Log Search Results

  P.M.—To Cliffs . . .

  There is considerable growth in the water at the Boiling Spring . . . Saw a bullfrog in Hayden’s pond-hole and a small green grasshopper . . .

  It is remarkable how scarce and silent the birds are even in a pleasant afternoon like this, compared with the morning. Within a few days the warblers have begun to come. They are of every hue. Nature made them to show her colors with. There are as many as there are colors and shades . . .

  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 . . .

  The arbor-vitæ by riverside behind Monroe’s appears to be just now fairly in blossom. I notice acorns sprouted. My birch wine now, after a week or more, has become pretty clear and colorless again, the brown part having settled and now coating the glass.

  Helped Mr. Emerson [Ralph Waldo Emerson] set out in Sleepy Hollow two over-cup oaks, one beech, and two arbor-vitaes . . .

  At Fair Haven Pond I see, half a mile off, eight large water-fowl, which I thought at first were large ducks, though their necks appeared long . . .

  Viola ovata on bank above Lee’s Cliff. Edith Emerson found them there yesterday; also columbines and the early potentilla April 13th!!! . . .

  Afterwards, along the wall under the Middle Conantum Cliff, I saw many goldfinches, male and female, the males singing in a very sprightly and varied manner, sitting still on bare trees . . .

  P.M.—Began to set white pines in R. W. E.’s [Ralph Waldo Emerson] Wyman lot (Journal, 12:152).

  P.M.—To Marlborough Road via Clamshell Hill, Jenny Dugan’s, Round Pond, Canoe Birch Road (Deacon Dakin’s), and White Pond . . . Gathered our first watermelon to-day.