4 April 1853 – 10 April 1853

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, and makes a small angle with the earth. It is low, perhaps, for the same reason that the clouds are. The robins sang this morning, never- theless, and now more than ever hop about boldly in the garden in the rain, with full, broad, light cow-col- ored breasts. P. M. — Rain, rain. To Clematis Brook via Lee’s Bridge. Again I notice that early reddish or purplish grass that lies flat on the pools, like a warm blush suffusing the youthful face of the year. A warm, drip- ping rain, heard on one’s umbrella as on a snug roof, and on the leaves without, suggests comfort. We go abroad with a slow but sure contentment, like turtles under their shells. We never feel so comfortable as when we are abroad in a storm with satisfaction. Our comfort is positive then. We are all compact, and our thoughts collected. We walk under the clouds and mists as under a roof. Now we seem to hear the ground a-soaking up the rain, and not falling [s7c] ineffectually on a frozen surface. We, too, are pene- trated and revived by it. Robins still sing, and song sparrows more or less, and blackbirds, and the un- failing jay screams. How the thirsty grass rejoices! It has pushed up so visibly since morning, and fields that were completely russet yesterday are already tinged with green. We rejoice with the grass. I hear the hollow sound of drops falling into the water under Hubbard’s Bridge, and each one makes a conspicuous bubble which is floated down-stream. Instead of ripples there are a myriad dimples on the stream. The lichens remember the sea to-day. The usually dry cladonias, which are so crisp under the feet, are full of moist vigor. The rocks speak and tell the tales inscribed on them. ‘Their inscriptions are brought out. I pause to study their geography. At Conantum End I saw a red-tailed hawk launch ee himself away from an oak by the pond at my approach, —a heavy flier, flapping even like the great bittern at first, — heavy forward. After turning Lee’s Cliff I heard, methinks, more birds singing even than in fair weather, — tree sparrows, whose song has the char- acter of the canary’s, F’. hyemalis’s, chill-lill, the sweet strain of the fox-colored sparrow, song sparrows, a nuthatch, jays, crows, bluebirds, robins, and a large congregation of blackbirds. They suddenly alight with great din in a stubble-field just over the wall, not perceiving me and my umbrella behind the pitch pines, and there feed silently; then, getting uneasy or anx- ious, they fly up on to an apple tree, where being reassured, commences a rich but deafening concert, o-gurgle-ee-c, o-gurgle-ee-e, some of the most liquid notes ever heard, as if produced by some of the water of the Pierian spring, flowing through some kind of musical water-pipe and at the same time setting in motion a multitude of fine vibrating metallic springs. Like a shepherd merely meditating most enrapturing glees on such a water-pipe. A more liquid bagpipe or clarionet, immersed like bubbles in a thousand sprayey notes, the bubbles half lost in the spray. When I show myself, away they go with a loud harsh charr-r, charr-r. At first I had heard an inundation of black- birds approaching, some beating time with a loud chuck, chuck, while the rest played a hurried, gurgling fugue. Saw a sucker washed to the shore at Lee’s Bridge, its tail gone, large fins standing out, purplish on top of head and snout. Reminds me of spring, spearing, and gulls. A rainy day is to the walker in solitude and retire- ment like the night. Few travellers are about, and they half hidden under umbrellas and confined to the highways. One’s thoughts run in a different channel from usual. It is somewhat like the dark day; it is a light night. How cheerful the roar of a brook swollen by the rain, especially if there is no sound of a mill in it! A woodcock went off from the shore of Clematis or Nightshade Pond with a few slight rapid sounds like a watchman’s rattle half revolved. A clustering of small narrow leaves somewhat cone-like on the shrub oak. Some late, low, remark- ably upright alders (serrulaia), short thick catkins, at Clematis Brook. ‘The hazel bloom is about one tenth of an inch Jong (the stigmas) now. A little wil- low (Salix Muhlenbergiana?) nearly ready to bloom, not larger than a sage willow. All our early willows with catkins appearing before the leaves must belong to the group of “The Sal- lows. Cineres. Borrer,” and that of the “'Two-col- ored Willows. Discolores. Borrer,”’ as adopted by Barratt; or, in other words, to the first § of Carey in Gray. The other day, when I had been standing perfectly still some ten minutes, looking at a willow which had just blossomed, some rods in the rear of Martial Miles’s house, I felt eyes on my back and, turning round suddenly, saw the heads of two men who had stolen out of the house and were watching me over a rising ground as fixedly as I the willow. They were study- ing man, which is said to be the proper study of man- kind, I nature, and yet, when detected, they felt the cheapest of the two. I hear the twitter of tree sparrows from fences and shrubs in the yard and from alders by meadows and the riverside every day.

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 says “the greater number of birds renew their plumage in autumn only;” if they have two moults, spring and autumn, there is still but one of the wings and tail feathers. Also says that in the spring various “birds pe eg a change of color un- accompanied by any moult.” I have noticed the few phcoebes, not to mention other birds, mostly near the river. Is it not because of the greater abundance of insects there, those early moths or ephemerz? As these and other birds are most numerous there, the red-tailed hawk is there to catch them ?

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 fail, perched on some elm or the like, and in rainy days it is one long morning or evening. The song sparrow is still more universal but not so powerful. The lark, too, is equally constant, morning and evening, but con- fined to certain localities, as is the blackbird to some extent. The bluebird, with feebler but not less sweet warbling, helps fill the air, and the phoebe does her part. The tree sparrow, F’. hyemalis, and fox-colored sparrows make the meadow-sides or gardens where they are flitting vocal, the first with its canary-like twittering, the second with its lively ringing trills or jingle. The third is a very sweet and more powerful singer, which would be memorable if we heard him long enough. ‘The woodpecker’s tapping, though not musical, suggests pleasant associations in the cool morn- ing, — is inspiriting, enlivening. I hear no hylas nor croakers in the morning. Is it too cool for them? The gray branches of the oaks, which have lost still more of their leaves, seen against the pines when the sun Is rising and falling on them, how rich and interesting! From Cliffs see on the still water under the hill, at the outlet of the pond, two ducks sailing, partly white. Hear the faint, swelling, far-off beat of a par- tridge. Saw probably female red-wings (?), grayish or dark ashy-brown, on an oak in the woods, with a male (?) whose red shoulder did not appear. How many walks along the brooks I take in the spring! What shall I call them? Lesser riparial ex- cursions? Prairial? rivular?? When I came out there was not a speck of mist in the sky, but the morning without a cloud is not the fairest. Now, 8.30 a. M., it rains. Such is April. A male willow, apparently same with that at H.’s Bridge, or No. 2, near end of second track on west. Another male by ring-post on east side, long cylin- drical catkins, now dark with scales, which are gen- erally more rounded than usual and reddish at base and not lanceolate, turning backwards in blossom and exposing their sides or breasts to the sun, from which side burst forth fifty or seventy-five long white stamens like rays, ‘tipped with yellow anthers which at first were reddish above, — spears to be embraced by invisible Arnold Winkelrieds ;— reddish twigs and clear gray beneath. These last colors, especially, distin- guish it from Nos. 1 and 2. Also a female, four or five rods north of last, just coming into bloom, with very narrow tapering catkins, lengthening already, some to an inch and a half, ovaries conspicuously stalked; very downy twigs, more reddish and rough than last below. If we consider the eagle as a large hawk, how he falls in our estimation! Our new citizen Sam Wheeler has a brave new weathercock all gilt on his new barn. This morn- ing at sunrise it reflected the sun so brightly that I thought it was a house on fire in Acton, though I saw no smoke, but that might well be omitted. The flower-buds of the red maple have very red inner scales, now being more and more exposed, which color the tree-tops a great distance off. P. M. — To Second Division Brook. Near Clamshell Hill, I scare up in succession four pairs of good-sized brown or grayish-brown ducks. They go off with a loud squeaking quack. Each pair is by itself. One pair on shore some rods from the water. Is not the object of the quacking to give notice of danger to the rest who cannot see it? | All along under the south side of this hill on the edge of the meadow, the air resounds with the hum of honey-bees, attracted by the flower of the skunk- cabbage. I first heard the fine, peculiarly sharp hum of the honey-bee before I thought of them. Some hummed hollowly within the spathes, perchance to give notice to their fellows that plant was occupied, for they repeatedly looked in, and backed out on finding another. It was surprising to see them, directed by their instincts to these localities, while the earth has still but a wintry aspect so far as vegetation is concerned, buzz around some obscure spathe close to the ground, well knowing what they were about, then alight and enter. As the cabbages were very numerous for thirty or forty rods, there must have been some hundreds of bees there at once, at least. I watched many when they entered and came out, and they all had little yellow pellets of pollen at their thighs. As the skunk-cabbage comes out before the willow, it is probable that the former is the first flower they visit. It is the more surprising, as the flower is for the most part invisible within the spathe. Some of these spathes are now quite large and twisted up like cows’ horns, not curved over as usual. Com- monly they make a pretty little crypt or shrine for the flower, like the overlapping door of a tent. It must be bee-bread (?), then, they are after. Lucky that this flower does not flavor their honey. I have noticed for a month or more the bare ground sprinkled here and there with several kinds of fungi, now con- spicuous, — the starred kind, puffballs, etc. Now it is fair, and the sun shines, though it shines and rains with short intervals to-day. I do not see so much greenness in the grass as I expected, though a con- siderable change. No doubt the rain exaggerates a little by showing all the greenness there is! The thistle is now ready to wear the rain-drops. I see, in J. P. Brown’s field, by Nut Meadow Brook, where a hen has been devoured by a hawk probably. The feathers whiten the ground. They cannot carry a large fowl very far from the farmyard, and when driven off are frequently baited and caught in a trap by the remainder of their quarry. The gooseberry has not yet started. I cannot describe the lark’s song. I used these syllables in the morning to remember it by, — heetar-su-e-oo. 'The willow in Miles’s Swamp which resembles No. 2 not fairly in blossom yet. Heard unusual notes from, I think, a chickadee in the swamp, elicited, probably, by the love season, — che che vet, accent on last syllable, and vissa viss a viss, the last sharp and fine. Yet the bird looked more slender than the common titmouse, with a longer tail, which jerked a little, but it seemed to be the same bird that sang phebe and he-phebe so sweetly. The woods rang with this. Nuttall says it is the young that phebe in winter. I noticed some aspens (tremuliformis) of good size there, which have no flowers! The first lightning I remember this year was in the rain last evening, quite bright; and the thunder followed very long after. A thunder-shower in Boston yesterday. One cowslip, though it shows the yellow, is not, fairly out, but will be by to-morrow. How they im- prove their time! Not a moment of sunshine lost. One thing I may depend on: there has been no idling with the flowers. They advance as steadily as a clock. Nature loses not 2 moment, takes no vacation. These plants, now protected by the water, just peeping forth. I should not be surprised to find that they drew in their heads in a frosty night. Returning by Harring- ton’s, saw a pigeon woodpecker flash away, showing the rich golden under side of its glancing wings and the large whitish spot on its back, and presently I heard its familiar long-repeated loud note, almost familiar as that of a barn-door fowl, which it somewhat resembles. The robins, too, now toward sunset, perched on the old apple trees in Tarbell’s orchard, twirl forth their evening lays unweariedly. Is that a willow, the low bush from the fireplace ravine which from the lichen oak, fifty or sixty rods distant, shows so red in the westering sun- light? More red, I find, by far than close at hand. To-night for the first time I hear the hylas in full blast. Is that pretty little reddish-leaved star-shaped plant by the edge of water a different species of hypericum from the perforatum ? Apri 7. 6 a. M.—I did not notice any bees on the willows I looked at yesterday, though so many on the cabbage. The white-bellied swallows advertise themselves this morning, dashing up the street, and two have already come to disturb the bluebirds at our box. Saw and heard this morning, on a small elm and the wall by Badger’s, a sparrow (?), seemingly some- what slaty-brown and lighter beneath, whose note began loud and clear, twee-tooat, etc., etc., ending much like the field sparrow. Was it a female F. hyemalis? Or a field, or a swamp, sparrow? Saw no white in tail. Also saw a small, plain, warbler-like bird for a moment, which I did not recognize. 10 a. m. — Down river in boat to Bedford, with C. A windy, but clear, sunny day; cold wind from north- west. Notice a white maple with almost all the stam- inate flowers above or on the top, most of the stamens now withered, before the red maple has blossomed. Another maple, all or nearly all female. The stami- niferous flowers look light yellowish, the female dark crimson. These white maples’ lower branches droop quite low, striking the head of the rower, and curve gracefully upward at the ends. Another sucker, the counterpart of the one I saw the other day, tail gone, but not purpled snout, being fresher. Is it the work of a gull or of the spearer? Do not the suckers chiefly attract the gulls at this season ? River has risen from last rains, and we cross the Great Meadows, scaring up many ducks at a great distance, some partly white, some apparently black, some brownish (?). It is Fast-Day, and many gun- ners are about the shore, which makes them shy.

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 apart, sometimes cohering starwise together. As if it had spit so much snow only. I think it one form of frost merely, or frozen dew. Noticed the like a week or two ago. It was gone in half an hour, when I came back. What is the peculiar state of the atmosphere that determines these things? The spearer’s light last night shone into my chamber on the wall and awakened me. Saw and heard my small pine warbler shaking out his trills, or jingle, even like money coming to its bear- ings. ‘They appear much the smaller from perching high in the tops of white pines and flitting from tree to tree at that height. Is not my night-warbler the white-eyed vireo ?>—not yet here. Heard the field sparrow again. The male Populus grandidentata appears to open very gradually, beginning sooner than I supposed. It shows some of its red anthers long before it opens. There is a female on the left, on Warren’s Path at Deep Cut. Is not the pollen of the P. tremuliformis like rye meal? Are not female flowers of more sober and modest colors, as the willows for instance? The hylas have fairly begun now.

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 its che che che che che che. On a pitch [pine] on side of J. Hosmer’s river hill, a pine warbler, by ventriloquism sounding farther off than it was, which was seven or eight feet, hopping and flitting from twig to twig, apparently picking the small flies at and about the base of the needles at the extremities of the twigs. Saw two after- ward on the walls by roadside. A warm and hazy but breezy day. The sound of the laborers’ striking the iron rails of the railroad with their sledges, is as in the sultry days of summer, — resounds, as it were, from the hazy sky as a roof, — a more confined and, in that sense, domestic sound echo- ing along between the earth and the low heavens. ‘The same strokes would produce a very different sound in the winter. Men fishing for trout. Small light-brown lizards, about five inches long, with somewhat darker tails, and some a light line along back, are very active, wiggling off, in J. P. Brown’s ditch, with pollywogs. Beyond the desert, hear the hooting owl, which, as formerly, I at first mistook for the hounding of a dog, — a squealing eee followed by hoo hoo hoo deliberately, and particularly sonorous and ringing. This at 2 Pp. M. Now mated. Pay their addresses by day, says Brooks. Winkle lichens, some with greenish bases, on a small prostrate white oak, near base. Also large white ear- like ones higher up. A middling-sized orange-copper butterfly on the mill road, at the clearing, with deeply scalloped leaves [sic]. You see the buff-edged and this, etc., in warm, sunny southern exposures on the edge of woods or sides of rocky hills and cliffs, above dry leaves and twigs, where the wood has been lately cut and there are many dry leaves and twigs about. An ant-hill covered with a firm sward except at top. The cowslips are well out,— the first conspicuous herba- ceous flower, for the cabbage is concealed in its spathe. The Populus tremuliformis, just beyond, resound with the hum of honey-bees, flies, etc. These male trees are frequently at a great distance from the females. Do not the bees and flies alone carry the pollen to the latter? I did not know at first whence the humming of bees proceeded. At this comparatively still season, before the crickets begin, the hum of bees is a very noticeable sound, and the least hum or buzz that fills the void is detected. Here appear to be more bees than on the willows. On the last, where I can see them better, are not only bees with pellets of pollen, but more flies, small bees, and a lady-bug. What do flies get here on male flowers, if not nectar? Bees also in the female willows, of course without pellets. It must be nectar alone there. That willow by H.’s Bridge is very brittle at base of stem, but hard to break above. The more I study willows, the more I am confused. The epigea will not be out for some days. Elm blossoms now in prime. Their tops heavier against the sky, a rich brown; their outlines further seen. Most alders done. Some small upright ones still fresh. Evening. — Hear the snipe a short time at early starlight.