2 April 1855 – 8 April 1855

It is somewhat warmer, but still windy, and — P. M. —I go to sail down to the Island and up to Hubbard’s Causeway. Most would call it cold to-day. I paddle without gloves. It is a coolness like that of March 29th and 30th, pleasant to breathe, and, perhaps, like that, presaging decidedly warmer weather. It is an amelio- ration, as nature does nothing suddenly. The shores are lined with frozen spray-like foam, with an abrupt edge, a foot high often on the waterside. Occasion- ally where there [are] twigs there is a nest of those short, thick bulls’-horn icicles, pointing in every direc- tion. I see many hens feeding close to the river’s edge, like the crows, — and robins and blackbirds later, — and I have no doubt they are attracted by a like cause. The ground being first thawed there, not only worms but other insect and vegetable life is accessible there sooner than elsewhere. See several pairs of ducks, mostly black. Returning, when off the hill was attracted by the noise of crows, which betrayed to me a very large hawk (?), large enough for an eagle, sitting on a maple beneath them. Now and then they dived at him, and at last he sailed away low round the hill, as if hunt- ing. The hillside was alive with sparrows, red-wings, and the first grackles’ I have seen. I detected them first by their more rasping note, — or was that a crow blackbird ? — after a short stuttering, then a fine, clear whistle.

A fine morning, still and bright, with smooth water and singing of song and tree sparrows and some blackbirds. A nuthatch is heard on the elms, and two ducks fly upward in the sun over the river. P. M. — To Clematis Brook via Lee’s. A pleasant day, growing warmer; a slight haze. Now the hedges and apple trees are alive with fox- colored sparrows, all over the town, and their imper- fect strains are occasionally heard. Their clear, fox- colored backs are very handsome. I get quite near to them. Stood quite near to what I called a hairy 1’ [That is, rusty grackles, or rusty blackbirds.] woodpecker — but, seeing the downy afterward, I am in doubt about it. Its body certainly as big as a robin. It is a question of size between the two kinds. The rows of white spots near the end of the wings of the downy remind me of the lacings on the skirts of a soldier’s coat. ‘Talked with Daniel Garfield near the old house on Conantum. He was going to see if his boat was in order for fishing. Said he had been a-fishing as early as this and caught perch, etc., with a worm. He had often caught shiners in Fair Haven Pond through the ice in March, and once a trout in deep water off Baker’s steep hill, which weighed two pounds, his lines having been left in over night. He had also often caught the little perch in White Pond in midwinter for bait. Sees trout and sucker running up brooks at this season and earlier, and thinks they go out of them in the fall, but not out of the river. Does not know where they go to. I am surprised to [find] the pond, 2. e. Fair Haven Pond, not yet fully open. There is [a] large mass of ice in the eastern bay, which will hardly melt to- morrow.’ It is a fine air, but more than tempered by the snow in the northwest. All the earth is bright; the very pines glisten, and the water is a bright blue. A gull is circling round Fair Haven Pond, seen white against the woods and hillsides, looking as if it would dive for a fish every moment, and occasionally resting on the ice. The water above Lee’s Bridge is all alive with ducks. There are many flocks of eight or ten together, their black heads and white breasts seen above the water, — more of them than I have seen before this season, — and a gull with its whole body above the water, perhaps standing where it was shallow. Not only are the evergreens brighter, but the pools, as that upland one behind Lee’s, the ice as well as snow about their edges being now completely melted, have a pe- culiarly warm and bright April look, as if ready to be inhabited by frogs. I can now put a spade into the garden anywhere. The rain of April Ist and the warmth of to-day have taken out the frost there; but I cannot put a spade into banks by the meadow where there is the least slope to the north. Returning from Mt. Misery, the pond and river- reach presented a fine, warm view. The slight haze, which on a warmer day at this season softens the rough surfaces which the winter has left and fills the copses seemingly with life, — makes them appear to teem with life, — made the landscape remarkably fair. It would not be called a warm, but a pleasant day; but the water has crept partly over the meadows, and the broad border of button-bushes, etc., etc., off Wheeler’s cranberry meadow, low and nearly flat, though sloping regularly from an abrupt curving edge on the river- side several rods into the meadow till it is submerged — this is isolated, but at this distance and through this air it is remarkably soft and elysian. There is a remark- able variety in the view at present from this summit. The sun feels as warm as in June on my ear. Half a mile off in front is this elysian water, high over which two wild ducks are winging their rapid flight eastward through the bright air; on each side and beyond, the earth is clad with a warm russet, more pleasing per- haps than green; and far beyond all, in the north- western horizon, my eye rests on a range of snow-coyv- ered mountains, glistening in the sun.

Fast-Day. 9 a. mM.—To Sudbury line by boat. A still and rather warm morning, with a very thick haze concealing the sun and threatening to turn to rain. It is a smooth, April-morning water, and many sports- men are out in their boats. I see a pleasure-boat, on the smooth surface away by the Rock, resting lightly as a feather in the air. Scare up a snipe close to the water’s edge, and soon after a hen-hawk from the Clamshell oaks. The last looks larger on his perch than flying. The snipe too, then, like crows, robins, blackbirds, and hens, is found near the waterside, where is the first spring (e. g. alders and white maples, etc., etc)., and there too es- pecially are heard the song and tree sparrows and pewees, and even the hen-hawk at this season haunts there for his prey. Inland, the groves are almost com- pletely silent as yet. The concert of song and tree sparrows at willow-row is now very full, and their different notes are completely mingled. See a single white-bellied swallow dashing over the river. He, too, is attracted here by the early insects that begin to be seen over the water. It being Fast-Day, we on the water hear the loud and musical sound of bells ringing for church in the surrounding towns. It is a sober, moist day, with a circle round the sun, which I can only see in the reflection in the water. The river appears to have risen still last night, owing to the rain of the Ist, and many spring cranberries are washed together at last, and now many new seeds, apparently of sedges, are loosened and washed up. Now that for the most part it is melted quite to its edge, and there is no ice there, the water has a warmer, April look close under my eye. Now is the first time this year to get spring cranberries. In many places now the river wreck is chiefly composed of Juncus militaris. Was it so in fall]? There is a strong muskrat scent from many a shore. See a muskrat floating, which may have been drowned when the river was so high in midwinter, — for this is the second I have seen, — with the rabbit. I saw yesterday a yellow-spot and see to-day a painted tor- toise, already out on the bank on a tuft of grass. The muskrat-hunter sits patiently with cocked gun, waiting for a muskrat to put out his head amid the button-bushes. He gets half a dozen in such a cruise. Bushed our boat with hemlock to get near some ducks, but another boat above, also bushed, scared them. Heard from one half-flooded meadow that low, general, hard, stuttering tut tut tut of frogs (?),— the awak- ening of the meadow. Hear the cry of the peacock again. By 4 p. M. it began to rain gently or mizzle. Saw this forenoon a great many of those little fuzzy gnats in the air.

It clears up at 8 p. M. warm and pleasant, leaving flitting clouds and a little wind, and I go up the Assabet in my boat. The blackbirds have now begun to frequent the water’s edge in the meadow, the ice being sufficiently out. The April waters, smooth and commonly high, before many flowers (none yet) or any leafing, while the landscape is still russet and frogs are just awakening, is [sic] peculiar. It began yes- terday. A very few white maple stamens stand out already loosely enough to blow in the wind, and some alder catkins look almost ready to shed pollen. On the hillsides I smell the dried leaves and hear a few flies buzzing over them. The banks of the river are alive with song sparrows and tree sparrows. They now sing in advance of vegetation, as the flowers will blossom, — those shght tinkling, twittering sounds called the singing of birds; they have come to enliven the bare twigs before the buds show any signs of starting. I see a large wood tortoise just crawled out upon the bank, with three oval, low, bug-like leeches on its sternum. You can hear all day, from time to time in any part of the village, the sound of a gun fired at ducks. Yesterday I was wishing that I could find a dead duck floating on the water, as I had found muskrats and a hare, and now I see something bright and reflecting the light from the edge of the alders five or six rods off. Can it be a duck? I can hardly believe my eyes. I am near enough to see its green head and neck. I am delighted to find a perfect specimen of the Mergus merganser, or goosander, undoubtedly shot yesterday by the Fast-Day sportsmen, and I take a small flat- tened shot from its wing, — flattened against the wing-bone, apparently. The wing is broken, and it is shot through the head.' It is a perfectly fresh and very beautiful bird, and as I raise it, I get sight of its long, slender vermilion bill (color of red sealing- . wax) and its clean, bright-orange legs and feet, and then of its perfectly smooth and spotlessly pure white breast and belly, tinged with a faint salmon (or tinged . with a delicate buff inclining to salmon). This, according to Wilson, is one of the mergansers, or fisher ducks, of which there are nine or ten species and we have four in America. It is the largest of these four; feeds almost entirely on fin and shell fish; called water pheasant, sheldrake, fisherman diver, dun diver, sparkling fowl, harle, etc., as well as goosander. Go in April, return in November. Jardine has found seven trout in one female. Nuttall says they breed in the Russian Empire and are seen in Mississippi and Mis- souri in winter. He found a young brood in Pennsyl- vania. Yarrell says they are called also saw-bill and jack-saw; are sometimes sold in London market. Nest, according to Selby, on ground; according to others, in a hollow tree also. Found on the continent of Europe, northern Asia, and even in Japan (?). Some breed in the Orkneys and thereabouts.?, My bird is 25% inches long and 35 in alar extent; from point of wing to end of primaries, 11 inches. * Vide [p. 290]. It is a great diver and does not mind the cold. It appears admirably fitted for diving and swimming. Its body is flat, and its tail short, flat, compact, and wedge-shaped; its eyes peer out a slight slit or semi- circle in the skin of the head; and its legs are flat and thin in one direction, and the toes shut up compactly so as to create the least friction when drawing them forward, but their broad webs spread them three and a half inches when they take a stroke. The web is extended three eighths of an inch beyond the inner toe of each foot.' There are very conspicuous black teeth-like serrations along the edges of its bill, and this also is roughened so that it may hold its prey securely. The breast appeared quite dry when I raised it from the water. The head and neck are, as Wilson says, black, glossed with green, but the lower part of the neck pure white, and these colors bound on each other so abruptly that one appears to be sewed on to the other. It is a perfect wedge from the middle of its body to the end of its tail, and it is only three and a quarter inches deep from back to breast at the thickest part, while the greatest breadth horizontally (at the root of the legs) is five and a half inches. In these respects it reminds me of an otter, which however I have never seen. I suspect that I have seen near a hundred of these birds this spring, but I never got so near one before. In Yarrell’s plate the depth of the male goosander is to its length (2. e. from tip of tail to most forward part of breast) as thirty-seven to one hundred and three, or the depth is more than one third. This length in Yarrell’s bird, calling the distance from the point of the wing to the end of the primaries eleven inches, is about fourteen and a half inches, of which my three and a quarter is not one fourth. In Nuttall’s plate the proportion is thirty-two to ninety-one, also more than one third. I think they have not represented the bird flat enough. Yarrell says it is the largest of the British mergansers; is a winter visitor, though a few breed in the north of Britain; are rare in the southern counties. But, according to Yarrell, a Mr. Low in his Natural History of Orkney says they breed there, and, after breeding, the sexes separate; and Y. quotes Selby as saying that their nest is near the edge of the water, of grass, roots, etc., lined with down, sometimes among stones, in long grass, under bushes, or in a stump or hollow tree. Y. continues, egg “a uniform buff white,” two and a half inches long. Sometimes carry their young on their backs in the water. It is common in Sweden and, according to the traveller Acerbi, in Lapland they give it a hollow tree to build in and then steal its eggs. The mother, he adds, carries her young to the water in her bill. Y. says it is well known in Russia and is found in Germany, Holland, France, Switzerland, Provence, and Italy. Has been seen near the Caucasus (and is found in Japan, according to one authority). Also in North America, Hudson’s Bay, Greenland, and Iceland.

In my walk in the afternoon of to-day, I saw from Conantum, say fifty rods distant, two shel- drakes, male and probably female, sailing on A. Wheeler’s cranberry meadow. I saw only the white of the male at first, but my glass revealed the female. The male is easily seen a great distance on the water, being a large white mark. But they will let you come only within some sixty rods ordinarily. I observed that they were uneasy at sight of me and began to sail away in different directions. I could plainly see the vermilion bill of the male and his orange legs when he flew (but he appeared all white above), and the reddish brown or sorrel of the neck of the female, and, when she lifted herself in the water, as it were preparatory to flight, her white breast and belly. She had a gray- ish look on the sides. Soon they approached each other again and seemed to be conferring, and then they rose and went off, at first low, down-stream, soon up-stream a hundred feet over the pond, the female leading, the male following close behind, the black at the end of his curved wings very conspicuous. I suspect that about all the conspicuous white ducks I see are goosanders. I skinned my duck yesterday and stuffed it to-day. It is wonderful that a man, having undertaken such an enterprise, ever persevered in it to the end, and equally wonderful that he succeeded. To skin a bird, drawing backward, wrong side out, over the legs and wings down to the base of the mandibles! Who would expect to see a smooth feather again? This skin was very tender on the breast. I should have done better had I stuffed it at once or turned it back before the skin became stiff. Look out not to cut the ear and eye- lid. But what a pot-bellied thing is a stuffed bird com- pared even with the fresh dead one I found! It looks no longer like an otter, like a swift diver, but a mere waddling duck. How perfectly the vent of a bird is covered! ‘There is no mark externally. At six this morn to Clamshell. The skunk-cabbage open yesterday, — the earliest flower this season. I suspect that the spathes do not push up in the spring. This is but three inches high. I see them as high and higher in the fall, and they seem only to acquire color now and gape open. I see but one out, and that sheds pollen abundantly. | See thirty or forty goldfinches in a dashing flock, in all respects (notes and all) like lesser redpolls, on the trees by Wood’s Causeway and on the railroad- bank. There is a general twittering and an occasional mew. Then they alight on the ground to feed, along with fF. hyemalis and fox-colored sparrows. ‘They are merely olivaceous above, dark about the base of the bill, but bright lemon-yellow in a semicircle on the breast; black wings and tails, with white bar on wings and white vanes to tail. I never saw them here so early before; or probably one or two olivaceous birds I have seen and heard of other years were this. Clear, but a cold air. What is [the] cockroach(?)-like black beetle with a colored edge (blue?) on pebbles, = like cicindelas ? P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close and Lee’s Cliff.

6 a. mM. — Up Assabet. A fine clear morning. The ground white with frost, and all the meadows also, and a low mist curling over the smooth water now in the sunlight, which gives the water a silver-plated look. The frost covers the. willows and alders and other trees on the sides of the river fifteen or twenty feet high. Quite a wintry sight. At first I can hardly distinguish white maple stamens from the frost spicule. I find some anthers effete and dark, and others still mealy with pollen. ‘There are many in this condition. The crimson female stig- mas also peeping forth. It evidently began to shed pollen yesterday. I find also at length a single catkin of the Alnus incana, with a few stamens near the peduncle discolored.and shedding a little dust when shaken; so this must have begun yesterday, I think, but it is not so forward as the maple. Though I have looked widely, I have not found the alder out before. I see some long cobweb lines covered with frost, hanging from tree to tree, six feet in one case, like the ropes which extend from mast to mast of a vessel. Very thin dark ice-crystals over shallowest water, showing the flat pyramids. Hear and see a pigeon woodpecker, something like week-wp week-up. The robins now sing in full blast. Also song sparrows and tree sparrows and I’. hye- malis are heard in the yard. The fox-colored sparrow is also there. The tree sparrows have been very musical for several mornings, somewhat canary-like. As to which’ are the earliest flowers, it depends on the char- acter of the season, and ground bare or not, meadows wet or dry, etc., etc., also on the variety of soils and localities within your reach. The columbine leaves in the clefts of Cliffs are one of the very earliest obvious growths. I noticed it the first of April. The radical leaves of the buttercup now at Lee’s Cliff —a small flat dense circle—are a very different color from those evergreen leaves seen when the snow first goes off. They are emphatically a green green, as if a sort of green fire were kindled under them in the sod. The buds not only of lilacs, but white birches, etc., look swollen. When taking the brain out of my duck yesterday, I perceived that the brain was the marrow of the head, and it is probably only a less sentient brain that runs down the backbone, — the spinal marrow. Abiel Wheeler tried to plow in sandy soil yesterday, but could not go beyond a certain depth because of frost. P. M. — Up Assabet to G. Barrett’s meadow. This forenoon it was still and the water smooth. Now there is a strong cool wind from the east. Am surprised to see a sound clam close to the shore at mouth of Dakin’s Brook, in one foot of water. A school of small minnows. Already a turtle’s track on sand close to water. The great buff-edged butterfly flutters across the river. Afterward I see a small red one. over the shore. Though the river — excepting Fair Haven Pond before the 6th — has for a week been completely free of ice, and only a little thin crystalwise forms in the night in the shallowest parts, that thick ice of the winter (February) on the meadows, covered by pieces of meadow-crust, is in many places still nearly as thick as ever, now that ice is a rather rare sight and plowing is beginning. It is remarkable how long this frozen meadow-crust lying on it has preserved it. Where the piece of meadow is only three or four feet in diameter, its edges now project over the ice, so that the whole looks like a student’s four-cornered cap, —or that which the President of Harvard wears. All that mass on B.’s meadow appears to have been taken from the upper part of the meadow near the road, about thirty rods off from where it now lies. In the ditches near which it was taken up I see the coarse yellow, reddened, and sometimes already green-tipped pads of the yellow lily, partly unrolled at the bottom of the warm water, the most of a spring growth, perhaps, in the water; also two or three good-sized buds of a healthy green. Hear at a distance in the sprout-lands the croaks of frogs from some shallow pool. Saw six muskrats’ bodies, just skinned, on the bank, — two large yellow- ish, fatty-looking masses of (I suppose) musk on each side the lower part of the abdomen. Every part of the animal now emits a very strong scent of musk. A foot which I brought home (together with a head) scented me all over. The fore feet are small and white on the palm, while the hind ones are black. All the skin being stripped off except on the nose and feet, the fore feet look like hands clothed in gauntlets of fur. This evening, about 9 p. m., I hear geese go over, now there in the south, now southeast, now east, now northeast, low over the village, but not seen. The first I have heard. Apri 9. 5.15 a. M.— To Red Bridge just before sunrise. Fine clear morning, but still cold enough for gloves. A slight frost, and mist as yesterday curling over the smooth water. I see half a dozen crows on an elm within a dozen rods of the muskrats’ bodies, as if eying them. I see thus often crows very early in the morning near the houses, which soon after sun- rise take their way across the river to the woods again. It is a regular thing with them.