31 May 1858 – 6 June 1858

A. M. — To Island. Choke-cherry, a day or two. Cornus florida, not yet for two or three days. I saw some in Connecticut with involucres much more rosaceous than ours. A yellowbird’s nest of that grayish milkweed fibre, one ‘egg, in alder by wall west of Indian burying(? )-ground. P. M. — To Laurel Glen. I see, running along on the flat side of a railroad rail on the causeway, a wild mouse with an exceedingly long tail. Perhaps it would be called the long-tailed meadow mouse. It has no white, only the feet are light flesh-color; but it is uniformly brown as far as I can see, — for it rests a long time on the rail within a rod, — but when I look at it from behind in the sun it is a very tawny almost golden brown, quite hand- some. It finally runs, with a slight hop, — the tarsus of the hind legs being very long while the fore legs are short and its head accordingly low, — down the bank to the meadow. I saw on the 29th white Viola pedata, and to-day a white V. cucullata. There were severe frosts on the nights of the 28th and 29th, and now I see the hickories turned quite black, and in low ground the white oak shoots, though they do not show black in drying. Also many ferns are withered and black and some Prinos levigatus tips, ete. I find a chewink’s nest with four eggs (fresh) on the side-hill at Jarvis’s wood-lot, twenty feet below wood- chuck’s hole at canoe birch. The nest is first of withered leaves, then stubble, thickly lined with withered grass and partly sheltered by dead leaves, shoved [?] up a huckleberry bush. There was a slight sea-turn, the wind coming cool and easterly this morning, which at first I mistook for the newly leafing deciduous trees investing the evergreens, which is a kind of sea-turn in harmony with the other. I remember that the stage-drivers riding back and forth daily from Concord to Boston and becoming weather-wise perforce, often meeting the sea-breeze on its way into the country, were wont to show their wea- ther wisdom by telling anxious travellers that it was nothing but a sea-turn. At 5 Pp. M., go to see a gray squirrel’s nest in the oak at the Island point. It is about fifteen feet from the ground, —the entrance, — where a limb has been broken off, and the tree is hollow above and below. One young one darted past downward under my face, with the speed of a bird. There is much short brown dung about, and a smell of urine, and the twigs around have been gnawed. Does not the voice of the toad along the river sound differently now from what it did a month ago? I think it is much less sonorous and ringing, a more croaking and inquisitive or qui vive sound. Is it not less pro- longed also?

8.30 a. M. — Start for Monadnock. Between Shirley Village and Lunenburg, I notice, in a meadow on the night hand, close to the railroad, the Kalmia glauca in bloom, as we are whirled past. The conductor says that he has it growing in his gar- den. Blake joins me at Fitchburg. Between Fitchburg and Troy saw an abundance of wild red cherry, now apparently in prime, in full bloom, especially in burnt lands and on hillsides, a small but cheerful lively white bloom. Arrived at Troy Station at 11.5 and shouldered our knapsacks, steering northeast to the mountain, some four miles off, —its top. It is a pleasant hilly road, leading past a few farmhouses, where you already begin to snuff the mountain, or at least up-country air. By the roadside I plucked, now apparently in prime, the Rzbes Cynosbati, rather downy leaved, and, near by, the same with smooth berries. I noticed, too, the Salix lucida, by the roadside there on high land; the S. rostrata, etc., were common. Almost without interruption we had the mountain in sight before us, —its sublime gray mass — that antique, brownish-gray, Ararat color. Probably these crests of the earth are for the most part of one color in all lands, that gray color of antiquity, which nature loves; color of unpainted wood, weather-stain, time-stain; not glaring nor gaudy; the color of all roofs, the color of things that endure, and the color that wears well; color of Egyptian ruins, of mummies and all antiquity; baked in the sun, done brown. Methought I saw the same color with which Ararat and Caucasus and all earth’s brows are stained, which was mixed in antiquity and receives a new coat every century; not scarlet, like the crest of the bragging cock, but that hard, enduring gray; a terrene sky-color; solidified air with a tinge of earth.’ The red elder was in full bloom by the road, appar- ently in prime. We left. the road at a schoolhouse, and, crossing a meadow, began to ascend gently through very rocky pastures. Previously an old man, a mile back, who lived on a hilltop on the road, pointed out the upper corner of his pasture as a short way up. Said he had not been up for seven years and, looking at our packs, asked, “ Are you going to carry them up?” “Well,” said he, with a tone half of pity and half regret, adding, “I shall never go up again.” Here, at the base, by the course of a rocky rill, where we paused in the shade, in moist ground, I saw the Tiarella cordifolia, abundant and apparently in prime, with its white spike sometimes a foot and more high; also the leaves of the Geraniwm Robertianum, emitting their peculiar scent, with the radical reddish tinge, not yet budded. The cress in the water there was quite agreeable to our taste, and methinks would be good to eat fresh with bread. The neighboring hills began to sink, and entering the wood we soon passed Fassett’s shanty, — he so busily at work inside that he did not see us, —and we took our dinner by the rocky brook-side in the woods just above. A dozen people passed us early in the afternoon, while we sat there, men and women on their way down from the summit, this suddenly very pleasant day after a lour- ing one having attracted them. We met a man (appar- ently an Indian or Canadian half-breed) and a boy, with guns, who had been up after pigeons but only killed five Crows. Thereabouts first I noticed the Ribes prostratum, abundantly in bloom, apparently in prime, with its pretty erect racemes of small flowers, sometimes pur- plish with large leaves. There, too, the Trilliwm ery- throcarpum, now in prime, was conspicuous, — three white lanceolate waved-edged petals with a purple base. This the handsomest flower of the mountain, coexten- sive with the wooded sides. Also the Viburnum lanta- noides, apparently in prime, with its large and showy white outer florets, reminding me by its marginal flower- ing of the tree-cranberry, coextensive with last; and Uvularia grandiflora, not long begun to bloom. Red elder-berry not open, apparently, there; and Amelan- chier Canadensis var. Botryapvum not long in bloom. Having risen above the dwarfish woods (in which mountain-ash was very common), which reached higher up along this ravine than elsewhere, and nearly all the visitors having descended, we proceeded to find a place wie > for and to prepare our camp at mid-afternoon. We wished it to be near water, out of the way of the wind, which was northwest, and of the path, and also near to spruce trees for a bed. (There is a good place if you would be near the top within a stone’s throw of the summit, on the north side, under some spruce trees.) We chose a sunken yard in a rocky plateau on the southeast side of the mountain, perhaps half a mile from the sum- mit, by the path, a rod and a half wide by many more in length, with a mossy and bushy floor about five or six feet beneath the general level, where a dozen black spruce trees grew, though the surrounding rock was generally bare. There was a pretty good spring within a dozen rods, and the western wall shelved over a foot or two. We slanted two scraggy spruce trees, long since bleached, from the western wall, and, cutting many spruce boughs with our knives, made a thick bed and walls on the two sides to keep out the wind. Then, putting several poles transversely across our two rafters, we covered [them] with a thick roof of spruce twigs, like shingles. ‘The spruce, though harsh for a bed, was close at hand, we cutting away one tree to make room. We crawled under the low eaves of this roof, about eighteen inches high, and our extremities projected about a foot. Having left our packs here and made all ready for the night, we went up to the summit to see the sun set. Our path lay through a couple of small swamps and then up the rocks. Some forty or fifty rods below the very apex southeast, or quite on the top of the mountain, I saw a little bird flit out from beneath a rock close by the path on the left of it, where there were only very few scattered dwarf black spruce about, and, looking, I found a nest with three eggs. It was the Fringilla hyemalis, which soon disappeared around a projecting rock. It was near by a conspicuous spruce, six or eight feet high, on the west edge of a sort of hollow, where a vista opened south over the precipice, and the path ascended at once more steeply. ‘The nest was sunk in the ground by the side of a tuft of grass, and was pretty deep, made of much fine dry grass or sedge (?) and lined with a little of a delicate bluish hair-like fibre (?) (q. v.) two or three inches long. The eggs were three, of a regular oval form, faint bluish- white, sprinkled with fine pale-brown dots, in two of the three condensed into a ring about the larger end. They had apparently just begun to develop. The nest and tuft were covered by a projecting rock. Brewer says that only one nest is known to naturalists. We saw many of these birds flitting about the summit, perched on the rocks and the dwarf spruce, and disappearing behind the rocks. It is the prevailing bird now up there, 2. e. on the summit. They are commonly said to go to the fur countries to breed, though Wilson says that some breed in the Alleghanies. The New York Reports make them breed on the mountains of Oswego County and the Catskills.’ This was a quite interesting discovery. They probably are never seen in the surrounding low grounds at this season. The ancestors of this bird had evidently per- ceived on their flight northward that here was a small piece of arctic region, containing all the conditions they require, — coolness and suitable food, etc.,etc., —and so for how long have builded here. For ages they have made their home here with the Arenaria Grenlandica and Potentilla tridentata. 'They discerned arctic isles sprinkled in our southern sky. I did not see any of them below the rocky and generally bare portion of the moun- tain. It finds here the same conditions as in the north of Maine and in the fur countries, — Labrador mosses, etc. Now that the season is advanced, migrating birds have gone to the extreme north or gone to the mountain- tops. Byits color it harmonized with the gray and brown- ish-gray rocks. We felt that we were so much nearer to perennial spring and winter. I observed rabbit’s dung commonly, quite to the top and all over the rocky portion, and where they had browsed the bushes. For the last fifteen or twenty rods the ground between the rocks is pretty thickly clothed or carpeted with mountain cranberry and Potentilla tridentata, only the former as yet slightly budded, but much lower than this the mountain cranberry is not common. The former grows also in mere seams on the nearly upright sides of rocks, and occasionally I found some of last year’s cranberries on the latter, which were an agreeable acid. These were the prevailing plants of a high order on the very summit. There was also on the same ground considerable fine grass,’ and radical leaves of a sericocarpus-like aster (? ),?—— I saw some withered heads, — springing up commonly, and a little (hardly yet conspicuously budded except in the warmest places)

At length, by 3 o’clock, the signs of dawn appear, and soon we hear the robin and the Fringilla hyemalis, — its prolonged jingle, — sitting on the top of a spruce, the chewink, and the wood thrush. Whether you have slept soundly or not, it is not easy to lie abed under these circumstances, and we rose at 3.30, in order to see the sun rise from the top and get our breakfast there. Concealing our blankets under a shelving rock near the camp, we set out. It was still hazy, and we did not see the shadow of the mountain until it was comparatively short. We did not get the most distant views, as of the Green and White Mountains, while we were there. We carried up fuel for the last quarter of a mile. A Fringilla hyemalis seemed to be attracted by the smoke of our fire, and flew quite near to us. They are the prevailing bird of the summit, and perhaps are baited by the crumbs left by visitors. It was flitting about there, and it would sit and sing, on the top of a dwarf spruce, the strain I have often heard. I saw just beneath the summit, and commencing some fifteen or twenty rods from it, dwarfish Rhodora Cana- densis, not yet anywhere quite out, much later than in the valley, very common; lambkill; and checkerberry; and, in slightly boggy places, quite dwarfish specimens of Eriophorum vaginatum, quite common in similar localities all over the rocky part, six inches high or more. A little water andromeda with it, scarcely out, and Lab- rador tea, scarcely suggesting flowers. (This I observed only in two or three places on the northerly side.) A viburnum (probably nudum or a form of it) was quite common, just begun to leaf, and with nemopanthes, showing its transparent leafets not yet expanded, a little behind the other, was quite sizable, especially the latter. These two, with the spruce, the largest shrubs at this height. In the little thickets made by these bushes, grew the two-leaved Solomon’s-seal, not nearly out, and Clintonia borealis, not budded, though out in the valley. Within the folded leaves of the last, was considerable water, as within the leaves of the seaside goldenrod on the sands of the Cape. Cornus Canadensis, along the base of the rocks, not out. Diervilla. And. on the moist ground or in the small bogs, Lycopodium annotinum, re- sembling at first sight the L. lucidulum, but running, was very common in boggy places, sometimes forming quite conspicuous green patches. The above plants of the mountain-top, except per- haps the mountain cranberry, extended downward over the whole top or rocky part of the mountain and were there mingled with a little Polypodium vulgare ; a peculiar Amelanchier Canadensis, apparently variety oligocarpa, just begun to bloom, with few flowers, short roundish petals, and finely serrate leaves; red cherry, not out; Populus tremuliformis, not common and quite small; small willows, apparently discolor, etc., also rostrata, and maybe humilis; canoe birch and yellow birch, for the most part scrubby, largest in swampy places; meadow-sweet; Lycopodium clavatum; Ame- lanchver Canadensis var. oblongifolia, not quite out, a little of it; and also a little very dwarfish hemlock and white pine (two or three feet high); a little mayflower and Chiogenes hispidula. We concluded to explore the whole rocky part of the mountain in this wise, to saunter slowly about it, about the height and distance from the summit of our camp, or say half a mile, more or less, first going north from the summit and returning by the western semicircle, and then exploring the east side, completing the circle, and return over the summit at night. To sum up, these were the Plants of the Summit, 7. e. within a dozen rods of it: Potentilla tridentata (and lower) ; Vaccinium Vitis-Idea; fine grass;! sericocar- pus-like radical leaves;? Arenaria Grenlandica; dwarf black spruce; a little dry moss; the two kinds of cla- donia, white and green, and the small leather-colored lichen of rocks,* mingled with the larger Umbilicaria pustulata. All these but the V. Vitis-I[de@a generally dis- persed over the rocky part.‘ * Was it not Juncus trifidus of August, 1860? * Was it not Solidago thyrsoidea of August, 1860? * U. erosa (?) or hyperborea (?). Vide Sept. 21, 1858, and a speci- men from Lafayette. Vide specimen of August, 1860. ‘ The Vaccinium Vitis-Idea also in patches lower down. Vide August, 1860.

Friday. At 6a. M. we began to descend. Near the upper edge of the wood, I heard, as I had done in ascending, a very peculiar lively and interest- ing strain from some bird, which note was new to me. At the same time I caught sight of a bird with a very conspicuous deep-orange throat and otherwise dark, with some streaks along the head. This may have been the Blackburnian warbler, if it was not too large for that, and may have been the singer. We de- scended or continued along the base of the mountain southward, taking the road to the State Line Station and Winchendon, through the west part of Rindge. It is remarkable how, as you are leaving a mountain and looking back at it from time to time, it gradually gathers up its slopes and spurs to itself into a regular whole, and makes a new and total impression. The | lofty beaked promontory which, when you were on the summit, appeared so far off and almost equal to it, seen now against the latter, scarcely deepens the tinge of bluish, misty gray on its side. The mountain has several spurs or ridges, bare and rocky, running from it, with a considerable depression between the central peak and them; 2. e., they attain their greatest height half a mile or more from the central apex. There is such a spur, for instance, running off southward about a mile. When we looked back from four or five miles distant on the south, this, which had appeared like an independent summit, was almost totally lost to our view against the general misty gray of the side of the principal summit. We should not have suspected its existence if we had not just come from it, and though the mountain ranges northeasterly and southwesterly, or not far from north and south, and is much the long- est in that direction, it now presented a pretty regu- lar pyramidal outline with a broad base, as if it were broadest east and west. That is, when you are on the mountain, the different peaks and ridges appear more independent; indeed, there is a bewildering variety of ridge and valley and peak, but when you have with- drawn a few miles, you are surprised at the more or less pyramidal outline of the mountain and that the lower spurs and peaks are all subordinated to the cen- tral and principal one. The summit appears to rise and the surrounding peaks to subside, though some new prominences appear. Even at this short distance the mountain has lost most of its rough and jagged outline, considerable ravines are smoothed over, and large boulders which you must go a long way round make no impression on the eye, being swallowed up in the air. We had at first thought of returning to the railroad at Fitzwilliam, passing over Gap Mountain, which is in Troy and Fitzwilliam quite near Monadnock, but concluded to go to Winchendon, passing through the western part of Rindge to the State Line Station, the latter part of the road being roundabout. We crossed the line between Jaffrey and Rindge three or four miles from the mountain. Got a very good view of the mountain from a high hill over which the road ran in the western part of Rindge.

A. M. — Surveying a blueberry and maple swamp belonging to Thomas Brooks in the northeast part of Lincoln, burned over in fall of *57. The fire spread across a ditch about four feet wide, catching the dry grass. The maples are killed part way or en- tirely round, near the ground, as you find on cutting the bark, being most protected on the inside of a clump toward each other, but Jess and less as you try higher up. Yet, generally, they have leaved out. Will they, when thus girdled, live more than one year? The effect on the alders has been that the bark for a foot or two next the ground is now in loose curls turned back or outward, showing the yellowish wood and yellowish inner side of the bark, evidently owing to the drying and contracting of the outside. The principal loss ap- pears to have been of blueberries. Brooks says he has got twenty-five (??) bushels there in a year. P. M.— Surveying, for Warner, wood bought of John Brown near Concord line. I now see a painted turtle in a rut, crossing a sandy road. They are now laying, then. When they get into a rut they find it rather difficult to get out, and, hearing a wagon coming, they draw in their heads, lie still, and are crushed. Clasping hound’s-tongue in garden. Can our second gooseberry in garden be the R. rotundifolium ?

P. M. — Cornus florida at Island well out, say the 3d. I hear of linnea out in a pitcher and prob- ably (?) in woods. Go to Painted-Cup Meadow via Assabet Bath. See three or four Emys insculpta about, making their holes in the gravelly bank south of Assabet Bath, and a few holes which must have been made a day or two, probably by the same. Golden senecio is not un- common now. Am surprised to find that the buck- bean flowers are withered, being killed by the recent frosts. Yellow Bethlehem-star. Edith Emerson has found, in the field (Merriam’s) just south of the Beck Stow pine grove, Lepidiwm cam- pestre, which may have been out ten days.