White maple blossom-buds look as if bursting.

March 17.

H. Hosmer says he has seen black ducks. 

I hear the lesser redpolls yet. 

See now along the edge of the river, the ice being gone, many fresh heaps of clam shells, which were opened by the musquash when the water was higher, about some tree where the ground rises. And very many places you see where they formed new burrows into the bank, the sand being pushed out into the stream about the entrance, which is still below water. 

White maple blossom-buds look as if bursting; show a rusty, fusty space, perhaps a sixteenth of an inch in width, over and above the regular six scales. 

I see scraps of the evergreen ranunculus along the riverside.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 17, 1855

White maple blossom-buds look as if bursting; show a rusty, fusty space. . . See March 14, 1857 ("White maple buds . . .have now a minute orifice at the apex, through which you can even see the anthers.”)