Is not June the month when most of our fresh water fish are spawned?

June 30. Monday. 

June 30.

A. M. — To Middleborough ponds in the new town of Lakeville (some three years old). 

What a miserable name! It should have been Assawampsett or, perchance, Sanacus, if that was the name of the Christian Indian killed on the pond.

By the roadside, Long Plain, North Fairhaven, observed a tupelo seven feet high with a rounded top, shaped like an umbrella, eight feet diameter, spreading over the wall, and the main stem divided suddenly at two feet only below the top, where it was six inches in diameter! 

On the right hand in the old orchard near the Quitticus Ponds, heard and at last saw my tweezer-bird, which is extremely restless, flitting from bough to bough and apple tree to apple tree. Its note like ah, zre zre zre, zritter zritter zrit’. Sylvia Americana, parti-colored warbler, with golden-green reflections on the back, two white bars on wings, all beneath white, large orange mark on breast, bordered broadly with lemon yellow, and yellow throat. These were making the woods ring in Concord when I left and are very common here abouts. 

Saw a haymaker with his suspenders crossed before as well as behind. A valuable hint, which I think I shall improve upon, since I am much troubled by mine slipping off my shoulders. 

Borrowed Roberts’s boat, shaped like a pumpkin seed, for we wished to paddle on Great Quitticus. We landed and lunched on Haskell’s Island, which contains some twenty-five or thirty acres. 

Just beyond this was Reed’s Island, which was formerly cultivated, the cattle being swum across, or taken over in a scow. A man praised the soil to me and said that rye enough had been raised on it to cover it six inches deep. 

At one end of Haskell’s Island was apparently a piece of primitive wood,—beech, hemlock, etc. Under the first I found some low, dry brown plants, perhaps beech drops and the like, two species, but saw none of this year. One who formerly owned Reed’s Island said that a man once lived on Haskell’s Island and had a hennery there. 

The tweezer-birds were lively in the hemlocks.

Rode on to the old Pond Meeting-house, whence there is a fine view of Assawampsett. It is probably the broadest lake in the State. Uriah (?) Sampson told me it was about eight or ten feet deep in the middle, but somewhat deeper about the sides. The main outlet of these ponds is northeast, by Taunton River, though there is some connection with the Mattapoisett River, and Assonet River drains the neighborhood of Long Pond on the west. 

Two men spoke of loon’s eggs on a rocky isle in Little Quitticus. I saw the Lobelia Dortmarma in bloom in the last.

A Southwest breeze springs up every afternoon at this season, comparatively cool and refreshing from the sea. 

As we were returning, a Mr. Sampson was catching perch at the outlet from Long Pond, where it emptied into Assawampsett with a swift current. The surface of the rippling water there was all alive with yellow perch and white ones, whole schools showing their snouts or tails as they rose for the young alewives which appeared to be passing out of the brook. These, some of which I have in spirits, were about an inch and a half long. Sampson fished with these for bait, trailing or jerking it along the surface exactly as for pickerel, and the perch bit very fast. He showed me one white perch. It was a broader fish than the yellow, but much softer-scaled and generally preferred. He said they would not take the hook after a certain season. He swept out some young alewives (herring) with a stick on to the shore, and among them were young yellow perch also an inch and a half long, with the transverse bands perfectly distinct. I have some in spirit. The large ones were devouring these, no doubt, together with the ale wives. 

Is not June the month when most of our fresh water fish are spawned?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 30, 1856

The new town of Lakeville (some three years old).Lakeville was incorporated as a separate town in 1853. The town's name comes from the system of lakes in the town, including Assawompset Pond, Great Quittacas Pond, Little Quittacas Pond, Pocksha Pond, and Long Pond. Long Pond is the source of the Acushnet River, and Assawompsett Pond is the source of the Nemasket River, which feeds the Taunton River ~ Wikipedia

Tweezer-bird, or Sylvia Americana, parti-colored warbler, . . . were making the woods ring in Concord when I left and are very common here abouts. See June 22, 1856 ("The woods still resound with the note of my tweezer-bird, or Sylvia Americana."). See also note to May 13, 1856.

A Southwest breeze springs up every afternoon at this season, comparatively cool and refreshing from the sea. See  June 30,1855 ("2 P. M. -- Thermometer north side of house, 95°");.June 30, 1857 ("Remarkably cool, with wind, it being easterly, and I anticipated a sea-turn."); June 30, 1859 ("Cooler, with a northerly wind."); See also April 28, 1856(" ...on our return the wind changed to easterly, and I felt the cool, fresh sea-breeze."); April 30, 1856 ("at one o’clock there was the usual fresh easterly wind and sea-turn . . .and a fresh cool wind from the sea produces a mist in the air.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Sea-turn