Henry David Thoreau’s diary, 1857

A cold, cutting northwest wind.

Still colder and perhaps windier. The river is now for the most part covered with snow again, which has blown from the meadows and been held by the water which has…

P. M.—To Walden down railroad and return over Cliffs. I should not be ashamed to have a shrub oak for my coat-of-arms. It is bitter cold, with a cutting northwest…

I find by hanging Smith’s thermometer on the same nail with ours that it stands 5° below ours. It was 18° at 3 p. M. by ours when I went out to walk. I picked up on…

Began snowing yesterday afternoon, and it is still snowing this forenoon. Mother remembers the Cold Friday very well. She lived in the house where I was born. The…

I hear one thrumming a guitar below stairs. It reminds me of moments that I have lived. What a comment on our life is the least strain of music! It lifts me up…

P. M. — Up Assabet on ice. I go slumping four or five inches in the snow on the river, and often into water above the ice, breaking through a slight crust under the…

P. M.— To Fair Haven Pond and across to railroad. As I passed the south shed at the depot, observed what I thought a tree sparrow on the wood in the shed, a mere…

P. M. — Up Assabet. This morning was one of the coldest. It improves the walking on the river, freezing the overflow beneath the snow. As I pass the Island (Egg…

A very cold day. Thermometer at 7.30 a. M., —14° (Smith’s hanging on same nail —20°); at 1.15 P.M., —3°; 2.15 p.M., —4°; 3.45 Pp. M., 0°. It is cloudy and no sun…

A snow-storm with very high wind all last night and to-day. Though not much snow falls (per- haps seven or eight inches), it is exceedingly drifted, so that the…

‘There probably is not more than twelve to fifteen inches of snow on a level, yet the drifts are very large. Neither milkman nor butcher got here yesterday, and…

P. M. — Up river to W. Wheeler’s Bridge and back by road. ; The roads are perhaps more blocked up than last winter, yet with hardly more than half as much snow. The…

Snows all day, clearing up at night, —a remarkably fine and dry snow, which, looking out, you might suspect to be blowing snow merely. Yet thus it snows all day,…

The coldest day that I remember recording, clear and bright, but very high wind, blowing the snow. Ink froze. Had to break the ice in my pail with a ham- mer.…

Still another very cold morning. Smith’s thermometer over ours at —29°, ours in bulb; but about seven, ours was at —18° and Smith’s at — 24; ours therefore at first…

Another cold morning. None looked early, but about eight it was — 14°. A. M. — At Cambridge and Boston. Saw Boston Harbor frozen over (for some time). Reminded me…

Thawing a little at last. Thermometer 35°. The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them, or the dis- coverers of them,…

Am again surprised to see a song sparrow sitting for hours on our wood-pile in the yard, in the midst of snow in the yard. It is unwilling to move. People go to the…

Snows fast, turning to rain at last.

3 p. mM. — Down railroad. Thermometer at 42°. Warm as it is, I see a large flock of snow buntings on the railroad causeway. Their wings are white above next the…

The snow-crust on all hills and knolls is now marked by the streams of water that have flowed down it, like a coarsely combed head; 2. e¢., the unbroken crust is In…

To Fitchburg to lecture. Observed that the Nashua at the bridge beyond Groton Junction was open for twenty rods, as the Concord is not anywhere in Concord. This…

Met Theodore Parker in the cars, who told me that he had recently found in Lake Michigan a single ball, five inches in diameter, like those I presented to the…

Mizzling rain.

9 a. M.— Down railroad to see the glaze, the first we have had this year, but not a very good one.

Another warm day, the snow fast going off. I am surprised to see over Walden Pond, which is covered with puddles, that seething or shimmering in the air which is…

Debauched and worn-out senses require the violent vibrations of an instrument to excite them, but sound and still youthful senses, not enervated by luxury, hear…

The thaw which began on the 4th lasted through the 8th. When I surveyed Shattuck’s Merrick’s pasture fields, about January 10th, I was the more pleased with the…

Wednesday. The meadows, flooded by the thaw of the last half of last week and Sunday, are now frozen hard enough to bear, and it is excellent skating. 4 Near the…

7.30 a. m. — The caterpillar, which I placed last night on the snow beneath the thermometer, is frozen stiff again, this time not being curled up, the temperature…

Higginson told me yesterday of a large tract near Fayal and near Pico (Mountain), covered with the reindeer (?) (as I suggested and he assented) lichens, very…

About the Ist of January, when I was sur- veying the Lee farm, Captain Elwell, the proprietor, asked me how old I thought the house was. I looked into Shattuck’s…

8 a. M. — To Lee house site again. It was a rough-cast house when I first knew it. The fire still glowing among the bricks in the cellar. Richard Barrett says he…

Thermometer at 1 Pp. m., 60°. The river is fairly breaking up, and men are out with guns after muskrats, and even boats. Some are appre- hending loss of fruit from…

Another remarkably warm and pleasant day. The nights of late nearly as warm as the day. When I step out into the yard I hear that earliest spring note from some…

Cloudy and somewhat rainy, the thermome- ter at last fallen to thirty-two and thirty-three degrees. I have often noticed that the surface of the snow was rippled or…

The puffball is used by doctors to stop bleed- ing. Has not this property to do with its power of re- pelling moisture? Some have now almost entirely lost their…

P. M. — To Dugan Desert. The Tommy Wheeler house, like the Hunt house, has the sills projecting inside. Its bricks are about the same size with those of the Lee…

P. M. — See two yellow-spotted tortoises in the ditch south of Trillium Wood. You saunter ex- pectant in the mild air along the soft edge of a ditch filled with…

A fine spring morning. The ground is almost completely bare again. There has been a frost in the night. Now, at 8.30, it is melted and wets my feet like a dew. The…

I hear of lilac buds expanding, but have not looked at them. I go through the woods behind the Kettle place. The leaves rustle and look all dry on the ground in the…

Cold and windy. The river fast going down. Paint the bottom of my boat. What an accursed land, methinks unfit for the habita- tion of man, where the wild animals…

Before I opened the window this cold morning, I heard the peep of a robin, that sound so often heard in cheerless or else rainy weather, so often heard first borne…

Nearly two inches of snow in the night. P. M. — To Lee’s Cliff. I see the track, apparently of a muskrat (? ),—about- five inches wide with very sharp and distinct…

At Cambridge. Very gusty day. An inch or two of snow falls, — all day about it, — and strangely blown away.

P. M. —To Fair Haven Hill. The crust of yesterday’s snow has been converted by the sun and wind into flakes of thin ice from two or three inches to a foot in…

P. M. — To Hill. See the tracks of a woodchuck in the sand-heap about the mouth of his hole, where he has cleared out his entry. The red ground under a large pitch…

P. M. — To Hill. When I cut a white pine twig the crystalline sap in- stantly exudes. How long has it been thus? Get a glimpse of a hawk, the first of the season.…

I see and talk with Rice, sawing off the ends of clapboards which he has planed, to make them square, for an addition to his house. He has got a fire in his shop,…

Thermometer this morning, about 7 a. M., 2°, and the same yesterday. This month has been windy and cold, a succession of snows one or two inches deep, soon going…

A warmer day at last. It has been steadily cold and windy, with repeated light snows, since Feb- ruary 26th came in. This afternoon is comparatively warm, and the…

P. M.— To Hubbard’s Close and Walden. I see in the ditches in Hubbard’s Close the fine green tips of spires of grass just rising above the surface of the water in…

To Cambridge and Boston.

These days, beginning with the 14th, more springlike. Last night it rained a little, carrying off nearly all the little snow that remained, but this morn- ing it is…

9 a. mM. — Up Assabet. A still and warm but overcast morning, threatening rain. I now again hear the song sparrow’s tinkle along the riverside, probably to be heard…

Heavy rain in the night and to-day, i.e. A.M. This, as usual, rapidly settles the ways, for, taking the frost out, the water that stood on the surface’ is soaked…

Dine with Agassiz at R. W. E.’s. He thinks that the suckers die of asphyxia, having very large air-bladders and being in the habit of coming to the surface for air.…

P. M. — Paddle up Assabet.

P. M. —'To Walden and Fair Haven. Though there has been quite a number of light snows, we have had no sleighing fairly since about February 14th. Walden is already…

There is no snow now visible from my window except on the heel of a bank in the swallow- hole behind Dennis’s. A sunny day, but rather cold alr. 8.30 a. M. — Up…

8.30 a. m. — Up river to Fair Haven by boat. A pleasant morning; the song of the earliest birds, 1. €. tree sparrows, (now decidedly) and song sparrows and…

P. M. — To Walden and river. Walden open, say to-day, though there is still a little ice in the deep southern bay and a very narrow edging along the southern shore.…

A very pleasant day. Spent a part of it in the garden preparing to set out fruit trees. It is agreeable once more to put a spade into the warm mould. The victory is…

8 a. mM. — Up Assabet. See an Emys guttata sunning on the bank. I had forgotten whether I ever saw it in this river. Hear a pheebe, and this morning the tree…

Go to New Bedford. A great change in the weather. I set out apple trees yesterday, but in the night it was very cold, with snow, which is now several inches deep.…

In Ricketson’s shanty. R. has seen white- bellied swallows more than a week. I walk down the side of the river and see Walton’s ice-boat left on the bank. Hear R.…

Saturday. Walk down the shore of the river. A Dutchman pushes out in his skiff after qua- hogs. He also took his eel-spear, thinking to try for eels if he could not…

P. M. — To New Bedford Library.

Tuesday. Went to walk in the woods. When I had got half a mile or more away in the woods alone, and was sitting on a rock, was surprised to be joined by R.’s large…

I discovered one convenient use the bay- berries served, — that if you got your hands pitched in pine woods, you had only to rub a parcel of these ber- ries between…

Thursday. A. M. — To the cove south of the town. See them haul two seines. They caught chiefly ale- wives, from sixty to a hundred at a haul, seine twelve to…

Sunday. I think I hear the bay-wing here.

Monday. To Middleborough ponds. There was no boat on Little Quitticus; so we could not explore it. Set out to walk round it, but, the water being high, —higher than…

Tuesday. Rains all day.

Wednesday. Leave New Bedford. I had been surprised to find the season more back- ward, 2. e. the vegetation, in New Bedford than in Con- cord. I could find no alder…

At Concord. Get birch sap, — two bottles yellow birch and five of black birch, —now running freely, though not before IT left Concord. Meanwhile I hear the note of…

-P. M. — To Conantum. Hear the huckleberry-bird, also the seringo. The beaked hazel, if that is one just below the little pine at Blackberry Steep, is considerably…

Arbor-vite apparently in full bloom.

Tuesday. Mr. Loomis writes me that he saw two barn swallows in Cambridge April Ist! I have the Corema Conradi from Plymouth, in bloom. It snows hard all day. If it…

Wednesday. Fair again. To Great Sudbury Meadow by boat. The river higher than before and rising. C. and I sail rapidly before a strong northerly wind, — no need of…

I saw at Ricketson’s a young woman, Miss Kate Brady, twenty years old, her father an Imish- man, a worthless fellow, her mother a smart Yankee. The daughter…

Sail to Ball’s Hill. The water is at its height, higher than before this year. I see a few shad-flies on its surface. Scudding over the Great Meadows, I see the now…

Saturday. P. M.— Down Turnpike to Smith’s Hill and return by Goose Pond. Saw a large old hollow log with the upper side [gone], which [made] me doubt if it was not…

Riordan’s cock follows close after me while spading in the garden, and hens commonly follow the gardener and plowman, just as cowbirds the cattle in a pasture. I…

[hear the prolonged che che che che che, etc., of the chip-bird this morning as I go down the street. It is a true April morning with east wind, the sky over- cast…

A. M. — Surveying for Willard Farrar by Walden. While standing by my compass over the supposed town bound beyond Wyman’s, Farrar having just gone along northeast on…

Purple finch sings on R. W. E.’s trees. P. M. — To Dugan Desert. At Tarbell’s watering-place, see a dandelion, its con- spicuous bright-yellow disk in the midst of…

Thursday. A. M. — Surveying for Farrar and Heywood by Walden. Hear a kingfisher at Goose Pond. Hear again the same bird heard at Conantum April 18th, which I think…

Friday. 2 p. m. — First notice the ring of the toad, as I am crossing the Common in front of the meeting-house. There is a cool and breezy south wind, and the ring…

Saturday. Building a fence between us and Mrs. Richardson. In digging the holes I find the roots of small apple trees, seven or eight feet distant and four or more…

Sunday. A remarkably warm and pleasant morning. A. M. — To Battle-Ground by river.

Rain. The barber tells me that the masons of New York tell him that they would prefer human hair to that of cattle to mix with their plastering. Balm-of-Gilead…

Tuesday. Building fence east of house. Hear the full-lull of a myrtle-bird ! (very commonly heard for three or four days after). Have dug up in the garden this…

Wednesday. A beautiful and warm day. I go to build an arbor for R. W. E. The thrasher has been heard this morning. While at work I hear the bobolink and, methinks,…

A second fine day. Small pewee and, methinks, golden robin (?).

A third fine day. The sugar maple at Barrett’s is now in full bloom. I finish the arbor to-night. This has been the third of these remarkably warm and beautiful…

Another fine day. 6 a. M. — On water. Maryland yellow-throat. Aspen leaves one inch over. Hear stake-driver. Black and white creeper’s fine note. Er-te-ter-twee, or…

Cultivated cherry out. P. M. — Up river. Salix Babylonica behind Dodd’s, how long? Say with S. alba. I observe that the fertile flowers of many plants are more late…

Warbling vireo and chewink. A very cold northwest wind. I hear they had a snow-storm yester- day in Vermont.

How rarely I meet with a man who can be free, even in thought! We live according to rule. Some men are bedridden; all, world-ridden. I take my neigh- bor, an…

Work in garden. I see a toad only an inch and a quarter long; so they must be several years growing. P. M. — To Leaning Hemlocks. A large bunch of oat spawn in…

P. M.—To Assabet Bath and stone bridge. I hear two thrashers plainly singing in emulation of each other. At the temporary brush fence pond, now going down, amid the…

Black currant at R. W. E.’s. Abel Hosmer thought that the Salix alba roots might reach half a dozen rods into his field as big as your finger. Thought that they…

P. M.— To Hill for pines. The meadows are now mostly bare, the grass showing itself above the water that is left, and an unusual num- ber of swallows are flying low…

P. M. — Round Walden. Gold-thread is abundantly out at Trillium Woods. The yellow birch catkins, now fully out or a little past prime, are very handsome now,…

P. M.— To Bateman’s Pond via Yellow Birch Swamp with Pratt. Pratt says he saw the first rhodora and cultivated pear out yesterday. Many are now setting out pines…

A. M.—Surveying D. Shattuck’s wood- lot beyond Peter’s. See myriads of minute pollywogs, recently hatched, in the water of Moore’s Swamp on Bedford road. Dig- ging…

Began to rain the latter part of yesterday, and rains all day against all desire and expectation, raising the river and, in low land, rotting the seed. Gardeners…

Rains still, more or less, all day. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good; this weather is good for cuttings and transplanted trees. P. M. — To Hill.…

After two or three days more of rainy weather, it is fair and warm at last. Thermometer seventy-odd degrees above zero. When the May storm is over, then the summer…

P. M.— To Holden Swamp by boat. . River still high generally over the meadows. Can sail across the Hubbard meadow. Off Staples wood-lot, hear the ah tche tche…

A. M. — To Hill. White ash, apparently yesterday, at Grape Shore but not at Conantum. What a singular appearance for some weeks its great masses of dark-purple…

P. M. — With Ricketson to my boat under Fair Haven Hill. In Hubbard’s Grove, hear the shrill chattering of downy woodpeckers, very like the red squirrel’s tche…

Pink azalea in garden. Mountain-ash a day; also horse-chestnut the same. Beach plum well out, several days at least. Wood pewee, and Minott heard a loon go laughing…

P. M.— To Hill. I hear the sound of fife and drum the other side of the village, and am reminded that it is May Training. Some thirty young men are marching in the…

Rain again in the night, and this forenoon, more or less. In some places the ground is strewn with apple blossoms, quite concealing it, as white and thick as if a…

P. M. — To Lee’s Cliff. A fine-grained air, June-like, after a cloudy, rain- threatening or rainy morning. Sufficient [sic] with a still, clear air in which the hum…

P. M. — To chestnut oaks. I think that there are many chestnut-sided warblers this season. They are pretty tame. One sits within six feet of me, though not still.…

P. M.— To Gowing’s Swamp and to Pinus resinosa. In the ditches in Moore’s Swamp on the new Bedford road, the myriads of pollywogs, now three quarters of an inch…

P. M. — To Hill. The weather has been less reliable for a few weeks past than at any other season of the year. Though fair in the forenoon, it may rain in the…

Sterile buttonwood, not yet generally, but some apparently several days at least. It was a portion of the natural surface of the earth itself which jutted out and…

P. M. —'To White Cedar Swamp. Salix lucida out of bloom, but S. nigra still in bloom. I see a large branch of S. lweida, which has been broken off probably by the…

P. M.— To Bare Hill. The early potentilla is now erect in the June grass. Salix tristis is going to seed, showing some cotton; also some S. rostrata. I am surprised…

P. M.— To Gowing’s Swamp and Poplar Hill. The shad-flies were very abundant probably last even- ing about the house, for this morning they are seen filling and…

8 a. M.— To Lee’s Cliff by river. Salix pedicellaris off Holden’s has been out of bloom several days at least. So it is earlier to begin and to end than our S.…

Sunday. P. M.—To river and Ponkawtas- set with M. Pratt. Now I notice many bubbles left on the water in my wake, as if it were more sluggish or had more vis- cidity…

P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook. White actza done there. There are two good-sized black walnuts at Cyrus Smith’s, by wall, out appar- ently a day. When I split the twigs…

A large fog. Celastrus scandens, maybe a day. Triosteum, apparently several days (not at all June Ist). Both kinds of sap, yellow birch and black, are now, in some…

At R. W. E.’s a viburnum, apparently nudum var. cassinoides (?) (pyrifoliwm Pursh), four or five days at least. (Vide in press.) It agrees with Bige- low’s account,…

Friday. 8.30 a. mM. — Set out for CAPE COD. uM EGcs.— At Natural History Rooms.— The egg found on ground in R. W. E.’s garden some weeks since cannot be the…

I see large mosses on the beach, crimson and lighter, already spread on the sand. See children going a-flagging and returning with large bundles, for the sake of…

Sunday. 7 a. m. — To Clark’s Island. B. M. Watson tells me that he learns from pretty good authority that Webster once saw the sea-ser- pent. It seems it was first…

Monday. A. M.— Walked to James Spooner’s farm in a valley amid the woods; also to a swamp where white cedars once grew, not far behind the town, and now full of…

This morning had for breakfast fresh eels from Herring River, caught in an eel-pot baited with horseshoe clams [sic] cut up. Crossed Herring River, and went down to…

Thursday. From Traveller’s Home to Small’s in Truro. A mizzling and rainy day with thick driving fog; a drizzling rain, or “drisk,” as one called it. I struck…

Friday. Fog still, but I walked about a mile north onward on the beach. The sea was still running considerably. It 1s surpris- ing how rapidly the water soaks into…

Saturday. Fog still. A man working on the lighthouse, who lives at the Pond Village, says that he raised potatoes and pump- kins there where a vessel once anchored.…

Sunday. About noon it cleared up, and after dinner I set out for Provincetown, straight across the country to the Bay where the new road strikes it, di- rectly…

Monday. Took the steamer Acorn [ ? ] about 9 a. M. for Boston, in the fog. The captain said that the mate to the whale taken on the 17th had been about the steamer…

Skinner, the harness-maker, tells me that he found a black duck’s nest Sunday before the last, 2. e. the 14th, with perhaps a dozen eggs in it, a mere hollow on the…

Wednesday. P. M.— To Farmer’s Owl- Nest Swamp. Melvin thinks there cannot be many black ducks’ nests in the town, else his dog would find them, for he will follow…

Most of the mountain-ash trees on the street are the European, as Prichard’s, Whiting’s, etc. The American ones (Pyrus Aucuparia is the European) in Cheney’s (from…

Friday. Stand over a bream’s nest close to the shore at Hubbard’s rear wood. At length she ventures back into it, after many approaches. The apparent young bream,…

P. M. — Up Assabet. See apparently a young bobolink fluttering over the meadow. The garlic not even yet quite. In the Wheeler meadow, the bushy one southwest of Ege…

Geum Virginianum some time, apparently, past its prime by red cohosh. It was not nearly out June 7th; say, then, the 18th. I hear on all hands these days, from the…

A. M. — Up Assabet with Blake. Allium Canadense in house and probably in field.' The river is now whitened with the down of the black willow, and I am surprised to…

A. M. — To Ball’s Hill. Yesterday afternoon it was remarkably cool, with wind, it being easterly, and I anticipated a sea-turn. There was a little, a blue…

P. M. — To Gowing’s Swamp. Flannery says that there was a frost this morning in Moore’s Swamp on the Bedford road, where he has potatoes. He observed something…

Minott says that old Joe Merriam used to tell of his shooting black ducks in the Dam meadows and what luck he had. One day he had shot a couple of ducks and was…

P. M.— Up Assabet with Brown and Rogers. Saw many pickerel near the boat. At length, near the upper Assabet bath place, I observed, “Stop! Was that a big pickerel…

A. M. — To Lee’s Cliff by boat. Potentilla arguta abundantly out. Partridges big as quails. At Clamshell I found three arrowheads and a small Indian chisel for my…

Rubus triflorus well ripe. ‘The beach plums have everywhere the crescent-shaped mark made by the curculio, —the few that remain on.

P. M. — To Laurel Glen. A chewink’s nest with four young just hatched, at the bottom of the pyrola hollow and grove, where it is so dry, about seven feet southwest…

Could see no yellow wasps about the nest over my window at 6 a. M., but did just before 6.30.! I hear of still a second nest at Mrs. Brown’s and one at Julius…

Put some more black willow seed in a tum- bler of water at 9.30 a. m. P. M. — To Pratt’s and Peter’s. One flower on the Solanum nigrum at Pratt’s, which he says…

P. M.— To Corner Spring and Cliffs. Haying is fairly begun, and for some days I have heard the sound of the mowing-machine, and now the lark must look out for the…

P. M.— To Equisetum hyemale. Those little minnows, a third or half inch long or more, which I catch when bathing, hovering over open sandy spaces, as here at…

Very hot weather. P. M. — To Rattlesnake Fern Swamp. I hear before I start the distant mutterings of thun- der in the northwest, though I see no cloud. The hay-…

P. M.—Up Assabet with Loomis and Wilde. Set fire to the carburetted hydrogen from the saw- dust shoal with matches, and heard it flash. It must be an interesting…

Tephrosia is generally considerably past its prime. Vaccinium vacillans berries. Scare up a snipe (?) by riverside, which goes off with a dry crack, and afterward…

Thursday. P. M. — To Hemlocks. Geum album, apparently well out. As I walked through the pasture side of the hill, saw a mouse or two glance before me in faint…

P. M. — To Lee’s Chiff. The young leaves of the slippery elm are a yellow- ish green and large, and the branches recurved or drooping. Hypericum corymboswum. Am…

Minott says that old Sam Nutting used to pinch off the first leaves of his melon vines as soon as they had three or four leaves, because they only at- tracted the…

Smooth sumach out since the 16th.

To Boston on way To Marine Woops. At Natural History Library. Holbrook makes the Emys terrapin to be found from Rhode Island to Florida and South America. “The only…

Tuesday. 1. mM. At Bangor. — Thatcher’s moose-horns hanging in his barn spread two feet eight inches. There is one more prong on one side than the other. This is…

Wednesday. I am struck by the appear- ance of large canoe birch trees, even about houses, as an ornamental tree, and they are very enlivening, their trunks white as…

Thursday. Some fifteen caribou were taken by one (?) man about Moosehead last winter. . . . [Mr. Leonard, of Bangor, a sportsman,] said that the horns of a moose…

Friday. As we paddled along, we saw many peetweets, also the common iris or blue flag, along the rocky shore, and here and afterwards great fields of epilobium or…

Saturday. Very early this morning we heard the note of the wood thrush, on awaking, though this was a poor singer. I was glad to find that this prince of singers…

Monday. ‘There were some yellow lilies (Nuphar), Scutellaria galericulata, clematis (abun- dant), sweet-gale, “great smilacina” (did I mean S. racemosa ?), and…

Tuesday. As I remember, Hodge mistakes when he says’ that “it is erroneously represented on the charts, for it extends in a north-northeasterly, south-…

Wednesday. I noticed there! Aralia race- mosa, and Aster macrophyllus in bloom, with bluish rays and quite fragrant (!), like some medicinal herb, so that I doubted…

Thursday. Isaw thus early the slate-colored snowbird (Fringilla hyemalis) here. As I walked along the ridge of the island, through the woods, I heard the rush and…

Friday. This morning heard from the camp the red-eye, robin (P. said it was a sign of rain), tweezer-bird, 7. e. parti-colored warbler, chickadee, wood thrush, and…

I saw at the end of this carry’ small A7o- cynum cannabinum on the rocks, also more of the spurred gentian. . . Here were many Canada blueberries and, on the rocks,…

Sunday. Ata small river coming in from the south a few miles below Nicketow, the Penobscot is crooked and the place is called Payt-gum-kiss, or Petticoat, according…

Monday. This was the midst of the rasp- berry season. We found them abundant on every carry on the East Branch and below, and children were carry- ing them from all…

Tuesday. A. M.— Rode to Pushaw Lake with Thatcher and Hoar. Duck-meat, apparently a new kind, there. T. thinks there ’s little if any red cedar about Bangor.

Thursday. A. M.— To the high hill and ponds in Bucksport, some ten or more miles out. A withdrawn, wooded, and somewhat mountainous country. There was a little…

Friday. P. M.— Take cars for Portland, and at evening the boat for Boston. A great deal of cat-tail flag by railroad between Penobscot and Ken- nebec. Fine large…

Saturday. Get home at 8.30 A. M. I find that B. M. Watson sent me from Plymouth, July 20th, six glow-worms, of which two remain, the rest having escaped. He says…

Sunday. I see the blackbirds flying in flocks (which did not when I went away July 20th) and hear the shrilling of my alder locust.

Monday. P. M.—In Clintonia Swamp I see a remarkable yellow fungus about the base of some grass growing in a tuft. It is a jelly, shaped like a bodkin or a pumpkin’s…

Tuesday. Red cohosh berries well ripe in front of Hunt’s, perhaps a week or more, —a round, conical spike, two and a half inches long by one and three quarters, of…

J. Farmer saw some days ago a black- headed gull, between a kingfisher and common gull in size, sailing lightly on Bateman’s Pond. It was very white beneath and…

Eycopodium lucidulum, how long?

Thursday. P. M.—To Hubbard’s Close. The hillside at Clintonia Swamp is in some parts quite shingled with the rattlesnake-plantain (Good- yera pubescens) leaves…

Saturday. Channing has brought me from Plymouth and Watson Drosera filiformis, just out of bloom, from Great South Pond, Solidago tenui- folia in bloom, Sabbatia…

P. M. — To Conantum. Hear the mole cricket nowadays. Collinsonia (very little left) not out.

A. M.— Ride to Austin Bacon’s, Na- tick. On the left hand, just this side the centre of Wayland, I measure the largest, or northernmost, of two large elms standing…

Tuesday. P.M.— To Hill and meadow.

Wednesday. P. M.— Up Assabet with Bradford and Hoar. B. tells me he found the Malaxis lilizfolia on Kineo. Saw there a tame gull as large as a hen, brown dove-…

Thursday. P. M.—To Conantum, high- blackberrying. Detected a, to me, new kind of high blackberry on the edge of the cliff beyond Conant’s wall on Lee’s ground,—-a…

Polygonum Pennsylvanicum by bank, how long? R. W. E. says that he saw Asclepias tuberosa abundant and in bloom on Naushon last week; also a sassafras stump three…

Sunday. P. M. — To Conantum. Small botrychium, not long. The flower of Cicuta maculata smells like the leaves of the golden senecio. Collinsonia has been out…

Monday. P. M. — To Flint’s Pond. An abundance of fine high blackberries behind Britton’s old camp on the Lincoln road, now in their prime there, which have been…

Tuesday. P. M. —To Fair Haven Pond by boat. Landing at Bittern Cliff, I see that fine purple grass; how long? At Baker’s shore, I at length distinguished fairly the…

Wednesday. P. M. — To Yellow Birches. Measured the thorn at Yellow Birch Swamp. At one foot from ground it is a foot and ten inches in circum- ference. The first…

P. M.— Rode to Prospect Hill, Waltham. The Polygonum Pennsylvanicum there. One Chima- phila maculata on the hill. Tufts of Woodsia Ilvensis. Hedyotis longifolia…

P. M.—'To Bateman’s Pond. Rudbeckia laciniata (?) by Dodge’s Brook, north of the road; how long? Cornus sericea berries begin to ripen. The leaves of the…

Saturday. I now see those brown shaving- like stipules ' of the white pine leaves, which are fall- ing, 2. ¢. the stipules, and caught in cobwebs. River falls…

Sunday. P.M.— To Assabet, west bank. Turned off south at Derby’s Bridge and walked 1 ? Sheaths. through a long field, half meadow, half upland. Soap- wort gentian,…

Monday. P. M.— To Dodge Brook Wood. It occurred to me some weeks ago that the river-banks were not quite perfect. It is too late then, when the mikania is in bloom,…

Wednesday. P. M. — To the Hill for white pine cones. Very few trees have any. I can only manage small ones, fifteen or twenty feet high, climbing till I can reach…

Thursday. P. M.—To Cardinal Ditch and Peter’s. Cardinal-flower, nearly done. Beach plum, almost ripe. Squash vines on the Great Fields, generally killed and…

Friday. Up railroad and to Clamshell. Solidago puberula apparently in prime, with the S. stricta, near gerardia oaks. Red choke-berry ripe; how long? On the east…

Saturday. P. M.—To Owl Swamp (Farmer’s). In an open part of the swamp, started a very large wood frog, which gave one leap and squatted still. I put down my finger,…

Sunday. Nabalus Fraseri, top of Cliffs, | — a new plant, — yet in prime and not long out. The nabalus family generally, apparently now in prime.

Friday. P. M. — Round Walden with C. We find the water cold for bathing. Coming out on to the Lincoln road at Bartlett’s path, we found an abundance of haws by the…

Saturday. Still somewhat rainy, — since last evening. Solidago arguta variety done, say a week or more.

Sunday. Another mizzling day. P. M. — To beach plums behind A. Clarke’s. We walked in some trodden path on account of the wet grass and leaves, but the fine grass…

Monday. P. M.— To Corallorhiza Rock and Tobacco-pipe Wood, northeast of Spruce Swamp. Peaches are now in their prime. Came through that thick white pine wood on the…

Wednesday. P. M. — To chestnut oaks. Varieties of nabalus grow along the Walden road in the woods; also, still more abundant, by the Flint’s Pond road in the woods.…

Thursday. A. M. — Up the Assabet. The river is considerably raised and also muddied by the recent rains. I saw a red squirrel run along the bank under the hemlocks…

Friday. P. M. — To tupelo on Daniel B. Clark’s land. Stopping in my boat under the Hemlocks, I hear sin- gular bird-like chirruping from two red squirrels. One sits…

Saturday. A. M.— Apparently Hyperi- cum prolificum in Monroe’s garden, stil] out. The season is waning. A wasp just looked in upon me. A very warm day for the…

I am surprised to find that, yesterday having been a sudden very warm day, the peaches have mellowed suddenly and wilted, and I find many more fallen than even…

I planted six seeds sent from the Patent Office and labelled, I think, ‘‘ Poitrine jaune grosse”’ (large yellow pumpkin (or squash?)). Two came up, and one bore a…

All sorts of men come to Cattle-Show. I see one with a blue hat. I hear that some have gathered fringed gentian. Pines have begun to be parti-colored with yellow…

Ground white with frost this morning. P. M. — To Walden. Young oaks generally reddening, etc., etc. Rhus Tox- wcodendron turned yellow and red, handsomely dotted…

P. M.— To second stone bridge and down Assabet home. The ash trees are a dull red, and some quite mulberry- color. Methinks it has to do with the smart frost of…

P. M.— To Hubbard’s Close and Swamp. Veronica scutellaria still. Sittmmg on a rock east of Trillium Woods, I perceive that, generally speaking, it is only the edge…

The Rhus radicans also turns yellow and red or scarlet, like the Toxicodendron. Asters, and still more goldenrods, look quite rare now. See a cowbird alone. Getting…

A. M. — By boat to Conantum. River fallen again. Barberrying and graping. Many of the grapes shrivelled and killed by frost now, and the leaves mostly fallen. The…

P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook via Hubbard’s Close. A beautiful bright afternoon, still warmer than yes- terday. I carry my coat on my arm. This weather makes the locust…

P. M. — To Cliffs and Walden. Little chincapin oaks are partly turned, dull scarlet or yellow as it may happen, nearly in prime, not fallen. Some of their leaves…

P. M.— Up Assabet. Hemlock leaves are copiously falling. ‘They cover the hillside like some wild grain. The changing red maples along the river are past their prime…

P. M.— To Dugan Desert and Ministerial Swamp. The elms are now at the height of their change. As I look down our street, which is lined with them, now clothed in…

P. M. — To Walden over Fair Haven Hill. Some Prinos verticillatus yellowing and browning at once, and in low ground just falling and leaving the bright berries…

Sunday. P. M. — Up Assabet. River lower than before since winter at least; very low. Another frost last night, although with fog, and this afternoon the maple and…

P. M. — To Annursnack. The eighth fine day, warmer than the last two. I find one or two house-leek blossoms even yet fresh, and all the rest crisp. The fringed…

P. M.— To Poplar Hill. Maple fires are burnt out generally, and they have fairly begun to fall and look smoky in the swamps. When my eyes were resting on those…

P. M. — To White Pond. Another, the tenth of these memorable days. We have had some fog the last two or three nights, and this forenoon it was slow to disperse,…

Rain at last, and end of the remarkable days. The springs and rivers have been very low. Mill- ers have not water enough to grind their grists. There has been a…

Friday. P. M. — Up Assabet. It clears up entirely by noon, having been cloudy in the forenoon, and is as warm as before now. I stop a while at Cheney’s shore to…

Saturday. Very high wind in the night, shak- ing the house. I feel it taking hold under the eaves, which project at the end of the house, each time with a jerk.…

P.M. — To Conantum. Clear and pleasant afternoon, but cooler than before. At the brook beyond Hubbard’s Grove, I stand to watch the water-bugs (Gyrinus). The…

Mr. Sanborn tells me that he looked off from Wachusett last night, and that he saw the shadow of the mountain gradually extend itself eastward not only over the…

P. M. — To the Easterbrooks Country. I go along the riverside and by Dakin the pump- maker’s. There is a very strong northwest wind, Novemberish and cool, raising…

First ice that I’ve seen or heard of, a tenth of an inch thick in yard, and the ground is slightly frozen. I see many myrtle-birds now about the house this…

6 a. M. — To Hill. Ground pretty white with frost. The stiffened and frosted weeds and grass have an aggrieved look. The lately free-flowing blades of grass look…

P. M. — Up Assabet. The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think…

P. M.— To Smith’s chestnut grove. Rain last night, raising the springs a little. To-day and yesterday still, gray days, but not cold. The sugar maple leaves are now…

Rain in night. P. M. — By boat to Battle-Ground. A rainy day and easterly wind, — an easterly storm. I see flying very high over the meadow, from the east, eleven…

Hard rain in the night and almost steady rain through the day, the second day. Wind still easterly or northeasterly. P. M. — Round by Puffer’s via Clamshell. A…

P. M. — Up river. The third day of steady rain; wind northeast. The river has now risen so far over the meadows that I can just cross Hubbard’s Great Meadow in my…

P. M. — To Conantum. To-day it does not rain, but is cloudy all the day. Large oak leaves have been falling for a week at least, but the oaks are not yet reduced to…

P. M. — Down river in boat. Though it did not rain yesterday, as I remember, it was overcast all day, — did n’t clear up, — and this forenoon it has rained again.…

Another, the eighth, day of cloudy weather, though no rain to-day. P. M. — Near the island, in my boat, I scare up a bittern (Ardea mvnor), and afterward half a…

Cloudy still and, in the afternoon, rain, the ninth day. The sugar maple and elm leaves are fallen, but I still see many large oaks, especially scar- let ones,…

P. M.— To Fair Haven Pond over Cliffs. Another cloudy afternoon after a clear morning.

P. M.— To Bateman’s Pond. Row up Assabet as far as the Pokelogan, thence on foot. It is very pleasant and cheerful nowadays, when the brown and withered leaves…

P. M.— To the Easterbrooks moraine via Ponkawtasset-top. Islands, pale-brown grassy isles, are appearing again in the meadow as the water goes down. From this…

P. M.— To Pine Hill via Spanish Brook. I leave the railroad at Walden Crossing and follow the path to Spanish Brook. How swift Nature is to repair the damage that…

P. M. — To the Dam Meadows. But little corn is left in the field now, and that looks rather black. There is an abundance of cat-tail in the Dam Meadows. Returning,…

Very warm but rather cloudy weather, after rain in the night. Wind southwest. Thermometer on north of the house 70° at 12 m. Indian summer. The cocks crow in the…

You will sometimes see a sudden wave flow along a puny ditch of a brook, inundating all its shores, when a musquash is making his escape beneath. He soon plunges…

A warm, cloudy, rain-threatening morning. About 10 a. m. a long flock of geese are going over from northeast to southwest, or parallel with the gen- eral direction…

Surveying for Stedman Buttrick and Mr. Gordon. Jacob Farmer says that he remembers well a par- ticular bound (which is the subject of dispute between the above two…

Clear and fine Indian-summer day. P. M. — To Lincoln limestone with E. Hoar. Hoar showed me last evening the large fossil tooth of a shark, such as figured in…

Some rain in the night. I see, on a white oak on Egg Rock, where the squir- rels have lately made a nest for the winter of the dry oak leaves, probably using those…

P. M.— Ride to limestone quarries on old Carlisle road with E. Hoar. This morning it was considerably colder than for a long time, and by noon very much colder than…

The obvious falling of leaves (2. e., not to include the fall of the pitch pines and larches and the complete fall of the birches, white willows, etc.) ended about…

Rain last night.

P. M.— To Dam Meadows. Going along the Bedford road at Moore’s Swamp, I hear the dry rustling of seedy rattlesnake grass in the wind, a November sound, within a rod…

P. M. — To Cliffs. In Stow’s sprout-land west of railroad cut, I see where a mouse which has a hole under a stump has eaten out clean the insides of the little…

High wind in the night, shaking the house, apparently from the northwest. About 9.30 a. M., though there is very little cloud, I see a few flakes of snow, two or…

Monday. P. M. — To Gowing’s Swamp. Garfield, who was working in what was Moore’s Swamp, tells me that he sometimes digs up frogs in the winter, when ditching in…

P. M. — To Andromeda Ponds. Cold Thanksgiving weather again, the pools freez- ing. The first or northernmost Andromeda Pond, considering the main portion north of…

P. M. — To Hubbard’s’Close and thence through woods to Goose Pond and Pine Hill. A clear, cold, windy afternoon. The cat crackles with electricity when you stroke…

Mr. Wesson says that he has seen a striped squirrel eating a white-bellied mouse on a wall — had evidently caught [it]; also that the little dipper is not a coot, —…

P. M.— Around Ebby Hubbard’s wood- lot. On the hillside above his swamp, near the Minis- terial land, I found myself walking in one of those shelf-like hillside…

Sophia called on old lady Hayden yes- terday, and she told her of somebody’s twin infants of whom one died for want of air. The father, therefore, was advised to…

<A still, warm, cloudy, rain-threatening day. Surveying the J. Richardson lot. The air is full of geese. I saw five flocks within an hour, about 10 a..m.,…

P. M.— Walking in Ebby Hubbard’s woods, I hear a red squirrel barking at me amid the pine and oak tops, and now I see him coursing from tree to tree. How securely…

Measuring Little Goose Pond, I observed two painted tortoises moving about under the thin transparent ice. When I broke it with my fist over each in succession, it…

Thursday. Surveying the Richardson lot, which bounds on Walden Pond, I turned up a rock near the pond to make a bound with, and found under it, attached to it, a…

Surveying the Richardson Fair Haven lot. Rufus Morse, who comes to find his bounds on R., accounts for his deed being tattered by saying that some tame flying…

At noon a few flakes fall.

Sunday. Flannery tells me he is cutting in Holbrook’s Swamp, in the Great Meadows, a lonely place. He sees a fox repeatedly there, and also a white weasel, —once…

Running the long northwest side of Richard- son’s Fair Haven lot. It is a fair, sunny, and warm day in the woods for the season. We eat our dinners on the middle of…

Staples says he came to Concord some twenty- four years ago a poor boy with a dollar and three cents in his pocket, and he spent the three cents for drink at…

P. M.— To Goose Pond. This and the like ponds are just covered with virgin ice just thick enough to bear, though it cracks about the edges on the sunny sides. You…

Within a day or two, I saw another par- tridge in the snare of November 28th, frozen stiff.

Begins to snow about 8 A. m., and in fif- teen minutes the ground is white, but it soon stops. Plowed grounds show white first.

A. M.— To Easterbrooks Country with Ricketson. A hen-hawk circling over that wild region. See its red tail. The cellar stairs at the old Hunt house are made of…

Walking over the Andromeda Ponds be- tween Walden and Fair Haven, which have only frozen just enough to bear me, I see in springy parts, where the ice is thin,…

Surveying for heirs of J. Richardson, G. Heywood and A. Brooks accompanying. Skate on Goose Pond. Heywood says that some who have gone into Ebby Hubbard’s barn to…

Snows all day, — first snow of any conse- quence, three or four inches in all.

Sunday. A clear, pleasant day. P. M. — To Goose Pond.

P. M. — Surveying Goose Pond. After some rain yesterday and in the night, there was a little more snow, and the ground is still covered. I am surprised to find…