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.
May 31, 2016
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 18, 1855 ("A bay-wing sparrow’s nest, four eggs (young half hatched) -- some black-spotted, others not”); May 27, 1856 ("Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs . . . with very dark blotches."); 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 Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing [Vesper] Sparrow (Fringilla graminea)
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")
Nuphar advena first noticed . . . just out in river. See May 30, 1858 ("I saw the Nuphar advena above water and yellow in Shrewsbury the 23d.")
Pink, common wild, maybe two or three days. See May 29, 1852 (" Barberry in bloom, wild pinks, and blue-eyed grass."); June 5, 1850 ("The first of June, when the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons.”); June 19, 1852 ("Is not this the carnival of the year, when the swamp rose and wild pink are in bloom, the last stage before blueberries come?")
Ranunculus Purshii, probably earlier in some places, but water high. See May 26, 1855 ("The Ranunculus Purshii in that large pool in the Holden Swamp Woods makes quite a show at a little distance now."); May 28, 1858 ("The Ranunculus Purshii is now abundant and conspicuous in river."): June 6, 1857 ('The Ranunculus Purshii is in some places abundantly out now and quite showy. It must be our largest ranunculus (flower).”)
That little cerastium on the rock at the Island, noticed the 22d . . . seems to be the C. nutans [nodding chickweed]. See May 6, 1856 ("Cerastium out there under the bank"); May 22, 1856 ("A little clammy hairy cerastium (?) (like a Cerastium viscosum, slender and erect), about three inches high, will open in a day or two on the rock near the bass."); June 5, 1856 ("I must call that cerastium of May 22d C. nutans (?), at least for the present, though . . .Thompson’s “History of Vermont,” says it is not found in New England out of that State.") See also May 31, 1853 (" The fact that a rare and beautiful flower which we never saw, perhaps never heard of, for which therefore there was no place in our thoughts, may at length be found in our immediate neighborhood, is very suggestive. The boundaries of the actual are no more fixed and rigid than the elasticity of our imaginations.")
[Thoreau's herbarium includes a physical specimen from "Island Rock” with
the label “Cerastium nutans'’ in his own handwriting. See Richard J. Eaton, A Flora of Concord, 114 ("Very
rare. The only known specimen to have been collected
in New England east of the Connecticut River except
in Connecticut.")]
The red oak is so forward . . .it is more difficult to get a sprig in flower small enough (its leaves) to press. See May 18, 1851 ("The oak leaves of all colors are just expanding, and are more beautiful than most flowers"); May 20, 1852 ("The red oak leaves are very pretty and finely cut, about an inch and three quarters long. Like most young leaves, they are turned back around the twig, parasol-like."); May 23, 1860 ("The quarter-grown red oak leaves between you and the sun, how yellow-green!")
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. See June 5, 1854 ("Now, just before sundown, a nighthawk is circling, imp-like, with undulating, irregular flight over the sprout-land on the Cliff Hill, with an occasional squeak and showing the spots on his wings. He does not circle away from this place, and I associate him with two gray eggs somewhere on the ground beneath and a mate there sitting.") June 21, 1856 ("Nighthawks numerously squeak at 5 P. M. and boom Saw them fly low and touch the water like swallows over Walden. ")
The telegraph says it snowed in Bangor to-day. See August 26, 1854 ("Hear by telegraph that it rains in Portland and New York."); See also 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.")
The hickory leaves are blackened by blowing in the cold wind. See May 31, 1858 ("There were severe frosts on the nights of the 28th and 29th, and now I see the hickories turned quite black")
Six narrow gray eggs
speckled with brown at the end
in a ground-bird’s nest.
That cerastium
on the rock at the Island . . .
another rare plant.
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality.”
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2026
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