21 May 1855 – 27 May 1855

P. M. — To Island. Salix nigra leafs. Is that plump blue-backed, rufous- rumped swallow the cliff swallow, flying with barn swal- lows, etc., over the river? Nuttall apparently so de- scribes it, —54 by 12. It dashes within a foot of me. Lambkill leaf, a day or two. Choke-berry pollen; per- haps a day or more elsewhere. Viola palmata pretty common, apparently two or three days. Some button- bush begins to leaf. Cranberry well started; shoots three quarters of an inch. Bluets whiten the fields, and violets are now perhaps in prime. Very cold to-day; cold weather, indeed, from the 20th to 23d inclusive. Sit by fires, and sometimes wear a greatcoat and expect frosts.

Cerasus pumila in full bloom. How long? Bank swallows — ashy-brown above — have holes at Deep Cut. Have not surely distinguished them before, this season. Sage willow may have begun to leaf a week or ten days ago or more. Cuckoo. Scared up a nighthawk — from the white on wings — amid the dry leaves on the edge of a copse on Fair Haven Hill, where apparently it had been scratching, the leaves looking as if they had been turned up. Linaria Can- adensis on Cliffs open. The deciduous trees leafing begin to clothe or imvest the evergreens. The oaks are a little more than in the gray. Huckleberry open, possibly yesterday. Fringed polygala, how long? Herd’s-grass (?) on Channing’s bank, pollen.t Harris tells Emerson my cicada is the Noveboracensis (?), known to New-Yorkers. Lupine not open yet for two or three days. Not yet chinquapin oak.

A. M. — To bayberry wa river. Myrica, not quite. Lousewort pollen, how long?

A. M. — To Beck Stow’s. Buttonwood not open. Celandine pollen. Butter- nut pollen, apparently a day or two. Black oak pollen yesterday, at least. Scarlet oak the same, but a little later. The staminate flowers of the first are on long and handsome tassels for three or four inches along the extremities of last year’s shoots, depending five inches (sometimes six) by four in width and quite dense and thick. The scarlet oak tassels are hardly half as long; the leaves, much greener and smoother and now somewhat wilted, emit a sweet odor, which those of the black do not. Both these oaks are appar- ently more forward at top, where I cannot see them. Mountain-ash open apparently yesterday. In woods by Andromeda Polifolia the chestnut-sided warbler, with clear yellow crown and yellow on wings and chestnut sides. It is exploring low trees and bushes, often along stems about young leaves, and frequently or after short pauses utters its somewhat summer-yellowbird- like note, say, tchip tchip, chip chip (quick), tche tche ter tchéa, — spray[ey| and rasping and faint. Another, further off. Andromeda Polifolia now in prime, but the leaves are apt to be blackened and unsightly, and the flowers, though delicate, have a feeble and sickly look, rose- white, somewhat crystalline. Its shoots or new leaves, unfolding, say when it flowered or directly after, now one inch long. Buck-bean just fairly begun, though probably first the 18th; a handsome flower, but already when the raceme is only half blown, some of the lowest flowers are brown and withered, deforming it. What a pity! Juniperus repens pollen not even yet; apparently to-morrow. Apparently put back by the cold weather. Beach plum pollen probably several days in some places; and leaves begun as long. Hear a rose-breasted grosbeak. At first thought it a tanager, but soon I perceived its more clear and in- strumental — should say whistle, if one could whistle like a flute; a noble singer, reminding me also of a robin; clear, loud and flute-like; on the oaks, hill- side south of Great Fields. Black all above except white on wing, with a triangular red mark on breast but, as I saw, all white beneath this. Female quite different, yellowish olivaceous above, more like a mus- cicapa. Song not so sweet as clear and strong. Saw it fly off and catch an insect like a flycatcher. An early thorn pollen (not Crus-Gallt) apparently yesterday. Picked up a pellet in the wood-path, of a small bird’s feathers, one inch in diameter and loose; nothing else with them; some slate, some yellow. Young robins some time hatched. Heard a purple finch smg more than one minute without pause, loud and rich, on an elm over the street. Another singing very faintly on a neighboring elm. Conant fever-bush had not begun to leaf the 12th. I seem to have seen, among sedges, etc., (1) the Carex Pennsylvanica ; also (2) another similar, but later and larger, in low ground with many more pistillate flowers nearly a foot high, three-sided and rough culm (the first is smooth); also (3) an early sedge at Lee’s Cliff with striped and pretty broad leaves not rigid, per- haps on 554th page of Gray; (4) the rigid tufted are com- mon in meadows, with cut-grass-like leaves. Call it C. stricta, though not yet more than a foot high or eighteen inches. Of Juncacee, perhaps Luzula campestris, the early umbelled purple-leaved, low. And, apparently, of grasses, foxtail grass, on C.’s bank. Naked azalea shoots more than a week old, and other leaves, say a week at least. P. M. — To Cliffs. Wind suddenly changed to south this forenoon, and for first time I think of a thin coat. It is very hazy in consequence of the sudden warmth after cold, and I cannot see the mountains. Chinquapin pollen. Lupine not yet. Black scrub oak tassels, some reddish, some yellowish. Just before six, see in the northwest the first summer clouds, methinks, piled in cumuli with silvery edges, and westward of them a dull, rainy- looking cloud advancing and shutting down to the horizon; later, lightning in west and south and a little rain. Another kind of frog spawn at Beck Stow’s.

A rather warm night the last; window slightly open. Hear buzz of flies in the sultryish morn- ing air on awaking. 8 a. M. — To Hill. Late rose shoots, two inches, say a fortnight since. Salix nigra pollen, a day at least. Wood pewee. Ap- parently yellowbirds’ nests just completed — one by stone bridge causeway,’ another on birch by mud turtle meadow. Veronica peregrina in Mackay’s straw- berries, how long? Most of the robins’ nests I have examined this year had three eggs, clear bluish green. A chip-bird’s nest on a balm-of-Gilead, eight feet high, between the main stem and a twig or two, with four very pale blue-green eggs with a sort of circle of brown-black spots about larger end. Red-wing’s nest with four eggs — white, very faintly tinged with (perhaps) green and curiously and neatly * One egg in it the next morning. Also a red-wing’s nest opposite Dodd’s (one egg in it next morning, 7. e. 26th). marked with brown-black spots and lines on the large end. Red-wings now generally beginning to lay. Fever-root one foot high and more, say a fortnight or three weeks. Scared a screech owl out of an apple tree on hill; flew swiftly off at first like a pigeon wood- pecker and lit near by facing me; was instantly visited and spied at by a brown thrasher; then flew into a hole high in a hickory near by, the thrasher following close to the tree. It was reddish or ferruginous. Choke- cherry pollen on island, apparently two or three days. Hemlock pollen, probably to-morrow; some in house to-day; say to-day; not yet leafing. Aralia nudicaulis, perhaps two days pollen. Cornus florida, no bloom. Was there year before last? Does it not flower every other year? Its leaf, say, just after C’. sericea. Tupelo leaf before button-bush; maybe a week now. Red oak pollen, say a day or two before black. Swamp white oak pollen. River at summer level, four inches below long stone. Grass patches conspicuous, and flags and Equisetum limosum and pontederia (eight inches high), and white lily pads now (after yellow) red above, and purplish polygonum leaves in beds above water. For some days the handsome phalanxes of the Equisetum l- mosum have attracted me. The button-bush hardly yet generally begun to leaf. Critchicrotches in prime. Heard the first regular bullfrog’s trump on the 18th; none since.’ Juniper, plucked yesterday, sheds pollen in house to-day, and probably in field. Is our white willow Gray’s var. 2d, cerulea ? The golden robin keeps whistling something like Eat it, Potter, eat at! Carex exilis (??), river-shore opposite Wheeler’s gate, six inches high, but the culm smooth — some time. Is that sweet-scented vernal grass just begun to bloom at celtis shore ? Fir balsam begun to leaf — with flower. Cottony aphides on white pines. Hear a quail and the summer spray frog,’ amid the ring of toads.

8 a. mM. — By boat to Kalmia glauca and thence to scouring-rush. Again a strong cold wind from the north by west, turning up the new and tender pads. The young white lily pads are now red and crimson above, while greenish beneath. Nightshade dark-green shoots are eight inches long. Button-bush would commonly-be said to begin to leaf. At Clamshell. Ranunculus acris and bulbosus pollen apparently about two or three days. Comandra pollen apparently two days there. Arenaria serpyllifolia and scleranthus, how long? White oak pollen. The oaks apparently shed pollen about four days later than last year; may be owing to the recent cold weather. In- terrupted fern pollen the 23d; may have been a day or two. Cinnamon fern to-day. Checkerberry shoots one inch high. Carex stipata? Close-spiked sedge in Clamshell Meadow some time. Early willow on right Kalmia glawea beyond Hubbard’s Bridge leafed since 12th; say 19th or generally before button-bush. At Kalmia Swamp. — Nemopanthes, apparently sev- eral days, and leaf say before tupelo. White spruce pollen one or two days at least, and now begins to leaf. To my surprise the Kalmiza glauca almost all out; perhaps began with rhodora. A very fine flower, the more interesting for being early. The leaf say just after the lambkill. I was wading through this white spruce swamp Just to look at the leaves. The more purple rhodora rose here and there above the small andromeda, so that I did not at first distinguish the K. glauca. When I did, probably my eyes at first con- founded it with the lambkill, and I did not remember that this would not bloom for some time. There were a few leaves just faintly started. But at last my eyes and attention both were caught by those handsome umbels of the K. glauca, rising, one to three together, at the end of bare twigs, six inches or more above the level of the andromeda, etc., together with the rhodora.' Umbels, one and one half inches [in] diameter, of five to eighteen flowers on red threads three quarters to an inch long, at first deep rose-color, after pale rose. Twigs bare except two or three small old leaves close to the end of the dry-looking twigs. Flowers not ar- ranged in whorls about the twig, but rising quite above it. The larger flowers about nine-sixteenths inch diam- eter. Flowers somewhat larger, methinks, and more terminal than lambkill. The whole about two feet high in sphagnum. The lambkill is just beginning to be flower-budded. What that neat song-sparrow-like nest of grass merely, in the wet sphagnum under the andromeda there, with three eggs, —in that very secluded place, surrounded by the watery swamp and andromeda, — —from which the bird stole like a mouse under the andromeda? Vide egg. It is narrower and more pointed at one end and lighter, a little, —the brown less con- fluent, —than that of the song sparrow with one spot on breast which took from ivy tree tuft. The last is bluish-white very thickly spotted and blotched with brown. Four eggs first seen, I think, the 22d. Swamp-pink leaf before lambkill. A mosquito. Lu- pine in house from Fair Haven Hill, and probably in field. At the screech owl’s nest I now find two young slumbering, almost uniformly gray above, about five inches long, with little dark-grayish tufts for incipient horns (?). Their heads about as broad as their bodies. I handle them without their stirring or opening their eyes. There are the feathers of a small bird and the leg of the Mus leucopus in the nest. The partridge which on the 12th had left three cold eggs covered up with oak leaves is now sitting on eight. She apparently deserted her nest for a time and covered it. Already the mouse-ear down begins to blow in the fields and whiten the grass, together with the bluets. In Conant’s thick wood on the White-Pond-ward lane, hear the evergreen-forest note, but commonly, at a distance, only the last notes — a fine sharp #é té. The mountain Jaurel near scouring-rush apparently just be- gun to leaf. Trientales open. Do I not hear a tanager? See a beautiful blue-backed and long-tailed pigeon sit- ting daintily on a low white pine limb. I perceive no new life in the pipes (Equisetum hye- male), except that some are flower-budded at top and may open in a week, and on pulling them up I find a new one just springing from the base at root. The flower-bud is apparently on those dry-looking last year’s plants which I thought had no life in them. Returning, I lay on my back again in Conant’s thick wood. Saw a redstart over my head there; black with a sort of brick red on sides [of] breast, spot on wing, and under root of tail. Note heard once next day, at Kalmia Swamp, somewhat like aveet aveet aveet aveet. In the meanwhile hear another note, very smart and somewhat sprayey, rasping, tshrip tshrip tshrip tshrip, or five or six times with equal force each time. The bird hops near, directly over my head. It is black, with a large white mark forward on wings and a fiery orange throat, above and below eye, and line on crown, yellowish beneath, white vent, forked tail, dusky legs and bill; holds its wings (which are light beneath) loosely. It inclines to examine about the lower branches of the white pines or midway up. The Blackburnian warbler very plainly; whose note Nuttall knows nothing about. Two-leaved Solomon’s-seal pollen not long in most places. Ranunculus recurvatus at Corner Spring up several days at least; pollen. Trillium pollen maybe several days. Arum, how long? The Ranunculus Purshii in that large pool in the Holden Swamp Woods makes quite a show at a little distance now. See to-day (and saw the 23d) a larger peetweet- like bird on the shore, with longer, perhaps more slender, wings, black or blackish without white spots; all white beneath; and when it goes off it flies higher. Is it not the Totanus solitarzus, which Brown found at Goose Pond? I think that the red-fruited choke-berry has shed pollen about a day, though I have not examined. The leaves are a little downy beneath and the common peduncle and the pedicels stout and quite hairy, while the black-fruited is smooth and gloossy.

P. M.— To Fair Haven Pond, taking boat opposite Puffer’s. Still a very strong wind from northerly, and hazy and rather cool for season. The fields now begin to wear the aspect of June, their grass just beginning to wave; the light-colored withered grass seen between the blades, foliage thickening and casting darker shadows over the meadows, elm-tree-tops thick in distance, deciduous trees rapidly investing evergreens, haze with the strong wind. How important the dark evergreens now seen through the haze in the distance and contrasting with the gauze-like, as yet thin-clad de- ciduous trees! They are like solid protuberances of earth. A thrasher’s nest on the bare open ground with four eggs which were seen three days ago. The nest is as open and exposed as it well can be, lined with roots, | on a slight ridge where a rail fence has been, some rods from any bush. Saw the yellow-legs on one side fly- ing over the meadow against the strong wind and at first mistook it for a hawk. It appeared now quite brown, with its white rump; and, excepting [for] its bill and head, I should have taken it for a hawk; between the size of male harrier and the male pigeon hawk, or say the size of a dove. It alighted on the shore. And now again I think it must be the large one. The blue yellow-back or parti-colored warbler still, with the chestnut crescent on breast, near my Kalmia Swamp nest. See a painted turtle on a hill forty or fifty feet above river, probably laying eggs. Some mountain sumach has grown one inch, some not started; some button-bush three inches, some not started. The first must be put after the last. yosotis stricta under Cliffs, how long? ‘The meadow fragrance to-day. How interesting the huckleberries now gener- ally in blossom on the knoll below the Cliff — count- less wholesome red bells, beneath the fresh yellow- green foliage! The berry-bearing vaccinium! It is a rich sight. Geranium at Bittern Cliff, apparently sev- eral days, and Arabis rhomboidea there in meadow, apparently still longer —say seven or eight days; but I am doubtful about the “slender style tipped with a conspicuous stigma.” Carrion-flower a foot high. Crimson gall on a shrub oak. A loose-spiked sedge at Bittern Cliff Meadow, — forgot to bring, — a foot high.