A Maryland yellow-throat's nest.

June 10. 

June 10, 2018

Smilacina racemosa well out, how long? 

Sophia has received the whorled arethusa from Northampton to-day. 

P.M.–To Assabet Bath and return by stone bridge. 

A Maryland yellow-throat's nest near apple tree by the low path beyond the pear tree. Saw a bird flit away low and stealthily through the birches, and was soon invisible. Did not discover the nest till after a long search. Perfectly concealed under the loose withered grass at the base of a clump of birches, with no apparent entrance. The usual small deep nest (but not raised up) of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches. The bird flits out very low and swiftly and does not show herself, so that it is hard to find the nest or to identify the bird. 

See a painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M. 

At the west bank, by the bathing-place, I see that several turtles’ holes have already been opened and the eggs destroyed by the skunk or other animal. Some of them — I judge by the size of the egg — are Emys insculpta's eggs. (I saw several of them digging here on the 6th.) 

Among the shells at one hole I find one minute egg left unbroken. It is not only very small, but broad in proportion to length. Vide collection. 

One E. insculpta is digging there about 7 P. M. Another great place for the last-named turtle to lay her eggs is that rye-field of Abel Hosmer's just north of the stone bridge, and also the neighboring pitch pine wood. I saw them here on the 6th, and also I do this afternoon, in various parts of the field and in the rye, and two or three crawling up the very steep sand-bank there, some eighteen feet high, steeper than sand will lie, — for this keeps caving. They must often roll to the bottom again. 

Apparently the E. insculpta are in the very midst of their laying now. 

As we entered the north end of this rye field, I saw what I took to be a hawk fly up from the south end, though it may have been a crow. It was soon pursued by small birds. When I got there I found an E. insculpta on its back with its head and feet drawn in and motionless, and what looked like the track of a crow on the sand. Undoubtedly the bird which I saw had been pecking at it, and perhaps they get many of the eggs. [Vide June 11th, 1860.]

Common blue flag, how long?

June 10, 2018

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 10, 1858

Smilacina racemosa well out, how long? See October 10, 1857 ("I see in the woods some Smilacina racemosa leaves [false solomon's seal] . . . The whole plant gracefully bent almost horizontally with the weight of its dense raceme of bright cherry-red berries at the end.”); September 18, 1856 ("Smilacina berries of both kinds now commonly ripe");September 1, 1856 ("The very dense clusters of the smilacina berries, finely purple-dotted on a pearly ground"); and note to June 19, 1856 ("Looked at a collection of the rarer plants made by Higginson and placed at the Natural History Rooms.)

P.M.–To Assabet Bath and return by stone bridge. See May 14, 1857 (“To Assabet Bath and stone bridge. ”)

The usual small deep nest of dry leaves, fine grass stubble, and lined with a little hair. Four eggs, white, with brown spots, chiefly at larger end, and some small black specks or scratches.  See June 7, 1857 (“A nest well made outside of leaves, then grass, lined with fine grass, very deep and narrow, with thick sides, with four small somewhat cream-colored eggs with small brown and some black spots chiefly toward larger end.”); June 8, 1855 ("What was that little nest on the ridge near by, made of fine grass lined with a few hairs and containing five small eggs ... nearly as broad as long, yet pointed, white with fine dull-brown spots especially on the large end—nearly hatched? The nest in the dry grass under a shrub, remarkably concealed. . . .—It is a Maryland yellow-throat.”)

A painted turtle digging her nest in the road at 5.45 P. M. See June 10, 1856 (“A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road. She paused at first, but I sat down within two feet, and she soon resumed her work. ”) Also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Painted Turtle (Emys Picta)

Common blue flag, how long? June 30,1851 ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor) enlivens the meadow.”)

June 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 10

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