7 June 1858 – 13 June 1858

P. M.— To Walden. Warm weather has suddenly come, beginning yes- terday. To-day it is yet warmer, 87° at 3 P. M., com- pelling me to put on a thin coat, and I see that a new season has arrived. June shadows are moving over waving grass-fields, the crickets chirp uninterruptedly, and I perceive the agreeable acid scent of high blue- berry bushes in bloom. ‘The trees having leaved out, you notice their rounded tops, suggesting shade. The nighthawk sparks and booms over arid hillsides and sprout-lands. It is evidence enough against crows and hawks and owls, proving their propensity to rob birds’ nests of eggs and young, that smaller birds pursue them so often. You do not need the testimony of so many | farmers’ boys when you can see and hear the small ; birds daily crying “Thief and murder” after these spoilers. What does it signify, the kingbird, black- bird, swallow, etc., etc., pursuing a.crow? They say plainly enough, “I know you of old, you villain; you want to devour my eggs or young. I have often caught you at it, and I'll publish you now.” And probably the crow pursuing the fish hawk and eagle proves that the latter sometimes devour their young. The Salix tristis is. now generally going or gone to seed. - Oxalis violacea in garden. I see toads copulating and toad-spawn freshly laid 1858 | A POUT AND HER NEST 483 in the Wyman meadow at Walden. Utricularia vul- garis out there. The water colored or dusted with the pollen of the pitch pine.

P. M. — To marsh hawk’s nest near Hub- bard’s Bath. I see many breams’ nests made, and in one or two in which I look, I find, on taking out the stones and the gravel, the small yellowish ova about one twentieth of an inch in diameter. This is not, at least ordinarily, visible now as you look down on the nest, but, on taking up portions of the bottom of the concave nest, you find it scattered (not crowded) over the sand, stones, clam- shells, weeds, etc., which form the bottom of the nest. It studs the little gray and brown stones, rather scat- teredly, like some kind of gem adhering pretty firmly, and the bream is steadily poised over her treasures. You see the bream poised over her large concave nest in the sand, and, taking up a part of the bottom, as some brown stone, you find it studded with the small gem-like ova, loosely dispersed. Apparently it has not been laid long. The Salix nigra is still in bloom. I see red-wing blackbirds hatched. In several places I see where dead suckers have been at last partly devoured by some ani- mal, and their great bladders are seen floating off. Thomas Bell, in his “ British Reptiles,” says of “the Terrapene Europea, the common lacustrine tortoise of the Continent,” “As they live principally upon small fish, the air-bags of which they reject, it is said that the people are wont to judge of the quantity of tortoises to be found in a lake or pond, by the number of air-bags which are seen swimming on the surface of the water.” The marsh hawk’s eggs are not yet hatched. She rises when I get within a rod and utters that peculiar cackling or scolding note, much like, but distinct from, that of the pigeon woodpecker. She keeps circling over the nest and repeatedly stoops within a rod of my head in an angry manner. She is not so large as a hen-hawk, and is much more slender. She will come sailing swiftly and low over ° the tops of the trees and bushes, etc., and then stoop as near to my head as she dares, in order to scare me away. The primaries, of which I count but five, are very long and loose, or distant, like fingers with which she takes hold of the air, and form a very distinct part of the wing, making an angle with the rest. Yet they are not broad and give to the wing a long and slender appearance. The legs are stretched straight back under the tail. I see nothing of the male, nor did I before. A red-wing and a kingbird are soon in pursuit of the hawk, which proves, I think, that she meddles with their nests or themselves. She circles over me, scolding, as far as the edge of the wood, or fifteen rods.

P. M. — To Beck Stow’s. High blackberry, not long. I notice by the roadside at Moore’s Swamp the very common Juncus effusus, not quite out, one to two and a half feet high. See a yellow spotted turtle digging her hole at 5 p. M., in a pasture near Beck Stow’s, some dozen rods off. It is made under one side like the prcta’s. Potamogetons begin to prevail in the river and to catch my oar. The river is weedy. White maple keys are abundantly floating.

Smilacina racemosa well out, how long ? Sophia has received the whorled arethusa from Northampton to-day. P. M. — To Assabet Bath and return by stone bridge. A Maryland yellow-throat’s nest near apple tree by the low path beyond the pear tree. Saw a bird flit away low and stealthily through the birches, and [it] was soon invisible. Did not discover the nest till after a long search. Perfectly concealed under the loose withered grass at the base of a clump of birches, with no apparent entrance. The usual small deep nest (but not raised up) of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches. The bird flits out very low and swiftly and does not show herself, so that it is hard to find the nest or to iden- tify the bird. See a painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M.

P. M. — To Assabet Bath. The fertile Salix alba is conspicuous now at a dis- tance, in fruit, being yellowish and drooping. Hear the parti-colored warbler. Examine the stone-heaps. One is now a foot above water and quite sharp. They con- tain, apparently freshly piled up, from a wheelbarrow to a cartload of stones; but I can find no ova in them. I see a musquash dive head foremost (as he is swimming) in the usual way, being scared by me, but without mak- ing any noise. Saw a painted turtle on the gravelly bank just south of the bath-place, west side, and suspected that she had just laid (it was mid-afternoon). So, examining the ground, I found the surface covered with loose lichens, etc., about one foot behind her, and digging, found five eggs just laid one and a half or two inches deep, under one side. It is remarkable how firmly they are packed in the soil, rather hard to extract, though but just buried. I notice that turtles which have just commenced digging will void considerable water when you take them up. This they appear to have carried up to wet the ground with. Saw half a dozen Emys insculpta preparing to dig now at mid-afternoon, and one or two had begun at the most gravelly spot there; but they would not pro- ceed while I watched, though I waited nearly half an hour, but either rested perfectly still with heads drawn partly in, or, when a little further off, stood warily looking about with their necks stretched out, turning their dark and anxious-looking heads about. It seems a very earnest and pressing business they are upon. They have but a short season to do it in, and they run many risks. Having succeeded in finding the E. picta’s eggs, I thought I would look for the E. wnsculpta’s at Abel Hosmer’s rye-field. So, looking carefully to see where the ground had been recently disturbed, I dug with my hand and could directly feel the passage to the eggs, and so discovered two or three nests with their large and long eggs, —five eggs in one of them. It seems, then, that if you look carefully soon after the eggs are laid in such a. place, you can find the nests, though rain or even a dewy night might conceal the spot. I saw half a dozen E. insculpta digging at mid-afternoon.

Rains all day. Much water falls.

Louring all day. P. M. — To Ledum Swamp. Lambkill, maybe one day. Strawberries. In the great apple tree front of the Miles house I hear young pigeon woodpeckers. The ledum is apparently past prime. The Kalmia glauca and the Andromeda Polifolia are done, the kalmia just done. The ledum has grown three or four inches (as well as the andromeda). It has a rather agreeable fragrance, between turpentine and straw- berries. It is rather strong and penetrating, and some- times reminds me of the peculiar scent of a bee. The young leaves, bruised and touched to the nose, even make it smart. It is the young and expanding ledum leaves which are so fragrant. There is a yellow fungus common on its leaves, and a black one on the andro- meda. The Vacciniwm Oxycoccus grows here and is abundantly out; some days certainly. I hear and see the parti-colored warbler, blue yellow-backed, here on the spruce trees. It probably breeds here. Also, within three feet of the edge of the pond-hole, where I can hardly stand in india-rubber shoes without the water flowing over them, a large ant-hill swarming with ants, — though not on the surface because of the mizzling rain. One of the prevailing front-rank plants here, standing in the sphagnum and water, is the elodea. I see a song sparrow’s nest here in a little spruce just by the mouth of the ditch. It rests on the thick branches fifteen inches from the ground, firmly made of coarse sedge without, lined with finer, and then a little hair, small within, —a very thick, firm, and portable nest, an inverted cone;— four eggs. They build them in a peculiar manner in these sphagnous swamps, elevated apparently on account of water and of different ma- terials. Some of the eggs have quite a blue ground. Go to Conantum end. The Rubus frondosus will not bloom apparently for a day or two, though the vulosus is apparently in prime there. I hear the pecul- iar notes of young bluebirds that have flown. Arenaria lateriflora, how long? The Scheuchzeria palustris, now in flower and going to seed, grows at Ledum Pool, as at Gowing’s Swamp. See now in meadows, for the most part going to seed, Carex scoparia, with its string of oval beads; and C. lupulina,* with its inflated perigynia; also what I take to be C. stipata, with a dense, coarse, somewhat sharp triangular mass of spikelets; also C. stellulata, with a string of little star-like burs. The delicate, pendulous, slender-peduncled C. debilis. Catbirds hatched.