17 April 1854 – 23 April 1854

For three or four days the lilac buds have looked green, — the most advanced that I have seen. The earliest gooseberry still earlier in garden (though smaller buds). P. M. — To stone-heaps by boat.

Hear the tree sparrows at willow hedge- row this morning, — ah ha ha yip yip yip yrp, or twit- ter twitter twe twe twe, or ah ha ha twitter twitter twe, — very canary-like, yet clear, as if aspirated vowels alone, —nodvzorr. Hear a pine warbler, — its note like the jingle of the F’. hyemalis, — on an elm in the street. Yesterday, as I was returning down the Assabet, paddling leisurely in the stern, the sun came out after two days of storm or louring weather and shone on the banks covered with snow. ‘The water, which had been perfectly smooth all the afternoon, looked smoother yet, and I think that I never beheld so pure and re- fulgent a white as the upright snowy banks presented. Snow never looks so white in winter.

A. M. — To Nawshawtuct. Heard on the 14th a singular note on or near the hill, like a guinea-hen or other fowl, or a squeaking pump-handle. Heard [it] again this morning, and saw two large dark birds go off from a walnut with a loud squeaking quack. Is it a strange large woodpecker? or possibly a teal? Heard the same at starlight, — ker-chuck ker-chuck ker-chuck. I think it is the red- wing only sings bobylee. Saw one pursuing a female (?). I am not sure whether these or the crow blackbirds are the earliest. Saw a small black-striped warbler or flycatcher (?) (c)’ on a willow. Hear the long-drawn scold of a flicker, sounding very loud over the water. P. M. — To Island and Hill. A willow coming out fairly, with honey-bees hum- ming on it, in a warm nook, — the most forward I have noticed, for the cold weather has held them in check. And now different kinds of bees and flies about them. What a sunny sight and summer sound! A striped snake on a warm, sunny bank. The painted tortoises are fairly out sunning to-day. A very pleasant and warm afternoon; the earth seems to be waking up. Frogs croak in the clear pools on the hillside where rocks have been taken out, and there is frog-spawn there, and little tadpoles are very lively in the sunny water. I find some advantage in describing the experience of a day on the day following. At this distance it is more ideal, like the landscape seen with the head inverted, or reflections in water. | 1 [See p. 213] 4 p. M.— To Moore’s Swamp. Red maple in a warm place shows anthers, and will open to-morrow if pleasant; say 22d. In the ditch in the Brown meadow, several yellow lily buds pushed up four or five inches. But water plants on the whole not decidedly ahead of land or air plants. The pine war- bler on the oaks, running about somewhat creeper-like and now and then uttering a loud ringing vetter vetter vetter vetter vetter vet faster and faster, with its bright- yellow throat and forked tail. At starlight by riverside a few faint stertorous sounds from the awakening meadow, and one or two faint bullfrogish notes, — er-er-er. The sound of the snipes, winnowing the evening air now at starlight, visible but for an instant high over the meadows, is heard far into the village, — hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo, rising higher and higher or dying away as they circle round, —a ghostly sound. Is that bittern-like squeak made by them? I do not mean the nighthawk-like squeak.

6 a. mM. — Heard the bay-wing sparrow? in the redeemed meadows. None yesterday morning. At a distance hear only the end of its strain, like the ring of a small piece of steel dropped on an anvil. A few F’. hyemalis still about. Are not those little whorls of black pointed scales the female blossom of the Thuya occidentalis ? Scarcely an April shower yet. How can a man be a wise man, if he does n’t know ? [“Bay-wing” is crossed out in pencil, and “one of the seringos” written over it.] 1854) | WISDOM AND LIVING 209 any better how to live than other men? —if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle? Does Wisdom work in a treadmill? Does Wisdom fail? or does she teach how to succeed by her example? Is she merely the miller who grinds the finest logic? Did Plato get his living in a better way or more suc- cessfully than his contemporaries? Did he succumb to the difficulties of life like other men? Did he merely prevail over them by indifference, or by assuming grand airs? or find it easier to live because his aunt remem- bered him in her will?? P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook. As I was handling the arbor-vite to-day, an odor like strawberries came from [it]. Is that terebinthine? The lilac is beginning to open to-day. The snows go off and the lustre of the wintergreen is undiminished. The large black ants are at work on their hills. The great scalloped leaf betrays the P. grandidentata. How silent and deserted the woods are! I do not fairly see a chickadee even. Snow with its tracks would make it seem more inhabited. How we prize any redness on the ground! — a red stain in a stone or even a coxcomb lichen on a stump! The hellebore at the brook has shot up six or eight inches with its compact bundles and will soon catch the cabbage. It is now one of the most forward plants. ‘That gooseberry at the brook is the most forward shrub or tree at present that I can find out of doors in Concord.? It shows more of a leaf than the lilac or Missouri currant, which may come next. As I go up the hill beyond the brook, while the hylodes are heard behind, I perceive the faintest possible flower- like scent as from the earth, reminding me of anemo- nies and houstonias. Can it be the budded mouse-ears under my feet? Downy-swaddled, they lie along flat to the earth like a child on its mother’s bosom. I sit on a rock awhile just below the old trough. These are those early times when the rich golden-brown tassels of the alders tremble over the brooks — and not a leaf on their twigs. We are far north with Sir John Frank- lin. I see the first of that bent lake grass on the smooth surface of a flooded meadow, with a dimple at its stem. It is a warm sight. The fruit of the O. specta- bilis (? ), flowering fern, still perfect. I see on the red cedar the male blossom buds not yet quite open, and very minute hollows with whitish scales at the ends of some of the branchlets, which I take to be the female flowers. The song of the purple finch on the elms (he also frequents firs and spruce) is rich and continuous, like, but fainter and more rapid than, that of a robin, — some of the cherruwit in it and a little of the warble of the martin. A martin was found dead the 18th after the snows, and many bluebirds in Brookfield.

A kingfisher with his crack, — er-r-r-rack. Rain yesterday and to-day; yet this morning the robin sings and the blackbirds and, in the yard, the tree sparrow, hyemalis, and song sparrow. A rain is sure to bring the tree sparrow and hyemalis to the gardens. I suppose it must be the seeds of weeds which they are so busily picking from the bare ground, which their sharp eyes detect. George Minott says that he used to shoot the red-headed woodpecker, and found their nests on the trees on his hillside. He used to steal up to the pigeon woodpeckers’ holes and clap his, hand over them and take out the old bird; then let her go. The first April showers are even fuller of promise and a certain moist serenity than the sunny days. How thickly the green blades are starting up amid the russet! The tinge of green is gradually increasing in the face of the russet earth. Now that the very earliest shrubs are beginning to unfold, — spirsea, gooseberry, honeysuckle vine, lilac, Missouri currant,— many herbaceous plants, not evergreen merely, make quite a show, as the skunk- cabbage in favorable places, nuphar in the most fa- vorable places though muddy yellow and dilapidated, callitriche and the narrow tooth-leafed water plant, etc., etc., cowslip, columbine (cress and chrysosple- nium, —are not both chiefly evergreen ?), celandine, catnep, saxifrage, dandelion, clover, golden senecio, sweet flag, hellebore (the most forward buds begin to open), thistle, shepherd’s-purse, meadow saxifrage, elder probably. As for the birds, I have this to remark: The crows still frequent the meadows. The lark sings morning and evening. The blackbirds — red-wing and crow — have since their arrival kept up their bobylee and chat- tering and split notes on the willows and maples by the river and along the meadow’s edge. They appear to depend much (as well as crows and robins) on the meadow, just left bare, for their food. They are the noisiest birds yet. Both still fly in flocks, though the male red-wings have begun to chase the females. Robins still frequent the meadows in flocks and sing in the rain. ‘The song sparrows not in such flocks nor singing so tumultuously along the watercourses in the morning as in the last half of March. How wary they are! They will dodge you for half an hour behind a wall or a twig, and only a stone will make them start, looking every which way in a minute. So the black- birds, both kinds, sidle till they bring a twig between me and them. The flock of black ducks which stayed by so long is now reduced to a quarter part their num- ber. Before the 4th or 5th of April the F. hyemalis was apparently the most abundant bird of any, in great drifting flocks with their lively jingle, their light-col- ored bill against slate breasts; then, on the advent of warmer weather, the greater part departed. Have the fox sparrows gone also? I have not seen them of late. As for hawks, after the one or two larger (perhaps) hen-hawks in the winter and a smaller one in Decem- ber (?), the first were large marsh (?) hawks on trees on the meadow edge or skimming along it; since which the eagle, the sharp-shinned, and the smaller brown and white-rumped over meadows, which may be the same, etc., etc. Have seen the black duck, golden- eye, merganser, blue(?)-winged teal, wood duck. The golden-eye seems to have gone. Heard a nuthatch yesterday, April 22d. ‘The tree sparrows are the pre- vailing bird on ground, and most numerous of any 1854) ” SOME APRIL BIRDS 213 for the past month except one while the hyemalis. They are a chubby little bird with a clear chestnut crown, a dark spot on the otherwise clear whitish breast, and two light. bars on the wings. The pigeon woodpecker now scolds long and loud morning and evening. The snipes are still feeding on the meadows. The turtle dove darts solitary about as if lost, or it had lost its mate. The yellow redpoll, with a faint clear chip, is the commonest yellow bird on hills, etc., about water. The chip sparrow does not sing much in morn- ing yet. New kinds of warblers have begun to come within a few days. I saw yesterday the smoke of the first burning of brush which I have noticed, though the leaves cannot be very dry yet. P. M. — To Lee’s Cliff on foot. It has cleared up. At Ivy Bridge I see the honey- bees entering the crypts of the skunk-cabbage, whose tips have been bitten by the frost and cold. The first sweet-gale, which opened a day or two ago on the sunny sides of brooks where the sun reached it above the bank, was an interesting sight, full of amber dust. Those are blossom, not leaf buds, so forward on the shad-bush. The myrtle-bird, — yellow-rumped war- bler, — was not this warbler ¢ of the 20th? —on the willows, alders, and the wall by Hubbard’s Bridge, slate and white spotted with yellow. Its note is a fine, rapid, somewhat hissing or whistling se se se se se ser riddler se, somewhat like the common yellowbird’s. The yellow redpolls are very common on the willows and alders and in the road near the bridge. They keep jerking their tails. I heard one male sing a jingle like che ve ve ve ve vé, very fast, and accenting the last syllable. They are quite tame. I sit awhile on the lee side of Conant’s Wood, in the sun, amid the dry oak leaves, and hear from time to time the fine ringing note of a pine warbler, which I do not see. It reminds me of former days and indescribable things. Swarms of those little fuzzy gnats now make a faint humming about the railing of the bridge. The bay-wing has a light ring at some distance around the eye. It is also too dark for my prisoner of the 15th. Saw my white-headed eagle again, first at the same place, the outlet of Fair Haven Pond. It was a fine sight, he 1s mainly —7. e. his wings and body — so black against the sky, and they contrast so strongly with his white head and tail. He was first flying low over the water; then rose gradually and circled west- ward toward White Pond. Lying on the ground with my glass, I could watch him very easily, and by turns he gave me all possible views of himself. When I ob- served him edgewise I noticed that the tips of his wings curved upward slightly the more, like a stereotyped “~~ — — om: dulation. He rose very high at last, till I almost lost him in the clouds, circling or rather looping along west- ward, high over river and wood and farm, effectually concealed in the sky. We who live this plodding life here below never know how many eagles fly over us. They are concealed in the empyrean. I think I have got the worth of my glass now that it has revealed to me - the white-headed eagle. Now I see him edgewise like a black ripple in the air, his white head still as ever turned to earth, and now he turns his under side to me, and I behold the full breadth of his broad black wings, some- what ragged at the edges. I had first seen two white ducks far off just above the outlet of the pond, mistak- ing them for the foaming crest of a wave. These flew soon, perhaps scared by the eagle. I think they were a male and female red-breasted merganser (though I did [not] see the red of the breast), for I saw his red bill, and his head was not large with a crest like the golden- eye; very white on breast and sides, the female browner.' As ducks often do, they first flew directly and unhesi- tatingly up the stream, low over the water, for half a mile, then turned and came down, flying thirty or forty feet above the water, the male leading till they were out of sight. This is the way with them, I notice; they first fly in one direction and then go off to alight in another. When they came down the river, the male leading, they were a very good example of the peculiar flight of ducks. They appeared perfectly in a line one behind the other. When they are not they preserve perfect parallelism. This is because of their long necks and feet, — the wings appearing to be attached mid- way, ——and moreover, in this case, of their perfectly level flight, as if learned from skimming over the water. Directly after rose two blue herons from the meadow. I find but one red maple fairly in blossom on a few twigs over the water to-day. I think, therefore, the 22d will do for the very earliest. Had a glimpse of a very small warbler (b’) on a pitch pine, and heard a pleasant and unusual whistle from him.’ The slippery elm, with its dull-pinkish (?) blossoms now fully out. I think on account of the snow it could not have opened before the 18th. The sedge was abundant long before the crowfoot or saxifrage was. It must be put earlier than I have allowed. Crowfoot is not yet abundant, though it was earlier than saxifrage, which has now gone ahead. A thimble-berry under this cliff is at least as forward as any gooseberry. I find a new plant, now six or eight inches high, and which will blossom in two or three days, the Arabis levigata (?).? The columbine is well budded. Some alders are still hand- some. Here is a common one, — very handsome droop- ing clusters of three, four, or five reddish-brown and greenish-yellow catkins, two to three inches long, with the small reddish female blossoms stretched over them. How the hazel catkins elongate themselves at last!