The woods first glaze

December 24

Some three inches of snow fell last night and this morning, concluding with a fine rain, which produces a slight glaze, the first of the winter. 

This gives the woods a hoary aspect and increases the stillness by making the leaves immovable even in considerable wind.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 24, 1854

A slight glaze, the first of the winter. This gives the woods a hoary aspect and increases the stillness. See December 26, 1855 ("We have this morning quite a glaze, there being at last an inch or two of crusted snow on the ground, the most we have had.")

Through Deep Cut to Cliffs.

March 10.

Rattlesnake Plantain in winter.

I see flocks of a dozen bluebirds together. The warble of this bird is innocent and celestial, like its color.

See a sparrow, perhaps a song sparrow, flitting amid the young oaks where the ground is covered with snow. I think that this is an indication that the ground is quite bare a little further south. 

Probably the spring birds never fly far over a snow-clad country.

A wood-chopper tells me he heard a robin this morning.

I see the reticulated leaves of the rattlesnake-plantain in the woods, quite fresh and green.

What is the little chickweed-like plant already springing up on the top of the Cliffs? There are some other plants with bright-green leaves which have either started somewhat or have never suffered from the cold under the snow. 

Summer clenches hands with summer under the snow.

I am pretty sure that I hear the chuckle of a ground squirrel among the warm and bare rocks of the Cliffs. 

The earth is perhaps two thirds bare to-day. The mosses are now very handsome, like young grass pushing up.

Hear the phoebe note of the chickadee to-day for the first time. I had at first heard their day-day-day ungratefully,-- ah! you but carry my thoughts back to winter, -- but anon I find that they too have become spring birds; they have changed their note. Even they feel the influence of spring.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 10, 1852

I see flocks of a dozen bluebirds together. See March 10, 1853 ("What was that sound that came on the softened air? It was the warble of the first bluebird from that scraggy apple orchard yonder. When this is heard, then has spring arrived");  March 10, 1855 ("You are always surprised by the sight of the first spring bird or insect; they seem premature, and there is no such evidence of spring as themselves, so that they literally fetch the year about. It is thus when I hear the first robin or bluebird or, looking along the brooks, see the first water-bugs out circling. But you think, They have come, and Nature cannot recede.");  March 10, 1859 ("And already, when near the road, I hear the warble of my first Concord bluebird, borne to me from the hill through the still morning air, and, looking up, I see him plainly, though so far away, a dark speck in the top of a walnut.. . . The bluebird on the apple tree, warbling so innocently to inquire if any of its mates are within call, — the angel of the spring! Fair and innocent, yet the offspring of the earth. The color of the sky above and of the subsoil beneath. Suggesting what sweet and innocent melody (terrestrial melody) may have its birthplace between the sky and the ground") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Listening for the Bluebird

See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,   Signs of the Spring: the Song Sparrow Sings

I see the reticulated leaves of the rattlesnake-plantain in the woods, quite fresh and green. See  August 27, 1856 ("Is it not the prettiest leaf that paves the forest floor?”) ; June 12, 1853 ("The rattlesnake-plantain now surprises the walker amid the dry leaves on cool hillsides in the woods; of very simple form, but richly veined with longitudinal and transverse white veins. It looks like art.”) Also 
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Rattlesnake-Plantain

Hear the phoebe note of the chickadee to-day for the first time.  See January 9, 1858 ("Some chickadees come flitting close to me, and one utters its spring note, phe-be, for which I feel under obligations to him"); February 9, 1856 ("I hear a phoebe note from a chickadee.");  February 24, 1857 ("A chickadee with its winter lisp flits over, and I think it is time to hear its phebe note, and that instant it pipes it forth. ");  March 1, 1854 ("I hear the phoebe or spring note of the chickadee, and the scream of the jay is perfectly repeated by the echo from a neighboring wood.”); March 1, 1856 ("I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee, which I heard only once during the winter. Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day. “); March 11, 1854 ("Air full of birds, — bluebirds, song sparrows, chickadee (phoebe notes), and blackbirds. Bluebirds' warbling curls in elms.”); March 14, 1852 ("I see a flock of blackbirds and hear their conqueree. The ground is mostly bare now. Again I hear the chickadee's spring note.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, the spring note of the chickadee

Summer clenches hands 

with summer under the snow –

springing bright-green leaves.

I have seen no landscape which can make me forget Fair Haven.

May 18, 2018

In all my rambles I have seen no landscape which can make me forget Fair Haven. I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day, and look over the awakening woods and the river, and hear the new birds sing, with the same delight as ever.  It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever, what this world is. Fair Haven Lake in the south, with its pine-covered island and its meadows, the hickories putting out fresh young yellowish leaves, and the oaks light-grayish ones, while the oven-bird thrums his sawyer-like strain, and the chewink rustles through the dry leaves or repeats his jingle on a tree-top, and the wood thrush, the genius of the wood, whistles for the first time his clear and thrilling strain, – it sounds as it did the first time I heard it. The sight of these budding woods intoxicates me.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 1850

See November 21, 1850 ("I see Fair Haven Pond with its island, and meadow between the island and the shore, and a strip of perfectly still and smooth water in the lee of the island, and two hawks, fish hawks perhaps, sailing over it. I do not see how it could be improved. Yet I do not see what these things can be."); April 14, 1852 ("The different parts of Fair Haven Pond -- the pond . . . the island, and the meadow between the island and mainland with its own defining lines -- are all parted off like the parts of a mirror. A fish hawk is calmly sailing over all, looking for his prey . . . So perfectly calm and beautiful, and yet no man looking at it this morning but myself.");  May 17, 1853 ("I sit now on a rock on the west slope of Fair Haven orchard, an hour before sunset, this warm, almost sultry evening, the air filled with the sweetness of apple blossoms . . . the sun partly concealed behind a low cloud in the west, the air cleared by last evening's thunder-shower, the river now beautifully smooth . . . full of light and reflecting the placid western sky and the dark woods which overhang it. I was surprised, on turning round, to behold the serene and everlasting beauty of the world, it was so soothing. I saw that I could not go home to supper and lose it. It was so much fairer, serener, more beautiful, than my mood had been. . . The perfect smoothness of Fair Haven Pond, full of light and reflecting the wood so distinctly, while still occasionally the sun shines warm and brightly from behind a cloud, giving the completest contrast of sunshine and shade, is enough to make this hour memorable."); May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised  thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Fair Haven Pond

I sit on this rock

surprised one more time by the

beauty of the world.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, No landscape can make me forget Fair Haven.

                                     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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-500518

After the Storm

January 19

The snow, which has drifted badly, ceases about 2 o'clock,  and I go forth by way of Walden road, wither no sleigh or sled had passed this day.  

It is pleasant to make the first tracks in this road through the woods, where all the road was obliterated, except  two long slight valleys marking the ruts,  – a smooth, white plain between the bordering woods, the fine, dry snow blowing and drifting still.  For long distances  I sink into the snow more than three feet at each step. 

From Bare Hill I look into the west, the sun still fifteen minutes high. The snow blowing far off in the sun, high as a house, looks like the mist that rises from rivers in the morning.  

The low western sky an Indian red, after the sun is gone.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 19, 1852

The snow blowing far off in the sun . . . looks like the mist that rises from rivers in the morning. See February 3, 1855 ("flowing streams of snow, in form like the steam which curls along a river’s surface at sunrise"); January 19, 1860 ("This snow looks just like vapor curling along over the surface, long waving lines producing the effect of a watered surface in motion .");See also December 24, 1850 ("like steam curling up, as from a wet roof when the sun comes out after a rain.");  February 16, 1852 ("I see the steam-like snow-dust curling up and careering along over the fields. . . .like the spray on a beach before the northwest wind.")

January 19. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 19

I sink into snow

more than three feet at each step –

first tracks through the woods

To make the first tracks

in this road through the woods as

snow blows and drifts still.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, After the Storm

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 © 2009-2025

The snow, which has drifted badly, ceasing about 2 o'clock, I went forth by way of Walden road, whither no sleigh or sled had passed this day, the fine, dry snow blowing and drifting still. 

It was pleasant to make the first tracks in this road through the woods, where all the road, except a faint depression, two long slight valleys, marking the ruts, was obliterated, — a smooth, white plain between the bordering woods, which only a few dry oak leaves coursed over. I sank into the snow for long distances more than three feet at each step.

From Bare Hill I looked into the west, the sun still fifteen minutes high. The snow blowing far off in the sun, high as a house, looked like the mist that rises from rivers in the morning.

I came across lots through the dry white powder from Britton's camp. Very cold on the causeway and on the hilltops. The low western sky an Indian red, after the sun was gone.

The locust first heard

July 18

I first heard the locust sing
     so dry and piercing
by the side of the pine woods
     in the heat of the day.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  July 18, 1851

See June 14, 1854 ("Caught a locust, — properly harvest-fly (cicada), — drumming on a birch, which Bacon and Hill (of Waltham) think like the septendecim, except that ours has not red eyes but black ones. Harris's other kind, the dog-day cicada (canicularis), or harvest-fly. He says it begins to be heard invariably at the beginning of dog-days; he (Harris) heard it for many years in succession with few exceptions on the 25th of July."); July 17, 1856 (“A very warm afternoon. Thermometer at 97° at the Hosmer Desert. I hear the early locust.”); July 18, 1851 ("I first heard the locust sing, so dry and piercing, by the side of the pine woods in the heat of the day.”); July 19, 1854 ("The more smothering, furnace-like heats are beginning, and the locust days."); July 22, 1860 ("First locust heard."); July 26, 1854 ("It is a windy day like yesterday, yet almost constantly I hear borne on the wind from far, mingling with the sound of the wind, the z-ing locust, scarcely like a distinct sound.”); July 26, 1853 (“I mark again, about this time when the first asters open, the sound of crickets or locusts that makes you fruitfully meditative, helps condense your thoughts, like the mel dews in the afternoon. This the afternoon of the year.”); July 31, 1856 (“This dog-day afternoon [a]s I make my way amid rank weeds still wet with the dew, the air filled with a decaying musty scent and the z-ing of small locusts, I hear the distant sound of a flail, and thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years.”); August 14, 1853 ("Locust days, — sultry and sweltering. I hear them even till sunset. The usually invisible but far-heard locust."); August 16, 1852 ("These are locust days. I hear them on the elms in the street, but cannot tell where they are.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Locust Days, Dogdayish Days

July 18. See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 18

 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 © 2009-2025

Lighting up of the mist by the sun.

February 27. 

Saw to-day on Pine Hill behind Mr. Joseph Merriam's house a Norway pine, the first I have seen in Concord. Mr. Gleason pointed it out to me as a singular pine which he did not know the name of. It was a very handsome tree, about twenty-five feet high.

E. Wood thinks that he has lost the surface of two acres of his meadow by the ice. Got fifteen cartloads out of a hummock left on another meadow. Blue-joint was introduced into the first meadow where it did not grow before. 

Of two men, one of whom knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare  knows that he knows nothing, and the other really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all, — what great advantage has the latter over the former ? which is the best to deal with? 

I do not know that knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise, or a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we had called knowledge before; an indefinite sense of the grandeur and glory of the universe. It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. But man cannot be said to know in any higher sense, than he can look serenely and with impunity in the face of the sun. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 27, 1851

Blue-joint was introduced into the first meadow where it did not grow before. See February 25, 1851 ("The crust of the meadow afloat. . . .When the ice melts or the soil thaws, of course it falls to the bottom, wherever it may be. Here is another agent employed in the distribution of plants.")

It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. See Walking

The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!

December 8

It snowed in the night of the 6th, and the ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. 

From Fair Haven I see the hills and fields, and the icy woods in the corner shine, gleam with the dear old wintry sheen.

A week or two ago Fair Haven Pond was frozen and the ground was still bare. Now  the Pond is open and ground is covered with snow and ice.

A week ago I saw cows being driven home from pasture. Now they are kept at home.

I see no tracks now of cows or men or boys beyond the edge of the wood. Suddenly they are shut up. The remote pastures and hills beyond the woods are now closed to cows and cowherds, aye, and to cowards.

I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible! 

This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1850

The ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. See note to November 29, 1856 (“This is the first snow.”)

I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible! See December 5, 1856 ("I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold."); January 7, 1857 ("I come out to these solitudes, where the problem of existence is simplified. I get away a mile or two from the town into the stillness and solitude of nature, with rocks, trees, weeds, snow about me. I enter some glade in the woods, perchance, where a few weeds and dry leaves alone lift themselves above the surface of the snow, and it is as if I had come to an open window. I see out and around myself. "); January 10, 1856 ("I love to wade and flounder through the swamp now, these bitter cold days when the snow lies deep on the ground, and I need travel but little way from the town to get to a Nova Zembla solitude, — to wade through the swamps, all snowed up, untracked by man, into which the fine dry snow is still drifting.”)

in addition

to my solitude

frost on the window

~Issa

Winter solitude –

in a world of one color

the sound of wind.

~Basho

See also Farewell, my friend

For the first time the

new moon is reflected from

the frozen snow-crust .

The retirement

and solitude that Winter

now makes possible!

Dec. 8. It snowed in the night of the 6th, and the ground is now covered, — our first snow, two inches deep. A week ago I saw cows being driven home from pasture. Now they are kept at home. Here 's an end to their grazing. The farmer improves this first slight snow to accomplish some pressing jobs, — to move some particular rocks on a drag, or the like. I perceive how quickly he has seized the opportunity. I see no tracks now of cows or men or boys beyond the edge of the wood. Suddenly they are shut up. The remote pastures and hills beyond the woods are now closed to cows and cowherds, aye, and to cowards. I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness which these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible! carpeting the earth with snow, furnishing more than woolen feet to all walkers, cronching the snow only. From Fair Haven I see the hills and fields, aye, and the icy woods in the corner shine, gleam with the dear old wintry sheen. Those are not surely the cottages I have seen all summer. They are some cottages which I have in my mind. Now Fair Haven Pond is open and ground is covered with snow and ice; a week or two ago the pond was frozen and the ground was still bare. Still those particular red oak leaves which I had noticed are quite unwilted under the cliffs, and the apple leaves, though standing in snow and ice and incrusted with the latter, still ripe red, and tender fresh green leaves. It is interesting to observe the manner in which the plants bear their snowy burden. The dry calyx leaves, like an oblong cup, of the Triclwstema dichotomum have caught the rain or melting snow, and so this little butter boat is filled with a frozen pure drop which stands up high above the sides of the cup, — so many pearly drops covering the whole plant, — in the wood-paths. The pennyroyal there also retains its fragrance under the ice and snow. I find that the indigo-weed, whose shade still stands and holds its black seed-vessels, is not too humble to escape enemies. Almost every seed-vessel, which con tains half a dozen seeds or more, contains also a little black six-legged bug about as big as a bug [sic], which gnaws the seeds; and sometimes I find a grub, though it is now cold weather and the plant is covered with ice. Not only our peas and grain have their weevils, but the fruit of the indigo-weed! This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.

First snow.

November 24.

P. M. - To Easterbrooks's. 

Under the two white oaks by the second wall south east of my house, on the east side the wall, I am surprised to find a great many sound acorns still, though everyone is sprouted, — frequently more than a dozen on the short sward within a square foot, each with its radicle two inches long penetrated into the earth. 

But many have had their radicle broken or eaten off, and many have it now dead and withered. 

So far as my observation goes there, by far the greatest number of white oak acorns were destroyed by decaying (whether in consequence of frost or wet), both before and soon after falling. 

Not nearly so many have been carried off by squirrels and birds or consumed by grubs, though the number of acorns of all kinds lying under the trees is now comparatively small to what it was early in October. 

It is true these two trees are exceptions and I do not find sound ones nearly as numerous under others. Nevertheless, the sound white oak acorns are not so generally and entirely picked up as I supposed. 

However, there are a great many more shells or cups than acorns under the trees; even under these two trees, I think, there are not more than a third as many of any kind sound or hollow — as there were, and generally those that remain are a very small fraction of what there were. 

It will be worth the while to see how many of these sprouted acorns are left and are sound in the spring. 

It is remarkable that all sound white oak acorns (and many which are not now sound) are sprouted, and that I have noticed no other kind sprouted, — though I have not seen the chestnut oak and little chinquapin at all. 

It remains to be seen how many of the above will be picked up by squirrels, etc., or destroyed by frost and grubs in the winter.

November 24, 2024                                                 November 24, 2025

The first spitting of snow — a flurry or squall – from out a gray or slate-colored cloud that came up from the west. This consisted almost entirely of pellets an eighth of an inch or less in diameter. 

These drove along almost horizontally, or curving upward like the outline of a breaker, before the strong and chilling wind. The plowed fields were for a short time whitened with them. 

The green moss about the bases of trees was very prettily spotted white with them, and also the large beds of cladonia in the pastures. They come to contrast with the red cockspur lichens on the stumps, which you had not noticed before. Striking against the trunks of the trees on the west side they fell and accumulated in a white line at the base. 

Though a slight touch, this was the first wintry scene of the season. 

The air was so filled with these snow pellets that we could not not see a hill half a mile off for an hour. 

The hands seek the warmth of the pockets, and fingers are so benumbed that you cannot open your jack-knife. 

The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you. Methinks the winter gives them more liberty, like a night. 

I see where a boy has set a box trap and baited it with half an apple, and, a mile off, come across a snare set for a rabbit or partridge in a cow-path in a pitch pine wood near where the rabbits have nibbled the apples which strew the wet ground. How pitiable that the most that many see of a rabbit should be the snare that some boy has set for one! 




The bitter-sweet of a white oak acorn which you nibble in a bleak November walk over the tawny earth is more to me than a slice of imported pineapple. 

We do not think much of table-fruits. They are especially for aldermen and epicures. They do not feed the imagination. That would starve on them. These wild fruits, whether eaten or not, are a dessert for the imagination. 

The south may keep her pineapples, and we will be content with our strawberries. 



H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 24, 1860 

I am surprised to find a great many sound acorns still, each with its radicle two inches long penetrated into the earth. It is remarkable that all sound white oak acorns (and many which are not now sound) are sprouted, and that I have noticed no other kind sprouted.  See October 7, 1860 ("I see one small but spreading white oak full of acorns just falling and ready to fall. . . . Some that have fallen have already split and sprouted.”); October 8, 1860 ("I find a great many white oak acorns already sprouted, although they are but half fallen, and can easily believe that they sometimes sprout before they fall. It is a good year for them."); October 11, 1860 ("There is a remarkably abundant crop of white oak acorns this fall."); October 13, 1860 ("This is a white oak year"); October 29, 1860 ("At some of the white oaks visited on the 11th, where the acorns were so thick on the ground and trees, I now find them perhaps nearly half picked up, yet perhaps little more than two thirds spoiled. The good appear to be all sprouted now."); and note to November 27, 1852 (“I find acorns which have sent a shoot down into the earth this fall.”)

The first spitting of snow. The hands seek the warmth of the pockets, and fingers are so benumbed that you cannot open your jack-knife. See November 24, 1858 ("There is a slight sugaring of snow on the ground. ") See also November 17, 1855 ("Just after dark the first snow is falling, after a chilly afternoon with cold gray clouds, when my hands were uncomfortably cold.”) and note to November 29, 1856 ("This the first snow I have seen, ")

The air was so filled with these snow pellets that for an hour we could not see a hill half a mile off. See January 30, 1856 ("It has just begun to snow, — those little round dry pellets like shot. Stops snowing before noon, not having amounted to anything.”); December 14, 1859( Snow-storms might be classified. . . .Also there is the pellet or shot snow, which consists of little dry spherical pellets the size of robin-shot. This, I think, belongs to cold weather. Probably never have much of it.”)

The plowed fields were for a short time whitened. See November 24, 1858 (“Plowed ground is quite white”); See also  October 19, 1854 (“The country above Littleton (plowed ground) more or less sugared with snow,”); November 8, 1853 ("The snow begins to whiten the plowed ground now."); December 16, 1857 ("Plowed grounds show white first.”)

Snow pellets . . .contrast with the red cockspur lichens on the stumps, not noticed before. See December 26, 1855 ("The scarlet fruit of the cockspur lichen, seen glowing through the more opaque whitish or snowy crust of a stump, is, on close inspection, the richest sight of all ”)

The first wintry scene of the season. The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you. See November 24, 1858 ("When I looked out this morning, the landscape presented a very pretty wintry sight, little snow as there was. Being very moist, it had lodged on every twig,") See also November 8, 1853 (“Our first snow,. . . The children greet it with a shout when they come out at recess. ”); November 23, 1852 ("There is something genial even in the first snow, and Nature seems to relent a little of her November harshness.")

The winter gives them more liberty, like a night. See December 8, 1850 ("The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!”)

First Phoebe

April 1.

At the Pokelogan up the Assabet, I see my first phoebe, the mild bird. It flirts its tail and sings pre vit, pre vit, pre vit, pre vit incessantly, as it sits over the water, and then at last, rising on the last syllable, says pre-VEE, as if insisting on that with peculiar emphasis.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 1, 1859

I see my first phoebe. See April 2, 1852 (“For a long distance, as we paddle up the river, we hear the two-stanza'd lay of the pewee on the shore, - pee-wet, pee-wee, etc. Those are the two obvious facts to eye and ear, the river and the pewee. ”)

April 1. Some have planted peas and lettuce. Melvin, the sexton, says that when Loring's Pond was drained once — perhaps the dam broke — he saw there about all the birds he has seen on a salt marsh. Also that he once shot a mackerel gull in Concord, — I think he said it was in May; that he sees the two kinds of yellow-legs here; that he has shot at least two kinds of large gray ducks, as big (one, at least) as black ducks. He says that one winter (it may have been the last) there were caught by him and others at one place in the river below Ball's Hill, in sight of Carlisle Bridge, about two hundred pounds of pickerel within a week, — something quite unprecedented, at least of late years. This was about the last of February or first of March. No males were caught! and he thinks that they had collected there in order to spawn. Perhaps perch and pickerel collect in large numbers for this purpose.

P. M. — To Assabet over meadows in boat; a very strong and a cold northwest wind. I land again at the (now island) rock, on Simon Brown's land, and look for arrowheads, and picked up two pieces of soapstone pottery. One was probably part of the same which C. found with me there the other day. C.'s piece was one side of a shallow dish, say an inch and a half deep, four eighths to six eighths of an inch thick, with a sort of ear for handle on one side, — almost a leg. His piece, like mine, looks as if it had been scratched all  over on the outside by a nail, and it is evident that this is the way it was fashioned. It was scratched with some hard, sharp-pointed stone and so crumbled and worn away. This little knoll was half plowed (through its summit) last fall in order to be cultivated this spring, and the high water standing over all but the apex has for a fortnight been faithfully washing away the soil and leaving the stones — Indian relics and others — exposed. The very roots of the grass, yellowish-brown fibres, are thus washed clean and exposed in considerable quantity there. You could hardly have contrived a better way to separate the arrowheads that lay buried in that sod between the rocks from the sod and soil.

At the Pokelogan up the Assabet, I see my first phcebe, the mild bird. It flirts its tail and sings pre vit, pre vit, pre vit, pre vit incessantly, as it sits over the water, and then at last, rising on the last syllable, says pre-vEE, as if insisting on that with peculiar emphasis.

The villagers remark how dark and angry the water looks to-day. I think it is because it is a clear and very windy day and the high waves cast much shadow. Crow blackbirds common.