Thoreau writes in his journal:
Heard the field or rush sparrow this morning (Fringilla juncorum), George Minott’s “huckleberry-bird.” It sits on a birch and sings at short intervals, apparently answered from a distance. It is clear and sonorous heard afar ; but I found it quite impossible to tell from which side it came sounding like phe, phe, phe, pher-pher-tw-tw-tw-t-t-t-t,—the first three slow and loud, the next two syllables quicker, and the last part quicker and quicker, becoming a clear, sonorous trill or rattle, like a spoon in a saucer . . .
2.30 P.M.—To Conantum via railroad bridge.
The Corner road still impassable to foot-travellers. Water eighteen or twenty inches deep; must have been two feet deeper. Observed the spotted tortoise in the water of the meadow on J. Hosmer’s land, by riverside. Bright-yellow spots on both shell and head, yet not regularly disposed, but as if, when they were finished in other respects, the maker had sprinkled them with a brush . . .
