6 March 1854 – 12 March 1854

A cool morning. The bare water here and there on the meadow begins to look smooth, and I look to see it rippled by a muskrat. The earth has to some extent frozen dry, for the drying of the earth goes on In the cold night as well as the warm day. The alders and hedgerows are still silent, emit no notes. P. M. — To Goose Pond. - According to G. Emerson, maple sap sometimes begins to flow in the middle of February, but usually in the second week of March, especially in a clear, bright day with a westerly wind, after a frosty night. The brooks — the swift ones and those in swamps — open before the river; indeed some of the first have been open the better part of the winter. I saw trout glance in the Mill Brook this afternoon, though near its sources, in Hubbard’s Close, it is still covered with dark, icy snow, and the river into which it empties has not broken up. Can they have come up from the sea? Like a film or shadow they glance before the eye, and you see where the mud is roiled by them. Saw children checkerberrying in a meadow. I see the skunk- cabbage started about the spring at head of Hubbard’s Close, amid the green grass, and what looks like the first probing of the:skunk. The snow is now all off on meadow ground, in thick evergreen woods, and on the south sides of hills, but it is still deep in sprout-lands, on the north sides of hills, and generally in deciduous woods. In sprout-lands it is melted beneath, but up- held by the bushes. What bare ground we have now is due then not so much to the increased heat of the sun and warmth of the air as to the litile frost there was in the ground in so many localities. This remark applies with less force, however, to the south sides of hills. The ponds are hard enough for skating again. Heard and saw the first blackbird, flying east over the Deep Cut, with a tchuck, tchuck, and finally a split whistle.

P. M.— To Annursnack. I did not mention the drifts yesterday. Most of the snow left on bare, dry level ground consists of the re- mains of drifts, particularly along fences, — most on the south side. Also much that looks like snow is soft- ened ice in the lower parts of fields. Looking from Annursnack, there is no perceptible difference as to snow between the north and south prospects, though the north one is not extensive; but the snowiest view is westward. Has this anything to do with there being most snow inland? All the sides of steep hills are likely to be bare, washed bare by rain (?). I do not know why there should be so much snow in sprout-lands and deciduous woods, unless it is because the sun has had less chance to thaw the frosts which yet have been thick there. ; It is remarkable how true each plant is to its sea- son. Why should not the fringed gentian put forth early in the spring, instead of holding in till the latter part of September? I do not perceive enough differ- ence in the temperature. How short a time it is with us! I see many little white or dirty white puff- balls, yellowish inside, commonly less than an inch in diameter, on bare cultivated fields, and, in pastures, some great chocolate-colored ones (within). Both yield their dust. Heard the first bluebird, — something like pe-a-wor,— and then other slight warblings, as if farther off. Was surprised to see the bird within seven or eight rods on the top of an oak on the orchard’s edge under the hill. But he appeared silent, while I heard others faintly warbling and twittering far in the orchard. When he flew I heard no more, and then I suspected that he had been ventriloquizing; as if he hardly dared open his mouth yet, while there was so much winter left. It is an overcast and moist but rather warm afternoon. He revisits the apple trees, and ap- pears to find some worms. Probably not till now was his food to be found abundantly. Saw some fuzzy gnats in the air. Saw where a partridge had been eating many prinos berries, now black and shrivelled. I suspect that they devour a great bulk, which has but i854] - MOUNTAIN CRANBERRY 157 little nutriment. The radical leaves of the pinweeds are like the johnswort with leaves reflexed, — most of them closer and finer. They appear unaffected by frost. The radical leaves of the crowfoot everywhere are the commonest green, as soon as the snow goes off. You can hardly tell when it begins to spring. Saw mountain cranberry near Brooks’s pigeon-place, very flat on the pasture, raying out from a centre six feet each way, more than three quarters of an inch thick in the middle. Did not know it was so woody. This one of the winter-reds, perfectly fresh and glossy. ‘The river channel is nearly open everywhere. Saw, on the alders by the riverside front of Hildreth’s, a song spar- row, quirking its tail. It flew across the river to the willows, and soon I heard its well-known dry fchip, ichip. Saw, methinks, what I called ephemerz last spring, — one on the water, three quarters of an inch long, narrow, gray-winged, several segments [?] curved on the back. On winter-rye field, top of Annursnack, what looked like a very large hard core of a buttonwood ball — same color. Broke it with a stone and found it full of dark earth. Was it not my pigeon’s-egg fungus turned dark and hardened?

Steady rain on the roof in the night, sug- gesting April-like warmth. This will help melt the snow and ice and take the frost out of the ground. What pretty wreaths the mountain cranberry makes, curving upward at the extremity! The leaves are now a dark, glossy red, and wreath and all are of such a shape as might fitly be copied in wood or stone or architectural foliages. I wrote a letter for an Irishman night before last, sending for his wife in Ireland to come to this country. One sentence which he dictated was, “ Don’t mind the rocking of the vessel, but take care of the children that they be not lost overboard.”’ Lightning this evening, after a day of successive rains.

A. M. — Clearing up. Water is fast taking place of ice on the river and meadows, and morning and evening we begin to have some smooth water prospects. Saw this morning a muskrat sitting “in a round form on the ice,” or, rather, motionless like the top of a stake or a mass of muck on the edge of the ice. He then dove for a clam, whose shells he left on the ice beside him. Boiled a handful of rock-tripe (Umbilicaria Muhlen- berg) — which Tuckerman says “was the favorite Rock-Tripe in Franklin’s Journey ’’ — for more than an hour. It produced a black pulp, looking somewhat like boiled tea leaves, and was insipid like rice or starch. The dark water in which it was boiled had a bitter taste and was slightly gelatinous. The pulp was not positively disagreeable to the palate. The account in “The Young Voyageurs” ' is correct. P. M. — To Great Meadows. Peter H. says that he saw gulls (?) and sheldrakes about a month ago, when the meadow was flooded. I detect the trout minnows not an inch long by their quick motions or quirks, soon concealing themselves. The river channel is open, but there is a very thin ice of recent formation over the greater part of the meadows. It is a still, moist, louring day, and the water is smooth. Saw several flocks of large grayish and whitish or speckled ducks, — I suppose the same that P. calls shel- drakes. They, like ducks commonly, incline to fly in a line about an equal distance apart. I hear the com- mon sort of quacking from them. It is pleasant to see them at a distance alight on the water with a slant- ing flight, launch themselves, and sail along so stately. The pieces of ice, large and small, drifting along, help to conceal them, supply so many objects on the water. There is this last night’s ice on the surface, but the old ice still at the bottom of the meadows. In the spaces of still open water I see the reflection of the hills and woods, which for so long I have not seen, and it gives expression to the face of nature. The face of nature is lit up by these reflections in still water in the spring. Sometimes you see only the top of a dis- tant hill reflected far within the meadow, where a dull- gray field of ice intervenes between the water and the shore.

Misty rain, rain, —the third day of more or less rain. P. M. —C. Miles road via Clamshell Hill.

Fair weather after three rainy days. Air full of birds, —bluebirds, song sparrows, chickadee (phoebe notes), and blackbirds. Song sparrows to- ward the water, with at least two kinds or variations of their strain hard to imitate. Ozvt, ozit, ozit, psa te te te te te ter twe ter is one; the other began chip chip che we, etc., etc. Bluebirds’ warbling curls in elms. Shall the earth be regarded as a graveyard, a necro- polis, merely, and not also as a granary filled with the seeds of life? Is not its fertility increased by this de- cay? A fertile compost, not exhausted sand. On Tuesday, the 7th, I heard the first song sparrow chirp, and saw it flit silently from alder to alder. This pleasant morning after three days’ rain and mist, they generally forthburst into sprayey song from the low trees along the river. The developing of their song is gradual but sure, like the expanding of a flower. This is the first song I have heard. P. M. — To Cliffs. River higher than any time in the winter, I think, yet, there being some ice on the meadows and the tops of reflected trees being seen along its edges, Aunt thought the river had gone down and that this was the ground. . Muskrats are driven out of their holes. Heard one’s loud plash behind Hubbard’s. It comes up, brown striped with wet. I could detect its progress beneath in shallow water by the bubbles which came up. I believe I saw to-day, and have for some time seen, lizards in water, wiggling away more swiftly than tadpoles or frogs. From the hill the river and meadow is about equally water and ice, — rich blue water and islands or continents of white ice—no longer ice in place — blown from this side or that. The distant mountains are all white with snow while our land- scape is nearly bare. Another year I must observe the alder and willow sap as early as the middle of February at least. Fair Haven covered with ice. Saw a hawk. Goodwin saw a ground squirrel a fortnight ago and heard robin this morning. He has caught skunks in traps set for minks with a piece of musk- rat. Says the fox and skunk eat huckleberries, etc. Nowadays, where snow-banks have partly melted against the banks by the roadside in low ground, I see in the grass numerous galleries where the mice or moles have worked in the winter.

A. M.— Up railroad to woods. We have white frosts these mornings. This is the blackbird morning. Their sprayey notes and con- queree ring with the song sparrows’ jingle all along the river. Thus gradually they acquire confidence to sing. It is a beautiful spring morning. I hear my first robin peep distinctly at a distance on some higher trees, — oaks or ? [sic],—on a high key. No sing- ing yet. I hear from an apple tree a faint cricket- like chirp, and a sparrow darts away, flying far, dash- ang from side to side. I think it must be the white- in-tail, or grass finch. Saw either a large mouse or a ground squirrel on the snow near the edge of the wood, — probably the former. I hear a jay loudly screaming phe-phay phe-phay, —a loud, shrill chick- adee’s phebe. Now I see and hear the lark sitting with head erect, neck outstretched, in the middle of a pasture, and I hear another far off singing. Sing when they first come. All these birds do their war- bling especially in the still, sunny hour after sunrise, as rivers twinkle at their sources. Now is the time to be abroad and hear them, as you detect the slightest ripple in smooth water. As with tinkling sounds the sources of streams burst their icy fetters, so the rills of music begin to flow and swell the general quire of spring. Memorable is the warm light of the spring sun on russet fields in the morn- ing. A new feature is being added to the landscape, and that is expanses and reaches of blue water. C. says he saw a gull to-day. P. M. — To Ball’s Hill along river. My companion tempts me to certain licenses of speech, 7. e. to reckless and sweeping expressions which I am wont to regret that I have used. That is, I find that I have used more harsh, extravagant, and cynical expressions concerning mankind and individ- uals than I intended. I find it difficult to make to him a sufficiently moderate statement. I think it is because I have not his sympathy in my sober and constant view. He asks for a. paradox, an eccentric statement, and too often I give it to him.