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| may 31 |
P. M. — To Clintonia Swamp (Hubbard’s) Grove.
A ground-bird’s nest (melodia or graminea.), with six of those oblong narrow gray eggs speckled with much brown at end. When I looked again half an hour after, one egg was hatched. The bird would steal out through the grass when I came within a rod, and then, after running a rod or two, take to wing.
Tied a string about a low pyrus a rod or so to right of entrance to Hubbard’s Pyrus Swamp and two feet west of a pitch pine stump, and pressed a twig of it.
Clintonia.
Nuphar advena first noticed; may have been out some time in some places, but just out in river.
Pink, common wild, maybe two or three days.
Sundown—To Hill and Island.
Have noticed within a week, from time to time, the water-line on the bushes along the shore — the water going down — unusually distinct, for while the exposed parts have leaved out, the lower are quite bare and black.
Hemlock and creeping juniper, where had not bloomed the 22d, are now entirely out of bloom on the hill. How short their flower lasts!
Ranunculus Purshii, probably earlier in some places, but water high.
That little cerastium on the rock at the Island, noticed the 22d, which probably opened about that time, is now out of bloom. It is about three inches high and has long pods, more than twice the length of the calyx, which turn upward. I have seen no petals. It seems to be the C. nutans (?), from size, erectness, and form of pods and leaves. It has viscid hairs or with glands at end.
The red oak is so forward, compared with the rest, that it is more difficult to get a sprig in flower small enough (its leaves) to press.
As I return in the dusk, many nighthawks, with their great spotted wings, are circling low over the river, as the swallows were when I went out. They skim within a rod of me. After dusk these greater swallows come forth, and circle and play about over the water like those lesser ones, or perhaps making a larger circuit, also uttering a louder note. It would not be safe for such great birds to fly so near and familiarly by day.
It has been very cold for two or three days, and to-night a frost is feared. The telegraph says it snowed in Bangor to-day.
The hickory leaves are blackened by blowing in the cold wind.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 31, 1856
A ground-bird’s nest (melodia or graminea.), with six of those oblong narrow gray eggs speckled with much brown at end. See May 27, 1856 ("Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs . . . with very dark blotches"); May 18, 1855 ("a bay-wing sparrow’s nest, four eggs (young half hatched) -- some black-spotted, others not”); June 4, 1857 (“I scare up a bay-wing. She runs several rods close to the ground through the thin grass, and then lurks behind tussocks, etc. The nest has four eggs, dull pinkish-white with brown spots; nest low in ground, of stubble lined with white horse hair. ”).See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing [Vesper] Sparrow
Clintonia. See June 2, 1853 ("Clintonia borealis, a day or two. This is perhaps the most interesting and neatest of what I may call the liliaceous (?) plants we have. Its beauty at present consists chiefly in its commonly three very handsome, rich, clear dark-green leaves . . . arching over from a centre at the ground, sometimes very symmetrically disposed in a triangular fashion; and from their midst rises the scape [ a ] foot high, with one or more umbels of“green bell - shaped flowers,” yellowish- green, nodding or bent downward")
The telegraph says it snowed in Bangor to-day. See November 13, 1851 ("The cattle-train came down last night from Vermont with snow nearly a foot thick upon it. It is as if, in the fall of the year, a swift traveller should come out of the north with snow upon his coat.")
May 31. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 31
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau"A book, each page written in its own season,out-of-doors, in its own locality.”~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021
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