7 September 1857 – 13 September 1857

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, because the pads are so much eaten then. Our first slight frost in some places this morning. Northwest wind to-day and cool weather; such weather as we have not had for a long time, a new experience, which arouses a corresponding breeze in us. Rhus venenata berries are whitening. Its leaves appear very fresh, of a rich, dark, damp green, and very little eaten by insects. Go round by the north side of Farmer’s (?) Wood, turn southeast into the shut-in field, and thence to Spencer Brook, a place for hawks. Bidens chrysan- themordes there; how long? ‘There are three or four larch trees near the east edge of the meadows here. One measures two feet and seven inches in circumfer- ence at six feet from ground; begins to branch there, but is dead up to ten feet from ground, where its diam- eter is apparently about twelve feet; and from this it tapers regularly to the top, which is about forty-five feet from the ground, forming a regular, sharp pyra- mid, yet quite airy and thin, so that you could see a hawk through it pretty well. These are young and healthy trees. Measured that large tupelo behind Merriam’s, which now is covered with green fruit, and its leaves begin to redden. It is about thirty feet high, with a round head and equally broad near the ground. At one foot from the ground, it is four and a third feet in circumference; at seven feet, three and a third in circumference. The principal [branches] diverge at about fifteen or sixteen feet from the ground and tend upward; the lower ones are small and partly dead. The lowest, at about thirteen or fourteen feet from the ground, are three or four inches in diameter, and first grow out hori- zontally about six feet, then, making an abrupt angle, straggle downward nearly to the ground, fifteen feet from the tree. This leaves the tree remarkably open in the middle. Returning to my boat, at the white maple, I see a small round flock of birds, perhaps blackbirds, dart through the air, as thick as a charge of shot, — now comparatively thin, with regular intervals of sky be- tween them, like the holes in the strainer of a water- ing-pot, now dense and dark, as if closing up their ranks when they roll over one another and stoop down- ward.

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 the dangling green pickle-like fruit in my right hand, while I hold to the main stem with my left. The cones are now all flowing with pitch, and my hands are soon so covered with it that I cannot easily cast down the cones where I would, they stick to my hands so. I cannot touch the basket, but carry it on my'arm; nor can I pick up my coat, which I have taken off, un- less with my teeth, or else I kick it up and catch it on my arm. Thus I go from tree to tree, from time to time rubbing my hands in brooks and mud-holes, in the hope of finding something that will remove pitch like grease, but in vain. It is the stickiest work I ever did. I do not see how the squirrels that gnaw them off and then open them scale by scale keep their paws and whiskers clean. They must know of, or possess, some remedy for pitch that we know nothing of. How fast I could collect cones, if I could only contract with a family of squirrels to cut them off for me! Some are already brown and dry and partly open, but these commonly have hollow seeds and are worm-eaten. The cones collected in my chamber have a strong spiritu- ous scent, almost rummy, or like a molasses hogshead, agreeable to some. They are far more effectually pro- tected than the chestnut by its bur. Going into the low sprout-land north of the Sam Wheeler orchard, where is a potato-field in new ground, I see the effects of the frost of the last two or three nights. The ferns and tall erechthites showing its pappus are drooping and blackened or imbrowned on all sides, also Eupatorium pubescens, tender young Rhus glabra, etc., and the air is full of the rank, sour smell of freshly withering vegetation. It is a great change produced in one frosty night. What a sudden period put to the reign of summer! On my way home, caught one of those little red- bellied snakes in the road, where it was rather slug- gish, as usual. Saw another in the road a week or two ago. The whole length was eight inches; tail alone, one and four fifths. The plates about one hundred and nineteen; scales forty and upward. It was a dark ash-color above, with darker longitudinal lines, light brick-red beneath. There were three triangular buff spots just behind the head, one above and one each side. It is apparently Coluber amenus, and perhaps this is the same with Storer’s occipito-maculatus. C. brings me a small red hypopytis. It has a faint sweet, earthy, perhaps checkerberry, scent, like that sweet mildewy fragrance of the earth in spring. Aunts have just had their house shingled, and amid the rubbish I see sheets of the paper birch bark, which have lain on the roof so long. The common use of this formerly shows that it must have been abundant here.

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 blackened by frost (though not so much in our garden), revealing the yellow fruit, perhaps prema- turely. Standing by Peter’s well, the white maples by the bank of the river a mile off now give a rosaceous tinge to the edge of the meadow. I see lambkill ready to bloom a second time. Saw it out on the 20th ; how long?

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 edge of Dennis Swamp, where I saw the strange warbler once. To my surprise I find, by the black oaks at the sand- hole east of Clamshell, the Solidago rigida, apparently in prime or a little past. The heads and rays were so large I thought at first it must be a hieraclum. The rays are from ten to fourteen, and three to three and a half fortieths of an inch wide. The middle leaves are clasping by a heart-shaped base. The heads are seven fortieths of an inch wide and seventeen forticths long, in recurved panicles, — these. Eaton says truly, “Scales of the calyx round-obtuse, nerved, membranous at the edges.” My old S. stricta (early form) must be S. arguta var. juncea. It is now done.

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, and, though it shrank a little at first, it permitted me to stroke it as long as I pleased. Having passed, it occurred to me to return and culti- vate its acquaintance. To my surprise, it allowed me to slide my hand under it and lift it up, while it squatted cold and moist on the middle of my palm, panting natu- rally. I brought it close to my eye and examined it. It was very beautiful seen thus nearly, not the dull dead-leaf color which I had imagined, but its back was like burnished bronze armor defined by a varied line on each side, where, as it seemed, the plates of armor united. It had four or five dusky bars which matched exactly when the legs were folded, showing that the painter applied his brush to the animal when in that position, and reddish-orange soles to its delicate feet. There was a conspicuous dark-brown patch along the side of the head, whose upper edge passed directly through the eye horizontally, just above its centre, so that the pupil and all below were dark and the up- per portion of the iris golden. I have since taken up another in the same way.’ Round-leaved cornel berries nearly all fallen. Crossing east through the spruce swamp, I think that I saw a female redstart. What is that running herbaceous vine which forms a dense green mat a rod across at the bottom of the swamp northwest of Corallorhiza Rock?? It is of the same form, stem and leaves, with the more brown hairy and woolly linnza. It also grows in the swamp by the beech trees in Lincoln.