13–19 April 1857

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 anciently even, on account of dams, — we had to go round a swamp at the south end, about Joe’s Rocks, and R. gave it up. I went to Long Pond and waited for him. Saw a strange turtle, much like a small snapping turtle or very large Sternotherus odoratus, crawling slowly along the bottom next the shore. Poked it ashore with a stick. It had a peculiarly square snout, two hinges to the sternum and both parts movable. Was very sluggish; would not snap nor bite. Looked old, being mossy above on the edge, and the scales greenish and eaten beneath. The flesh slate- colored.’ The Freetown Turtle compared with Storer’s Sternotherus. Answers to the generic description, except perhaps that the pos- terior valve of the sternum is movable. Compared with the S. odoratus. There is no peculiar scent to it. The upper shell is flattened on the dorsal ridge for the width of the dorsal plates and is not carinated there. (I find one as flat, and others are not carinated.) Color out of water a dirty brown. The marginal plates are a little narrower. The sternum (as well as that of my S. odoratus) is apparently composed of 11 instead of 9 plates, the anterior portion being com- posed of 5 instead of 3 plates. The posterior portion is distinctly movable, much more than the odoratus, and it is quite rounded on the sides. Irides not distinct. It appears as if blind. No yellow lines what- ever on the head or neck. Jaws not dark-brown, but bluish-slate, as is the skin generally. My two S. odoratus are 3% inches long by 24 wide and 14 inches high, being highest behind. The Freetown turtle is 4 inches long by 2? and 13 high, being highest forward. It has much green moss (? ) on the rear and marginal plates, and the scales of the sternum are I saw that it was new and wished to bring it away, but had no paper to wrap it in. So I peeled a white birch, getting a piece of bark about ten inches long. I noticed that the birch sap was flowing. This bark at once curled back so as to present its yellow side out- ward. I rolled it about the turtle and folded the ends back and tied it round with a strip of birch bark, making a very nice and airy box for the creature, which would not be injured by moisture, far better than any. paper, and so I brought it home to Concord at last. As my coat hung in R.’s shanty, over a barrel of paper, the morning that I came away the turtle made a little noise, scratching the birch bark in my pocket. R. observed, “ There is a mouse in that barrel. What would you do about it?” “Oh, let him alone,” said I, “he’ll get out directly.” “They often get among my papers,” he added.. “I guess I ’d better set the barrel outdoors.” I did not explain, and perhaps he experimented on the barrel after my departure.’ As I sat on the shore there, waiting for R., I saw many mosquitoes flying low over the water close to the sandy shore.

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 and willow and hazel catkins and no caltha and saxifrage so forward as in Concord. The ground was a uniform russet when I left, but when I had come twenty miles it was visibly greener, and the greenness steadily increased all the way to Boston. Coming to Boston, and also to Concord, was like com- ing from early spring to early summer. It was as if a fortnight at least had elapsed. Yet New Bedford is much warmer in the winter. Why is it more backward than Concord? ‘The country is very flat and exposed to southerly winds from the sea, which, to my surprise, were raw and chilly. Also the soil is wet and cold, unlike our warm sandy soil, which is dry the day after a rain- storm. Perhaps, as the ground is more bare in the winter, vegetation suffers more after all. One told me that there was more cloudy weather than here. It seemed to me that there was a deficiency of warm hollows and shel- tered places behind hills and woods, which abound with us. On such cliffs as they have facing the south, vege- tation was much more backward than in like positions with us, apparently owing to sea-turns and chilly south winds.

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 the pine warbler. Last night was very cold, and some ditches are frozen this morning. This is Fast-Day. I think if you should tap all the trees in a large birch swamp, you would make a stream large enough to turn a mill. About a month ago, at the post-office, Abel Brooks, who is pretty deaf, siding up to me, observed in a loud voice which all could hear, “Let me see, your society is pretty large, ain’t it?” “Oh, yes, large enough,” said I, not knowing what he meant. “There ’s Stewart be- longs to it, and Collier, he ’s one of them, and Emerson, and my boarder ”’ (Pulsifer), “and Channing, I believe, I think he goes there.” “You mean the walkers; don’t you?” “Ye-es, I call you the Society. All go to the woods; don’t you?” “Do you miss any of your wood ?”’ I asked. “No, I hain’t worried any yet. I believe you ’re a pretty clever set, as good as the average,” etc., etc. Telling Sanborn of this, he said that, when he first came to town and boarded at Holbrook’s, he asked H. how many religious societies there were in town. H. said that there were three, —the Unitarian, the Ortho- dox, and the Walden Pond Society. I asked Sanborn with which Holbrook classed himself. He said he be- lieves that he put himself with the last. Apri 17. Rain. It rains about every other day now for a fortnight past.

-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 later than the com- mon, for I cannot get a whole twig fully out, though the common is too far gone to gather there. The cat- kins, too, are shorter.