27 March 1854 – 2 April 1854

Saw a hawk—probably marsh hawk— by meadow.

P. M.—To White Pond. Coldest day for a month or more, —severe as almost any in the winter. Saw this afternoon either a snipe or a woodcock; it appeared rather small for the last.’ Pond opening on the northeast. A flock of hyemalis drifting from a wood over a field incessantly for four or five minutes, — thousands of them, notwithstand- ing the cold. The fox-colored sparrow sings sweetly also. Saw a small slate-colored hawk, with wings transversely mottled beneath, — probably the sharp- shinned hawk. Got first proof of “Walden.”

Wednesday. P. M. — To Fair Haven. Coldest night. Pump froze so as to require thawing. Saw two marsh hawks (?), white on rump. A gull of pure white, — a wave of foam in the air. How simple and wave-like its outline, the outline of the wings pre- senting two curves, between which the tail is merely the point of junction, — all wing like a birch scale; tail remarkably absorbed. Saw two white-throated, black-beaked divers fly off swiftly low over the water, with black tips of wings curved short downward. ~— Afterward saw one scoot along out from the shore upon the water and dive; and that was the last I could see of him, though I watched four or five minutes. Fair Haven half open; channel wholly open. See thin cakes of ice at a dis- tance now and then blown up on their edges and glis- tening in the sun. Had the experience of arctic voy- agers amid the floe ice on a small scale. Think I saw a hen-hawk, — two circling over Cliffs.

6 a. mM. — To Island. First still hour since the afternoon of the 17th. March truly came in like a lamb and went out like a lion this year. Remarkably and continuously pleasant weather from the very first day till the 18th. Appar- ently an early spring, — buds and birds well advanced, —then suddenly very severe cold and high winds, cold enough to skim the river over in broad places at night, and commencing with the greatest and most destructive gale for many a year, felt far and wide; and it has never ceased to blow since till this morning. Vegetation is accordingly put back. The ground these last cold (thirteen) days has been about bare of snow, but frozen. Some had peas and potatoes in before it. First half of month very pleasant and mild spring wea- ther, last half severe winter cold and high winds. The water at its highest, — not very high, — this month on the 17th. Ducks have been lurking in sheltered places not frozen. Robins feed along the edge of the river. At the Island I see and hear this morning the cackle of a pigeon woodpecker at the hollow poplar; had heard him tapping distinctly from my boat’s place, }+of a mile. Great flocks of tree sparrows and some f’. hyemalis on the ground and trees on the Island Neck, making the air and bushes ring with their jin- gling. The former — some of them — say somewhat like this: a che che, ter twee twee, tweer tweer twa. It sounded like a new bird. The black ducks seem always to rise with that loud, hoarse croaking —quack- ing. The river early is partly filled with thin, floating, hardly cemented ice, occasionally turned on its edge by the wind and sparkling in the sun. If the sun had kept out of the way one day in the past fortnight, I think the river would have frozen to bear. Read an interesting article on Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, the friend and contemporary of Cuvier, though opposed to him in his philosophy. He believed species to be variable. In looking for anatomical resemblances he found that he could not safely be guided by function, form, structure, size, color, etc., but only by the relative position and mutual depend- ence of organs. Hence his Le Principe des Connex- wons and his maxim, “An organ is sooner destroyed than transposed,’— “Un organ est plutét altéré, atrophié, anéanti, que transposé.”’ A principal formula of his was, “Unity of Plan, Unity of Composition.” (In the Westminster Review, January, 1854.)

Weather changes at last to drizzling. In criticising your writing, trust your fine instinct. There are many things which we come very near ques- tioning, but do not question. When I have sent off my manuscripts to the printer, certain objectionable sentences or expressions are sure to obtrude themselves on my attention with force, though I had not con- sciously suspected them before. My critical instinct then at once breaks the ice and comes to the surface.

The tree sparrows, hyemalis, and song sparrows are particularly lively and musical in the yard this rainy and truly April day. The air rings with them. The robin now begins to sing sweet power- fully. P. M. — Up Assabet to Dodge’s Brook; thence to Farmer’s. April has begun like itself. It is warm and showery, while I sail away with a light southwest wind toward the Rock. Sometimes the sun seems just ready to burst out, yet I know it will not. The meadow is becoming bare. It resounds with the sprayey notes of black- birds. The birds sing this warm, showery day after a fortnight’s cold (yesterday was wet too), with a uni- versal burst and flood of melody. Great flocks of hye- malis, etc., pass overhead like schools of fishes in the water, many abreast. The white maple stamens are beginning to peep out from the wet and weather-beaten buds. The earliest alders are just ready to bloom — to show their yellow — on the first decidedly warm and sunny day. The water is smooth at last and dark. Ice no longer forms on the oars. It is pleasant to pad- dle under the dripping hemlocks this dark day. They make more of a wilderness impression than pines. The lines of sawdust from Barrett’s mill at different heights on the steep, wet bank under the hemlocks rather enhance the impression of freshness and wild- ness, as if it were a new country. Saw a painted tor- toise on the bottom. The bark of poplar boughs which have been held in the ice along the sides of the river the past winter is gnawed, probably by muskrats. Saw floating a good-sized rooster without a head, — the red stump sticking out, — probably killed by an owl. Heard a bird whose note was very much like that of the purple finch,—loud and clear. First smelled the muskrat. Yesterday and to-day I hear the cackle of the flicker, so agreeable from association. It brings the year about. From afar, on some blasted tree, it makes all the vale ring with [?] its swelling flicker (?). Saw, at Farmer’s, his snow-grubs, — the same I had seen (vide back). Harris, in this week’s New England Farmer, thinks, on comparing them with English plates, that they are the larve of one of the species of crane-fly (Tipula). I saw some still in F.’s pasture. Did they not come out from the roots of the grass prematurely in the winter, and so become food for birds? The ground in Farmer’s garden was in some places whitened with the droppings of the snowbirds after seeds of weeds, —F. hyemalis and others. ‘he hyemalis is in the largest flocks of any at this season. You see them come drifting over a rising ground just like snowflakes before a northeast wind.

P. M.— To Conantum wa Nut Meadow Brook. ; Saw black ducks in water and on land. Can see their light throats a great way with my glass. They do not dive, but dip. That liverwort ' in the J. Hosmer ditch is now obvious. It has little green cups on its frond, with a fringed mouth; but I saw something similar but shorter and more orbicular yesterday, under the hemlock bank, with little black dots on it. The radical leaves of some plants appear to have started, look brighter. The shepherd’s-purse (?), and plainly the skunk-cabbage. In the brook there is the least possible springing yet. A little yellow lily in the ditch and sweet flag starting in the brook. I was sitting on the rail over the brook, when I heard . something which reminded me of the song of the robin in rainy days in past springs. Why is it that not the note itself, but something which reminds me of it, should affect me most?—the ideal instead of the actual. At Lee’s Cliff the red-stemmed moss. The slippery elm is about as forward as the common, with its rusty buds. The saxifrage is the most springlike plant, me- thinks, yet. The tree sparrows make the alders, etc., ring. They have a metallic chirp and a short canary-like warble. They keep company with the hyemalis.