Warm and still and somewhat cloudy. Am without greatcoat. The guns are firing and bells ringing. I hear a faint honk and, looking up, see going over the river, within fifty rods, thirty-two geese in the form of a hay-hook, only two in the hook, and they are at least six feet apart. Probably the whole line is twelve rods long. At least three hundred have passed over Concord, or rather within the breadth of a mile, this spring . . .

  P.M.—To Walden . . .

  From Heywood’s Peak I thought I saw the head of a loon in the pond, thirty-five or forty rods distant. Bringing my glass to bear, it seemed sunk very low in the water,—all the neck concealed,—but I could not tell which end was the bill. At length I discovered that it was the whole body of a little duck, asleep with its head in its back, exactly in the middle of the pond . . .