P. M. —— To Clamshell, etc.
The alder scales south of the railroad, beyond the bridge, are loosened. This corresponds to the opening (not merely expansion showing the fuzziness) of the white maple buds.
There is still but little rain, but the fog of yesterday still rests on the earth. My neighbor says it is the frost coming out of the ground. This, perhaps, is not the best description of it. It is rather the moisture in this warm air, condensed by contact with the snow and ice and frozen ground.
Where the fields are bare I slump now three or four inches into the oozy surface, also on the bare brows of hills clad with cladonias. These are as full of water as a sponge.
The muskrats, no doubt, are now being driven out of the banks. I hear, as I walk along the shore, the dull sound of guns —probably most of them fired at muskrats — borne along the river from different parts of the town; one every two or three minutes.
Already I hear of a small fire in the woods in Emerson’s lot, set by the engine, the leaves that are bare are so dry.
I find many sound cabbages shedding their pollen under Clamshell Hill. They are even more forward generally here than at Well Meadow. Probably two or three only, now dead among the alders at the last place, were earlier. This is simply the earliest flower such a season as this, i. e. when the ground continues covered with snow till very late in the spring.
For this plant occupies ground which is the earliest to be laid bare, those great dimples in the snow about a springy place in the meadow, five or ten feet over, where the sun and light have access to the earth a month before it is generally bare. In such localities, then, they will enjoy the advantage over most other plants, for they will not have to contend with abundance of snow, but only with the cold air, which may be no severer than usual. Cowslips and a few other plants sometimes enjoy the same advantage.
Sometimes, apparently, the original, now outer, spathe has been frost-bitten and is decayed, and a fresh one is pushing up. I see some of these in full bloom, though the opening to their tents is not more than half an inch wide. They are lapped like tent doors, effectually protected.
Methinks most of these hoods open to the south. It is remarkable how completely the spadix is protected from the weather, first by the ample hood, whose walls are distant from it, next by the narrow tent-like doorway, admitting air and light and sun, generally I think on the south side, and also by its pointed top, curved downward protectingly over it. It looks like a monk in his crypt with powdered head. The sides of the doorway are lapped or folded, and one is considerably in advance of the other. It is contrived best to catch the vernal warmth and exclude the winter’s cold.
Notwithstanding all the snow the skunk-cabbage is earlier than last year, when it was also the earliest flower and blossomed on the 5th of April. It is, perhaps, owing to the long continued warm weather from March 13th to 28th.
Yet it has been a hard winter for many plants, on dry, exposed hills. I am surprised to see the clover, cinquefoil, etc., etc., on the top of the bank at Clamshell completely withered and straw-colored, probably from the snow resting on it so long and incessantly. And plants that grow on high land are more backward than last year.
The ground no sooner begins to be bare to a considerable extent than I see a marsh hawk, or harrier.
The sap of the white birch at Clamshell begins to flow.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 4, 1856
. . . the skunk-cabbage is earlier. . . See April 10, 1855 ("The morning of the 6th, when I found the skunk cabbage out, it was so cold I suffered from numbed fingers, having left my gloves behind." ). Compare March 18, 1860 ("skunk-cabbage, now generally and abundantly in bloom all along under Clamshell").
The ground no sooner begins to be bare to a considerable extent than I see a marsh hawk, or harrier. See March 27, 1855 ("See my frog hawk. (C. saw it about a week ago.) It is the hen-barrier, i.e. marsh hawk, male. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump."); April 5, 1854 ("These days, when a soft west or southwest wind blows and it is truly warm, and an outside coat is oppressive, — these bring out the butterflies and the frogs, and the marsh hawks which prey on the last. Just so simple is every year."); April 8, 1856 ("See two marsh hawks this afternoon, circling low over the meadows along the water’s edge. This shows that frogs must be out."); April 23, 1855 ("I have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk? Yet it is not so heavy nearly as the hen-hawk -- probably female hen-harrier [i. e. marsh hawk]"). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)
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