19 February 1855 – 25 February 1855

Rufus Hosmer says that in the year 1820 (? ) there was so smooth and strong an icy crust on a very deep snow that you could skate everywhere over the fields and for the most part over the fences. Sam Potter’s father, moving into town, turned off into the fields with a four(?)-horse team as soon as he had crossed Wood’s Bridge and went directly across to Deacon Hubbard’s. When Wood’s Bridge was carried off up- stream, it was landed against Hubbard’s land. Showed me where his grandfather, Nathan Hosmer, who lived in the old house still standing on Conantum, was drowned when crossing the river on the ice from town, just below the bridge since built. Many will complain of my lectures that they are transcendental. “Can’t understand them.” “Would you have us return to the savage state?” etc., etc. A criticism true enough, it may be, from their point of view. But the fact is, the earnest lecturer can speak only to his like, and the adapting of himself to his audience is a mere compliment which he pays them. If you wish to know how I think, you must endeavor to put yourself in my place. If you wish me to speak as if I were you, that is another affair. I think it was about a week ago that I saw some dead honey-bees on the snow. The water is about a foot deep on the Jimmy Miles road. E. Conant thinks that the Joe Miles causeway is rather worse than Hubbard’s in respect to water. Rice and some others always say “cassey” for cause- way. Conant was cutting up an old pear tree which had blown down by his old house on Conantum. This and others still standing, and a mulberry tree whose stump remains, were set anciently with reference to a house which stood in the little peach orchard near by. The only way for Conant to come to town when the water is’ highest is by Tarbell’s and Wood’s on the stone bridge, about a mile and a half round. It is true when there is no snow we cannot so easily see the birds, nor they the weeds.

I have caught another of those mice of February 16th and secured it entire, — a male. Wiiolelem@th . 2. 2. 1. 6 0s te ee we ee 64 inches Head, from the nose to theears. . . . . «© ws . 1 inch Tie ee ee Fe lt lk 34 inches Longest of the whiskers . . . - . - se es. rr s* Hind legs the longest, though only the feet, about three quarters of an inch in length, are exposed, with- out the fur. Of the fore legs a little more is exposed than the hands, or perhaps four to five eighths of an inch, claws concealed in tufts of white hair. The upper jaw projects about half an inch beyond the lower. The whole upper parts are brown, except the ears, from the snout to the tip of the tail, — dark-brown on the top of the head and back and upper side of the tail, reddish- brown or fawn or fox (?) colored on the sides. Tail hairy and obscurely ringed. ‘The whole lower parts white, including the neat white feet and under side of tail. The irregular waving line along the sides, forming the boundary between the brown and the white, very sharply defined from side of the snout to the tip of the tail. Above brown, beneath white very decidedly. The brown of the sides extends down by a triangular point to the last joint or foot of the fore legs and to the same or heels of the hind ones, or you may say the white of the belly extends upward on the sides between the legs in a broad bay. The ears are large, broad and roundish, five eighths of an inch long, ash or slate-colored, thin and bare except at base. The reddish brown and the white are the striking colors. It is in the attitude of hopping, its thighs drawn up and concealed in the fur and its long hind feet in the same plane with its buttocks, while the short fore feet appear like hands. Fur dark slate, under both brown and white hair. The droppings black, say one sixth inch long, cylindrical. Some of the whisk- ers are dark, some whitish. It has a rather large head, apparently curving forward or downward.’ A very slight and delicate tinge of yellowish beneath be- tween the fore legs. It is undoubtedly the Arvicola Emmonsu of De Kay. It is a very pretty and neat little animal for a mouse, with its wholesome reddish-brown sides distinctly bounding on its pure white belly, neat white feet, large slate-colored ears which suggest circumspection and timidity, — ready to earth itself on the least sound of danger, — long tail, and numerous whiskers. ‘This was caught in a dry and elevated situation, amid shrub oaks. It apparently, like the other, came up through a hole in the snow at the foot of a shrub oak (Quercus dictfolia). This tawny or reddish-brown color which belongs to the king of beasts and to the deer, singular that it should extend to this minute beast also! ? A strong wind drying the earth which has been so very wet. The sand begins to be dry in spots on the railroad causeway. The northerly wind blows me along, and when I get to the cut I hear it roaring in the woods, all reminding me of March, March. The sides of the cut are all bare of snow, and the sand foliage is dried up. It is decided March weather, and I see from my window the bright-blue water here and there between the ice and on the meadow. The quadrupeds which I know that we have here in Concord are (vide Emmons, p. 5): — Of Order Family CARNIVORA. — VESPERTILIONIDZ. One. Have we more of the three in the State ? SorIcIDE Have we any? TaLPip® Condylura longicau- data, Star-nose Mole. Have we not another of the three moles? Ursip= Procyon. lotor, the Raccoon. CANIDE Vulpes julvus. MUSTELID= Mustela martes, Pine Marten. Putorius vison, the Mink. Putorius vulgaris, Reddish Weasel. Putorius Novebora- censis, Ermine Weasel. Lutra Canadensis, Otter. Mephitis Americana. RODENTIA CasTORIDZ Fiber zibethicus. LEPorRIDz Lepus Americanus. Lepus Virginianus. Mvscipz (altered to Muripz& on Arvicola hirsutus, p. 59) Meadow Mouse, probably. (His albo-rufescens only a variety according to Audubon and Bachman.) Arvicola Emmonsii.' Mus musculus, Com- mon Mouse. Mus rattus (? ), Black Rat. Mus decumanus, Wharf Rat, Brown Rat. Arctomys monax, Woodchuck. Sciurus leucotis, Little Gray Squirrel. Sciurus Hudsonsus. Sciurus striatus. Pteromys volucella. Have we the Gerbillus Canadensis, Jump- ing mouse? According to this we have at least twenty-one and perhaps twenty-six quadrupeds, — five and possibly six families of the Order Carnivora, and three families of the Order Rodentia; none of the Order Ruminantia. Nearly half of our quadrupeds belong to the Muride, or Rat Family, and a quarter of them to the Mustelide, or Weasel Family. Some, though numerous, are rarely seen, as the wild mice and moles. Others are very rare, like the otter and raccoon. The striped squirrel is the smallest quadruped that we commonly notice in our walks in the woods, and we do not realize, especially in summer, when their tracks are not visible, that the aisles of the wood are threaded by countless wild mice, and no more that the meadows are swarm- ing in many places with meadow mice and moles. The cat brings in a mole from time to time, and we see where they have heaved up the soil in the meadow. We see the tracks of mice on the snow in the woods, or once in a year one glances by like a flash through the grass or ice at our feet, and that is for the most part all that we see of them. Though all the muskrat-cabins will be covered by an early rise of the river in the fall, you will yet see the greater part of them above the ice in midwinter, however high the water may be. I frequently detect the track of a foreigner by the print of the nails in his shoes, both in snow and earth; of an india-rubber, by its being less sharply edged, and, most surely, often, by the fine diamond roughen- ing of the sole. How much we infer from the dandy’s narrow heel-tap, while we pity his unsteady tread, and from the lady’s narrow slipper, suggesting corns, not to say consumption. ‘The track of the farmer’s cowhides, whose carpet-tearing tacks in the heel frequently rake the ground several inches before his foot finds a resting- place, suggests weight and impetus.

Another Arvicola Emmonsu, a male; whole length six inches, tail three inches. This is very little reddish on the sides, but general aspect above dark-brown; though not iron-gray, yet reminding me of that; yet not the less like the hue of beasts in a menagerie. This may be a last year’s mouse. Audubon and Bachman say that when “it sheds its hair late in spring . . . it assumes a bluish gray tint, a little lighter than that of the common mouse.” P. M. — To Fair Haven Hill via Cut. A clear air, with a northwesterly, March-like wind, as yesterday. What is the peculiarity in the air that both the invalid in the chamber and the traveller on the highway say these are perfect March days? The wind is rapidly drying up earth, and elevated sands already begin to look whitish. How much light there is in the sky and on the surface of the russet earth! It is reflected in a flood from all cleansed surfaces which rain and snow have washed, — from the rail- road rails and the mica in the rocks and the silvery latebree of insects there, — and I never saw the white houses of the village more brightly white. Now look for an early crop of arrowheads, for they will shine. When I have entered the wooded hollow on the east of the Deep Cut, it is novel and pleasant to hear the sound of the dry leaves and twigs, which have so long been damp and silent, more worn and lighter than ever, crackling again under my feet, — though there is still considerable snow about, along wall-sides, etc., — and to see the holes and galleries recently made by the mice (?) in the fine withered grass of such places, the upper aralia hollow there. I see the peculiar soft- ened blue sky of spring over the tops of the pines, and, when I am sheltered from the wind, I feel the warmer sun of the season reflected from the withered grass and twigs on the side of this elevated hollow.

P. M.— To J. Farmer’s. Remarkably warm and pleasant weather, perfect spring. I even listen for the first bluebird. I see a seething in the air over clean russet fields.” The westerly wind is rather raw, but in sheltered places it is de- liciously warm. The water has so far gone down that I get over the Hunt Bridge causeway by going half a dozen rods on the wall in one place. This water must have moved two or three hundred cartloads of sand to the side of the road. This damage would be avoided by raising the road. J. Farmer showed me an ermine weasel he caught in a trap three or four weeks ago. They are not very common about his barns. All white but the tip of the tail; two conspicuous canine teeth in each jaw. In summer they are distinguished from the red weasel, which is a little smaller, by the length of their tails, particularly, — six or more inches, while the red one’s * Henry Hosmer tells me (Mar. 17th) that he saw several flocks about this time! - ? Also the 24th, which is very cold. is not two inches long. He says their track is like that of the mink: — e Se eo a 4 é e wv ® as if they had only two legs. They go on the jump. Sometimes make a third mark. He saw one in the summer (which he called the red weasel, but, as he thought the red twice as big as the white, it may have been a white one) catch a striped squirrel thus: He was at work near the wall near his house when he saw a striped squirrel come out of the wall and jump along by the side of a large stone. When he had got two or three feet along it, as it were in the air, the weasel appeared behind him, and before he had got four feet had him by the throat. Said a man told him that he saw a weasel come running suddenly to an apple tree near which he was working, run round and round and up it, when a squirrel sitting on the end of a branch jumped off, and the weasel, jumping, had him before he touched the ground. He had no doubt that when the weasel ran round the tree he was on the track of the squir- rel.

Clear, but a very cold north wind. I see great cakes of ice, a rod or more in length and one foot thick, lying high and dry on the bare ground in the low fields some ten feet or more beyond the edge of the thinner ice, which were washed up by the last rise (the 18th), which was some four inches higher than the former one.’ Some of these great cakes, when the water going down has left them on a small mound, have bent as they settled, and conformed to the surface. Saw at Walden this afternoon that that grayish ice which had formed over the large square where ice had been taken out for Brown’s ice-house had a decided pink or rosaceous tinge. I see no cracks in the ground this year yet. Mr. Loring says that he and his son George fired at white swans in Texas on the water, and, though G. shot two with ball and killed them, the others in each case gathered about them and crowded them off out of their reach.

Clear, but very cold and windy for the season. Northerly wind; smokes blown southerly. Ground frozen harder still; but probably now and hereafter what ground freezes at night will in great part melt by middle of day. However, it is so cold this afternoon that there is no melting of the ground through- out the day. The names of localities on the Sudbury River, the south or main branch of Concord or Musketaquid River, beginning at the mouth of the Assabet, are the Rock (at mouth), Merrick’s Pasture, Lee’s Hill, Bridge, Hubbard Shore, Clamshell Hill and fishing-place, Nut Meadow Brook, Hollowell Place and Bridge, Fair Haven Hill and Cliffs, Conantum opposite, Fair Haven Pond and Cliff and Baker Farm, Pole Brook, Lee’s and Bridge, Farrar’s or Otter Swamp, Bound Rock, Rice’s Hill and ’s [sic] Isle, the Pantry, Ware Hill, Sherman’s Bridge and Round Hill, Great Sudbury Meadow and Tall’s Isle, Causeway Bridges, Larned Brook, the Chestnut House, Pelham Pond, the Rapids. I saw yesterday in Hubbard’s sumach meadow a bunch of dried grass with a few small leaves inmixed, which had lain next the ground under the snow, prob- ably the nest of a mouse or mole. P. M. — To young willow-row near Hunt’s Pond road. Here is skating again, and there was some yester- day, the meadows being frozen where they had opened, though the water is fast going down. It is a thin ice of one to two inches, one to three feet above the old, with yellowish water between. However, it is narrow dodging between the great cakes of the ice which has been broken up. The whole of the broad meadows is a rough, irregular checker-board of great cakes a rod square or more, — arctic enough to look at. The willow-row does not begin to look bright yet. The top two or three feet are red as usual at a dis- tance, the lower parts a rather dull green. Inspect- ing a branch, I find that the bark is shrunk and wrinkled, and of course it will not peel. Probably when it shines it will be tense and smooth, all its pores filled. Staples said the other day that he heard Phillips speak at the State-House. By thunder! he never heard a man that could speak like him. His words come so easy. It was just like picking up chips. Minott says that Messer tells him he saw a striped squirrel (!) yesterday.’ His cat caught a mole lately, not a star-nosed one, but one of those that heave up the meadow. She sometimes catches a little dark- colored mouse with a sharp nose. Tells of a Fisk of Waltham who, some thirty years ago, could go out with a club only and kill as many partridges as he could conveniently bring home. I suppose he knew where to find them buried in the snow. Both Minott and Farmer think they sometimes remain several days in the snow, if the weather is bad for them. Minott has seen twigs, he says, of apple, in their crops, three quarters of an inch long. Says he has seen them drum a many times, standing on a log or a wall; that they strike the log or stone with their wings. He has fre- quently caught them in a steel trap without bait, - covered with leaves and set in such places. Says that quails also eat apple buds. I notice that, in the tracks, hens’ toes are longer and more slender than partridges and more or less turned and curved one side. The brightening of the willows or of osiers, — that is a season in the spring, showing that the dormant sap is awakened. I now remember a few osiers which I have seen early in past springs, thus brilliantly green and red (or yellow), and it is as if all the landscape > and all nature shone. Though the twigs were few which I saw, I remember it as a prominent phenome- non affecting the face of Nature, a gladdening of her face. You will often fancy that they look brighter before the spring has come, and when there has been no change in them. Thermometer at 10° at 10 p. M.

Clear, cold, and windy. Thermometer at 7° at 7.30 a. mM. Air filled with dust blowing over the fields. Feel the cold about as much as when it was below zero a month ago. Pretty good skating.