18 June 1860 – 24 June 1860

The tumultuous singing of birds, a burst of melody, wakes me up (the window being open) these mornings at dawn. What a matinade to have pee into your slumber! 2 P.M. — To Walden and Cliffs. Rabbit clover is now two or three inches high. I see in the southerly bays of Walden the pine pollen now washed up thickly; only at the bottom of the bays, especially the deep long bay, where it is a couple of rods long by six to twenty-four inches wide and one inch deep; pure sulphur-yellow, and now has no smell. It has come quite across the pond from where the pines stand, full half a mile, probably washed across most of the way. I have scarcely seen a warbler for a fortnight, or since the leaves have been developed, though I hear plenty of them in the tree-tops. Standing on Emerson’s Cliff, I see very distinctly the redness of a luxuriant field of clover on the top of Fair Haven Hill, some two thirds of a mile off, the day being cloudy and misty, the sun just ready to break out. You might have mistaken the redness for that of withered pine boughs where wood was cut last winter. On this Emerson hill I notice, among other growths after the cutting two years ago, — the huckleberry and blueberry, — that the sedge P. Pennsylvanica has shot up into large and luxuriant and densely set tufts, giving to the spaces between the little oak sprouts and clumps . quite a grassy appearance.

Dewy clouds in the air to-day and yester- day, yet not threatening rain; somewhat dog-day-like.

No dew this morning, but early in the forenoon. Heavy rain (with holdings up) all day and part of the following night. Very little wind, and that north- east. (This the result of the two days of dewy clouds, dogdayish.) It comes down perpendicularly. Nearly an inch and a quarter falls into a large tin pail with upright sides (which I had placed in the garden for the purpose) between 8 A. mM. and 12, and by the next morning there is two and one eighth inches, — which is the whole of it. More rain falls to-day than any day since March, if not this year. It is a warm rain, and I sit all the day and evening with my window open. It beats down the potatoes, grass, etc., and so weighs down the luxuriant shoots of the currant that they either break off or require to be broken off at a great sacrifice of growth, — eighteen to twenty-four inches long.

6 aA.m.— The river has risen to seven and a half inches above summer level (probably from about two or three above in the morning of yester- day). At 7 p.m. it is eleven and a half inches above summer level. The wind is still northeast, and the air is now so cold (cooled by the rain) that most have fires, and it is un- comfortably cool out of the sun, which does not shine much this forenoon. Phalaris Americana (some probably two or three days). It is the rankest and for its size most conspic- uous common grass. You see great dark-green islets of it by the side of, or even in, the river, where it is muddy, with the large whitish panicles (?) lifted above the broad rank leaves. These are four or five feet high, very luxuriant. I first noticed elms full of dark shade at a distance some three or four days ago. As soon as they are well leafed it is seen how gracefully they droop. At 12 . it is only 59° above zero, and I am surprised to hear some toads ring, which I have not heard lately by day; as if this degree of coolness even (at midday) was agreeable to them, corresponding to 62 or more at evening. At noon the sun comes fairly out and the wind rises. June has been quite a breezy month thus far. I have waited in vain for perfectly smooth water in which to watch the bream poised over her nest. There has been almost a steady breeze or breeziness with the waving of new-leafed boughs. 2 p.m. — To Little Truro. Carex flava grows up the railroad, about as far as the spring on the north side. I see, on the railroad track, young partridges about as big as my fist, while the old bird in grass does not see me at first. The young now make a sound not so fine, more like some of the notes of httle chickens. The old bird steps about alarmed with swollen throat, or neck-feathers puffed up. Crossing William Brown’s dry field in front of the schoolhouse, I see a young thrasher which has just left the nest, and the old bird about it. I oftenest find them in half-open dry frelds where there are scattered birches, pines, and shrub oaks. The earliest cinquefoil grows abundantly in Brown’s dry pastures, but I scarcely see one in bloom now. The silvery cinquefoil is abundant. Having noticed the pine pollen washed up on the shore of three or four ponds in the woods lately and at Ripple Lake, a dozen rods from the nearest pine, also having seen the pollen carried off visibly half a dozen rods from a pitch pine which I had jarred, and rising all the while when there was very little wind, it suggested to me that the air must be full of this fine dust at this season, that it must be carried to great distances, when dry, and falling at night perhaps, or with a change in the atmosphere, its presence might be detected remote from pines by examining the edges of pretty large bodies of water, where it would be col- lected to one side by the wind and waves from a large area. So I thought over all the small ponds in the township in order to select one or more most remote from the woods or pines, whose shores I might examine and so test my theory. I could think of none more favorable than this little pond only four rods in diameter, a water- ing-place in John Brown’s pasture, which has but few pads in it. It is a small round pond at the bottom of a hollow in the midst of a perfectly bare, dry pasture. The nearest wood of any kind is just thirty-nine rods distant northward, and across a road from the edge of the pond. Any other wood in other directions is five or six times as far. I knew it was a bad time to try my experiment, — just after such heavy rains and when the pines are effete, — a little too late. The wind was now blowing quite strong from the northeast, whereas all the pollen that I had seen hitherto had been collected on the northeast sides of ponds by a southwest wind. I approached the pond from the north- east and, looking over it and carefully along the shore there, could detect no pollen. I then proceeded to walk round it, but still could detect none. I then said to myself, If there was any here before the rain and northeast wind, it must have been on the northeast side and then have been washed over and now up high quite at or on the shore. I looked there care- fully, stooping down, and was gratified to find, after all, a distinct yellow line of pollen dust about half an inch in width — or washing off to two or three times that width — quite on the edge, and some dead twigs which I took up from the wet shore were completely coated with it, as with sulphur. This yellow line reached half a rod along the southwest side, and I then detected a little of the dust slightly graying the surface for two or three feet out there. (Many little snow(? )-fleas on it.) When I thought I had failed, I was much pleased to detect, after all, this distinct yellow line, revealing unmistakably the presence of pines in the neighbor- hood and thus confirming my theory. As chemists detect the presence of ozone in the atmosphere by exposing to it a delicately prepared paper, so the lakes detect for us thus the presence of the pine pollen in the atmosphere. They are our pollinometers. How much of this invisible dust must be floating in the atmos- phere, and be inhaled and drunk by us at this season! ! Who knows but the pollen of some plants may be un- wholesome to inhale, and produce the diseases of the season ?? Of course a large pond will collect the most, and you will find most at the bottom of long deep bays into which the wind blows. I do not believe that there is any part of this town on which the pollen of the pine may not fall. The time to examine the ponds this year was, I should say, from the 15th to the 20th of this month. Looking at the trees to-day, I find that the pines are now effete, especially the pitch pine, the sterile flowers now turned reddish. The white pine is lighter-colored, and all but a very little indeed is effete. In the white pine it is a dense cluster of twenty or thirty little flowers about the base of this year’s shoot. I did not expect to find any pollen, the pond was so small and distant from any wood, but I thought that I would examine. Who knows but the pollen of various kinds floating through the air at this season may be the source of some of the peculiar perfumes which are not traceable to their sources ? Noticed a dead Emys picta on its back, — dead a month or two. The head was gone, and of course all the insides, and there was a hole in front of its hind legs on each side; the legs left. Was not this killed just as the one at Tall’s Island ? That meadow-grass which emits the peculiar glaucous sheen from its bent and waving surface is the Carex stricta, either in tufts or growing thinly. (Vide 15th.) Carex lupulina, say four or five days, or maybe a week, at Little Truro Pond-hole. This in plenty just at the Hill Landing old bridge site. Saw the pigeon-egg puffball formed on the 19th. Started up a nighthawk in the dry field near the pond- hole. Probably they affect these dry and gravelly fields, as at Truro, where the small fescue grass grows and some tufts of Carex scoparia (?). Tall fescue grass. Eleocharis, the two small still in bloom, especially the smallest.

River at 6 a.m. eleven and fifteen six- teenths inches above summer level, having risen only seven sixteenths in the night. At 7 p. M. it is fifteen and one eighth above summer level. I see minnows by the shore half an inch long. Rice tells me that he saw in a mud-hole near the river in Sudbury, about a fortnight ago, a pout protecting her ova, which were in a ball about as big as an apple, all exposed, not at all hatched (I think he said on a stick), under which she swam. There were also pouts of vari- ous sizes about there, some only two inches long (!), says his son William. Hear the peculiar peep of young golden robins on the elms this morning. | What is that great toothless, thin-shelled green clam which Rice brought from the same mud-hole mentioned above, — just six inches long, three inches high, and two and three quarters broad? Very green, with rays. A handsome shell.’ There is a strong northeast wind this afternoon, the thermometer 60° only at 12.30 p.m. and 65 at 5 p. mM. But it is remarkably cold in the wind, and you require a thick coat. 65° now, with wind, is uncomfortably cold. I hear that it has killed some birds. Martins, etc., found dead in neighbors’ yards. The heavy rain of the 20th with the cold of the 21st has killed some birds. A martin and another bird were found dead in Wheildon’s garden. The leaves are now rapidly becoming hard and glazed, acquiring firmness as well as a darker color. 2 p.m. — To Great Meadows. At Moore’s Swamp the Carex comosa (?). A painted turtle digging to lay in wood-path at 3.30 p.M. The throat of the hole in this hard ground is only seven eighths of an inch to an inch wide, and the hole is now about two inches deep and about the same in width beneath, expanding in all directions beneath, but chiefly toward the head of the turtle. gy 25 On the northeast side of the Great Fields there are two or three little patches of sand one to two rods across with a few slivers of arrowhead stone sprinkled over them. It is easy to find an arrowhead if it is exposed. These spots are plowed only by the wind and rain, and yet I rarely cross them but I find a new arrowhead exposed. The latest aspens at Holbrook’s Hollow probably did not leaf till about a week ago, or the middle of June. I saw them on the 7th as well as to-day. They have now grown an inch. Observe the tops of the flowering fern killed by frost along the south edge of the Great Meadows last night. These ferns are very tender and betray it. I walk straight across the meadow from west of Holbrook’s to the river, and the prevailing grasses were Scirpus Eriophorum (out several days), Carex stellulata, C. bullata, with oftenest two fertile spikes, methinks; this the order of their prevalence.’ Alopecurus genicu- latus in the Great Meadow path quite fresh, say several (three or four) days. The pretty new moon in the west is quite red this evening.

River at 7 a.M. fifteen inches above sum- mer level, having fallen. A sparrow’s nest with three fresh eggs in a hollow of a willow, two and a half feet from ground, at my boat’s - place. The bird has the usual marks, except perhaps the spot on the breast is more obvious, and the lines over the eyes more white and distinct. The eggs have a much bluer-white ground than those I have, and beside are but slightly spotted with brown except toward the larger end. The chip of the bird is metallic, not the hoarse chip of the spring song sparrow. Vide eggs in collection.’ 2 p.m. — To Bare Hill road. This is a decidedly dogdayish day,” foretold by the red moon of last evening. The sunlight, even this fore- noon, was peculiarly yellow, passing through misty clouds, and this afternoon the atmosphere is decidedly blue. I see it in the street within thirty rods, and per- ceive a distinct musty odor. First bluish, musty dog-day, and sultry. Thermom- eter at two only 85°, however, and wind comes easterly soon and rather cool.® ; The foliage is now thick and for the most part dark, and this kind of weather is probably the result of this amount of shadow; but it grows cooler with easterly wind before night. I suspect that it may be true, as said, that the first half of June is cooler than the last half of May, on this account. Smilacina racemosa, how long? Agrostis scabra,* pond path at east end of Walden. Poa compressa may fairly begin on the railroad at Walden; also piper grass just begun. I see a young Rana sylvatica in the woods, only five eighths of an inch long. Or is it a hylodes ? — for I see a faint cross-like mark on the back and yet the black dash on the sides of the face. At 7 p. a. the river is fifteen and three fourths inches above summer level.! It rained hard on the 20th and part of the following night, — two and one eighth inches of rain in all, there being no drought, — raising the river from’ some two or three inches above summer level to seven and a half inches above summer level at 7 A. M. of the 21st. At 7 p. m. of the 21st, 114 inches above summer level. 6 A.M. 22d, 1148 7 P.M. aad, 154 7 A.M. 23d, 15 7 P.M. 23d, 153 Thus two and one eighth inches of rain at this season, falling in one day, with little or no wind, raises the river while it is falling some four inches; on the next day it rises four more; the next night it rises seven sixteenths inch more; the next day (second after the rain) it rises three and three sixteenths inches; the next night it falls one eighth of an inch; it rises again three fourths of an inch, or five eighths absolutely; 2. ¢., it rises still the third day after the rain. That is, after a remarkably heavy rain of one day it does not rise as much in a night as it ordinarily falls m a day at this season.

2 p.m. — To Clamshell. The dogdayish weather continues. ' The leaves generally are eaten when young and tender, as the leaves of melons (squashes) as soon as they expand a little. When they become more hard and glazed they are less edible. Hence this and earlier is the season for galls of various kinds. The pads are already extensively eaten. I do not know what eats those shot-like lines, but I see the pads, especially of the yellow lilies, with many little black or dark- brown grubs on them (no doubt hatched on them), annular, and yellow beneath, and now eating them but not eating through, making crinkled lines all over them. Notice no young breams in the nests yet.’ That hilly road through Baker’s land to Bare Hill is a true up-country road with the scent of ferns along it. There are birches, etc., enough in the road for bean- poles and to stick your peas with, and the man who has just built him a true country-house there is now indul- ging himself with pea-brush probably for the first time. The brush five times as high as his peas, which are now in bloom. Have seen the flowering fern ripe for some days. Saw young bluebirds fully grown yesterday, but with a feeble note and dull colors. Start a woodcock from amid ferns. Common curled dock, some time. Notice the red cups of the tops of trumpet-weed a foot [or] two high. All plants leafed, say the middle of June, and summer commenced. River begins then to wear its summer aspect. I perceive the rank, dog-like scent of meadow-rue. See white lily buds. Sune 25. 2 P.M. — To Dugan Desert. I see a female marsh hawk, beating along a wall, suddenly give chase to a small bird, dashing to right and left twenty feet high about a pine. There are no turtle-tracks now on the desert,but I see many crow-tracks there, and where they have pecked or scratched in the sand in many places, possibly smell- ing the eggs!? Also the track of a fox over the sand, and find his excrement buried in the sand, and the crows have dabbled in the sand over it. It is full of fur as usual. What an unfailing supply of small game it secures that its excrement should be so generally of fur! As near as I can make out with my glass, I see and hear the parti-colored warbler’ at Ledum Swamp on the larches and pines. A bluish back, yellow breast with a reddish crescent above, and white belly, and a continuous screeping note to the end. At evening up the Assabet. 7 P. M., river twelve and a half inches above summer level.