Tracks on the Assabet ... a mink.

April 29.

When I examine a flat sandy shore on which the ripples now break, I find the tracks of many little animals that have lately passed along it close to the water's edge. Some, indeed, have come out of the water and gone into it again.  

Minks, squirrels, and birds; they it is that walk these inland strands. The moist sand and mud which the water has but just ceased to dash over retains the most delicate impressions. 

It is the same with all our rivers. I have noticed it on the sandy shore of the broad Merrimack. Many little inhabitants of the wood and of the water have walked there, though probably you will not see one. They make tracks for the geologists.

I now actually see one small-looking rusty or brown black mink scramble along the muddy shore and enter a hole in the bank.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 29, 1860

One small-looking rusty or brown black mink. See April 15, 1858("Having stood quite still on the edge of the ditch close to the north edge of the maple swamp some time, and heard a slight rustling near me from time to time, I looked round and saw a mink under the bushes within a few feet. It was pure reddish-brown above, with a blackish and somewhat bushy tail, a blunt nose, and somewhat innocent-looking head. It crept along toward me and around me, within two feet, in a semicircle, snuffing the air, and pausing to look at me several times.”); March 13, 1859 ("I commonly saw two or three in a year. ")

P. M. - Up Assabet .

April 29.

April 29, 2012

I stepped ashore behind Prichard's to examine a dead mud turtle, and when I had done, and turned round toward my boat again, behold, it was half-way across the river, blown by the southwest wind! 

The wind had risen after I landed, and perhaps I had given it a slight impulse with my foot when I landed. It lodged against a clump of willows on the other side.

It was remarkable what a bar the river had become to me, being between me and my boat,- how comparatively helpless I was. I have rarely looked at it in that light. 

I was compelled to return up-stream to borrow another boat. When I had borrowed a boat, I came near making the mistake of simply crossing the stream at once and running down the opposite shore; as if I could release my own boat and return on the same side to the borrowed one, return that, and so have got over my difficulties. 

I had to pause a moment and cipher it out in my mind. 

There was no way but to row quite down to my boat, bring it over to this side, row back with the borrowed boat, and return on the bank to my own. It reminded me of the man crossing the bridge with a fox, a goose, and a peck of corn.


By the time I got under weigh again the afternoon was too far spent for a long excursion.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 29, 1860

I had to pause a moment and cipher it out in my mind. See May 7, 1854 ("The causeways being flooded, I have to think before I set out on my walk how I shall get back across the river. “)

April 29

In the morning attended FB Thayers Church on            Street.
In the P.M. at AA Miner's

EDK, April 29, 1860

To Ed. Hoar's, Lincoln.

April 28.

Saxifrage

(avesong)

April 28, 2012

Standing by willows in bloom resounding with the hum of bees in a warm afternoon like this, I seem nearer to summer than elsewhere. The air is not only warmer and stiller, but has a voice and meaning. The hum of insects is heard, as if it were the noise of one’s own thinking.

It is a voiceful and significant stillness, such as precedes a thunder-storm or a hurricane. The boisterous spring winds cease to blow, the waves to dash, the migrating ducks to vex the air so much. I sense a certain repose in nature.

Sitting on Mt. Misery, I see a very large bird of the hawk family, blackish with a partly white head but no white tail, - probably a fish hawk; sail quite near, looking very large.

H. D Thoreau, Journal, April 28, 1860

April 28.

P. M. – To Ed. Hoar's, Lincoln. Warm. 65°.

The common Salix rostrata on east side railroad, yesterday at least. S. Torreyana a day or two longer. These willows are full of bees and resound with their hum.

I see honey - bees laden with large pellets of the peculiar yellow pollen of the S. rostrata. Methinks I could tell when that was in bloom by catching the bees on their return to the hive. Here are also much smaller bees and flies, etc., etc., all attracted by these flowers.

As you stand by such a willow in bloom and resounding with the hum of bees in a warm afternoon like this, you seem nearer to summer than elsewhere.

Again I am advertised of the approach of a new season, as yesterday. The air is not only warmer and stiller, but has more of meaning or smothered voice to it, now that the hum of insects begins to be heard. You seem to have a great companion with you, are reassured by the scarcely audible hum, as if it were the noise of your own thinking. It is a voiceful and significant stillness, such as precedes a thunder-storm or a hurricane.

The boisterous spring winds cease to blow, the waves to dash, the migrating ducks to vex the air so much. You are sensible of a certain repose in nature.

Sitting on Mt. Misery, I see a very large bird of the hawk family, blackish with a partly white head but no white tail, — probably a fish hawk; sailed quite near, looking very large.

 Large ants at work; how long ?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 28, 1860

April 28

Received my trunk today from home.

EDK, April 28,1860

April 27

Paid 1 dollar for a ring.

EDK, April 27, 1860

Under Lee's Cliff

April 27.

River five eighths of an inch below summer level.

P. M. – Row to Conantum.

At the stone bridge the lower side outer end of the stone is about a quarter of an inch above summer level.

I saw yesterday, and see to-day, a small hawk which I take to be a pigeon hawk. This one skims low along over Grindstone Meadow, close to the edge of the water, and I see the blackbirds rise hurriedly from the button bushes and willows before him. I am decided by his size (as well as color) and his low, level skimming. [Methinks I saw a yet smaller hawk, perhaps sparrow hawk, fly or skim over the village about the 12th.]

The river meadows are now so dry that E. Wood is burning the Mantatuket one.

Fishes are rising to the shad-flies, probably because the river is so low. 

Luzula a day or two at Clamshell.

Strawberry well out; how long?

Viola ovata common.

One dandelion white, as if going to seed!

Thalictrum anemonoides are abundant, maybe two or three days, at Blackberry Steep.

I see where a robin has been destroyed, probably by a hawk. I think that I see these traces chiefly in the spring and fall. Why so?

Columbine, but perhaps' earlier, for I hear that it has been plucked here.

I see, close under the rocks at Lee's, some new polypody flatted out.

I stand under Lee's Cliff. 

There is a certain summeriness in the air now, especially under a warm cliff like this, where you smell the very dry leaves, and hear the pine warbler and the hum of a few insects, — small gnats, etc., — and see considerable growth and greenness.

Though it is still windy, there is, nevertheless, a certain serenity and long-lifeness in the air, as if it were a habitable place and not merely to be hurried through.

The noon of the year is approaching. Nature seems meditating a siesta.

The hurry of the duck migration is, methinks, over. But the woods generally, and at a distance, show no growth yet.

There is a large fire in the woods northwest of Concord, just before night. A column of smoke is blown away from it far southeast, and as the twilight approaches, it becomes more and more dun. At first some doubted if it was this side the North River or not, but I saw that Annursnack was this side of it, but I expected our bells would ring presently.

One who had just come down in the cars thought it must be in Groton, for he had left a fire there. And the passengers in the evening train from Boston said that they began to see the smoke of it as soon as they left the city! So hard is it to tell how far off a great fire is.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 27, 1860

I stand under Lee's Cliff. See April 27, 1852 (“This is a place to look for early blossoms of the saxifrage, columbine, and plantain-leaved everlasting . . . The crevices of the rock (cliff) make natural hothouses for them, affording dryness, warmth, and shelter.”)

I saw yesterday, and see to-day, a small hawk which I take to be a pigeon hawk. See April 26, 1854 ("Saw probably a pigeon hawk skim straight and low over field and wood, and another the next day apparently dark slate-color.") See also  A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, The Pigeon Hawk (Merlin)

April snow

April 26.

Hear the ruby-crowned wren in the morning, near George Heywood's.

We have had no snow for a long long while, and have about forgotten it. Dr. Bartlett, therefore, surprises us by telling us that a man came from Lincoln after him last night on the wheels of whose carriage was an inch of snow, for it snowed there a little, but not here. This is connected with the cold weather of yesterday; the chilling wind came from a snow-clad country. 

As the saying is, the cold was in the air and had got to come down.

To-day it is 53° at 2 P. M., yet cold, such a difference is there in our feelings. What we should have called a warm day in March is a cold one at this date in April. It is the northwest wind makes it cold. Out of the wind it is warm. It is not, methinks, the same air at rest in one place and in motion in another, but the cold that is brought by the wind seems not to affect sheltered and sunny nooks.

P. M. – To Cliffs and Well Meadow.

Comptonia.

There are now very few leaves indeed left on the young oaks below the Cliffs. Sweet-briar, thimble-berry, and blackberry on warm rocks leaf early.

Red maples are past prime. I have noticed their handsome crescents over distant swamps commonly for some ten days. At height, then, say the 21st. They are especially handsome when seen between you and the sunlit trees.

The Amelanchier Botryapium is leafing; will apparently bloom tomorrow or next day.

Sweet-fern (that does not flower) leafing.

The forward-rank sedge of Well Meadow which is so generally eaten (by rabbits, or possibly woodchucks), cropped close, is allied to that at Lee's Cliff, which is also extensively browsed now. I have found it difficult to get whole specimens. Certain tender early greens are thus extensively browsed now, in warm swamp-edges and under cliffs, — the bitter cress, the Carex varia (?) at Lee's, even skunk-cabbage. \

The hellebore now makes a great garden of green under the alders and maples there, five or six rods long and a foot or more high.

False Hellebore. April 28, 2019

It grows thus before these trees have begun to leaf, while their numerous stems serve only to break the wind but not to keep out the sun. It is the greatest growth, the most massive, of any plant's; now ahead of the cabbage. Before the earliest tree has begun to leaf it makes conspicuous green patches a foot high.

The river is exactly at summer level.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 26, 1860

Hear the ruby-crowned wren in the morning.  See May 6, 1855 (“Dark bill and legs, apparently dark olivaceous ashy head, a little whitish before and behind the full black eyes, ash breast, olive-yellow on primaries, with a white bar, dark tail and ends of wings, white belly and vent. Did not notice vermilion spot on hindhead. It darts off from apple tree for insects like a pewee, and returns to within ten feet of me as if curious. I think this the only Regulus I have ever seen.”). See also note to April 20, 1859 ("My ruby-crowned or crested wren”). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau: the ruby-crowned or crested wren.

It snowed there a little, but not here. The chilling wind came from a snow-clad country. See April 4, 1859 ("When I look with my glass, I see the cold and sheeny snow still glazing the mountains. This it is which makes the wind so piercing cold."); April 12, 1855 ("The mountains are again thickly clad with snow, and, the wind being northwest, this coldness is accounted for.")

Chilling wind came from a snow-clad country. As the saying is, the cold was in the air and had got to come down. See April 2, 2019, overheard in the hospital waiting room ("the air won’t be warm, my father slways said, until they get the snow out of the mountains")

What we should have called a warm day in March is a cold one at this date in April. See February 8, 1860 (40° and upward may be called a warm day in the winter"):  March 20, 1855 (“It is remarkable by what a gradation of days which we call pleasant and warm, beginning in the last of February, we come at last to real summer warmth. At first a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it; and then the first pleasant spring day perhaps we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up and gloves on.”); April 25 1860 ("A cold day, so that the people you meet remark upon it, yet the thermometer is 47° at 2 P. M. We should not have remarked upon it in March. It is cold for April, being windy withal.")

I have noticed their handsome crescents over distant swamps commonly for some ten days. They are especially handsome when seen between you and the sunlit trees. See April 26, 1855 ("The blossoms of the red maple (some a yellowish green) are now most generally conspicuous and handsome scarlet crescents over the swamps"). See also April 24, 1854 ("The first red maple blossoms — so very red over the water — are very interesting. ");April 24, 1857 ("I see the now red crescents of the red maples in their prime . . . above the gray stems."); April 28, 1855 ("The red maples, now in bloom, are quite handsome at a distance over the flooded meadow beyond Peter’s. The abundant wholesome gray of the trunks and stems beneath surmounted by the red or scarlet crescents.”); April 29, 1856 ("How pretty a red maple in bloom (they are now in prime), seen in the sun against a pine wood") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple


The hellebore now makes a great garden of green under the alders and maples there, five or six rods long and a foot or more high. Before the earliest tree has begun to leaf it makes conspicuous green patches a foot high. See Journal, March 25, 1860 (“The skunk-cabbage leaf-buds have just begun to appear, but not yet any hellebore.”); April 2, 1856 (“The plaited buds of the hellebore are four or five inches high.”); Journal, April 10, 1859 (“The hellebore buds are quite conspicuous and interesting to-day, but not at all unrolled, though six or eight inches high. ”); April 17, 1852 (" The leaves of the Veratrum viride, American hellebore, now just pushing up.") Journal, April 22, 1856 (“Some hellebore leaves are opened in the Cliff Brook Swamp.”); May 13, 1855 (" The brook in Yellow Birch Swamp is very handsome now — broad and full, with the light-green hellebore eighteen inches high and the small two-leaved Solomon’s-seal about it, in the open wood.”); June 12, 1853 ("Visited the great [purple fringed] orchis which I am waiting to have open completely. . . .  Its great spike, six inches by two, of delicate pale-purple flowers, which begin to expand at bottom, rises above and contrasts with the green leaves of the hellebore and skunk-cabbage and ferns (by which its own leaves are concealed) in the cool shade of an alder swamp."); Journal, August 23, 1858 (“I see . . . in swamps, the withering and blackened skunk-cabbage and hellebore, and, by the river, the already blackening pontederias and pipes. There is no plateau on which Nature rests at midsummer, but she instantly commences the descent to winter.”); August 30, 1859 (“The plants now decayed and decaying and withering are those early ones which grow in wet or shady places, as hellebore, skunk-cabbage, . . . and how is it with trilliums and arums? ”);

April 26

April 22 (Sunday)

In the forenoon attended AA Miner's Church.

In the P.M. attended S. Kellogg's Church at Fremont Temple.

In the eve at Mercantile Hall.

April 23

Nothing worthy of note occurred during the past week. Wrote a letter to Mother today.

April 24

Commenced moving into the New Store.

April 25

Nothing worthy of note.

April 26

Moved into the new store this morning.

EDK, April 22-26, 1860

Surveying J. B . Moore's farm.

April 19.

Hear the field sparrow sing on his dry upland, it being a warm day, and see the small blue butterfly hovering over the dry leaves.

Toward night, hear a partridge drum. You will hear at first a single beat or two far apart and have time to say, "There is a partridge," so distinct and deliberate is it often, before it becomes a rapid roll.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 19, 1860

Hear the field sparrow sing on his dry upland, it being a warm day. See April 22, 1859 ("When setting the pines at Walden the last three days, I was sung to by the field sparrow. . . .That the music the pines were set to, and I have no doubt they will build many a nest under their shelter.. . . They commonly place their nests here under the shelter of a little pine in the field. ");April 27, 1852 ("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, . . .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"). See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Field Sparrow

See the small blue butterfly hovering over the dry leaves. See April 24, 1855("That fine slaty-blue butterfly, bigger than the small red, in wood-paths.”); April 28, 1856 (“A fine little blue-slate butterfly fluttered over the chain. Even its feeble strength was required to fetch the year about. How daring, even rash, Nature appears, who sends out butterflies so early!”); April 30, 1859 ("That interesting small blue butterfly (size of small red) is apparently just out, fluttering over the warm dry oak leaves within the wood in the sun"); May 4, 1858 (“See a little blue butterfly (or moth) — saw one yesterday — fluttering about over the dry brown leaves in a warm place by the swamp-side, making a pleasant contrast. ”)


Toward night, hear a partridge drum, so distinct and deliberate before it becomes a rapid roll. See April 19, 1855 ("A partridge drums.").  April 25, 1854 (" The first partridge drums in one or two places, as if the earth's pulse now beat audibly with the increased flow of life. It slightly flutters all Nature and makes her heart palpitate."); April 29, 1857 (" A partridge there drums incessantly. C. says it makes his heart beat with it, or he feels it in his breast")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau The Partridge.

Bricking up a new well

April 18.

Cold, and still a strong wind. 46 at 2 P. M. 

The Salix discolor peels well; also the aspen (early) has begun to peel. 

As i go by the site of Staples' new barn on the Kettle place, I see that they have just dug a well and are bricking it up. 

Melvin, with a bundle of apple scions in his hand, is sitting close by looking over into the well from time to time. Humphrey Buttrick is at the bottom, bricking up the well.

Melvin says he has heard snipe some days, but thinks them scarce. Clark, who had been mining lately in California and who dug the well, is passing down bricks to Buttrick. Clark has heard a partridge drum.

Melvin says he fears that, the water being so low, the snipes would be overtaken by it and their nests broken up when it rose. He says Josh Haynes told him that he found woodcock's nest, and afterward he sailed over the nest in a boat, an yet, when the water went down, the bird went on and hatched the eggs.

I see that they have dug twenty four feet through  sand and have some four feet of water in the well.

Melvin has seen a dandelion in bloom.  

I find that the side-hill just below the Dutch house is more loose and sandy than half a dozen years ago, and I attribute it to the hens wallowing in the earth and dusting themselves, and also pecking the grass and preventing its growing.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 18, 1860

April 17

In the evening went up to the Court Street Billiard Hall with Charles Henry.

EDK, April 17, 1860

Living outdoors

April 17.

We begin to be more out of doors, the less housed, think less, stir about more, are fuller of affairs and chores, come in chiefly to eat and to sleep.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1860

See also April 17, 1860 ("It invites us to walk in the yard and inspect the springing plants.)

Gone

March began warm.

The ripples made by the gusts

on the dark-blue meadow flood,

the light-tawny color of the earth,

the first birds.

Awakening this morning

snow whitens the ground.

ZPHX 20100309 with apologies to HDT 18600309

A barrel-horse tells a story.

April 16. 

The first settlers made preparations to drink a good deal, and they did not disappoint themselves. I observed yesterday, in the cellar of the old Conantum house, a regular frame or "horse" to rest barrels on. It was probably made before the house was built. Two pieces of timber connected by crosspieces lie the whole length of the cellarbottom, with concavities cut in them to receive the barrels and prevent their rolling. 

There are places for eight barrels.

Every New England cellar was once something like it. It suggests how much more preparation was made in those days for the storing of liquors. The settler dug a hole six feet into the earth and laid down a timber to hold his cider-barrel. Then he proceeded to build a house over it.

For twenty and odd years only the woodchucks and field mice have occupied this cellar. The barrels and their contents, and they who emptied them, and the house above, are all gone, and still the scalloped logs remain now in broad daylight to testify to the exact number of barrels of liquor the former occupant expected to lay in. 

His gravestone somewhere tells one sober story no doubt, and this his barrel-horse tells another, -- and the only one that I hear.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 16, 1860

The old Conantum house. See April 11, 1858 ("So this was an old rats’ nest as well as human nest, and so it is with every old house. . . .Conant says this house was built by Rufus Hosmer's great-grandfather.")

April 16

Commenced boarding with D.D. Bond for three dollars & a quarter (3.25) a week.

 

EDK, April 16, 1860

Strong northwest wind and cold.

April 15.

Strong northwest wind and cold. Thin ice this forenoon along meadow-side, and lasts all day.

At Conantum pitch pines hear the first pine warbler.

Have not heard snipe yet. Is it because the meadows, having been bare, have not been thawed?

Ripples spread fan-like over Fair Haven Pond, from Lee's Cliff, as over Ripple Lake.

At this season of the year, we are continually expecting warmer weather than we have.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 15, 1860

Strong northwest wind and cold.. . .We are continually expecting warmer weather than we have. See April 15, 1854 ("Snow and snowing; four inches deep.”).  See also April 12, 1855 (The mountains are again thickly clad with snow, and, the wind being northwest, this coldness is accounted for.”); April 26, 1860 (“ [T]he chilling wind came from a snow-clad country.. . . What we should have called a warm day in March is a cold one at this date in April.”)

At Conantum pitch pines hear the first pine warbler. See  April 15, 1855 ("In the meanwhile, as we steal through the woods, we hear the pleasing note of the pine warbler, bringing back warmer weather"); April 15, 1859 (" The warm pine woods are all alive this afternoon with the jingle of the pine warbler, the for the most part invisible minstrel.  . . . You hear the same bird, now here now there, as it incessantly flits about, commonly invisible and uttering its simple jingle on very different keys, and from time to time a companion is heard farther or nearer. This is a peculiarly summer-like sound. Go to a warm pine wood-side on a pleasant day at this season after storm, and hear it ring with the jingle of the pine warbler"). See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler

Have not heard snipe yet. See April 15, 1856 (“I hear a part of the hovering note of my first snipe, circling over some distant meadow, . . .”). See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

April 15. Strong northwest wind and cold. Thin ice this forenoon along meadow - side , and lasts all day. 2 P. M. — Thermometer 37. To Conantum. At Conantum pitch pines hear the first pine warbler. Have not heard snipe yet. Is it because the meadows , having been bare, have not been thawed ? See ripples spread fan - like over Fair Haven Pond, from Lee’s Cliff , as over Ripple Lake. Crowfoot abundant; say in prime. A cedar under the Cliff abundantly out; how long ? Some still not out. Say 13th. Mouse - ear. Turritis about out; say 16th. Some little ferns already fairly unfolded , four or five inches long, there close under the base of the rocks, apparently Woodsia Ilvensis? See and hear the seringo, — rather time [sic] compared with song sparrow. Probably see bay-wing (surely the 16th ) about walls. The arbor-vitæ appears to be much of it effete. At this season of the year, we are continually expecting warmer weather than we have.

Alone

Alone in a dappled wood

crossing a tumbling stream

shoes in hand

sparkles on the water

your body

in the sun.

Zphx, 4/13/10

Up the Assabet to look at the sweet-gale.

April 13

Paddling past the uppermost hemlocks I see two peculiar birds near me on the bank. They are new to me, and I guess that they are crossbills – male and female. They are very busily eating the seeds of the hemlock, whose cones are strewn on the ground. They are very fearless, allowing me to approach quite near.

While I sit in my boat close under the south bank the two hop within six feet of me, and one within four feet. Coming still nearer, as if partly from curiosity nibbling the cones all the while, the wind shakes the boat, -- and they fly off.

At first I had felt disinclined to make this excursion up the Assabet, but it distinctly occurred to me that, perhaps, if I came against my will, as it were, to look at the sweet-gale as a matter of business, I might discover something else interesting.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 13, 1860

It distinctly occurred to me that, perhaps, if I came against my will, as it were, to look at the sweet-gale as a matter of business, I might discover something else interesting. See March 18, 1858 ("Going by the epigaea on Fair Haven Hill, I thought I would follow down the shallow gully through the woods from it, that I might find more or something else. "); May 3, 1858 (" Ride to Flint's Pond to look for Uvularia perfoliata . . See no signs of the Uvularia perfoliata yet . . . see and hear a new bird to me . . . it may be the white-eyed [solitary] vireo (which I do not know") See also note to September 8, 1858 ("So, in my botanizing or natural history walks, it commonly turns out that, going for one thing, I get another thing.”)

To look at the sweet-gale.  See .April 22, 1855 ("The blossoms of the sweet-gale are now on fire over the brooks, contorted like caterpillars").  See also  December 31, 1859 ("To the sweet-gale meadow or swamp up Assabet. . . .The oblong-conical sterile flower-buds or catkins of the sweet-gale, half a dozen at the end of each black twig, dark-red, oblong-conical, spotted with black, and about half an inch long, are among the most interesting buds of the winter. ")

Crossbills – male and female. . . busily eating the seeds of the hemlock, whose cones are strewn on the ground. See March 8, 1859 ("I see, under the pitch pines on the southwest slope of the hill, the reddish bud-scales scattered on the snow . . . and, examining, I find that in a great many cases the buds have been eaten by some creature and the scales scattered about. . .I am inclined to think that these were eaten by the red squirrel; or was it the crossbill? for this is said to visit us in the winter. Have I ever seen a squirrel eat the pine buds?")

April 13. P. M. – I go up the Assabet to look at the sweet-gale, which is apparently [?] out at Merrick's shore. It is abundantly out at Pinxter Swamp, and has been some time; so I think I may say that the very first opened April 1st (q. v.). This may be not only because the season was early and warm, but because the water was so low, — or would that be favorable?

At first I had felt disinclined to make this excursion up the Assabet, but it distinctly occurred to me that, perhaps, if I came against my will, as it were, to look at the sweet-gale as a matter [of] business, I might dis cover something else interesting, as when I discovered the sheldrake.

As I was paddling past the uppermost hemlocks I saw two peculiar and plump birds near me on the bank there which reminded me of the cow black bird and of the oriole at first. I saw at once that they were new to me, and guessed that they were crossbills, which was the case --male and female. The former was dusky-greenish (through a glass), orange, and red, the orange, etc.; on head, breast, and rump, the vent white; dark, large bill; the female more of a dusky slate color, and yellow instead of orange and red. They were very busily eating the seeds of the hemlock, whose cones were strewn on the ground, and they were very fearless, allowing me to approach quite near.

When I returned this way I looked for them again, and at the larger hemlocks heard a peculiar note, cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep, in the rhythm of a fish hawk but faster and rather loud, and looking up saw them fly to the north side and alight on the top of a swamp white oak, while I sat in my boat close under the south bank. But immediately they recrossed and went to feeding on the bank within a rod of me. They were very parrot like both in color (especially the male, greenish and orange, etc.) and in their manner of feeding, — holding the hemlock cones in one claw and rapidly extracting the seeds with their bills, thus trying one cone after another very fast. But they kept their bills a-going [so] that, near as they were, I did not distinguish the cross. I should have looked at them in profile.

At last the two hopped within six feet of me, and one within four feet, and they were coming still nearer, as if partly from curiosity, though nibbling the cones all the while, when my chain fell down and rattled loudly, — for the wind shook the boat,-and they flew off a rod.

In Bechstein I read that "it frequents fir and pine woods, but only when there are abundance of the cones.” It may be that the abundance of white pine cones last fall had to do with their coming here. The hemlock cones were very abundant too, methinks .

Water is as yet only melted ice.

April 7. 

The purple finch, — if not before.

P. M. – To Annursnack.

April 7, 2012

This is the Rana halecina day, — awakening of the meadows, — though not very warm. The thermometer in Boston to - day is said to be 49. Probably, then, when it is about 50 at this season, the river being low, they are to be heard in calm places.

Fishes now lie up abundantly in shallow water in the sun, - pickerel, and I see several bream. What was lately motionless and lifeless ice is a transparent liquid in which the stately pickerel moves along. A novel sight is that of the first bream that has come forth from I know not what hibernaculum, moving gently over the still brown river-bottom, where scarcely a weed has started. 

Water is as yet only melted ice, or like that of November, which is ready to become ice.

As we were ascending the hill in the road beyond College Meadow, we saw the dust, etc., in the middle of the road at the top of the hill taken up by a small whirl wind. Pretty soon it began to move northeasterly through the balm-of-Gilead grove, taking up a large body of withered leaves beneath it, which were whirled about with a great rustling and carried forward with it into the meadow, frightening some hens there.

And so they went on, gradually, or rather one after another, settling to the ground, and looking at last almost exactly like a flock of small birds dashing about in sport, till they were out of sight forty or fifty rods off. These leaves were chiefly only a rod above the ground (I noticed some taken up last spring very high into the air), and the diameter of the whirl may have been a rod, more or less.

Early potentilla out, - how long? - on side of Annursnack.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 7, 1860

The purple finch. See April 15, 1854 ("The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm, on whose blossom it feeds.")

This is the Rana halecina day, — awakening of the meadows. [Rana halecina -- Lithobates sphenocephala utricularia – Northern Leopard Frog.] See April 3, 1858 ("They were the R. halecina. I could see very plainly the two very prominent yellow lines along the sides of the head and the large dark ocellated marks, even under water, on the thighs, etc. . . .Their note is a hard dry tut tut tut tut, not at all ringing like the toad’s, . . .; and from time to time one makes that faint somewhat bullfrog-like er er er. Both these sounds, then, are made by one frog, and what I have formerly thought an early bullfrog note was this. This, I think, is the first frog sound I have heard from the river meadows or anywhere . . . This might be called the Day of the Snoring Frogs, or the Awakening of the Meadows.");  April 5, 1855 ("Hear from one half-flooded meadow that low, general, hard, stuttering tut tut tut of frogs,—the awakening of the meadow."); April 5, 1858 ("The woods resound with the one [R. sylvatica], and the meadows day and night with the other [R. halecina], so that it amounts to a general awakening of the pools and meadows. "); April 5, 1858 (“I go to the meadow at the mouth of the Mill Brook to find the spawn of the R. halecina. They are croaking and coupling there by thousands"); April 7 1858 ("You hear no stertorous sounds of the Rana halecina this cold and blustering day, unless a few when you go close to their breeding places and listen attentively. . . . .On the Great Meadows, I stand close by two coupled. The male is very much the smallest, an inch, at least, the shortest, and much brighter-colored. The line, or “halo” (?), or margin about its blotches is a distinct yellow or greenish yellow. The female has a distended paunch full of spawn."); April 9, 1853 (“The whole meadow resounds, probably from one end of the river to the other, this evening, with this faint, stertorous breathing. It is the waking up of the meadows."); April 13, 1859 ("To-day is the awakening of the meadows now partly bare. I hear the stuttering note of probably the Rana halecina"). See also May 6, 1858 ("Each shore of the river now for its whole length is all alive with this stertorous purring.. . . at night it [is] universal all along the river. If the note of the R. halecina, April 3d, was the first awakening of the river meadows, this is the second.")

A small whirlwind. See May 1, 1859 ("As we sat on the steep hillside south of Nut Meadow Brook Crossing, we noticed a remarkable whirlwind on a small scale, which carried up the oak leaves from that Island copse in the meadow. . . ."); December 11, 1858 ("A “swirl,” applied to leaves suddenly caught up by a sort of whirlwind, is a good word enough, methinks.")

Thus gradually and moderately the year begins.

April 5. 

P. M. – Row to Clamshell and walk beyond. Fair but windy and cool. 

When I stand more out of the wind, under the shelter of the hill beyond Clamshell, where there is not wind enough to make a noise on my person, I hear, or think that I hear, a very faint distant ring of toads, which, though I walk and walk all the afternoon, I never come nearer to. It is hard to tell if it is not a ringing in my ears; yet I think it is a solitary and distant toad called to life by some warm and sheltered pool or hill, its note having as it were, a chemical affinity with the air of the spring. 

It merely gives a slightly more ringing or sonorous sound to the general rustling of inanimate nature. A sound more ringing and articulate my ear detects, under and below the noise of the rippling wind. 

Thus gradually and moderately the year begins. It creeps into the ears so gradually that most do not observe it, and so our ears are gradually accustomed to the sound, and perchance we do not perceive it when at length it has become very much louder and more general. 

It is to be observed that we heard of fires in the woods in various towns, and more or less distant, on the same days that they occurred here, — the last of March and first of April. The newspapers reported many. The same cause everywhere produced the same effect.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 5, 1860

Distant ring of toads, which, though I walk and walk all the afternoon, I never come nearer to. See April 5, 1857 ("Probably single ones ring earlier than I supposed. "). See also April 13, 1853 (" First hear toads (and take off coat), a loud, ringing sound filling the air, which yet few notice."); April 13, 1858 ("Hear the first toad in the rather cool rain, 10 A. M."); April 15, 1856 (" I hear a clear, shrill, prolonged ringing note from a toad, the first toad of the year"); April 25, 1856 ("The toads have begun fairly to ring at noonday"); April 25, 1859 (Methinks I hear through the wind to-day — and it was the same yesterday — a very faint, low ringing of toads, as if distant and just begun. It is an indistinct undertone, and I am far from sure that I hear anything. It may be all imagination.""); May 1, 1857 ("There is a cool and breezy south wind, and the ring of the first toad leaks into the general stream of sound, unnoticed by most.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The Ring of Toads

We heard of fires in the woods on the same days that they occurred here. See March 30, 1860 ("I hear of the first fire in the woods this afternoon."); March 31, 1860 ("I hear that there has been a great fire in the woods this afternoon near the factory. Some say a thousand acres have been burned over. This is the dangerous time, —between the drying of the earth, or say when dust begins to fly, and the general leafing of the trees . . . These fires are a perfectly regular phenomenon of this season.); April 1, 1860 ("There is another fire in the woods this afternoon.");  April 27, 1860 ("There is a large fire in the woods northwest of Concord, just before night. . . .One who had just come down in the cars thought it must be in Groton, . . . So hard is it to tell how far off a great fire is")

Night fruit

April 1.

The fruit a thinker bears is sentences, - statements or opinions. He seeks to affirm something as true.

I am surprised that my affirmations or utterances come to me ready-made, - not fore-thought, - so that I occasionally awake in the night simply to let fall ripe a statement which I had never consciously considered before, and as surprising and novel and agreeable to me as anything can be. As if we only thought by sympathy with the universal mind, which thought while we were asleep. There is such a necessity to make a definite statement that our minds at length do it without our consciousness.

This occurred to me last night, but I was so surprised by the fact which I have just endeavored to report that I have entirely forgotten what the particular observation was.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 1, 1860

... thought by sympathy with the universal mind ... while we were asleep. See March 17, 1852 ("I make the truest observations and distinctions then, when the will is yet wholly asleep and the mind works like a machine without friction. I am conscious of having, in my sleep, transcended the limits of the individual, and made observations and carried on conversations which in my waking hours I can neither recall nor appreciate. As if in sleep our individual fell into the infinite mind, ... On awakening we resume our enterprise, take up our bodies and become limited mind again."); February 19, 1854  ("The mind of the universe . . ., which we share . . .")