7 May 1860 – 13 May 1860

River one eighth of an inch lower than yesterday. Chimney swallow. Catbird sings. Hear the white- throat sparrow’s peabody note in gardens. Canada plum in full bloom, or say in prime. Also common plum in full bloom ? It is very hazy, as yesterday, and I smell smoke. P. M. — To Assabet stone bridge. Find in the road beyond the Wheeler cottages a little round, evidently last year’s, painted turtle. Has no yellow spots, but already little red spots on the edges of the sides. The sternum a sort of orange or pinkish- red. This warm weather, I see many new beetles and other insects. Ribes florida by bridge (flower). Cultivated cherry flowered yesterday at least, not yet ours. Mpyrtle-bird. Met old Mr. Conant with his eye and half the side of his face black and blue, looking very badly. He said he had been jerked down on to the barn-floor by a calf some three weeks old which he was trying to lead. The strength of calves is remarkable. I saw one who had some difficulty in pulling along a calf not a week old. With their four feet they have a good hold on the earth. The last one was sucking a cow that had sore teats, and every time it bunted, the cow kicked energetically, raking the calf’s head and legs, but he stood close against the cow’s belly and never budged in spite of all her kicks, though a man would have jumped out of the way. Who taught the calf to bunt? I saw bluets whitening the fields yesterday a quarter of a mile off. They are to the sere brown grass what the shad-bush is now to the brown and bare sprout- lands or young woods. When planting potatoes the other day, I found small ones that had been left in the ground, perfectly sound!

A cloudy day. The small pewee, how long. The night-warbler’s note. River four and seven eighths inches below sum- mer level. Stone-heaps, how long? I see a woodchuck in the middle of the field at Assabet Bath. He is a [an indecipherable word] heavy fellow with a black tip to his tail, poking about almost on his belly, — where there is but little greenness yet, — with a great heavy head. He is very wary, every minute. pausing and raising his head, and sometimes sitting erect and looking around. He is evidently nibbling some green thing, maybe clover. He runs at last, with an undulating motion, jerking his lumbering body along, and then stops when near a hole. But on the whole he runs and stops and looks round very much like a cat in the fields. The cinquefoil is closed in a cloudy day, and when the sun shines it is turned toward it. The simple peep peep of the peetweet, as it flies away from the shore before me, sounds hollow and rather mournful, reminding me of the seashore and its wrecks, and when I smell the fresh odor of our marshes the resemblance is increased. How the marsh hawk circles or skims low, round and round over a particular place in a meadow, where, perhaps, it has seen a frog, screaming once or twice, and then alights on a fence-post! How it crosses the causeway between the willows, at a gap in them with which it is familiar, as a hen knows a hole in a fence! I lately saw one flying over the road near our house. I see a gray squirrel ascend the dead aspen at the rock, and enter a hole some eighteen feet up it. Just below this, a crack is stuffed with leaves which project. Probably it has a nest within and has filled up this crack. Now that the river is so low, the bared bank, often within the button-bushes, is seen to be covered with that fine, short, always green Eleocharis acicularis (7). . C. has seen a brown thrasher and a republican swallow to-day.

River five and three fourths inches below summer level. I think I heard a bobolink this forenoon. A boy brought me what I take to be a very red Rana sylvatica, caught on the leaves the 6th. Have had no fire for more than a fortnight, and no greatcoat since April 19th. Fir balsam bloom. Sugar maple blossoms are now a tender yellow; in prime, say 11th. Thousands of dan- delions along the meadow by the Mill Brook, behind R. W. E.’s, in prime, say 10th.* P. M. — To Flint’s Pond. It is a still, cloudy, thoughtful day. Oven-bird, how long? In Ebby Hubbard’s wood, I climb to a hole in a dead white pine, a dozen feet up, and see by the gray fur about the edge of the hole that it probably has been used by the gray squirrel. Mary- land yellow-throat. We sit by the shore of Goose Pond. The tapping of a woodpecker sounds distinct and hollow this still cloudy day, as not before for a long time, and so do the notes of birds, as if heard against a background for a relief, e.g. the cackle of the pigeon woodpecker, the note of the jay, the scratching in the dry leaves of three or four chewinks near us (for they are not shy), about the pond, under the blueberry bushes. The water is smooth. After sitting there a little while, I count the noses of twenty frogs within a couple of rods, which have ventured to come to the surface again, —so quietly that I did not see one come up. At the fox-hole by Britton’s Hollow there are some three cart-buck-loads of sand cast out. That large pine-tree moss that makes beds on the ground, now fruiting, when I brush my hand over its fruit is surprisingly stiff and elastic like wires. Yellow lily pads begun to spread out on some pools, but hardly yet on the river; say 10th on river. Golden robin. The wall by the road at the bars north of Cyrus Smith’s chestnut grove is very firmly bound together by the Rhus Toaxicodendron which has overrun it, for twenty feet in length. Would it not be worth the while to encourage its growth for this purpose, if you are not afraid of being poisoned? It runs up by small root-like stems, which cling close and flat to the wall, and which intertwine and seem to take a new start from the top of the wall (as from the ground), where the stems are generally larger than below, so that it is in fact a row of this rhus growing on the top cf the wall to some three or four feet above it, and by its rooty stems binding the stones very firmly together. How much better this than sods on a wall! Of that early sedge in Everett’s meadow,’ the top- most spikes are already effete; say a week, then. I see a second amelanchier with a distinct pink or rosa- ceous tinge like an apple blossom. Elm seed has begun to fall. Cattle going up country for ten days past." You must keep your gate shut.

River six and one eighth inches below summer level. Thermometer at 2 Pp. M., 71. The winds died away with April. In the midst of a remarkable drought. Hear of great fires in the woods up country the past week, it is so dry. Some farmers plowed around their houses to save them. P. M.— To Bateman’s Pond. Salix alba flower in prime and resounding with the hum of bees on it. The sweet fragrance fills the air for a long distance. How much the planting of this willow adds to the greenness and cheerfulness of our landscape at this season! As I stand on Hunt’s Bridge, I notice the now com- paratively dark green of the canary grass (Phalaris), the coarse grass vigorously spring[{ing] up on the muddy islands and edges, the glaucous green of Carex stricta tufts, and the light yellowish green of the very coarse sedges of the meadow. Going over the hill behind §S. Brown’ s, when we crossed the triangular space between the roads beyond the pump-maker’s, I saw countless little heaps of sand like the small ant-hills, but, looking more closely, the size of the holes (a little less than a quarter of an inch) and the comparative irregularity of the heaps —as if the sand had been brought forth and dropped in greater quantity at once — attracted my attention and I found they were the work of bees. The bees were hovering low over the surface, and were continually entering and issuing from the holes. They were about the size of a honey-bee, black bodied, with, I thought, yellow thighs, — if it was not pollen. Many of the holes appeared to have been freshly stopped up with granules of moist sand. ‘These holes were made close together in the dry and sandy soil there, with very little grass on it, sloping toward the west, between the roads, and covered a triangular space some seven rods by three. I counted twenty-four in a square foot. There must have been some twenty-five thousand of these nests in all. The surface was yellowed with them. Evidently a kind of mining bee. I see in roadside hard sward, by the brook beyond, a sedge darker than the stricta and not in tufts, quite short. Is it the C. vulgaris? Its leading spikes are effete. Evergreen-forest note. Some very young oaks — white oak, etc. — in woods begin to leaf. Hear the first cricket. The red maples, fruiting now, are in the brick-red state. I heard yesterday one or two warblers. One’s note was, in rhythm, like a very feeble field sparrow. Was it the redstart? Probably one or two strange warblers now. Was it not the parti-colored warbler, — with bluish head and yellow beneath, but not the screeper note, but note ending with a jingle slightly like the field Sparrow ? Meadow fox-tail grass out several days.

The river no lower than yesterday. Warbling vireo. 2p.mM.—77°. Very warm. To factory village. Redstart. Red-wings do not fly in flocks for ten days past, I think. I see at Damon’s Spring some dandelion seeds all blown away, and other perfectly ripe spheres (much more at Clamshell the 13th). It is ripe, then, several days, or say just before elm seed, but the mouse-ear not on the 13th anywhere. The senecio shows its yellow. The warmth makes us notice the shade of houses and trees (even before the last have leafed) falling on the greened banks, as Harrington’s elm and house. June-like. See some large black birch stumps all covered with pink scum from the sap. The Ranunculus abortivus well out; say five days? Red cherry in bloom, how long? Yellow violet, almost; say to-morrow. William Brown’s nursery is now white (fine white) with the shepherd’s-purse, some twelve to eighteen inches high, covering it under his small trees, like buck- wheat, though not nearly so white as that. I never saw so much. It also has green pods. Say it is in prime. E. Hosmer, as a proof that the river has been lower than now, says that his father, who was born about the middle of the last century, used to tell of a time, when he was a boy, when the river just below Derby’s Bridge did not run, and he could cross it dry-shod on the rocks, the water standing in pools when Conant’s mill (where the factory now is) was not running. I noticed the place to-day, and, low as the river is for the season, it must be at least a foot and a half deep there.

Celandine. Very hot. 2.30 p. M. — 81°. We seek the shade to sit in for a day or two. The neck-cloth and single coat is too thick; wear a half-thick coat at last [ ?]. The sugar maple blossoms on the Common resound with bees. Ostrya flower commonly out on Island, how long? Maybe a day or two. First bathe in the river. Quite warm enough. River five and one half plus inches below summer level. Very heavy dew and mist this morning; plowed ground black and moist with it. The earth is so dry it drinks like a sponge.

I observe this morning the dew on the grass in our yard, — literally sparkling drops, which thickly stud it. Each dewdrop Is a beautiful crystalline sphere just below (within an eighth of an inch more or less) the tip of the blade. Sometimes there are two or three, one beneath the other, the lowest the largest. Each dewdrop takes the form of the planet itself. What an advance is this from the sere, withered, and flattened grass, at most whitened with frost, which we have lately known, to this delicate crystalline drop trem- bling at the tip of a fresh green grass-blade. The sur- face of the globe is thus tremblingly alive. A great many apple trees out, and probably some for two days. | 2p. M. — 82°; warmest day yet. This and the last two days remarkably warm. Need a half-thick coat; sit and sleep with open window, the 13th. Row to Bittern Cliff. The celtis is not yet in bloom. The river is now six and fifteen sixteenths inches below summer level. At Clamshell, one cerastium flower quite done and dry. Ranunculus bulbosus abundant, spotting the bank ; maybe a week. Tall buttercup. Horsemint seen spring. ing up for a week, and refreshing scent. Hear several bobolinks distinctly to-day. Hear the pebbly notes of the frog. See the coarse green rank canary grass, springing up amid the bare brown button-bushes and willows. Red- wings are evidently busy building their nests. They are sly and anxious, the females, about the button-bushes. See two crows pursuing and diving at a hen-hawk very high in the air over the river. He is steadily circling and rising. While they, getting above, dive down toward him, passing within a foot or two, making a feint, he merely winks, as it were, bends or jerks his wings slightly as if a little startled, but never ceases soaring, nor once turns to pursue or shake them off. It seemed -* if he was getting uncomfortably high for them. At Holden Swamp, hear plenty of parti-colored war- blers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts. Uvularia sessilt- | folia abundant, how long? The swamp is so dry that I walk about it in my shoes, and the Kalmia glauca is apparently quite backward accordingly, — can scarcely detect any buds of it, — while the rhodora on shore will apparently bloom to-morrow. Hear the yorrick. The intermediate ferns and cinnamon, a foot and a half high, have just leafeted out. The sensitive fern is only six inches high, — apparently the latest of all. Sorrel. It is a remarkable day for this season. You have the heat of summer before the leaves have expanded. The sky is full of glowing summer cumuli. There is no haze; the mountains are seen with perfect distinctness. It is so warm that you can lie on the still brownish grass in a thin coat, and will seek the shade for this purpose. What is that fern so common at Lee’s Cliff, now sprung up a foot high with a very chaffy stem? Marginal shield? Is that Polypodium Dryopteris in the bank behind the slippery elm? Now six or seven inches high. There is no mouse-ear down even there. Those heads which have looked most expanded and downy are inva- riably cut off by some creature (probably insect) and withered. The crickets creak steadily among the rocks. The Carex varia (? ) at Lee’s all gone to seed. Barberry in bloom. Myosotis stricta. Arum triphyllum, how long? Cardamine rhomboidea, apparently to-morrow, just above Bittern Cliff. It is so warm that I hear the peculiar sprayey note of the toad generally at night. The third sultry evening in my chamber. A faint lightning is seen in the north horizon. The tender yellow green of birches is now the most noticeable of any foliages in our landscape, as looking across the pond from Lee’s Cliff. The poplars are not common enough. The white birches are now distin- guished simply by being clothed with a tender and yellow green, while the trees generally are bare and brown, — upright columns of green dashing the brown hillsides.