Log Search Results

  6 A.M.—To Hill.

  I hear the myrtle-bird’s te-e-e, te-e-e, t t t, t t t, clear flute-like whistle, and see eight or ten crow blackbirds together.

  P.M.—To Lee’s Cliff.

  C. [William Ellery Channing] says he saw upland plover two or three nights ago. the sweet-gale begins to leaf. I perceive the fragrance of the Salix alba, now in bloom, more than an eighth of a mile distant. They now adorn the cause-ways with their yellow blossoms and resound with the hum of bumblebees . . .

  Just before sundown, took our seats before the owl’s nest and sat perfectly still and awaited her appearance. We sat about half an hour, and it was surprising what various distinct sounds we heard there deep in the wood, as if the aisles of the wood were so many ear-trumpets,—the cawing of crows, the peeping of hylas in the swamp and perhaps the croaking of a tree-toad . . .

  P.M.—Walked round by Dennis’s and Hollowell place with Alcott [A. Bronson Alcott].

  It is suddenly very warm. A washinq day, with a slight haze accompanying the strong, warm wind. I see, in the road beyond Luther Homer’s, in different places, two bank swallows . . .

  Walk with Thoreau by the Cottage and Hollowell Place, and dine with him . . .

  Meet my friends and former neighbors in Emerson’s [Ralph Waldo Emerson] parlour’s—Miss Mary Emerson, Mrs. Browne, Miss Jane Whitney, Mrs. Brooks, Mrs. Ripley, Thoreau, Sanborn, and many more, and talk pleasantly on Society—Emerson, Thoreau, Mrs. Emerson, Mrs. Ripley, Sanborn contributing to the entertainment.

  To Miles Swamp, Conantum.

  The brother of Edward Garfield (after dandelions!) tells me that two years ago, when he was cutting wood at Bittern Cliff in the winter he saw something dark squatting on the ice, which he took to be a mink, and taking a stake he went out to inspect it. It turned out to be a bird, a new kind of duck, with a long, slender, pointed bill (he thought red). It moved off backwards, hissing at him . . .

  It rained last night, and now I see the elm seed or samaræ generally fallen or falling. It not only strews the street but the surface of the river, floating off in green patches to plant other shores. The rain evidently hastened its fall . . .

  First bathe in the river . . . (Journal, 13:290).

  7 P. M.—To Conantum.

  A still, cold night. The light of the rising moon in the east . . . To-day I heard for the first time this season the crackling, vibrating sound which resounds from thin ice when a stone is cast upon it . . .