The bream is steadily poised over her treasures..

June 8

June 8, 2018

P. M. — To marsh hawk's nest near Hubbard’s Bath. 

June 8, 2018

I see many breams' nests made, and in one or two in which I look, I find, on taking out the stones and the gravel, the small yellowish ova about one twentieth of an inch in diameter. This is not, at least ordinarily, visible now as you look down on the nest, but, on taking up portions of the bottom of the concave nest, you find it scattered (not crowded) over the sand, stones, clam shells, weeds, etc., which form the bottom of the nest. It studs the little gray and brown stones, rather scatteredly, like some kind of gem adhering pretty firmly, and the bream is steadily poised over her treasures. 

You see the bream poised over her large concave nest in the sand, and, taking up a part of the bottom, as some brown stone, you find it studded with the small gem-like ova, loosely dispersed. Apparently it has not been laid long. 

The Salix nigra is still in bloom. 

I see red-wing blackbirds hatched. 

In several places I see where dead suckers have been at last partly devoured by some animal, and their great bladders are seen floating off. Thomas Bell, in his “British Reptiles,” says of “the Terrapene Europaea, the common lacustrine tortoise of the Continent,” “As they live principally upon small fish, the air-bags of which they reject, it is said that the people are wont to judge of the quantity of tortoises to be found in a lake or pond, by the number of air-bags which are seen swimming on the surface of the water.” 

The marsh hawk's eggs are not yet hatched. She rises when I get within a rod and utters that peculiar cackling or scolding note, much like, but distinct from, that of the pigeon woodpecker. She keeps circling over the nest and repeatedly stoops within a rod of my head in an angry manner. She is not so large as a hen-hawk, and is much more slender. She will come sailing swiftly and low over the tops of the trees and bushes, etc., and then stoop as near to my head as she dares, in order to scare me away. The primaries, of which I count but five, are very long and loose, or distant, like fingers with which she takes hold of the air, and form a very distinct part of the wing, making an angle with the rest. Yet they are not broad and give to the wing a long and slender appearance. The legs are stretched straight back under the tail. I see nothing of the male, nor did I before. 

A red-wing and a kingbird are soon in pursuit of the hawk, which proves, I think, that she meddles with their nests or themselves. She circles over me, scolding, as far as the edge of the wood, or fifteen rods. 

The early potentilla is now in some places erect. 

The sidesaddle-flower is out, — how long? — and the sweet flag, how long? 

I see quite common, on the surface in deep water wherever there are weeds, misty white strings of spawn, reminding one of toad-spawn without the ova, only whiter, or more opaque. But these strings turn on themselves, forming small masses four to eight inches long, attached to the weeds, – Ranunculus Purshii, potamogeton, etc., etc. These strings are full of minute ova, like seeds, pale-brown, oval or elliptical, about one fiftieth of an inch long. 

I perceive distinctly to-day that there is no articular line along the sides of the back of the bullfrog, but that there is one along the back of that bullfrog-like, smaller, widely dispersed and early frog so common about fountains, brooks, ditches, and the river, of which I probably have one small one bottled and have heard the croak (vide April 5th, 1858). 

That pale-brown or oat spawn must belong, then, I think, to the Rana fontinalis. 

A kingbird's nest with three eggs, lined with some hair, in a fork — or against upright part — of a willow, just above near stone bridge. 

Is that small spiked rush from a few inches to a foot or more in height Eleocharis palustris? or tenuis? 
In early aster meadow and else where common, along meadow-paths. 

Whiteweed is getting to be common.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 8, 1858

June 8, 2018

And the bream is steadily poised over her treasures. See November 30, 1858 ("I can only poise my thought there by its side and try to think like a bream for a moment. I can only see the bream in its orbit, as I see a star. The bream, appreciated, floats in the pond as the centre of the system, another image of God. Its life no man can explain more than he can his own.")

The marsh hawk's eggs are not yet hatched. She rises when I get within a rod and utters that peculiar cackling or scolding note, much like, but distinct from, that of the pigeon woodpecker. See May 30, 1858 ("The hawk rises when we approach and circles about over the wood, uttering a note singularly like the common one of the flicker. . . . There are two dirty, or rather dirtied, white eggs left (of four that were),”);  June 17, 1858 (“One egg is hatched since the 8th, and the young bird, all down, with a tinge of fawn or cinnamon, lies motionless on its breast with its head down and is already about four inches long!”);  June 20, 1858 (“Got the marsh hawk's egg, which was addled. I noticed on the 17th that the hawk (my marsh hawk) was off her nest and soaring above the wood late in the afternoon, as I was returning.”); July 22, 1858 (“The nest of the marsh hawk is empty. It has probably flown.”);; August 2, 1858 (“I see there what I take to be a marsh hawk of this year, hunting by itself. It has not learned to be very shy yet, so that we repeatedly get near it. What a rich brown bird! almost, methinks, with purple reflections.”)

A red-wing and a kingbird are soon in pursuit of the hawk. See June 5, 1854 ("I see at a distance a kingbird or blackbird pursuing a crow lower down the hill, like a satellite revolving about a black planet."); June 7, 1858 ("It is evidence enough against crows and hawks and owls, proving their propensity to rob birds’ nests of eggs and young, that smaller birds pursue them so often.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird

A kingbird's nest with three eggs, lined with some hair, in a fork — or against upright part — of a willow. See June 8, 1856 ("A kingbird’s nest on a black cherry, above Barbarea Shore. loosely constructed, with some long white rags dangling; one egg."); see also June 3, 1854 ("A kingbird's nest in a fork of a black willow"); June 6, 1857 ("A kingbird's nest, with two of its large handsome eggs, very loosely set over the fork of a horizontal willow by river, with dried everlasting of last year, as usual, just below Garfield's boat. Another in black willow south of long cove (east side, north of Hubbard's Grove) and another north of said cove.");  June 3, 1854 ("A kingbird's nest in a fork of a black willow. "); June 13, 1855 ("Two kingbirds’ nests with eggs in an apple and in a willow by riverside."); June 14, 1855 ("A kingbird’s nest with four eggs on a large horizontal stem or trunk of a black willow, four feet high, over the edge of the river, amid small shoots from the willow; outside of mikania, roots, and knotty sedge, well lined with root fibres and wiry weeds"); June 16, 1855 ("Examined a kingbird’s nest found before (13th) in a black willow over edge of river, four feet from ground. Two eggs."); June 24, 1856 ("A kingbird’s nest just completed in an apple tree. "); July 5, 1856 ("A kingbird’s nest in fork of a button-bush five feet high on shore (not saddled on); three young just hatched and one egg.")   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Eastern Kingbird

The sidesaddle-flower is out. [Sarracenia purpurea, also known as the purple pitcherplant or northern pitcher plant, the only pitcherplant native to New England. ]See June 8, 1854 ("Sidesaddle, apparently to-morrow (?)") and note to June 12, 1856 ("Sidesaddle flower numerously out now.") See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

June 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 8

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 early willows now show great green wands a foot or two long.

May 13. 

P. M. – To Island. 

May 13, 2018

Uvularia sessilifolia is well out in Island woods, opposite Bath Rock; how long? 

The early willows now show great green wands a foot or two long, consisting of curled worm-like catkins three inches long, now in their prime. They present conspicuous masses of green now before the leaves are noticeable, like the fruit of the elm at present. Some have begun to show their down. So this is apparently the next tree (or shrub ?) after the elm to shed its seeds. 

I wade through the great Lee farm meadow. Many Emys picta which I see have perfectly fresh and clear black scales now. I can even see the outlines of the bony plates beneath impressed in the scales. These turtles abound now in the shallow pools in the meadows with grassy or weedy bottoms. I notice on one, part of whose rear marginal plate is broken, two small claw-like horny appendages on the skin, just over the tail. 

Viola lanceolata, how long?

As I sat in my boat near the Bath Rock at Island, I saw a red squirrel steal slyly up a red maple, as if he were in search of a bird’s nest (though it is early for most), and I thought I would see what he was at. He crept far out on the slender branches and, reaching out his neck, nibbled off the fruit-stems, sometimes bending them within reach with his paw; and then, squatting on the twig, he voraciously devoured the half-grown keys, using his paws to direct them to his mouth, as a nut. Bunch after bunch he plucked and ate, letting many fall, and he made an abundant if not sumptuous feast, the whole tree hanging red with fruit around him. It seemed like a fairy fruit as I sat looking toward the sun and saw the red keys made all glowing and transparent by the sun between me and the body of the squirrel. 

It was certainly a cheering sight, a cunning red squirrel perched on a slender twig between you and the sun, feasting on the hand some red maple keys. He nibbled voraciously, as if they were a sweet and luscious fruit to him. What an abundance and variety of food is now ready for him! At length, when the wind suddenly began to blow hard and shake the twig on which he sat, he quickly ran down a dozen feet. 

The large globular masses of oat spawn, often on the very top of the old pontederia stems and also on the shooting Equisetum limosum, of the same color with the weeds and bottom, look like a seedy fruit which is divested of its rind.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 13, 1858

Uvularia sessilifolia is well out in Island woods, opposite Bath Rock. See May 13, 1854 ("Uvularias, amid the dry tree-tops near the azaleas.”); May 14, 1852 (“The Uvularia sessilifolio, a drooping flower with tender stems and leaves; the latter curled so as to show their under sides hanging about the stems, as if shrinking from the cold.”)

The early willows now show great green wands a foot or two long... See May 14, 1852 ("Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing, Ah! willow, willow! These willows have yellow bark, bear yellow flowers and yellowish-green leaves...”)
Many Emys picta which I see have perfectly fresh and clear black scales now. See May 10, 1857 (“Now the Emys picta lie out in great numbers, this suddenly warm weather, and when you go along the road within a few rods they tumble in. The banks of some ditches look almost as if paved with them.”); March 28, 1857 (“The Emys picta, now pretty numerous, when young and fresh, with smooth black scales without moss or other imperfection, unworn. . .”); September 3, 1856 (“I see painted tortoises with their entire backs covered with perfectly fresh clean black scales.”); and note to August 31, 1856 ("A painted tortoise shedding its scales”)

Viola lanceolata, how long? See May 6, 1855 ("Viola lanceolata, yesterday at least.”); May 10, 1856 ("I see there, just above the edge of the Pool in Hubbard’s Wood Path, the Viola blanda passing into the V. lanceolate, which last also is now in bloom, probably earlier there than in wetter places. May have been as early as the blanda.”); May 18, 1854 ("To Pedrick's meadow. Viola lanceolata, two days at least.”)

The large globular masses of oat spawn, often on the very top of the old pontederia stems. See May 4, 1858 (“What I have heretofore called the oat spawn, attached to old pontederia stems, laid ten days. [Is it not that of the R. fontinalis?]”); May 6, 1856 (“Oat spawn showing little pollywogs (?) in meadow water.”); May 8, 1858 (“I see a great deal of the oat spawn . . . It is over the coarse, weedy (pontederia and yellow lily stubble)”); May 11, 1855 (“See oat-seed spawn — a mass as big as fist —- on bottom; of brown jelly composed of smaller globules, each with a fish-like tadpole, color of a seed.”); May 13, 1857 ("A large bunch of oat spawn in meadow water. “)

The mystery of the stone heaps.

May 8

P. M. — To stone-heaps.

Mr. Wright of the factory village, with whom I talked yesterday, an old fisherman, remembers the lamprey eels well, which he used to see in the Assabet there, but thinks that there have been none in the river for a dozen years and that the stone-heaps are not made by them. 

I saw one apparently just formed yesterday. Could find none April 15th. This afternoon I overhaul two new ones in the river opposite Prescott Barrett's, and get up more than a peck of stones. The nests are quite large and very high, rising to within a foot of the surface where the water is some three feet deep.

I cannot detect any ova or young fishes or eels in the heap, but a great many insects, pashas with two tails, and, I think, some little leeches only. The larger stones are a little larger than a hen's egg, but the greater part of the heap is merely a coarse gravel. 

I see a great deal of the oat spawn, generally just flatted out, in that long pokelogan by the Assabet Bath-Place. It is over the coarse, weedy (pontederia and yellow lily stubble), and not the grassy bottom, commonly where there is more or less water all summer. 

The herb-of-St.-Barbara. 

Broke off a twig of Prichard's Canada plum in the evening, from which I judge that it may have opened to-day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 8, 1858

Mr. Wright , an old fisherman, thinks the stone-heaps are not made by lamprey . See May 4, 1858 ("I asked him if he knew what fish made the stone-heaps in the river. He said the lamprey eel.")

The herb-of-St.-Barbara.   See May 14, 1857 ("Herb-of-St.-Barbara, how long?")

I judge that Prichard's Canada plum may have opened to-day. See note to May 10, 1856 (“Mr. Prichard’s Canada plum will open as soon as it is fair weather.”)

By boat to Holden Swamp.

May 4. 

Camel’s Hump

May 4, 2015

The Salix pedicellaris by railroad, apparently not for two or three days. 

The Missouri currant, probably to-day. 

P. M. — By boat to Holden Swamp. 

To go among the willows now and hear the bees hum is equal to going some hundreds of miles southward toward summer. 

I see along the sides of the river, i. e., where the bottom is permanently covered, what I have heretofore called the oat spawn, attached to old pontederia stems, etc., now some foot or eighteen inches under the surface. It is not black and white, like that of the Rana halecina, sylvaltica, and palustris, which I cannot distinguish from one another, but a pale brown or fawn-color. Some is pretty fresh or recently laid, others already flatted out. Hence, from comparison with my earlier sylvatica and halecina spawn, I judge that it may have been laid ten days. [Is it not that of the R. fontinalis?]

At Clamshell Shore, I see a clam lying up with open valves. 

Salix pedicellaris at Holden's Swamp, staminate, out apparently two days. - 

It is still warmer than May 1st, yet I hear the stertorous tut tut tut of hardly so many frogs (R. palustris chiefly, I suppose) as then. As with the halecina, it is the first sudden heats that excite them most, me thinks. 

I find hopping in the meadow a Rana halecina, much brighter than any I have seen this year. There is not only a vivid green halo about each spot, but the back is vivid light-green between the spots. I think this was not the case with any of the hundreds I saw a month ago!! Why?? The brassy lines along the sides of the back are narrower (only about one sixteenth of an inch) and more prominent than the more fawn-colored lines of the R. palustris. In this one, which I carry home and compare with the palustris, there is a large spot on each orbit, but none on the top of the head in front. It is all white beneath, except a tinge of greenish yellow on the abdomen. 

Witherell speaks of the R. palustris as the yellow legged frog, very properly. 

See several bullfrogs along the river, but silent. 

I go into Holden Swamp to hear warblers. See a little blue butterfly (or moth) — saw one yesterday — fluttering about over the dry brown leaves in a warm place by the swamp-side, making a pleasant contrast. From time to time have seen the large Vanessa Antiopa resting on the black willows, like a leaf still adhering.

As I sit there by the swamp-side this warm summery afternoon, I hear the crows cawing hoarsely, and from time to time see one flying toward the  top of a tall white pine. At length I distinguish a hen-hawk perched on the top. The crow repeatedly stoops toward him, now from this side, now from that, passing near his head each time, but he pays not the least attention to it. 

I hear the weese wese wese of the creeper continually from the swamp. It is the prevailing note there. And methought I heard a redstart's note (?), but oftener than the last I heard the tweezer note, or screeper note, of the particolored warbler, bluish above, yellow or orange throat and breast, white vent, and white on wings, neck above yellowish, going restlessly over the trees — maples, etc. — by the swamp, in creeper fashion, and as you may hear at the same time the true creeper's note without seeing it, you might think it uttered the creeper's note also. 

The red-wings, though here and there in flocks, are apparently beginning to build. I judge by their shyness and alarm in the bushes along the river and their richer, solitary warbling. 

Coming back, I talk with Witherell at William Wheeler's landing. He comes pushing Wheeler's square ended boat down-stream with a fish-spear. Says he caught a snapping turtle in the river May 1st. He sits on the side of my boat by the shore a little while, talking with me. There is a hole in the knee of his pants as big as your hand, and he keeps passing his hand over this slowly, to hide his bare skin, which is sun burnt and the color of his face, though the latter is reddened by rum, of which his breath smells. But how intimate he is with mud and its inhabitants. 

He says he caught a large pickerel the other night with spawn in it yet; that Henry Bigelow put many little trout into that round pond (Green Pond he calls it) on the Marlborough road, which Elbridge Haynes caught a few years after, weighing two or three pounds apiece. A man told him that he saw a trout weighing about a pound and a half darting at a pickerel, and every time he darted he took a bit off a fin, and at last the man walked in and caught the pickerel, and it weighed five pounds. This was in Spectacle Pond in Littleton. 

A fisherman told him once that the common eel “gendered” into the river clam, and the young fed on the clam till they were big enough to get other food, and hence you found so many dead clams in the river. 

I asked him if he knew what fish made the stone-heaps in the river. He said the lamprey eel. He saw one making one last spring about this time, as he was going across the fields by the river near Tarbell's to get seed corn. It was a single lamprey piling up the stones. He used to see thousands of them where he lived a boy, where the lead pipe factory was. 

Agassiz says in his Introduction (page 175), “I have known it [the Chelonara serpentina] snapping in the same fierce manner [which somebody else had described at a later period when it was very young] as it does when full grown, at a time it was still a pale almost colorless embryo, wrapped up in its foetal envelopes, with a yolk larger than itself hanging from its sternum, three months before hatching.”

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 4, 1858

The crow repeatedly stoops toward him, now from this side, now from that, passing near his head each time, but he pays not the least attention to it. See May 13, 1860 ("See two crows pursuing and diving at a hen-hawk very high in the air over the river. [H]e merely winks, as it were, bends or jerks his wings slightly as if a little startled. but never ceases soaring. nor once turns to pursue or shake them off.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

I heard the tweezer note, or screeper note, of the particolored warbler. See  May 13, 1860 ("At Holden Swamp, hear plenty of parti-colored warblers (tweezer-birds) and redstarts."); May 18, 1856 ("A Sylvia Americana, — parti-colored warbler, — in the Holden Wood, sings a, tshrea tshrea tshrea, tshre’ tshritty tshrit’.”)  See note to May 13, 1856 (“At the swamp, hear the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush; the tweezer-bird or Sylvia Americana. Also the oven-bird sings.”) See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the parti-colored warbler (Sylvia Americana)

See a little blue butterfly (or moth) — saw one yesterday — fluttering about over the dry brown leaves in a warm place. See April 30, 1859 ("That interesting small blue butterfly (size of small red) is apparently just out, fluttering over the warm dry oak leaves within the wood in the sun.");See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The  Blue Butterfly in Spring

I see a toad only an inch and a quarter long.

May 13. 

Work in garden. I see a toad only an inch and a quarter long; so they must be several years growing. 

P. M. — To Leaning Hemlocks. 

A large bunch of oat spawn in meadow water. 

Scare up a black duck and apparently two summer ducks. 

Canoe birch, how long? 

Sternothaerus.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 13, 1857

A large bunch of oat spawn in meadow water.  See May 13, 1858 ("The large globular masses of oat spawn. . . look like a seedy fruit which is divested of its rind.”)See also May 6, 1856 (“Oat spawn showing little pollywogs (?) in meadow water.”); May 11, 1855 (“See oat-seed spawn — a mass as big as fist —- on bottom; of brown jelly composed of smaller globules, each with a fish-like tadpole, color of a seed.”) Compare April 4, 1857 (“very handsome spherical masses of transparent jelly, two and a half to three inches in diameter, suspended near the surface of some weed, as goldenrod or aster, and consisting of globules about a third of an inch in diameter, with a black or dark centre as big as a large shot.”)

The horse-chestnut and mountain-ash leafing.

May 6. 

To Clamshell by river. 

Our earliest currant out. 

Oat spawn showing little pollywogs (?) in meadow water. 

The horse-chestnut and mountain-ash leafing.

Knawel out at Clamshell; how long? 

Cerastium out there under the bank. 

That early white birch there has about done running sap. 

Equisetum sylvaticum a day or two on the ditch bank there.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 6, 1856

Our earliest currant out. See May 4, 1853 ("The currant in bloom"); May 4, 1860 ("Currant out a day or two at least."); May 9, 1854 ("Currant in garden, but ours may be a late kind."); May 9, 1855 ("The black currant will not bloom for five or six days.")  

Note: The "earlies currant" and the unqualified word "currant" in Thoreau's lexicon likely  refers to the commonly cultivated Red Currant (Ribes rubrum). The Currant family species in New England includes both currants and gooseberries:   

• Ribes americanum –Wild black currant f/k/a Ribes floridum. See May 8, 1853 ("The Ribes floridum, wild black currant, just begun")
• Ribes aureum – Golden currant 
• Ribes cynosbati –Prickly gooseberry. See  September 8, 1856 (" Prickly gooseberry, with its bur-like fruit") (Brattleboro)
• Ribes glandulosum Skunk currant, fetid currant f/k/a Ribes prostratum. See September 7, 1852 (“Wild currants (Ribes prostratum, with the berry the odor of skunk-cabbage, but a not quite disagreeable wild flavor.")
• Ribes hirtellum –  Hairy stem Gooseberry or Northern Gooseberry 
• Ribes lacustre –Prickly currant, swamp gooseberry, bristly black currant. See June 19, 1856 (at the Natural History rooms)("Ribes lacustre, or swamp gooseberry")
• Ribes missouriense –Missouri gooseberry or Missouri currant. See  May 5, 1855 ("Missouri currant look as if they would bloom to-morrow.”);
• Ribes nigrum – Black Currant. See May 18, 1856 (“R. W. E.’s black currant (which the wild Ribes floridum is said to be much like), maybe a day.”)
• Ribes rotundifolium –Appalachian gooseberry or round-leaved gooseberry
• Ribes rubrum  – garden red currant or red currant
• Ribes triste –swamp red currant or wild red currant
• Ribes uva-crispa – European gooseberry f/k/a Ribes grossularia

Thoreau recognized 6 kinds of currant: red currant, black currant, wild currant, wild black currant, swamp currant, and Missouri currant; and 2 kinds of gooseberry,  swamp gooseberry and prickly gooseberry. See May 5, 1855 ("Gooseberry, both kinds "); See also, e.g.; July 19, 1858 (Mt. Washington) (" At three miles, or limit of trees . . . Ribes lacustre, prostratum, and floridum(?)") 

Oat spawn showing little pollywogs. See May 4, 1858 (“What I have heretofore called the oat spawn, attached to old pontederia stems,  etc . . . is not black and white, like that of the Rana halecina, sylvaltica, and palustris, which I cannot distinguish from one another, but a pale brown or fawn-color . . . Iss it not that of the R. fontinalis?”);  May 8, 1858 (“I see a great deal of the oat spawn . . . It is over the coarse, weedy (pontederia and yellow lily stubble)”); May 11, 1855 (“See oat-seed spawn — a mass as big as fist —- on bottom; of brown jelly composed of smaller globules, each with a fish-like tadpole, color of a seed.”);  May 13, 1858 ("The large globular masses of oat spawn, often on the very top of the old pontederia stems and also on the shooting Equisetum limosum, of the same color with the weeds and bottom, look like a seedy fruit which is divested of its rind."); May 13, 1857 ("A large bunch of oat spawn in meadow water.“)

The horse-chestnut and mountain-ash leafing. See May 5, 1855) ("The trees and shrubs which I observe . . . in the order of their intensity and generalness: Gooseberry, both kinds  . . . Red currant, and probably black . . .  Some mountain-ash . . . Some horse-chestnut")

Knawel out at Clamshell; how long?  See May 5, 1860 ("Knawel some time."); May 6, 1853 ("Common knawel, apparently for some time") [Scleranthus annuus (German knotweed)]

Cerastium out there under the bank. See  May 13, 1860 ("At Clamshell. one cerastium flower quite done and dry."); See also  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"); May 31, 1856 ("That little cerastium on the rock at the Island, noticed the 22d, which probably opened about that time, is now out of bloom.")

That early white birch there has about done running sap. See April 23, 1856 ("The white birch sap flows yet from a stump cut last fall, and a few small bees, flies, etc., are attracted by it.");  April 26, 1856 ("The white birch at Clamshell, which I tapped long ago, still runs and is partly covered with a pink froth. "); April 27, 1856 ("The white birch which I tapped in V. palmata Swamp still runs; and the holes are full of, and the base of the tree covered with, a singular sour-tasted, rather hard-crusted white (not pink) froth, and a great many of those flat beetles (?), lightning-bug-like, and flies, etc.  are sucking it."); May 13, 1856 ("Where my sap has dried on the white birch bark it has now turned a bright light red. What a variety of colors it assumes!")

Equisetum sylvaticum  [Wood horsetail or Woodland horsetail] a day or two on the ditch bank there. See   May 6, 1853 ("Equisetum sylvaticum in front of Hosmer's Gorge. ");  May 6, 1855 ("Equisetum sylvaticum, probably yesterday or day before.”);  See also April 28, 1858 ("At Clamshell Ditch, one Equisetum sylvaticum will apparently open to-morrow. Strawberries are abundantly out.); May 10, 1857 (“This side Clamshell, strawberries and cinquefoil are abundant. Equisetum sylvaticum.”)