Henry David Thoreau’s diary, 1853

9 a. M. — Down railroad to Cliffs. A clear day; a pure sky with cirrhi. In this clear air and bright sunlight, the ice-covered trees have a new beauty, especially…

Down railroad to Lincoln Bridge. The evergreens appear to relieve themselves soonest of the ice, perhaps because of the reflection from their leaves. Those trees,…

To what I will call Yellow Birch Swamp, E. Hubbard’s, in north part of town. \ Still ice is left on the trees, but to-day is a windy and blustering day. The…

To Kibbe Place Swamp. I see where probably a red squirrel had scratched along over the snow, and in one place a very perfect and delicate print of his feet. His…

Walden apparently froze over last night. It is but little more than an inch thick, and"two or three square rods by Hubbard’s shore are still open. ‘A dark,…

To Nawshawtuct. This is one of those pleasant winter mornings when you find the river firmly frozen in the night, but still the air is serene and the sun feels…

I see what are probably the anther cells dis- tinctly in the large buds of the poplar, which for a long time have shown their wool one sixth of an inch long. Also…

3 p.m.— To Walden and Cliffs. The telegraph harp again. Always the same unre- memberable revelation it is to me. It is something as enduring as the worm that never…

Went a-chestnutting this afternoon to Smith’s wood-lot near the Turnpike. Carried four ladies. I raked. We got six and a half quarts,’ the ground being bare and the…

A drifting snow-storm last night and to- day, the first of consequence; and the first sleighing this winter.

P. M.—'To Walden. I see where snowbirds in troops have visited each withered chenopodium that rises above the snow in the yard — and some are large and bushlike —…

A fine, still, warm moonlight evening. We have had one or two already. Moon not yet full. To the woods by the Deep Cut at 9 o’clock. The blueness of the sky at…

Sunday. Rain, carrying off the snow and making slosh of the lower half of it. It is perhaps the wettest walking we ever have.

P. M.— To Flint’s Pond, down railroad. There is something springlike in this afternoon. In winter, after middle, we are interested in what is spring- like. The…

Up river on ice 9 A. M., above Pantry. A sharp, cutting air. This is a pretty good winter morning, however. Not one of the rarer. There are from time to time…

Trench says a wild man is a willed man. Well, then, a man of will who does what he wills or wishes, a man of hope and of the future tense, for not only the…

Saw three ducks sailing in the river behind Prichard’s this afternoon, black with white on wings, though these two or three have been the coldest days of the…

To Walden. Melvin calls the ducks which I saw yesterday shel- drakes; being small, then wood sheldrakes.’ He never shot any at this season. Saw a woodcock last…

The most common and conspicuous green leaf on the ground when the snow is off at this season, as at present, is that of the buttercup. Sorrel is also very common,…

Surveying the Hunt farm. Saw a duck in the river; different kind from the last. Dr. Bartlett tells me that it was Adam Win- throp, a grandson of the Governor, who…

The Stellaria media is full of frost-bitten blossoms, containing stamens, etc., still and half-grown buds. Apparently it never rests.

Saw three ducks in the river. They resort to those parts necessarily which are open, which are near the houses. I always see them in the fall as long as the river…

To Walden, Pp. Mm. A thick fog. The trees and woods look well through it. You are inclined to walk in the woods for objects. They are draped with mist, and you hear…

Observed some buds on a young apple tree, partially unfolded at the extremity and apparently swollen. Probably blossom-buds.

'The warm rains have melted off the surface snow or white ice on Walden, down to the dark ice, the color of the water, only three or four inches thick; but I…

At Cambridge to-day. Dr. Harris thinks the Indians had no real hemp but their apocynum, and, he thinks, a kind of nettle, and an asclepias, etc. He doubts if the…

Friday. While surveying for J. Moore to- day, saw a large wood tortoise stirring in the Mill Brook, and several bodies of frogs ! without their hind legs. But…

In the midst of the snow-storm on Sunday (to-day), I was called to window to see a dense flock of snowbirds on and under the pigweed in the garden.’ It was so in…

Frank Brown has killed, within a day or two, a tree sparrow (Emberiza Canadensis, Canada bunting, or tree sparrow, of Audubon’s Synopsis). I think this must be my…

F. Brown showed me to-day some lesser redpolls which he shot yesterday. They turn out to be my falsely-called chestnut-frontleted bird of the win- ter. “Znnaria…

Sunday. Last Sunday I plucked some alder (apparently speckled) twigs, some (apparently tremuloides) aspen, and some swamp (?) willow, and put them in water in a…

The lichen on the earth and stones amid mosses which I have thought a collema, is, I now think, a peltigera, perhaps P. canina (mad-dog peltigera of Hooker?). The…

10 a. m.— Rode to Saxonville with F. Brown to look at a small place for sale, via Wayland. Return by Sudbury. On wheels in snow. A spring sheen on the snow. The…

Wednesday. Rain, dissolving the snow and raising the river. I do not perceive that the early elm or the white maple buds have swollen yet. So the re- laxed and…

This is the first really spring day. The sun is brightly reflected from all surfaces, and the north side of the street begins to be a little more passable to foot-…

Last night it snowed, a sleety snow again, and now the ground is whitened with it, and where are gone the bluebirds whose warble was wafted to me so lately like a…

6 a. mM. — To Cliffs. There begins to be a greater depth of saffron in the morning sky. The morning and evening horizon fires are warmer to the eye. I go to the…

P. M. — Repairing my boat. High winds, growing colder and colder, ground stiffening again. My ears have not been colder the past winter. Lowell Fay tells me that he…

‘There were few colder nights last winter than the last. The water in the flower-stand contain- ing my pet tortoise froze solid, — completely enveloping him, though…

Channing says he saw blackbirds yester- day; F. C. Brown, that they were getting ice out of Loring’s Pond yesterday.

The season is so far advanced that the sun, every now and then promising to shine out through this rather warm rain, lighting up transiently with a whiter light the…

'This morning I hear the blackbird’s fine clear whistle and also his sprayey note, as he is swayed back and forth on the twigs of the elm or of the black willow…

Sunday. 8 a. M.—Via Walden, Goose, Flint’s, and Beaver Ponds and the valley of Stony Brook to the south end of Lincoln. A rather cool and breezy morning, which was…

Morning along the river. The air full of song sparrows, — swedit swedit swedit and then a rapid jingle or trill, holding up its head with- § (This butterfly, the…

As soon as the damp gardens are bared of snow and a really warm spring day arrives, the chick- weed blossoms fairly. As soon as those spring mornings arrive in…

5 a. M.—TI hear the robin sing before I rise. 6 a. M. — Up the North River. A fresh, cool spring morning. The white maple may perhaps be said to begin to blossom…

6 a. M. — By river to Hemlocks. I see where the muskrats opened clams, probably last evening, close to the water’s edge, or in the fork of a willow, or on a tussock…

I forgot to say yesterday that several little groves of alders on which I had set my eye had been cut down the past winter. One in Trillium Woods was a favorite…

There is a large specimen of what I take to be the common alder by the poplar at Egg Rock, five inches in diameter. It may be considered as begin- ning to bloom…

Sunday. After a long spell of fair weather, the first April-like rain fell last night. But it is fair again this morning with a cool breeze, which will hardly per-…

My Aunt Maria asked me to read the life of Dr. Chalmers, which however I did not promise to do. Yesterday, Sunday, she was heard through the partition shouting to…

6 a.m. — To Leaning Hemlocks, by boat. The sun has just risen, but there is only a now clear saffron belt next the east horizon; all the rest of the sky is covered…

April weather, alternate rain and bright- ening up. I am not sure my willow will bloom fairly to-day. How warily the flowers open! not to be caught out too early,…

‘The robins sing at the very earliest dawn. I wake with their note ringing in my ear. 6 a. M. — To Island by boat.

Of the small and ambiguous sparrow fam- ily, methinks I have seen only the song sparrow, that one with white feathers in tail seen March 23d, the tree sparrow; and…

5.80 a. mM. — Down railroad. Ground white with frost and slippery. Thin ice formed over pools. The beaked hazel pistillate blos- soms (7. e. by Walden road). Do not…

Saturday. Nothing is more saddening than an ineffectual and proud intercourse with those of whom we expect sympathy and encouragement. I re- peatedly find myself…

Last night, a sugaring of snow, which goes off in an hour or two in the rain. Rains all day. The steam-cloud from the engine rises but slowly in such an atmosphere,…

The bluebird comes to us bright in his vernal dress as a bridegroom. (Cleared up at noon, making a day and a half of rain.) Has he not got new feathers then? Brooks…

6a. M.— To Cliffs. The robin is the singer at present, such is its power and universality, being found both in garden and wood. Morning and evening it does not…

6 a. M. — To Abel Hosmer’s ring-post. The ground sprinkled, salted, with little snowlike pellets one tenth of an inch in diameter, from half an inch to one inch…

P. M.—To Second Division. The chipping sparrow, with its ashy-white breast and white streak over eye and undivided chestnut crown, holds up its head and pours forth…

I hear the clear, loud whistle of a purple finch, somewhat like and nearly as loud as the robin, from the elm by Whiting’s. The maple which I think is a red one,…

Haverhill. — Pewee days and April showers. First hear toads (and take off coat), a loud, ringing sound filling the air, which yet few notice. First shad caught at…

Mouse-ear. Apri 16. Either barn or bank swallows overhead. Birds loosen and expand their feathers and look larger in the rain.

Sunday. The elder leaf is the most forward of any shrub or tree I have seen; more than one inch long. Visited two houses of refuge about one hundred and sixty years…

Haverhill. — Willow and bass strip freely. Surveying Charles White’s long piece. Hear again that same nighthawk-like sound over a meadow at evening.

Saw a toad and a small snake.

Haverhill. — A peach tree in bloom.

Haverhill. — Martins.

Sunday. To and around Creek Pond and back over Parsonage Hill, Haverhill. Field horse-tailin bloom. Marsh (?) hawk, with black tips of wings. Alders about all done.…

Haverhill. — The warbling vireo. Talked with a fisherman at the Burrough [szc], who was cracking and eating walnuts on a post before his hut. He said he got twenty…

Return to Concord. At Natural History Rooms in Boston. Have I seen the least bittern? It is so brown above and yellowish, woolly, white beneath. The American…

Concord. — Cultivated cherry in bloom. Moses Emerson, the kind and gentlemanly man who assisted and looked after me in Haverhill, said that a good horse was worth…

Sunday. A cold northwest wind. Now, on my return to Concord, I am struck by the increased greenness of the country, or landscape. I find that since I left Concord,…

Cattle are going up country. Hear the tull-lull of the chickadee (?).2. The currant in bloom. The Canada plum just ready, probably to-day.* 8 a. mM. — To Walden and…

P. M.— To Nut Meadow Brook and Cor- ner Spring. Choice plum in gardens. The Salix alba is con- spicuous and interesting in the landscape now, some bright yellow,…

P. M.— To Annursnack. A long row of elms just set out by Wheeler from his ? [This was Thoreau’s rendering of the veery’s call-note.] gate to the old Lee place. The…

Since I returned from Haverhill, not only I find the ducks are gone, but I no longer hear the chill- lill of the blue snowbird or the sweet strains of the…

5 a. m. — Up railroad. The veery note after having heard the yorrick for some days, in the primitive-looking pineswamp. Heard also that peculiarly wild…

5 a. m.—In the morning and evening, when waters are still and smooth, and dimpled by innate currents only, not disturbed by foreign winds and currents of the air,…

5.30 a. M. — To Nawshawtuct by river. The first considerable fog I have noticed, at first as high as the trees, curling gray over the water now be- neath me, as I…

Methinks I hear and see the tanager now. The middle of May is the time for many transient sylvias. P. M. — To Conantum. See a goldfinch glance by on the back road…

Saturday. 9 a.m.— To Wayland by boat. E. Wood has added a pair of ugly wings to his house, bare of trees and painted white, particularly conspicuous from the river.…

Sunday. P. M. — To Annursnack. Silvery cinquefoil now open. Its petals, perchance, show the green between them, but the beautiful under sides of the leaves more…

E. Hoar saw the henbit (Lamium amplexi- caule) a week ago from Mr. Pritchard’s garden. Celan- dine is out a day or more, and rhodora, trillium, and yellow violets…

5 a. m.— To Island by boat. Everything has sensibly advanced during the warm and moist night. Some trees, as the small maples in the street, already look verdurous.…

Thunder-showers in the night, and it still storms, with holdings-up. A May storm, gentle and rather warm. The days of the golden willow are over for this season;…

The 18th and 19th a rather gentle and warm May storm,— more rain, methinks, than we have had before this spring at one time. Began with thunder-showers on the night…

P. M. — Up Assabet to cress, with So- phia. Land on Island. One of the most beautiful things to me now is the reddish-ash, and, higher, the silvery, canopies of…

Sunday. 'To Nobscot with W. E. C. This is the third windy day following the two days’ rain. A washing day, such as we always have at this sea- son, methinks. The…

P. M.— To Ministerial Swamp. The poet must bring to Nature the smooth mirror in which she is to be reflected. He must be something superior to her, something more…

The smooth speedwell is In its prime now, whitening the sides of the back road, above the Swamp Bridge and front of Hubbard’s. Its sweet little pansy- like face…

Wednesday. Election day. — Rain yester- day afternoon and to-day. Heard the popping of guns last night and this morning, nevertheless. I quarrel with most…

P. M. — To Lee’s Cliff. No breaking away, but the clouds have ceased to drop rain awhile and the birds are very lively. The waters are dark, and our attention is…

5.30 a. M. — To Island. The Cornus florida now fairly out, and the involu- cres are now not greenish-white but white tipped with reddish — like a small flock of…

A rose in a garden. 5 p. M. — To Lupine Hill by boat. The carnival of the year commencing — a warm, moist, hazy air, the water already smooth and uncommonly high,…

‘These last two days, with their sultry, hazy air, are the first that suggest the expression “the furnace-like heat.” Bathing has begun. In the even- ing and during…

The morning wind forever blows; the poem of the world is uninterrupted, but few are the ears that hear it. Forever that strain of the harp which soothed the…

Some incidents in my life have seemed far more allegorical than actual; they were so signi- ficant that they plainly served no other use. That is, I have been ‘more…

Quite a fog this morning. Does it not al- ways follow the cooler nights after the first really warm weather about the end of May? Saw a water snake yesterday, with…

3.30 a. Mi — When I awake I hear the low universal chirping or twittering of the chip-birds, like the bursting bead on the surface of the uncorked day. First come,…

Wednesday. P. M.— To Well Meadow. Nest of a Maryland yellow-throat by Utricularia Pool in a tuft of sedge ; made of dry sedge, grass, and a few dry leaves ; about…

Friday. P. M.—To Annursnack. By way of the linnza, which I find is not yet out. That thick pine wood is full of birds. Saw a large moth or butterfly exactly like a…

4.30 a. M. — To Nawshawtuct by boat. A prevalent fog, though not quite so thick as the last described. It is a little more local, for it is so thin southwest of…

Friday. Another great fog this morning. Haying commencing in front yards. P. M. — To Mason’s pasture in Carlisle.

Saturday. Another fog this morning. The mosquitoes first troubled me a little last night. On the river at dusk I hear the toads still, with the bullfrogs. The black…

Sunday. P. M.— To Bear Hill. Maple-leaved viburnum well out at Laurel Glen, probably 9th.1 The laurel probably by day after to- morrow. ‘The note of the wood thrush…

9 a. mM. —'To Orchis Swamp.

P. M.— To White Pond. Herd’s-grass heads. The warmest afternoon as yet. Ground getting dry, it is so long since we had any rain to speak of. C. says he saw a…

A great fog this morning. P. M. — To Trilihum Woods. Clover now in its prime. What more luxuriant than a clover-field? ‘The poorest soil that is covered with it…

4 a. Ms — To Nawshawtuct by boat. No fog this morning and scarcely any dew except in the lowest ground. There is a little air stirring, too; the breeze in the night…

Friday. Another breezy night and no fog this morning. The pogonias, adder’s-tongue arethusas, I see nowadays, getting to be numerous, are far too pale to compete…

Saturday. 4 a. M. — By boat to Nawshaw- tuct; to Azalea Spring, or Pinxter Spring. No fog and very little dew, or perhaps it was a slight rain in the night. I find…

P. M. — To Flint’s Pond. I see large patches of blue-eyed grass in the meadow across the river from my window. ‘The pine woods at Thrush Alley emit that hot dry…

Monday. 4a.mM.— No fog ; sky mostly over- cast; drought continues, I heard the robin first (before the chip-bird) this morning. Heard the chip-bird last evening…

4.30 a. mM. — Up river for lilies. No dew even where I keep my boat. ‘The driest night yet, threatening the sultriest day. Yet I see big crystalline drops at the…

1 do not remember a warmer night than the last. In my attic under the roof, with all windows and doors open, there was still not a puff of the usual coolness of the…

5 a. M.— Up Union Turnpike. The red morning-glory partly open at 5.45. Look- ing down on it, it is [a] regular pentagon, with sides but slightly incurved. 1.30 p.…

P. M. — Boated to Clamshell Hill. My lilies in the pan have revived with the cooler weather since the rain. (It rained a little last night.) This is what they…

Saturday. P. M.— To Assabet Bathing- Place. Great orange lily beyond stone bridge. Found in the Glade (?}) Meadows an unusual quantity of ame- lanchier berries, —I…

Very cool day. Had for dinner a pudding made of service-berries. It was very much like a rather dry cherry pudding without the stones. A slight hail-storm in the…

4.30 a. M. — To Island by river. The cuckoo’s nest is robbed, or perhaps she broke her egg because I found it. Thus three out of half a dozen nests which I have…

Nettle out a few days. Pepper-grass, a week or more. Catnep, also, a few days. We have warmer weather now again.

Jersey tea, just beginning. Asclepias obtusifolia, a day or two. Sericocarpus conyzoides.

Succory on the bank under my window, probably from flowers I have thrown out within a year or two. A rainbow in the west this morning. Hot weather.

I am surveying the Bedford road these days, and have no time for my Journal. Saw one of those great pea-green emperor moths, like a bird, fluttering over the top of…

Elder is now in its prime. Buttercups are almost gone. Clover is blackened. The umbelled pyrola, apparently yesterday, as well as the P. rotundi- folia and the P.…

Raspberries, some days. Such a habit have cows in a pasture of moving for- ward while feeding that, in surveying on the Great Fields to-day, I was interrupted by a…

I can sound the swamps and meadows on the line of the new road to Bedford with a pole, as if they were water. It may be hard to break through the crust, but then it…

Very dry weather. Every traveller, horse, and cow raises a cloud of dust. It streams off from their feet, white and definite in its outline, like the steam from a…

Large cnothera. Toads are still heard occasionally at evening. ‘To-day I heard a hylodes peep (perhaps a young one), which have so long been silent.

Galiwm asprellum, probably about the 5th or 6th. The side-flowering scutellaria now. Hedge- nettle, a day or two. Lysimachia lanceolata var. hybrida, some days.…

Rain last night. The aromatic trichostema now springing up. Gna- phalium uliginosum now. Hydrocotyle, some days. ‘Agrimony, also, some days. Button-bush. Centaurea…

White vervain. Checkerberry, maybe some days. Spikenard, not quite yet. The green-flowered lanceolate-leafed orchis at Azalea Brook will soon flower. Either…

Heavy fog. I see a rose, now in its prime, by the river, in the water amid the willows and button-bushes, while others, lower on shore, are nearly out of bloom. Is…

Common form of arrowhead. The Rumex obtusifolius shows its single grain now. Near Loring’s ram that coarse mustard-like branched plant, one or two feet high, with…

Rhus copallina behind Bent’s, budded, not quite open. Solidago stricta (?) at Cato’s cellar, a day or two. The pasture thistle, more than a week. Is it the…

The common amaranth. Young toads not half an inch long at Walden shore. The smooth sumach resounds with the hum of bees, wasps, etc., at Water- target Pond. I see…

Sonchus oleraceus well in bloom. 8.30 a. M.— To Sudbury meadows with W. E. C. by boat.

Clematis has been open a day or two. The alisma will open to-morrow or next day. This morn- ing a fog and cool. What is that small conyza-like aster, with flaccid…

To Nawshawtuct at moonrise with Sophia, by boat.

2 Pp. m. — Went, in pursuit of boys who had stolen my boat-seat, to Fair Haven. Plenty of berries there now, — large huckleberries, blueberries, and blackberries.…

P. M.— To Annursnack. The Chenopodium hybridum (?); at least its leaves are dark-green, rhomboidal, and heart-shaped. ‘The orchis and spikenard at Azalea Brook are…

P. M.— To P. Hutchinson’s. I cannot find a single crotalaria pod there this year. Stone-crop is abundant and has now for some time been out at R. Brown’s…

Sunday. 4.30 a. M. — By boat to Island. Robins, larks, peawais, etc., as in the spring, at this hour. The mikania to-morrow or next day.'| The zizania, some days.…

Dodder, probably the 21st. Blue-curls. Burdock, probably yesterday. P. M. — To Le Grosse’s. Cerasus Virginiana, — choke-cherry, — just ripe. White and red…

I reckon that about nine tenths of the flowers of the year have now blossomed. Dog-days, — sultry, sticky (? ) weather, — now when the corn is topped out. Clouds…

8 a.M. — Rains, still quite soakingly. June and July perhaps only are the months of drought. The drought ceases with the dog-days. P. M. — To White Pond in rain.…

7 a. M.— To Azalea Brook. The mikania is hardly out yet;' like the eupato- riums, shows its color long before it opens. The ver- nonia not quite yet. The lilies,…

P. M.— To hibiscus, Beck Stow’s, and Brister’s Hill. Galeopsis Tetrahit, a good while. Vernonia, just opened, a few central ones. Polygonum hydropiper- 141, 142,…

I have for some time noticed the emersed leaves of the Bidens Beckiit above the river surface, and this morning find the first flower. Last year I found none. Was…

Sunday. P. M. — To Walden. The bristly aralia berries in dense patches with their numerous umbels, the central ones ripe for two or three days. They are about two…

I think that that universal crowing of the chip-bird in the morning is no longer heard. Is it the Galiwm circezans which I have seen so long on Heywood Peak and…

Heavy, long-continued, but warm rain in the night, raising the river already eight or nine inches and disturbing the meadow haymakers. John Legross brought me a…

To north part of Framingham, surveying near Hopestill Brown’s (in Sudbury). He said there was a tame deer in the wood, which he saw in his field the day before.…

Rain last night and to-day again. Ground- nut. The low fields which have been mown now look very green again in consequence of the rain, as if it were a second…

Perfect dog-days. To-day is sultry, 7. e. hot and cloudy, the air full of mist and here and there misty clouds; and you find yourself perspiring much before you are…

More dog-days. The sun, now at 9 A. M., has not yet burst through the mists. It has been warmer weather for a week than for at least three weeks before, —nights…

Sunday. P. M.— To Fair Haven Hill via Hubbard’s Grove. The krigia has bloomed again. The purple gerar- dia now fairly out, which I found almost out last Sun- day in…

5 a. mM. — Up railroad. . The nabalus, which may have been out one week elsewhere. Also rough hawkweed, and that large aster- like flower Diplopappus umbellatus, a…

Sedum Telephium, garden orpine or live- for-ever, in my pitcher. P. M. — To hibiscus and liatris and Beck Stow’s. The hibiscus which has escaped the mowers shows a…

5 a. mM. —I hear a warbling vireo, golden robin, red-eye, and peawais. August, royal and rich. Green corn now, and melons have begun. That month, surely, is…

5 a.m. — Up North Branch. A considerable fog. The weeds still covered by the flood, so that we have no Bidens Beckii. B. chrysan- themovdes just out. The small,…

9 a. m. — To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.

The last was a melting night, and a carnival for mosquitoes. Could I not write meditations under a bridge at midsummer? The last three or four days less dogdayish.…

Sunday. 5 a. mM. — To Cliffs. The toads probably ceased about the time I last spoke of them. Bullfrogs, also, I have not heard for a long time. I perceive the scent…

P. M. — To Flint’s Pond with Mr. Conway. Started a woodcock in the woods. Also saw a large telltale, I think yellow-shanks, whose note I at first mis- took for a…

Rain in forenoon. The high blackberries are now in their prime; the richest berry we have. ‘That wild black currant by Union Turnpike ripe (in gardens some time).…

Rain again. P. M. — To Great Fields. Many leaves of the cultivated cherry are turned yel- low, and a very few leaves of the elm have fallen, — the dead or…

Friday. 9 a. M.— To Sudbury by boat with W. E. C. Cooler weather. Last Sunday we were sweltering here and one hundred died of the heat in New York; to-day they have…

P. M. — To Great Meadows. Bidens connata (?) by pond-hole beyond Agricul- tural Ground; no rays yet at least. No traces of fringed gentian can I find. The liatris…

6 a. mM. — To Island by boat. Aster macrophyllus. Appear not to blossom generally this year. P. M. — To Jenny Dugan’s and Conantum. Saw one of those light-green…

Monday. P. M.— Up Assabet to Yellow Rocket Shore. A still afternoon with a prospect of a shower in the west. The immediate edge of the river is for the most part…

6 a.M.— To Nawshawtuct. A very clear but cool morning, all white light. The feverwort berries are yellowing and yellowed; bar- berries have begun to redden, and the…

Another cool, autumn-like morning, also quite foggy. Rains a little in the forenoon and cloudy the rest of the day. P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook via Trillium Woods. A…

Warmer to-day. Surveying Tuttle’s farm. From the extreme eastern side of his farm, looking up the valley of the Mill Brook, in which direction it is about two miles…

Saturday. P. M.— To Walden. Topping corn now reveals the yellowing pumpkins. Dangle-berries very large in shady copses now; seem to love wet weather; have lost…

Sunday. P. M. — To Clifis. See many sparrows in flocks with a white feather in tail! ‘The smooth sumach leaves are fast reddening. The berries of the dwarf sumach…

Tuesday. In low ground by Turnpike, a tall aster, A. longifolius (?), a day or two perhaps (salicifolius of Bigelow).1 Saw some by river in the afternoon with…

P. M.— To Moore’s Swamp.

Thursday. P. M. —'To Dugan Desert and Ministerial Swamp. The character of the past month, as I remember, has been, at first, very thick and sultry, dogdayish, the…

P. M.— Collected and brought home in a pail of water this afternoon the following asters and diplopappi, going by Turnpike and Hubbard’s Close to Saw Mill Brook,…

Saturday. I saw this afternoon, on the chim- ney of the old Hunt house, in mortar filling an oblong square cavity apparently made when the chimney was, the date…

5.30 a. Mm. — To Nawshawtuct by river. Roman wormwood’s yellow dust on my clothes. Hear a warbling vireo, — something rare. I do not succeed in making two varieties…

To Framingham. Saw, in a meadow in Wayland, at a little distance, what I have no doubt was an island of Aster puniceus, one rod in diameter, — one mass of flowers…

R. W. E. brought from Yarmouth this week Chrysopsis falcata in bloom and Vaccinium stamineum, deerberry, or squaw huckleberry, — the last with green berries, some…

Roses, apparently R. lucida, abundantly out on a warm bank on Great Fields by Moore’s Swamp, with Viola pedata.

Half a bushel of handsome pears on the ground under the wild pear tree on Pedrick’s land; some ripe, many more on tree. J. Wesson, who is helping me survey to-day,…

The pontederia and pads have already their fall look by river. It is not the work of frost. The Aster Tradescanti, now in its prime, sugars the banks all along the…

Sunday. Cool weather. Sit with windows shut, and many by fires. A great change since the 6th, when the heat was so oppressive. The air has got an autumnal coolness…

I was struck this afternoon with the beauty of the Aster corymbosus with its corymbed flowers, with seven or eight long slender white rays pointed at both ends,…

Friday. He[Joe Atean or Aitteon]' said the stone-heaps (though we saw none) were made by chub.

Saturday. The head [of the moose],? measuring from the root of the ears to the end of the nose or upper lip af Head and neck (from nose to breast (?) direct) 4 Fore…

Sunday. One end of the log hut* was a camp, with the usual fir floor and log benches and a ° clerk’s office. I measured one of the many batteaux lying about, with…

Monday. I looked very narrowly at the vegetation as we glided along close to the shore, and it At, etc.” This is probably a more correct spelling than the Aitteon…

Tuesday. About Hinckley’s camp I saw the: Fringilla hyemalis; also a bird a little smaller, maybe, brownish and yellowish, with some white tail-feathers, which I…

Started at 7 a. M., Wednesday. In Guil- ford I went into a clapboard-mill on the Piscataquis. In this town we took a new route, keeping the north side of the…

Thursday. He? had made speeches at the Legislature. He and a companion were once put into the bootblacks’ room at the hotel in Portland, when attending the…

Friday. Walked down the riverside this forenoon to the hill where they were using a steam- shovel at the new railroad cut, and thence to a hill three quarters of a…

Saturday. Saw Ktaadn from a hill about two miles northwest of Bangor on the road to Pushaw. It is about eighty miles from Bangor. This was the nearest point from…

Sunday. Dined with Lowell. Said the largest pine Goddard’s men cut last winter scaled in the woods forty-five hundred feet board measure, and was worth ninety…

Wednesday. In Concord. The elm leaves are falling. ‘The fringed gentian was out before Sunday; was (some of it) withered then, says Edith Emerson.

Thursday. Cool and windy. Wind roars in the trees. Viola cucullata, Aster puniceus and lon- gifolius still. Solidago speciosa out in Hubbard’s Swamp since I went…

Friday. Saw a large flock of black ducks flying northwest in the form of a harrow.

Saturday. Went a-barberrying by boat to Conantum, carrying Ellen, Edith, and Eddie. Grape- vines, curled, crisped, and browned by the frosts, are now more…

Sunday. The gentian in Hubbard’s Close is frost-bitten extensively. As the [witch-] hazel is raised above frost and can afford to be later, for this reason also I…

Viola lanceolata in Moore’s Swamp.

The maples are reddening, and birches yellowing. The mouse-ear in the shade in the middle of the day, so hoary, looks as if the frost still lay on it. Well it wears…

The howling of the wind about the house just before a storm to-night sounds extremely like a loon on the pond. How fit! Oct. 6 and 7. Windy. Elms bare.

Found a bird’s nest (?) converted into a mouse’s nest in the prinos swamp, while surveying on the new Bedford road to-day, topped over with moss, and a hole on one…

Sunday. A high wind south of westerly. Set sail with W. E. C. down the river. The red maples are now red and also yellow and reddening. The white maples are green…

This morning it is very pleasant and warm. There are many small birds in flocks on the elms in Cheney’s field, faintly warbling, — robins and purple finches and…

Sassafras leaves are a rich yellow now and falling fast. They come down in showers on the least touching of the tree. I was obliged to cut a small one while…

To-day I have had the experience of bor- rowing money for a poor Irshman who wishes to get his family to this country. One will never know his neighbors till he has…

Friday. A Mr. Farquhar of Maryland came to see me; spent the day and the night. Fine, clear Indian-summer weather.

Saturday. Last night the first smart frost that I have witnessed. Ice formed under the pump, and the ground was white long after sunrise. And now, when the morning…

Sunday. The third pleasant day. Hunter's Moon. Walked to White Pond. The Polygonum dumetorum in Tarbell’s Swamp lies thick and twisted, rolled together, over the…

P. M.— With Sophia boated to Fair Haven, where she made a sketch. The red maples have been bare a good while. In the sun and this clear air, their bare ashy…

Wednesday. Paddled E. Hoar and Mrs. King up the North Branch. A seed of wild oat left on. The leaves have fallen so plentifully that they quite conceal the water…

How pleasant to walk over beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling fallen leaves, — young hyson, green tea, clean, crisp, and wholesome! How beautiful they go to…

A week or more of fairest Indian summer ended last night, for to-day it rains. It was so warm day before yesterday, I worked in my shirt-sleeves in the woods. I…

Sunday. P. M. — Down railroad to chest- nut wood on Pine Hill. A pleasant day, but breezy. I see a downy wood- pecker tapping an apple tree, and hear, when I have…

Early on Nawshawtuct. Black willows bare. Golden willow with yellow leaves. Larch yellow. Most alders by river bare ex- cept at top. Waxwork shows red. Celtis…

7 a. M. — To Hubbard’s Grove. The rain is over, the ground swept and washed. There is a high and cold west wind. Birds fly with difficulty against it (are they tree…

I well remember the time this year when I first heard the dream of the toads. I was laying out house-lots on Little River in Haverhill. We had hadsome raw, cold and…

6.30 a. M. — To Island by boat. The river still rises, — more than ever last night, owing to the rain of the 24th (which ceased in the night of the 24th). It is two…

Rain in the night and this morning, pre- paring for winter. We noticed in a great many places the narrow paths by which the moose came down to the river, and some-…

Sunday. A white frost this morning, last- ing late into the day. This has settled the accounts of many plants which lingered still. P. M. — To Hubbard’s Meadow…

7 a. M. — By river to Nawshawtuct. Owing to the rain of the 28th, added to that of the 23d, the river has risen now probably more than three feet above where it was…

6.30 a. Ms— To Hubbard’s Bridge to see the gossamer. As I go up the back road (the sun rises about this hour), I am struck with [the] general stillness as far as…

What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life passing within her? Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in which she shows most beautiful.…

6.30 a. Ms — To Swamp Bridge Brook by river. Considerable thin mist, high as two houses. Just as the sun is rising, many undoubtedly of the same white-in-tail…

P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close. I find no traces of the fringed gentian there, so that in low meadows I suspect it does not last very late. Hear a nuthatch. The fertile…

P. M.— To Hubbard Bathing-Place for shrubs. Most of the muskrat-cabins were lately covered by the flood, but now that it has gone down in a great measure, leaving…

Sunday. 2.30 p. Mm. — To Lee’s Cliff. I saw yesterday for a moment by the river a small olivaceous-yellow bird; possibly a goldfinch, but I think too yellow. I see…

6.15 a. M. — To Cliffs. A clear, cold, as well as frosty, morning. I have towalk with my hands in my pockets. Hear a faint chip, proba- bly from a tree sparrow,…

Mayweed and shepherd’s-purse. 10 a. ms—Our first snow, the wind southerly, the air chilly and moist; a very fine snow, looking like a mist toward the woods or…

High wind and rain in the night. Still more strong and gusty but remarkably warm south- west wind during the day. P. M. — To Fair Haven Hill by boat with W. E. C.…

7 a. mM. — To Hubbard Bathing-Place. A fine, calm, frosty morning, a resonant and clear air except a slight white vapor which escaped being frozen or perchance is…

I cannot but regard it as a kindness in those who have the steering of me that, by the want of pecuniary wealth, I have been nailed down to this my native region so…

Rain all day.

Methinks I have not seen any of those white-in-tail birds for a week (?); but I see a little sparrow or two to-day, maybe a song sparrow? Mal- lows still in bloom,…

P. M. — To Fair Haven Hill and by boat to witch-hazel bush. Were they not the white-in-tail birds I saw this afternoon? Cricket still. After yesterday’s clear,…

P. M.— To Nawshawtuct by boat with Sophia, up Assabet. The river still higher than yesterday. I paddled straight from the boat’s place to the Island. I now take…

I notice that many plants about this sea- son of the year or earlier, after they have died down at top, put forth fresh and conspicuous radical leaves against…

Conchologists call those shells “which are fished up from the depths of the ocean” and are never seen on the shore, which are the rarest and most beauti- ful,…

P. M. Up river in boat to Hubbard’s meadow, cranberrying. They redden all the lee shore, the water being still apparently at the same level with the 16th. This is a…

7.30 a.m. — To Hubbard’s meadow, cran- berrying. Still quite warm as yesterday. I wear no greatcoat. There has been no freezing in the night. I hear a single…

Monday. A fine misty rain all night and to-day. Raking so many cranberries has made me quite con- versant with the materials of the river wreck. There are many…

Geese went over yesterday, and to-day also. The drizzling rain of yesterday has not checked the fall of the river. It was raised by the rain of Sunday, the 13th,…

6 A. M. — To Swamp Bridge Brook mouth. The cocks are the only birds I hear, but they are a host. They crow as freshly and bravely as ever, while poets go down the…

Frost on the windows. 10 a. mM. — To Cliffs. A clear, cold, windy day. The water on the mead- ows, which are rapidly becoming bare, is skimmed over and reflects a…

Now a man will eat his heart, if ever,’ now while the earth is bare, barren and cheerless, and we have the coldness of winter without the variety of ice and snow;…

Monday. Saw boys skating in Cambridge- port, — the first ice to bear. Settled with J. Munroe & Co., and on a new account placed twelve of my books with him on sale.…

On Saturday, the 26th, a dog on whose collar the words -“ Milton Hill,” or equivalent ones, were engraved ran through the town, having, as the story went, bitten a…

8 a. M. — To river, to examine roots. I rake up almost everywhere from the bottom of the river that very fresh and bright green ranunculus, the handsomely divided…

4 Pp. M.— To Cliffs. We may infer that every withered culm of grass or sedge, or weed that still stands in the fields, answers some purpose by standing.

As the stars, though spheres, present an out- line of many little points of light to our eyes, like a flower of light, so I notice to-night the horns of the new…

P. M.— Up river by boat to Clamshell Hill. Saw two tree sparrows on Monroe’s larch by the waterside. -Larger than chip-birds, with more bay above and a distinct…

P. M.— Got my boat in. The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow, which was sprinkled on it this noon. 4 p. mM. — To Cliffs. Many living…

Wednesday. P. M.— To Trillium Woods and Hubbard’s Close. In the latter part of November‘ and now, before the snow, I am attracted by the numerous small evergreens…

7 A. M. — How can we spare to be abroad in the morning red, to see the forms of the leafless eastern trees against the dun sky and hear the cocks crow, when a thin…

The third (at least) glorious day, clear and not too cold (this morning a leaf frost on the rails a third of an inch long), with peculiarly long and clear cloudless…

Another still more glorious day, if possible; Indian-summery even. These are among the finest days in the year, on account of the wholesome bracing coolness and…

Sunday. P.M. —To Heywood’s Pond and up brook. Almost a complete Indian-summer day, clear and warm. I am without greatcoat. Channing says he saw larks yesterday, a…

Thursday. Fishing through ice began on Flint’s and Fair Haven yesterday. The first fishers succeed best. 9.30 aA. M.— Surveying near Strawberry Hill for Smith and…

Friday. The elms covered with hoar frost, seen in the east against the morning light, are very beautiful. These days, when the earth is still bare and the weather…

While surveying for Daniel Weston in Lincoln to-day, saw a great many — maybe a hun- dred — silvery-brown cocoons, wrinkled and flattish, . on young alders in a…

Sunday. P. M.— Clears off cold after rain. Cross Fair Haven Pond at sunset. The western hills, these bordering it, seen through the clear, cold air, have a hard,…

The rain of yesterday concluded with a whitening of snow last evening, the third thus far. To- day is cold and quite windy. P. M. — To the field in Lincoln which I…

P. M.—Skated to Fair Haven and above. At seven this morning the water had already oozed out at the sides of the river and flowed over the ice. It appears to be the…

Monday. This forenoon it snowed pretty hard for some hours, the first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep. I go out at 2.30, just as it…

High wind with more snow in the night. The snow is damp and covers the panes, darkening the room. At first I did not know that more snow had fallen, it was so…

Perhaps the coldest night. The pump is slightly frozen. : I hear and see tree sparrows about the weeds in the garden. ‘They seem to visit the gardens with the…

P. M.— Around Walden. The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night. I carried a two-foot rule and measured the snow…

Four more inches of snow fell last night, making in all now two feet on a level. P. M.— Down railroad to Walden and circle round to right, through Wheeler’s woods…