31 March 1856 – 6 April 1856

P. M.— To Peter’s via Winter Street [ ? ]. I see the scarlet tops of white maples nearly a mile off, down the river, the lusty shoots of last year. Those of the red maple do not show thus. I see many little holes in this old and solid snow where leaves have sunk down gradually and per- pendicularly, eleven or twelve inches, —the hole no larger at the top than at the bottom, nay, often partly closed at top by the drifting, and exactly the form and size of the leaf. It is as if the sun had driven this thin shield like a bullet thus deep into the solid snow. It is remarkable how deep the leaves settle into an old snow like this. See a small ant running about over a piece of meadow turf. The celandine begins to be conspicuous, spring- ing under Brown’s fence.

P. M. — Down railroad, measuring snow, and to Fair Haven Hill.

8 a. m.— To Lee’s Cliff via railroad, An- dromeda Ponds, and Well Meadow. I go early, while the crust is hard. I hear a few song sparrows tinkle on the alders by the railroad. ‘They skulk and flit along below the level of the ground in the ice-filled ditches; and bluebirds warble over the Deep Cut. A foot or more of snow in Andromeda Ponds. In the warm recess at the head of Well Meadow, which makes up on the northeast side of Fair Haven, I find many evidences of spring. Pushed up through the dead leaves, yet flattened by the snow and ice which has just melted here, behold! the skunk-cabbage has been in bloom, 2. e. has shed pollen some time and been frost-bitten and decayed. All that now sheds pollen here has been frost-bitten. Others are ready to shed it in a day or two. I find no other flower nearly so forward as this. The cowslip appears to be coming next to it. Its buds are quite yellowish and half an inch, almost, in diameter. The alder scales do not even appear relaxed yet. This year, at least, the cabbage is the first flower; and perhaps it is always earlier than I have thought, if you seek it in a favorable place.* The springy soil in which it grows melts the snows early, and if, beside, it is under the south side of a hill in an open oozy alder swamp in a recess sheltered from cold winds like this, it may commonly be the first flower.’ 4 It will take you half a lifetime to find out where to look for the earliest flower. I have hitherto found my earliest at Clamshell, a much more exposed place.’ Look for some narrow meadowy bay, running north into a hill and protected by the hill on the north and partly on the east and west. At the head of this meadow, where many springs ooze out from under the hill and saturate all the ground, dissolving the snow early in the spring, in the midst, or on the edge, of a narrow open alder swamp, there look for the earliest skunk-cabbage and cowslip, where some little black rills are seen to meander or heard to tinkle in the middle of the coldest winter. There appear the great spear-heads of the skunk-cab- bage, yellow and red or uniform mahogany-color, ample hoods sheltering their purple spadixes. The plaited buds of the hellebore are four or five inches high. There are beds of fresh green moss in the midst of the shallow water. What is that coarse sedge-like grass, rather broadly triangularish, two inches high in the water? This and the cress have been eaten, probably by the rabbits, whose droppings are abundant. I see where they have gnawed and chipped off the willow osiers. Common grass is quite green. Here, where I come for the earliest flowers, I might also come for the earliest birds. They seek the same warmth and vegetation. And so probably with quad- rupeds, — rabbits, skunks, mice, ete. I hear now, as I stand over the first skunk-cabbage, the notes of the first red-wings,” like the squeaking of a sign, over amid the maples yonder. Robins are peeping and flitting about. Am surprised to hear one sing regularly their morning strain, seven or eight rods off, yet so low and smothered with its ventriloquism that you would say it was half a mile off. It seems to be wooing its mate, that sits within a foot of it. There are many holes in the surface of the bare, springy ground amid the rills, made by the skunks or mice, and now their edges are bristling with feather- like frostwork, as if they were the breathing-holes or nostrils of the earth. That grass which had grown five inches on the 30th is apparently the cut-grass of the meadows. The withered blades which are drooping about the tufts are two feet long. I break the solid snow-bank with my feet and raise its edge, and find the stiff but tender yel- low shoots beneath it. They seem not to have pierced it, but are prostrate beneath it. They have actually grown beneath it, but not directly up into it to any extent; rather flattened out beneath it. Cross Fair Haven Pond to Lee’s Cliff. The crow- foot and saxifrage seem remarkably backward; no growth as yet. But the catnep has grown even six inches, and perfumes the hillside when bruised. The colum- bine, with its purple leaves, has grown five inches, and one is flower-budded, apparently nearer to flower than anything there. Twrritis stricta very forward, four inches high.

When I awoke this morning I heard the almost forgotten sound of rain on the roof. I think there has not been any of any consequence since Christ- mas Day. Looking out, I see the air full of fog, and that the snow has gone off wonderfully during the night. The drifts have settled and the patches of bare ground extended themselves, and the river is fast spreading over the meadows. ‘The pattering of the rain is a sooth- ing, slumberous sound, which tempts me to lie late, yet there is more fog than rain. Here, then, at last, is the end of the sleighing, which began the 25th of Decem- ber. Not including that date and to-day it has lasted ninety-nine days. I hear that young Demond of the Factory will have come into town one hundred times in his sleigh the past winter, if he comes to-day, having come probably only once in a day. P. M. — To Huni’s Bridge. It is surprising how the earth on bare south banks begins to show some greenness in its russet cheeks in this rain and fog,—a precious emerald-green tinge, almost like a green mildew, the growth of the night, — a green blush suffusing her cheek, heralded by twitter- ing birds. This sight is no less interesting than the corresponding bloom and ripe blush of the fall. How encouraging to perceive again that faint tinge of green, spreading amid the russet on earth’s cheeks! I revive with Nature; her victory is mine. This is my jewelry. It rains very little, but a dense fog, fifteen or twenty feet high, rests on the earth all day, spiriting away the snow, — behind which the cockerels crow and a few birds sing or twitter. The osiers look bright and fresh in the rain and fog, like the grass. Close at hand they are seen to be beaded with drops from the fog. There seems to be a little life in the bark now, and it strips somewhat more freely than in winter. What a lusty growth have these yellow osiers! Six feet is common the last year, chiefly from the summit of the pollards, —but also from the sides of the trunk, — filling a quadrant densely with their yellow rays. ‘The white maple buds on the south side of some trees have slightly opened, so that I can peep into their cavities and detect the stamens.’ They will probably come next to the skunk-cabbage this year, if the cowslip does not.. Yet the trees stand in the midst of the old snow. I see small flocks of robins running on the bared portions of the meadow. Hear the sprayey tinkle of the song sparrow along the hedges. Hear also, squeak- ing notes of an advancing flock of red-wings,? some- where high in the sky. At length detect them high ~ om soverhead, advancing northeast in loose ee Ua array, with a broad extended front, = eae competing with each other, winging ee their way to some northern meadow ows which they remember. The note of some is like the squeaking of many signs, while others accompany them with a steady dry tchuck, tchuck. Hosmer is overhauling a vast heap of manure in the rear of his barn, turning the ice within it up to the hght; yet he asks despairingly what life is for, and says he does not expect to stay here long. But I have just come from reading Columella, who describes the same kind of spring work, in that to him new spring of the world, with hope, and I suggest to be brave and hopeful with nature. Human life may be transitory and full of trouble, but the perennial mind, whose survey extends from that spring to this, from Columella to Hosmer, is superior to change. I will identify myself with that which did not die with Columella and will not die with Hosmer.’ Coming home along the causeway, a robin sings (though faintly) as in May. The road is a path, here and there shovelled through drifts which are consider- ably higher than a man’s head on each side. People are talking about my Uncle Charles. Muinoit tells how he heard Tilly Brown once asking him to show him a peculiar (inside ?) lock in wrestling. “Now, don’t hurt me, don’t throw me hard.” He struck his antagonist inside his knees with his feet, and so deprived him of his legs. Hosmer remembers his tricks in the barroom, shuffling cards, ete. He could do anything with cards, yet he did not gamble. He would toss up his hat, twirling it over and over, and catch it on his head invariably. Once wanted to live at Hosmer’s, but the latter was afraid of him. “Can’t we study up something?” he asked. H. asked him into the house | 1 [Channing, p. 88.]

P. M. — To Clamshell, ete. The alder scales south of the railroad, beyond the bridge, are loosened. This corresponds to the opening (not merely expansion showing the fuzziness) of the white maple buds. There is still but little rain, but the fog of yesterday still rests on the earth. My neighbor says it is the frost coming out of the ground. This, perhaps, is not the best description of it. It is rather the moisture in this warm air, condensed by contact with the snow and ice and frozen ground. Where the fields are bare I slump now three or four inches into the oozy surface, also on the bare brows of hills clad with cladonias. These are as full of water as a sponge. The muskrats, no doubt, are now being driven out of the banks. I hear, as I walk along the shore, the dull sound of guns — prob- ably most of them fired at muskrats — borne along the river from different parts of the town; one every two or three minutes. Already I hear of a small fire in the woods in Emer- son’s lot, set by the engine, the leaves [sic] that are bare are so dry. : I find many sound cabbages shedding their pollen under Clamshell Hill. They are even more forward generally here than at Well Meadow. Probably two or three only, now dead among the alders at the last place, were earlier. This is simply the earliest flower such a season as this, 2. e. when the ground continues covered with snow till very late in the spring. For this plant occupies ground which is the earliest to be laid bare, those great dimples in the snow about a springy place in the meadow, five or ten feet over, where the sun and light have access to the earth a month before it is generally bare. In such localities, then, they will enjoy the advantage over most other plants, for they will not have to contend with abundance of snow, but only with the cold air, which may be no severer than usual. Cowslips and a few other plants sometimes en- joy the same advantage. Sometimes, apparently, the original, now outer, spathe has been frost-bitten and is decayed, and a fresh one is pushing up. I see some of these in full bloom, though the opening to their tents is not more than half an inch wide. They are lapped like tent doors, effectually protected. Methinks most of these hoods open to the south. It is remarkable how completely the spadix is protected from the weather, first by the ample hood, whose walls are distant from it, next by the narrow tent-like doorway, admitting air and light and sun, generally I think on the south side, and also by its pointed top, curved downward protect- ingly over it. It looks like a monk in his crypt with powdered head. The sides of the doorway are lapped or folded, and one is considerably in advance of the other. It is contrived best to catch the vernal warmth and exclude the winter’s cold. Notwithstanding all the snow the skunk-cabbage is earlier than last year, when it was also the earliest flower and blossomed on the 5th of April. It is, perhaps, owing to the long- continued warm weather from March 13th to 28th. Yet it has been a hard winter for many plants, on dry, exposed hills. JI am surprised to see the clover, cinquefoil, etc., etc., on the top of the bank at Clam- shell completely withered and straw-colored, probably from the snow resting on it so long and incessantly. And plants that grow on high land are more backward than last year. The ground no sooner begins to be bare to a consid- erable extent than I see a marsh hawk, or harrier. The sap of the white birch at Clamshell begins to flow.

'The April weather still continues. It looks repeatedly as if the sun would shine, and it rains five minutes after. I look out to see how much the river has risen. Last night there were a great many portions or islets visible, now they are engulfed, and it is a smooth expanse of water and icy snow. ‘The water has been steadily deepening on Concord meadows all night, rising with a dimple about every stem and bush. P. M. — To North River at Tarbell’s. Fair weather again. Saw half a dozen blackbirds, uttering that sign-like note, on the top of Cheney’s elm, but noticed no red at this distance. Were they grackles? Hear after some red-wings sing boby-lee. Do these ever make the sign-like note? Is not theirs a fine shrill whistle ? | The ice from the sides of the rivers has wheeled round in great cakes and lodged against each of the railroad bridges, 7. e. over each stream. Near the town there is the firmest body of ice (in the river proper) above Hubbard’s Bridge. A warm and pleasant afternoon. The river not yet so high by four or five feet as last winter. Hear, on all sunny hillsides where the snow is melted, the chink- clicking notes of the F. hyemalis flitting before me. I am sitting on the dried grass on the south hillside be- hind ‘Tarbell’s house, on the way to Brown’s. These birds know where there is a warm hillside as well as we. The warble of the bluebird is in the air. From Tarbell’s bank we had looked over the bright moving flood of the Assabet with many maples standing in it, the purling and eddying stream, with a hundred rills of snow water trickling into it. Further toward J. P. Brown’s, saw two large ant-hills (red before, black abdomens), quite covered on all the sunny portion with ants, which appeared to have come forth quite recently and were removing obstructions from their portals. Probably the frost is quite out there. Their black abdomens glistened in the sun. Each was bringing up some rubbish from beneath. The outlines of one of these hills were a very regular cone; both were graceful curves. Came out upon the high terrace behind Hosmer’s, whence we overlooked the bright-blue flood alternating with fields of ice (we being on the same side with the sun). The first sight of the blue water in the spring is exhilarating. Saw half a dozen white sheldrakes in the meadow, where Nut Meadow Brook was covered with the flood. There were two or three females with them. These ducks would all swim together first a little way to the right, then suddenly turn together and swim to the left, from time to time making the water fly in a white spray, apparently with a wing. Nearly half a mile off I could see their green crests in the sun. They were partly con- cealed by some floating pieces of ice and snow, which they resembled. , On the hill beyond Clamshell scared up two turtle doves. It is that walking when we must pick the hardest and highest ground or ice, for we commonly sink several inches in the oozy surface.

7 a. mM.— To Willow ' Bay. The meadow has frozen over, skimmed over in the night. The ducks must have had a cold night of it. I thought [I] heard white-bellied swallows over the house before I arose. The hedges resound with the song of the song sparrow. He sits high on a spray singing, while I stand near, but suddenly, becoming alarmed, drops down and skulks behind the bushes close to the ground, gradually removing far to one side. I am not certain but I have seen the grass-bird ” as well as song sparrow this year, — on the 2d, — a sparrow with a light breast and less brown about the cheeks and head. The song sparrow I see now has a very brown breast. What a sly, skulking fellow! I have a glimpse of him skulking behind a stone or a bush next to the ground, or perhaps he drops into a ditch just before me, and when I run forward he is not to be seen in it, having flitted down it four or five rods to where it inter- sected with another, and then up that, all beneath the level of the surface, till he is in the rear of nie. Just beyond Wood’s Bridge, I hear the pewee. With what confidence after the lapse of many months, I come out to this waterside, some warm and pleasant spring morning, and, listening, hear, from farther or nearer, through the still concave of the air, the note of the first pewee! Ifthere is one within half a mile, it will be here, and I shall be sure to hear its simple notes from those trees, borne over the water. It is remarkable how large a mansion of the air you can explore with your ears in the still morning by the waterside. I can dig in the garden now, where the snow is gone, and even under six inches of snow and ice I make out to get through the frost with a spade. The frost will all be out about as soon as last year, for the melting of the snow has been taking it out. It is remarkable how rapidly the ground dries, for where the frost is out the water does not stand, but is soaked up. There has been no skating the last winter, the snow having covered the ice immediately after it formed and not melting, and the river not rising till April, when it was too warm to freeze thick enough. As we sat yesterday under the warm, dry hillside, amid the Ff. hyemalis by 'Tarbell’s, I noticed the first bluish haze—a small patch of it—over the true Nut Meadow, seen against the further blue pine forest over the near low yellow one. This was of course the subtle vapor which the warmth of the day raised from Nut Meadow. This, while a large part of the landscape was covered with snow, an affecting announcement of the approach of sum- mer. ‘The one wood seemed but an underwood on the edge of the other, yet all Nut Meadow’s varied surface intervened, with its brook and its cranberries, its sweet- gale, alder, and willow, and this was its blue feather! P. M. — To Hubbard’s second grove, by river. At Ivy Tree, hear the fine tseep of a sparrow, and detect the fox-colored sparrow on the lower twigs of the willows and from time to time scratching the ground beneath. It is quite tame,—a single one with its ashy head and mottled breast. It is a still and warm, overcast afternoon, and I am come to look for ducks on the smooth reflecting water which has suddenly surrounded the village, — water half covered with ice or icy snow. On the 2d it was a winter landscape, — a narrow river covered thick with ice for the most part, and only snow on the meadows. In three or four days the scene is changed to these vernal lakes, and the ground more than half bare. The reflecting water alternating with unreflecting ice. Apparently song sparrows may have the dark splash on each side of the throat but be more or less brown on the breast and head. Some are quite light, some quite dark. Here is one of the light-breasted on the top of an apple tree, sings unweariedly at regular intervals something like tchulp | chilé chilt, chilt chill, (faster and faster) chilt chilt, chilt chilt | tuller tchay ter splay-ee. The last, or third, bar I am not sure about. It flew too soon for me. I only remember that the last part was sprinkled on the air like drops from a rill, as if its strain were moulded by the spray it sat upon. Now see considerable flocks of robins hopping and run- ning in the meadows; crows next the water-edge, on small isles in the meadow. As I am going along the Corner road by the meadow mouse brook, hear and see, a quarter of a mile north- west, on those conspicuous white oaks near the river in Hubbard’s second grove, the crows buffeting some intruder. ‘The crows had betrayed to me some large bird of the hawk kind which they were buffeting. I suspected it before I looked carefully. I saw several crows on the oaks, and also what looked to my naked eye like a cluster of the palest and most withered oak leaves with a black base about as big as a crow. Looking with my glass, I saw that it was a great bird. The crows sat about a rod off, higher up, while another crow was occasionally diving at him, and all were cawing. ‘The great bird was just starting. It was chiefly a dirty white with great broad wings with black tips and black on other parts, giving it the appearance of dirty white, barred with black. I am not sure whether it was a white-headed eagle or a fish hawk. There appeared much more white than belongs to either, and more black than the fish hawk has. It rose and wheeled, flapping several times, till it got under way; then, with its rear to me, presenting the least surface, it moved off steadily in its orbit over the woods northwest, with the slightest possible undulation of its wings, — a noble planetary motion, like Saturn with its ring seen edgewise. It is so rare that we see a large body self- sustained in the air. While crows sat still and silent and confessed their lord. Through my glass I saw the outlines of this sphere against the sky, trembling with life and power as it skimmed the topmost twigs of the wood toward some more solitary oak amid the meadows. To my naked eye it showed only so much black as a crow in its talons might. Was it not the white-headed eagle in the state when it is called the sea eagle? Per- haps its neck-feathers were erected. I went to the oaks. Heard there a nuthatch’s faint vibrating tut-tut, somewhat even like croaking of frogs, as it made its way up the oak bark and turned head down to peck. Anon it answered its mate with a gnah gnah. Smelt a skunk on my return, at Hubbard’s blue- berry swamp, which some dogs that had been barking there for half an hour had probably worried, for I did not smell it when I went along first. I smelt this all the way thence home, the wind being southwest, and it was quite as perceptible in our yard as at the swamp. ‘The family had already noticed it, and you might have sup- posed that there was a skunk in the yard, yet it was three quarters of a mile off, at least. April '%. Monday. Launched my boat, through three rods of ice on the riverside, half of which froze last night. The meadow is skimmed over, but by mid- forenoon it is melted. P. M. — Up river in boat. The first boats I have seen are out to-day, after muskrats, etc. Saw one this morning breaking its way far through the meadow, in the ice that had formed in the night. How independent they look who- have come forth for a day’s excursion! Melvin is out, and Goodwin, and another boat still. They can just row through the thinnest of the ice. The first boat on the meadows is exciting as the first flower or swallow. It is seen stealing along in the sun under the meadow’s edge. One breaks the ice before it with a paddle, while the other pushes or paddles, and it grates and wears against the bows. We see Goodwin skinning the muskrats he killed this forenoon on bank at Lee’s Hill, leaving their red and mutilated carcasses behind. He says he saw a few geese go over the Great Meadows on the 6th. The half of the meadows next the river, or more, is covered with snow ice at the bottom, which from time to time rises up and floats off. These and more solid cakes from over the river clog the stream where it is least broken up, bridging it quite over. Great cakes rest against every bridge. We were but just able to get under the stone arches by lying flat and pressing our boat down, after breaking up a large cake of ice which had lodged against the upper side. Before we get to Clamshell, see Melvin ahead scare up two black ducks, which make a wide circuit to avoid both him and us. Shel- drakes pass also, with their heavy bodies. See the red and black bodies of more muskrats left on the bank at Clamshell, which the crows have already attacked. Their hind legs are half-webbed, the fore legs not at all. Their paunches are full apparently of chewed roots, yellowish and bluish. Goodwin says they are fatter than usual, perhaps because they have not been driven out of their holes heretofore. The open channel is now either over the river or on the upper side of the meadows next the woods and hills. Melvin floats slowly and quietly along the willows, watching for rats resting there, his white hound sitting still and grave in the prow, and every little while we hear his gun announcing the death of a rat or two. The dog looks on under- standingly and makes no motion. At the Hubbard Bridge, we hear the incessant note of the phoebe, — pevet, pe-e-vet, pevee’, —its innocent, somewhat impatient call. Surprised to find the river not broken up just above this bridge and as far as we can see, probably through Fair Haven Pond. Probably in some places you can cross the river still on the ice.