5 June 1854 – 11 June 1854

6 Pp. M. — To Cliffs. Large yellow butterflies with black spots since the 3d. Carrion-flower, maybe a day. Dangle-berry, probably June 3d at Trillium Woods. Now, just be- fore sundown, a nighthawk is circling, imp-like, with | undulating, irregular flight over the sprout-land on the Cliff Hill, with an occasional squeak and showing the spots on his wings. He does not circle away from this place, and I associate him with two gray eggs somewhere on the ground beneath and a mate there sitting. ‘This squeak and occasional booming is heard in the evening air, while the stillness on the side of the village makes more distinct the increased hum of insects. I see at a distance a kingbird or blackbird pursuing a crow lower down the hill, like a satellite revolving about a black planet. I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. I would fain drink a draft of Nature’s serenity. Let deep answer to deep. Already I see reddening clouds reflected in the smooth mirror of the river, a delicate tint, far off and elysian, unlike anything in the sky as yet. The evergreens now look even black by contrast with the sea of fresh and light-green foliage which surrounds them. Children have been to the Cliffs and woven wreaths or chaplets of oak leaves, which they have left, for they were unconsciously attracted by the beauty of the leaves now. The sun goes down red and shorn of his beams, a sign of hot weather, as if the western horizon or the lower stratum of the air were filled with the hot dust of the day. The dust of his chariot eclipses his beams. I love to sit here and look off into the broad deep vale in which the shades of night are beginning to prevail. When the sun has set, the river becomes more white and distinct in the landscape. ‘The pin- cushion galls have mostly turned brown, especially the shrub oak ones. Perhaps the sorrel was most noticeable last week.: The caterpillars are and have been very numerous this year. I see large trees (wild cherry and apple) completely stripped of leaves. Some of the latter, twenty or thirty feet high, are full of blossoms without a single leaf. I return by moon- hight.

Tuesday. I perceive the sweetness of the locust blossoms fifteen or twenty rods off as I go down the street. P. M.—To Assabet Bathing-Place and return by stone bridge. I see now great baggy light-green puffs on the pan- icled andromeda, some with a reddish side, two or three inches through. The Stellaria longifolia has been out, apparently, a day or two. A slender rush, flowered at the top, at bathing-place, some time. The painted tortoises are nowadays laying their eggs. I see where they have just been digging in the sand or gravel in a hundred places on the southerly sides of hills and banks near the river, but they have laid their eggs in very few. I find none whole. Here is one which has made its hole with the hind part of its shell and its tail apparently, and the ground is wet under it. They make a great deal of water at these times, apparently to soften the earth or to give it con- sistency, or both. ‘They are remarkably circumspect, and it is difficult to see onie working. They stop in- stantly and draw in their heads, and do not move till you are out of sight, and then probably try a new place. They have dabbled in the sand and left the marks of their tails all around. The black oaks, birches, etc., etc., are covered with ephemerez of various sizes and colors, with one, two, three, or no streamers, ready to take wing at evening, 2. €. about seven. I am covered with them and much incommoded. There is garlic by the wall, not yet out. The air over the river meadows is saturated with sweetness, but I look round in vain on the yellowish sensitive fern and the reddish eupatorium springing up. From time to time, at mid-afternoon, is heard the trump of a bullfrog, like a Triton’s horn. I am struck now by the large light-purple Viola palmata rising above the grass near the river. There are: — The small, firm, few-lobed, wholesome, a shrub oak leaf, light beneath. The more or less deeply cut, and more or less dark green or sometimes reddish black oak, not light be- neath. These two bristle-pointed. The very wet-glossy, obovatish, sinuate-edged swamp white oak, light beneath. The small narrower, sinuated, and still more chest- nut-like chinquapin, little lighter beneath. | All these more or less glossy, especially the swamp white and shrub. Then the dull-green, sometimes reddish, more or less deeply cut or fingered, unarmed, round-lobed white oak, not light beneath. The last three without bristles.

Wednesday. 6 a. mM. — Up railroad. Viburnum dentatum. Grape yesterday. Viburnum nudum, June 5. A thick fog this morning, through which at last rain falls, — the first after a considerable and first dry spell. As yet nothing has suffered from dryness; the grass is very green and rank, owing to the cold spring, the June-grass converting hillside pas- tures into mowing-land, and the seeds (or chaff ?) of many grasses begin to fall on my shoes. P. M. — To Dugan Desert via Linnea Hills. Curled dock. Linnza abundantly out some days; say 3d or 4th. It has not rained since morning, but continues cloudy and is warm and muggy, the sun almost coming out. The birds sing now more than ever, as In the morning, and mosquitoes are very trouble- some in the woods. The locusts so full of pendulous white racemes five inches long, filling the air with their sweetness and resounding with the hum of humble and honey bees, are very interesting. ‘These racemes are strewn along the path by children. Is that the Crategus Crus-Galli, roadside between Joe Hosmer’s and Tarbell’s? Again I am struck by the rank, dog- like scent of the rue budded to blossom. Along the wood-paths and in wood-side pastures I see the golden basins of the cistus. I am surprised at the size of green berries, — shad-bush, low blueberries, choke-cherries, etc., etc. It is but a step from flowers to fruit. As I expected I find the desert scored by the tracks of turtles, made evidently last night, though the rain of this morning has obliterated the marks of their tails. The tracks are about seven eighths of an inch in diam- eter, one half inch deep, two inches apart (from cen- tre to centre) in each row, and the rows four or five inches apart; and they have dabbled in the sand in many places and made some small holes. Yesterday was hot and dusty, and this morning it rained. Did they choose such a time? Yesterday I saw the painted and the wood tortoise out. Now I see a snapping tur- tle, its shell about a foot long, out here on the damp sand, with its head out, disturbed by me. It had just been excavating, and its shell — especially the fore part and sides — and especially its snout, were deeply covered with earth. It appears to use its shell as a kind of spade whose handle is within, tilting it now this way, now that, and perhaps using its head and claws as a pick. It was in a little cloud of mosquitoes, which were continually settling on its head and flippers, but which it did not mind. Its sternum was slightly depressed. It seems that they are very frequently found fighting in the water and sometimes dead in the spring, maybe killed by the ice. Some think that the suckers I see floating are killed by the ice. The Linaria Canadensis well out, near Heart-leaf Pond. How long? Cnothera pumila in low ground. Angelica at Nut Meadow Brook. The low blackberry leaves on Dennis’s lupine hill are now covered beneath with that orange rust.'| Were those premature scarlet leaves which I saw at the Rock on the 4th the shad- bush? 2 Common iris, some days; one withered. Saw again what I have pronounced the yellow- winged sparrow (Fringilla passerina), with white line down head and yellow over eyes and my seringo note; but this time yellow of wings not apparent; ochreous throat and breast; quite different from the bay-winged, and smaller. Does the bay-wing make the seringo note ?? Now the river is reduced to summer width. It is in the spring that we observe those dark-blue lakes on our meadows. Now weeds are beginning to fill the stream. This muggy evening I see fireflies, the first I have seen or heard of at least. This louring day has been a regular fisherman’s day, and I have seen many on the river, a general turnout.

Thursday. A. M.— Gentle, steady rain- storm. The Rosa nitida bud which I plucked yesterday has blossomed to-day, so that, notwithstanding the rain, I will put it down to to-day. P. M. — On river. Sidesaddle, apparently to-morrow (?). Earliest and common potamogeton. Erigeron strigosus slowly open- ing, perhaps to-morrow.? Meadow-rue, with its rank dog-like scent. Ribwort plantain is abundantly in bloom, fifteen or sixteen inches high; how long? Uéri- cularia vulgaris. Young robins in nest. Herndon, in his “Exploration of the Amazon,” says that “there is wanting an industrious and active popu- lation, who know what the comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out the great resources of the country.” But what are the “artificial wants” to be encouraged, and the “great resources” of a country? Surely not the love of luxuries like the to- bacco and slaves of his native (?) Virginia, or that fer- tility of soil which produces these. The chief want is ever a life of deep experiences, — that is, character, — which alone draws out “the great resources” of Nature. When our wants cease to be chiefly superficial and trivial, which is commonly meant by artificial, and be- gin to be wants of character, then the great resources of a country are taxed and drawn out, and the result, the staple production, is poetry. Have the “great resources” of Virginia been drawn out by such “arti- ficial wants” as there exist? Was that country really designed by its Maker to produce slaves and tobacco, or something more even than freemen and food for freemen? Wants of character, aspirations, — this is what is wanted ; but what is called civilization does not always substitute this for the barren simplicity of the savage.'

Friday. P. M. — To Well Meadow. The summer aspect of the river begins perhaps when the Uéricularia vulgarts is first seen on the surface, as yesterday. As I go along the railroad causeway, I see, in the cultivated grounds, a lark flashing his white tail, and showing his handsome yellow breast, with its black crescent like an Indian locket. For a day or two I have heard the fine seringo note of the cherry-birds, and seen them flying past, the only (?) birds, methinks, that I see in small flocks now, except swallows. ‘The willow down and seeds are blowing over the causeway. Veronica scutellata, apparently sev- eral days. A strawberry half turned on the sand of the causeway side, — the first fruit or berry of the year that I have tasted. Ladies’-slippers are going to seed. I see some white oak pincushions, nearly two inches through. Is that galium, out apparently some days in the woods by Deep Cut, near Linnea, ériflorwm or Aparine ?' Vide Maps. Compare that at Lee’s. I should like to know the birds of the woods better, what birds in- habit our woods?’ I hear their various notes ringing through them. What musicians compose our wood- land quire? -'They must be forever strange and inter- esting to me. How prominent a place the vireos hold! It is probably the yellow-throated vireo I hear now, — a more interrupted red-eye with its prelia—prelioit or tully-ho, — invisible in the tops of the trees. I see the thick, flower-like huckleberry apples. Haynes (?), Goodwin’s comrade, tells me that he used to catch mud turtles in the ponds behind Provincetown with a toad on a mackerel hook thrown into the pond and the line tied to a stump or stake on shore. Invariably the tur- tle when hooked crawled up, following the line to the stake, and was there found waiting — Goodwin baits minks with muskrats. Find the great fringed orchis out apparently two or three days. ‘Two are almost fully out, two or three only budded. A large spike of peculiarly delicate pale-purple flowers growing in the luxuriant and shady swamp amid hellebores, ferns, golden senecios, etc., etc. It is remarkable that this, one of the fairest of all our flowers, should also be one of the rarest, —for the most part not seen at all. I think that no other but myself in Concord annually finds it. That so queenly a flower should annually bloom so rarely and in such withdrawn and secret places as to be rarely seen by man! The village belle never sees this more delicate belle of the swamp. How little relation between our life and its! Most of us never see it or hear of it. The seasons go by to us as if it were not. A beauty reared in the shade of a convent, who has never strayed be- yond the convent bell. Only the skunk or ow! or other inhabitant of the swamp beholds it. In the damp twi- light of the swamp, where it is wet to the feet. How little anxious to display its attractions! It does not pine because man does not admire it. How independent on our race! It lifts its delicate spike amid the hellebore and ferns in the deep shade of the swamp. I am in- clined to think of it as a relic of the past as much as the arrowhead, or the tomahawk I found on the 7th. Ferns are four or five feet high there. 7 p. M.— Up Assabet. The tupelo’s stamens are loose and will perhaps shed pollen to-morrow or next day. It is twilight, and the river is covered with that dusty lint, as was the water next the shore at Walden this afternoon. Chimney and bank swallows are still hovering over the river, and cherry-birds fly past. The veery rings, and the tree- toad. The air is now pretty full of shad-flies, and there is an incessant sound made by the fishes leaping for such as are struggling on the surface; it sounds like the lapsing of a swift stream, sucking amid rocks. The fishes make a business of thus getting their evening meal, dimpling the river like large drops as far as I can see, sometimes making a loud plashing. Meanwhile the kingfishers are on the lookout for the fishes as they rise, and I saw one dive in the twilight and go off utter- ing his er-r-ack, cr-r-rack. . The mosquitoes encircle my head and torment me, and I see a great moth go fluttering over the tree-tops and the water, black against the sky, like a bat. The fishes continue to leap by moonlight. A full moon. Covered with disgrace, this State has sat down coolly to try for their lives the men who attempted to do its duty for it. And this is called justice! They who have shown that they can behave particularly well, — they alone are put under bonds “for their good behavior!” Such a judge and court are an impertinence. Only they are guiltless who commit the crime of contempt of such a court. It behooves every man to see that his influence is on the side of justice, and let the courts make their own characters. What is any political organization worth, when it is in the service of the devil? I see that the authorities — the Governor, Mayor, Commissioner, Marshal, etc. — are either weak or unprincipled men, — 1. €., well disposed but not equal to the occasion, — or else of dull moral perception, with the unprincipled and servile in their pay. All sound moral sentiment is opposed to them. I had thought that the Governor was in some sense the executive officer of the State; that it was his busi- ness to see that the laws of the State were executed; but, when there is any special use for him, he is useless, permits the laws to go unexecuted, and is not heard from. But the worst I shall say of the Governor is that he was no better than the majority of his constituents — he was not equal to the occasion. While the whole military force of the State, if need be, is at the service of a slaveholder, to enable him to carry back a slave, not a soldier is offered to save a citizen of Massachusetts from being kidnapped. Is this what all these arms, all this “training,” has been for these seventy-eight years past ? What is wanted is men of principle, who recognize a higher law than the decision of the majority. The marines and the militia whose bodies were used lately were not men of sense nor of principle; in a high moral sense they were not men at all. Justice is sweet and musical to hear; but injustice is harsh and discordant. The judge still sits grinding at his organ, but it yields no music, and we hear only the sound of the handle. He believes that all the music resides in the handle, and the crowd toss him their coppers just the same as before.

Saturday. P. M.—'To Conantum on foot. The bay-wing sparrow apparently is not my seringo, after all. What is the seringo? I see some with clear, dirty-yellow breasts, but others, as to-day, with white breasts, dark-streaked. Both have the yellow over eye and the white line on crown, and agree in size, but I have seen only one with distinct yellow on wings. Both the last, 7. e. except only the bay-wing, utter the seringo note. Are they both yellow-winged sparrows ? or is the white-breasted with streaks the Savannah sparrow ? The meadows now begin to be yellow with senecio. Sidesaddle generally out; petals hang down, appar- ently a day or two. It is a conspicuous flower. The fragrance of the arethusa is like that of the lady’s- shpper, or pleasanter. I see many dead painted tor- toises, the bugs now devouring them, in the fields. The [Viburnum] Lentago is just out of bloom now that the V. nudum is fairly begun. Saw probably a crow’s nest high in a white pine, two crows with ragged wings circling high over it and me, not noisy.

Sunday. 8.30 a. m.—To Framingham with Mrs. Brown. All day cloudy and cool without rain. At twelve walked up the Sudbury River above Frank’s to Ashland, at first through the meadows, then over the high hills in the vicinity. The stream nar- rows suddenly in the middle of Framingham, probably about the outlet from Farm Pond and also Stony Brook. It is merely a large brook from a rod to a rod and a half wide, pursuing a serpentine course through meadows, still deep and dark and sluggish for the most part, and bordered with pads, thus preserving its character below. Diervilla abundant on bank of river at Frank’s, out possibly yesterday. I see that red sugar incrustation on red maple leaves. Young song sparrows have flown some days at Frank’s. Prunella well out, perhaps two or three days. From a high hill on the west of the river, about a mile from Frank’s, get a good view of Farm Pond eastward, which empties into the river, with South Framingham on the south- east side of it. I did not instantly detect it, the dark hills and trees being reflected in it. How agreeable in a still, cloudy day, when large masses of clouds, equally dispersed, float across the sky, not threatening rain, but preserving a temperate air, to see a sheet of water thus revealed by its reflections, a smooth, glassy mirror, reflecting the light sky and the dark and shady woods. It is very much like a mirage. I went to a pretty high hill east of and near to Ashland, where I found an abundance of ripe strawberries, earlier, I am sure, than with us. A young man picking strawberries pointed toward Hopkinton southwesterly and said that it was four miles thither straight and six to White- hall Pond (the source of the river), but a great deal farther by the river, that boats were used here at Ashland, and pouts and pickerel caught. Grape out. Saw in and near some woods four or five cow black- birds, with their light-brown heads, — their strain an imperfect, milky, gurgling conqueree, an unsuccess- ful effort. It made me think, for some reason, of - streams of milk bursting out a sort of music between the staves of a keg. I saw a yellow-spotted tortoise come out, — undoubtedly to lay its eggs, — which had climbed to the top of a hill as much as a hundred and thirty feet above any water. A wood tortoise had just made its hole in the damp soil of Frank’s garden. Maple viburnum well out. It must come very soon after the nudum. ‘The note of the cuckoo is an agree- able sound in the middle of these days. I think I saw wild radish (Raphanus) out, as I rode along. These days observe and admire the forms of elms.