this morning before I rose, of those undescribed ambrosial mornings of sum- mer which I can remember, when a thousand birds were heard gently twittering and ushering in the light, like the argument to a new canto of an epic and heroic poem. ‘The serenity, the infinite promise, of such a morning! The song or twitter of birds drips from the leaves like dew. 'Then there was something divine and immortal in our life. When I have waked up on my couch in the woods and seen the day dawning, and heard the twittering of the birds. P. M. — Through Deep Cut to Cliffs. The mingled sand and water flowing down the bank, the water inclines ever to separate from the sand, and while the latter is detained by its weight and by friction beneath and on the sides, the water flows in a semi- cylindrical channel which it makes for itself, still carry- ing much sand with it. When the flowing drop of sand and water in front meets with new resistance, or the impetus of the water is diminished, perhaps by being absorbed, the drop of sand suddenly swells out laterally and dries, while the water, accumulating, pushes out a new sandy drop on one side and forms a new leafy lobe, and by other streams one is piled upon another. I have not observed any cylindrical canals this year. Did I ever? In some places when the sand has gone as far as it can flow, or the water prevails, the latter makes a true rivulet, which wears a channel through the sand it has washed down. I see flocks of a dozen bluebirds together. The warble of this bird is innocent and celestial, like its color. Saw a sparrow, perhaps a song sparrow, flitting amid the young oaks where the ground was covered with snow. I think that this is an indication that the ground is quite bare a little further south. . Probably the spring birds never fly far over a snow-clad country. A wood- chopper tells me he heard a robin this morning. I see the reticulated leaves of the rattlesnake-plantain in the woods, quite fresh and green. What is the little chick- weed-like plant already springing up on the top of the Cliffs? There are some other plants with bright-green leaves which have either started somewhat or have never suffered from the cold under the snow. Summer clenches hands with summer under the snow. I am pretty sure that I heard the chuckle of a ground squirrel among the warm and bare rocks of the Cliffs. The earth 1s perhaps two thirds bare to-day. The mosses are now very handsome, like young grass pushing up. Heard the phcebe note of the chickadee to-day for the first time. I had at first heard their day-day-day ungrate- fully, — ah! you but carry my thoughts back to winter, — but anon I found that they too had become spring birds; they had changed their note. Even they feel the influence of spring. I see cup lichens (cladonias) with their cups beset inside and out with little leafets like shellwork. The Populus grandidentata on the Cliffs, in a warm position, shows no cotton yet like that on Harrington’s road.

2p. m.—To White Pond to sound it. That dull-gray-barked willow shows the silvery down of its forthcoming catkins. I believe that I saw blackbirds yesterday. The ice in the pond is soft on the surface, but it is still more than a foot thick. Is that slender green weed which I draw up on my sound- ing-stone where it is forty feet deep and upward Nitella gracilis (allied to Chara), described in Loudon? The woods I walked in in my youth are cut off. Is it not time that I ceased to sing? My groves are invaded. Water that has been so long detained on the hills and uplands by frost is now rapidly finding its level in the ocean. All lakes without outlet are oceans, larger or smaller.

According to Linnzus, very many plants become perennial and arborescent in warm regions which with us are annual, as Trope@olum, Beta, Majo- rana,’ Malva arborea, etc., for duration often depends more on the locality than on the plant. So is it with men. Under more favorable conditions the human plant that is short-lived and dwarfed becomes perennial and ar- borescent. Linneeus thus classifies solum as it respects plants (I omit the explanation, etc.) :?— . Mare. . Littora maris. Fontes. . Fluvi. . Ripae Fluviorum et Lacuum. . Lacus aqua pura replett, fundo consistenti gaudent. (Walden ‘ and others ?) . Stagna et Fossae fundo limoso et aqua quieta sunt repleta. 8. Paludes humo lutosa laxa et aqua referta, aestate siccescunt. (Very wet meadows ?) 9. Cesqrtosae Paludes, refertae humo mixta Sphagno, tectae tubert- bus (hummocks?), cinctae aqua limosa, profunda. (Peat meadows ?) 10. Inundata loca hyeme repleta aqua, aestate putrida exsiccata, embribus interdum suffusa. (Round Pond on Marlborough road and Goose Pond ?) > Or Hm 09 ~ ~J 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. Re. 23. 24. 25. Uliginosa mihi sunt loca spongiosa, aqua putrida laborantia, colonis invisa, nec segetis, nec foeni proventut apta, inno- tescentia propris plantis. (Swamps?) Alpes. Rupes. (Cliffs, etc. ?) Montes et Colles sabulosi, aridi, steriles, aquam vix admittunt. Campi aprici ventis expositi, sicct, aspert sunt. (Most of our pastures? Parts of Cape Cod ?) Sylvae umbrosae terra sabulosa sierili refertae. (Most of our woods ?) Nemora ad radices Montium, inter Lucos, humo spongiosa tecta, umbrosa semper, exhalantia continuo aerem humi- diusculum, ventis minime expositum, Plantas Vernales, frigoris et caloris impatientes, alunt. (Our primitive woods ?) Prata Herbis luxuriantia, campis depressis, convallibusque constant. (Low rich grass grounds ?) Pascua differunt a pratis, quod steriliora, sicciora et magzs sabulosa. (A low pasture ?) Arva. (Fields at rest.) Agri terra subacta laeta gaudent. (Cultivated fields ?) Versurae s. Margines agrorum, tanquam prata (!!) stercorata considerantur. ; Culta. (Rich soil in gardens?) Fimeta. (Dung-heaps ?) Ruderata. He gives examples of the plants which grow in each locality. I have learned in a shorter time and more accurately the meaning of the scientific terms used in botany from a few plates of figures at the end of the “ Philosophia Botanica,” with the names annexed, than a volume of explanations or glossaries could teach. And, that the alternate pages to the plates may not be left blank, he has given on them very concise and important in- struction to students of botany. This lawgiver of science, this systematizer, this methodist, carries his system into his studies in the field. On one of these little pages he gives some instruction concerning herbatio, or what the French called herborisations, —we say botanizing. Into this he introduces law and order and system, and describes with the greatest economy of words what some would have required a small volume to tell, all on a small page; tells what dress you shall wear, what in- struments you shall carry, what season and hour you shall observe, —viz. “from the leafing of the trees, Sirius excepted, to the fall of the leaf, twice a week in summer, once in spring, from seven in the morning till seven at night,” — when you shall dine and take your rest, etc., in a crowd or dispersed, etc., how far you shall go, — two miles and a half at most, — what you shall collect and what kind of observations make, etc., ete. Railroad to Walden, 3 Pp. M. I see the Populus (apparently tremuloides, not grandi- dentata) at the end of the railroad causeway, showing the down of its ament. Bigelow makes it flower in April, the grandidentata in May. I see the sand flowing in the Cut and hear the harp at the same time. Who shall say that the primitive forces are not still at work? Nature has not lost her | pristine vigor, neither has he who sees this. To see the first dust fly is a pleasant sight. I saw it on the east side of the Deep Cut. These heaps of sand foliage remind me of the lacini- ated, lobed, and imbricated thalluses of some lichens, — somewhat linear-laciniate. It cannot make much odds what the sand is, for I have seen it in the soil of our garden. They come out from the interior of the earth like bowels —a rupture in the spring — and bury the snow. ‘The crust of the snow is completely concealed with the sand for an eighth of a mile. They also re- mind me sometimes of masses of rockweed on the rocks. At any moment the creative stream will be seen flowing in a restricted channel or artery, but it is forming new lobes, and at last, in the ditch, it forms sands, as at the mouths of rivers, in which the outlines of the different lobes are almost lost, are dissipated .into mere shaded outlines on the flat floor.* Bent has left the chestnuts about Walden till the sap is well up, that the bark may peel. He has cut the other trees. I saw the ants crawling about torpidly on the stump of an oak which had been sawed this winter. The choppers think they have seen them a fortnight. The whistling of the wind, which makes one melan- choly, inspires another. The little grain of wheat, triticum, is the noblest food of man. The lesser grains of other grasses are the food of passerine birds at present. Their diet is hke man’s. The gods can never afford to leave a man in the world who is privy to any of their secrets. They cannot have a spy here. They will at once send him packing. How can you walk on ground when you see through it ? The telegraph harp has spoken to me more dis- tinctly and effectually than any man ever did.

Sunday. Rain, rain, rain; but even this is fair weather after so much snow. The ice on Walden has now for some days looked white like snow, the sur- face being softened by the sun. I see a flock of black- birds and hear their conqueree. ‘The ground is mostly bare now. Again I hear the chickadee’s spring note. I remember that one spring, when I travelled in Maine, the woods were ringing with it, as I rode in the stage, phe-be.* , Charlevoix baptized a dying infant on the bank of the Illinois River, 1721. He writes, “I confess to you, Madame, that though my travels should be altogether useless else, I should not regret the fatigues and dangers of it, since, according to all appearances, if I had not come to Pimiteouy, this infant would never have entered heaven, where I do not doubt it will be presently.” ? Celebrated historian.