26 May 1856 – 1 June 1856

To Kalmia Swamp with Sanborn. Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs, made partly of usnea; two stories, 2. ¢. upon an old nest, elevated one foot above the water; eggs with very dark blotches. Kalmia in prime, and rhodora. Apparently the oldest-blossomed kalmia the palest. Saw probably a deer mouse jumping off by the side of the swamp; short leaps of apparently ten inches. The pyrus (smooth-leaved) out apparently a day or two. See men fishing, one or two, and often perceived the meadow fragrance. My three kinds of birch sap have now become more acid, especially the white and canoe birch. The black birch is milder and more agreeable. With sugar it is an agreeable drink. I prefer it to cream-o’-tartar water. This is the real birch wine.

Rainy. To Painted-Cup Meadow. Potentilla argentea, maybe several days. T'rifoliwm pratense. A seringo or yellow-browed (? ?) sparrow’s nest about | ten or twelve rods southwest of house-leek rock, between two rocks which are several rods apart northwest and southeast; four eggs. The nest of coarse grass stubble, lined with fine grass, and is two thirds at least covered by a jutting sod. Egg, bluish-white ground, thickly blotched with brown, yet most like a small ground- bird’s egg, rather broad at one end, pretty fresh.’ A cricket creaks. ypoxis erecta, maybe a day or two. Thalictrum diowteum abundantly out, apparently in prime, male and female, some effete, perhaps a week, near wall in Painted-Cup mes fifteen to eighteen inches high. I think it was a mass of young Thalictrum Cornuti leaves which had that rank, dog-like scent.” Painted- cup pollen a good while ago. Saw, under an apple tree, nearly half a pint of some white grub with a light- reddish head, like a small potato-worm, one inch long, and part of a snake-skin, making the greater part of the feeces of some animal, — chiefly the grubs, — a form- less soft mass. Skunk?

P. M. — Ride to Painted-Cup Meadow. Two Arethusa bulbosa at Hubbard’s Close apparently a day or two. Golden senecio there, a day or two, at least. White clover. Ranunculus repens (sepals not re- curved and leaves a spotted look), apparently a day. + July 2d, at Natural History Rooms, Boston, saw the egg of yel- low-shouldered sparrow, light-colored with a ring of brown spots at large end; that of Savannah sparrow all mottled over with brown! ! Vide June 26. Geum rivale, well out. Common crategus, apparently some days. Juniperus communis, a day or two at least, probably more. To return to Painted-Cup Meadow, I do not perceive the rank odor of Thalictrum Cornutt expanding leaves to-day. How more than fugacious it is! Evidently this odor is emitted only at particular times. A cuckoo’s note, loud and hollow, from a wood-side. Found a painted-cup with more yellow than usual in it, and at length Edith found one perfectly yellow. What a flowery place, a vale of Enna, is that meadow! Painted- cup, Erigeron bellidifolius, Thalictrum dioicum, Viola Muhlenbergi, fringed polygala, buck-bean, pedicularis, orobanche, etc., etc. Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more rare ones. Saw sanicle well flower- budded. Cherry-birds on the apple trees. Blue-eyed grass, probably to-morrow.

P. M. — To Linnza Wood-lot. Apparently this flower does not bloom there this year.! The lady’s-sipper in pitch pine wood-side near J. Hosmer’s Desert, probably about the 27th. That desert, small as it now is (for it is partly reclaimed by using pine boughs as a salve), is scored with circles (like that of Provincetown) made by the dry Polygonum articulatum blown about. It is but a lesser Sahara, and I cannot see it without being reminded that, in some parts of the globe, sand prevails like an ocean. What are those black masses of fibrous roots mixed with smaller dark-gray, cone-like tubers, on the sand ? Return via Clamshell. Yellow clover abundantly out, though the heads are small yet. Are they quite open? Comandra umbellata, apparently a day or two. Frank Harding caught five good-sized chivin this cold and windy day from the new stone bridge. The biggest one was quite red or coppery; the others but slightly, except the head. Is it a peculiarity of age?

P. M. — To Clintonia Swamp (Hubbard’s) Grove. A ground-bird’s nest (melodia or graminea?), with six of those oblong narrow gray [eggs] speckled with much brown at end. When I looked again half an hour after, one egg was hatched. The bird would steal out through the grass when I came within a rod, and then, after running a rod or two, take to wing. Tied a string about a low pyrus a rod or so to night of entrance to Hubbard’s Pyrus Swamp and two feet west of a pitch pine stump, and pressed a twig of it. Clintonia. Nwphar advena first noticed; may have been out some time in some places, but just out in river. Pink, common wild, maybe two or three days.’ Sundown. — To Hill and Island. Have noticed within a week, from time to time, the water-line on the bushes along the shore — the water going down — unusually distinct, for while the exposed parts have leaved out, the lower are quite bare and black. Hemlock and creeping juniper, where had not bloomed the 22d, are now entirely out of bloom on the hill. How short their flower lasts! Ranunculus Purshii, probably earlier in some places, but water high. That little cerastium on the rock at the Island, noticed the 22d, which probably opened about that time, is now out of bloom. Itis about three inches high and has long pods, more than twice the length of the calyx, which turn upward. I have seen no petals. It seems to be the C. nutans (?), from size, erectness, and form of pods and leaves. It has viscid hairs or with glands at end. The red oak is so forward, compared with the rest, that it is more difficult to get a sprig in flower smal] enough (its leaves) to press. As I return in the dusk, many nighthawks, with their great spotted wings, are circling low over the river, as the swallows were when I went out. They skim within a rod of me. After dusk these greater swallows come forth, and circle and play about over the water like those lesser ones, or perhaps making a larger circuit, also utter- ing a louder note. It would not be safe for such great birds to fly so near and familiarly by day. It has been very cold for two or three days, and to-night a frost is feared. The telegraph says it snowed in Bangor to-day. The hickory leaves are blackened by blowing in the cold wind.

Horse-radish in yard, to-morrow. Picked up an entire sternothzrus shell yesterday, without scales. In the upper shell there appear to be six small segments of shell wholly dorsal, seventeen wholly lateral (nine in front), and twenty-two marginal, forty- five in all. The ribs, in this case spreading out and unit- ing to form a sharp and tight roof, suggest that ribs were the first rafters. So we turn our backs to the storm and shelter ourselves under this roof. The scales upon the shell answer to the shingles on the roof, breaking joints. Saw the shell of another turtle, apparently a young painted turtle, one inch long, curiously wrinkled and turned up, like that found in Middleborough. This had been washed up on to meadow some weeks ago, apparently. | P. M. — To Walden. Somewhat warmer at last, after several very cold, as well as windy and rainy, days. Was soothed and cheered by I knew not what at first, but soon detected the now more general creak of crickets. A striped yellow bug in fields. Most of the leaves of the Polygonatum pu- bescens which I gathered yesterday at Island had been eaten up by some creature. A chewink’s nest a rod and a half south of Walden road, opposite Goose Pond path, under a young oak, covered by overarching dry sedge; four eggs, pretty fresh. I am pretty sure the bird uttered the unusual hoarse and distressed note while I was looking at them. Einaria Canadensis on Emerson Cliff. Rock-rose, a day or two there. Whiteweed by railroad at pond to-morrow. Cotton-grass, several days before the 29th May. MHeard a quail whistle May 30th. The late crateegus on hill, about May 31st.