The spawn of April 18th is gone!

April 22.

April 22, 2018

Hear martins about a box. 

P. M. — To Hubbard’s Great Meadow. 

The spawn of April 18th is gone! It was fresh there and apparently some creature has eaten it. 

I see spawn (R. halecina-like) in the large pool southeast of this and catch one apparently common-sized (!) R. halecina near it. The general aspect dark-brown, with bronze-colored stripes along sides of back one tenth of an inch wide; spots, roundish with a dull-green halo; a roundish spot on each orbit; no bright spots. 

I catch apparently another in the Great Meadow, and I think some R. halecina are still spawning, for I see some fresh spawn there. 

Andromeda, apparently a day or two,—at least at edge of Island Wood, which I have not seen. 

I walk along several brooks and ditches, and see a great many yellow-spotted turtles; several couples copulating. The uppermost invariably has a depressed sternum while the other’s is full. 

The Emys picta are evidently breeding also. See two apparently coupled on the shore. 

You see both kinds now in little brooks not more than a foot wide, slowly and awkwardly moving about one another. They can hardly make their way against the swift stream. I see one E. picta holding on to a weed with one of its fore feet. Meanwhile a yellow-spotted turtle shoots swiftly down the stream, carried along by the current, and is soon out of sight. 

The E. picta are also quite common in the shallows on the river meadows. 

I see many masses of empty or half-empty R. halecina spawn.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 22, 1858

The spawn of April 18th is gone! See April 7, 1858 (“I brought home the above two kinds of spawn in a pail. Putting some of the Rana halecina spawn in a tumbler of water. . . .”); April 14, 1858 (“My Rana halecina spawn in tumbler is now flatted out and begins to betray the pollywog form.”);  April 17, 1858 (“The Rana halecina spawn in tumbler begins to struggle free of the ova”); April 18, 1858 (“Put some R. halecina spawn which has flatted out in a ditch on Hubbard’s land.”); April 27, 1858 (“I noticed yesterday that again the newly laid spawn at the cold pool on Hubbard's land was all gone, and that in the larger pool south of it was much diminished. What creature devours it? ”)

A great many yellow-spotted turtles; several couples copulating. See  June 5, 1857  (“I see a great many tortoises in that pool, showing their heads and backs above water and pursuing each other about the pool. It is evidently their copulating-season.”); also March 26, 1860 (“The yellow-spotted tortoise may [first] be seen February 23, as in '57, or not till March 28, as in '55”);and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Yellow-Spotted Turtle

It is the nicest day of spring so far. The second sunny day in a row after about two weeks rain sleet and snow. The dogs and I walk to the view and back. Little acorn leads the way choosing the trails (she knows them well).we take the under view Trail and while the dogs veer off here and there they generally follow me and follow acorn who dashes up the last steep and decides we are going to take the shortcut up. The snow is virtually gone although it seems two days ago the view seen from a distance was a white spot on the hill. At the view there is a wind that is chilly in the shade and so I move down to the right in the sun. The sky is blue the lake is blue the pond is blue. I am sitting in the sun on the deck now listening to the cheer up cheer ee of a Robin.. The phoebe is here nesting in his usual spot. But there have not been many signs of spring. One hepatica discovered on the hike yesterday. Spring beauty is not yet in bloom.. The phoebe was here on time and also the hermit thrush ( seen only, not heard.) At the lower view I hear the wood frog in the wetland below (quacking) – a first.. Also the jingle of the juncos who I suppose are staging for their trip north.

Second sunny day 

after two weeks in a row

of rain sleet and snow.

Zphx 20180422

The rocks on the east side of Bateman’s Pond.

April 21. 

April 21, 2018

George Melvin says that Joshua Haynes once saw a perch depositing her spawn and the male following behind and devouring it! (?) Garlick in his book on pisciculture says that the perch spawn in May. 

Melvin says that those short-nosed brook pickerel are caught in the river also, but rarely weigh more than two pounds. 

The puddles have dried off along the road and left thick deposits or water-lines of the dark-purple anthers of the elm, coloring the ground like sawdust. You could collect great quantities of them. 

The arbor-vitae is apparently effete already. 

Ed. Hoar says he heard a wood thrush the 18th. 

P. M. — To Easterbrooks’s and Bateman’s Pond. 

The benzoin yesterday and possibly the 19th, so much being killed. It might otherwise have been earlier yet. 

Populus grandidentata some days at least. 

The Cornus florida flower-buds are killed. 

The rocks on the east side of Bateman’s Pond are a very good place for ferns. I see some very large leather apron umbilicaria there. They are flaccid and unrolled now, showing most of the olivaceous-fuscous upper side. This side feels cold and damp, while the other, the black, is dry and warm, notwithstanding the warm air. This side, evidently, is not expanded by moisture. It is a little exciting even to meet with a rock covered with these livid (?) green aprons, betraying so much life. Some of them are three quarters of a foot in diameter. What a growth for a bare rock!

April 21, 2018

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 21, 1858

The dark-purple anthers of the elm, coloring the ground like sawdust. See  April 13, 1859 (“The streets are strewn with the bud-scales of the elm”); April 15, 1852 (“The broad flat brown buds on Mr. Cheney's elm, containing twenty or thirty yellowish-green threads, surmounted with little brownish-mulberry cups, which contain the stamens and the two styles, -- these are just expanding or blossoming now.”); April 15, 1854 ("The arrival of the purple finches appears to be coincident with the blossoming of the elm, on whose blossom it feeds.”); April 16, 1856 (“Cheney’s elm shows stamens on the warm side pretty numerously.”);  April 24, 1852 ("he elms are now fairly in blossom.")

The arbor-vitae is apparently effete already. See April 20, 1857 ("Arbor-vitae? apparently in full bloom.”) 

Ed. Hoar says he heard a wood thrush the 18th. See  April 21, 1855 (“I hear at a distance a wood thrush. It affects us as a part of our unfallen selves.”); April 20, 1860 ("C. sees . . . some kind of thrush to-day, size of wood thrush, — he thought probably hermit thrush."): see also May 22, 1852 ("On my way to Plymouth, looked at Audubon in the State-House. The female (and male?) wood thrush spotted the whole length of belly; the hermit thrush not so.”); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of Spring: The Arrival of the Hermit Thrush and note to April 24, 1856 ("Behold my hermit thrush, with one companion, flitting silently through the birches.”)

The rocks on the east side of Bateman’s Pond are a very good place for ferns. See September 4, 1857 (“The sides of Cornus florida Ravine at Bateman’s Pond are a good place for ferns. ”);  November 2, 1857 (“A patch of polypody . . . in abundance on hillside between Calla Swamp and Bateman’s Pond ”)

Rain and hail.

April 20. 

P. M. – Rain-storm begins, with hail.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 20, 1858

See April 17, 1856 (“I heard a thousand hailstones strike and bounce on the roof at once. . . a skirmish between the cool rear-guard of winter and the warm and earnest vanguard of summer.”); April 22, 1856 (“These rain-storms -- this is the third day of one -- characterize 'the season, and belong rather to winter than to summer.”)

See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, April 20

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 ©  2009-2023

Spend the day hunting for my boat, which was stolen.

April 19. 

Spend the day hunting for my boat, which was stolen. 

As I go up the riverside, I see a male marsh hawk hunting. He skims along exactly over the edge of the water, on the meadowy side, not more than three or four feet from the ground and winding with the shore, looking for frogs, for in such a tortuous line do the frogs sit. They probably know about what time to expect his visits, being regularly decimated.

Particular hawks farm particular meadows. It must be easy for him to get a breakfast. Far as I can see with a glass, he is still tilting this way and that over the water-line. 

At Fair Haven Pond I see, half a mile off, eight large water-fowl, which I thought at first were large ducks, though their necks appeared long. Studying them patiently with a glass, I found that they had gray backs, black heads and necks with perhaps green reflections, white breasts, dark tips to tails, and a white spot about eyes on each side of bill. At first the whole bird had looked much darker, like black ducks. I did not know but they might be brant or some very large ducks, but at length inclined to the opinion that they were geese. 

At 5.30, being on the Common, I saw a small flock of geese going over northeast. Being reminded of the birds of the morning and their number, I looked again and found that there were eight of them, and probably they were the same I had seen. 

Viola ovata on bank above Lee's Cliff. Edith Emerson found them there yesterday; also columbines and the early potentilla April 13th !!! 

I hear the pine warblers there, and also what I thought a variation of its note, quite different, yet I thought not unfamiliar to me. 

Afterwards, along the wall under the Middle Conantum Cliff, I saw many goldfinches, male and female, the males singing in a very sprightly and varied manner, sitting still on bare trees. Also uttered their watery twitter and their peculiar mewing. 

In the meanwhile I heard a faint thrasher's note, as if faintly but perfectly imitated by some bird twenty or thirty rods off. This surprised me very much. It was equally rich and varied, and yet I did not believe it to be a thrasher. Determined to find out the singer, I sat still with my glass in hand, and at length detected the singer, a goldfinch sitting within gunshot all the while. 

This was the most varied and sprightly performer of any bird I have heard this year, and it is strange that I never heard the strain before. It may be this note which is taken for the thrasher’s before the latter comes. 

P. M. — Down river. 

I find that my Rana halecina spawn in the house is considerably further advanced than that left in the meadows. The latter is not only deeper beneath the surface now, on account of the rain, but has gathered dirt from the water, so that the jelly itself is now plainly seen; and some of it has been killed, probably by frost, being exposed at the surface. I hear the same tut tut tut, probably of the halecina, still there, though not so generally as before. 

See two or three yellow lilies nearly open, showing most of their yellow, beneath the water; say in two or three days. 

Rice tells me of winging a sheldrake once just below Fair Haven Pond, and pursuing it in a boat as it swam down the stream, till it went ashore at Hubbard’s Wood and crawled into a woodchuck’s hole about a rod from the water on a wooded bank. He could see its tail and pulled it out. 

He tells of seeing cartloads of lamprey eels in the spawning season clinging to the - stones at a dam in Saco, and that if you spat on a stone and cast it into the swift water above them they would directly let go and wiggle down the stream and you could hear their tails snap like whips on the surface, as if the spittle was poison to them; but if you did not spit on the stone, they would not let go. 

He thinks that a flock of geese will sometimes stop for a wounded one to get well. 

Hear of bluets found on Saturday, the 17th; how long? 

Hear a toad ring at 9 P. M. Perhaps I first hear them at night, though cooler, because it is still. 

R. W. E. saw an anemone on the 18th.

H.D. Thoreau,  Journal, April 19, 1858

He skims along exactly over the edge of the water, on the meadowy side, not more than three or four feet from the ground and winding with the shore, looking for frogs. See note to April 22, 1856 (“A marsh hawk, in the midst of the rain, is skimming along the shore of the meadow, close to the ground, . . .  It is looking for frogs.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Marsh Hawk (Northern Harrier)

I hear the pine warblers there, and also what I thought a variation of its note, quite different, yet I thought not unfamiliar to me. See April 12, 1858 ("The woods are all alive with pine warblers now. Their note is the music to which I survey"); April 15, 1859 ("Go to a warm pine wood-side on a pleasant day at this season after storm, and hear it ring with the jingle of the pine warbler"); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler

Along the wall under the Middle Conantum Cliff, I saw many goldfinches, male and female, the males singing in a very sprightly and varied manner, sitting still on bare trees. Also uttered their watery twitter and their peculiar mewing. See April 7, 1855 (“See thirty or forty goldfinches in a dashing flock, in all respects (notes and all) like lesser redpolls, on the trees by Wood’s Causeway and on the railroad bank. There is a general twittering and an occasional mew.”)


In the meanwhile I heard a faint thrasher's note, as if faintly but perfectly imitated by some bird. See April 15, 1859 ("Hear a goldfinch, after a loud mewing on an apple tree, sing in a rich and varied way, as if imitating some other bird. . . . Also a catbird mews? [Could this have been a goldfinch?]"); August 11, 1858 ("The goldfinch is a very fine and powerful singer, and the most successful and remarkable mocking-bird that we have. In the spring I heard it imitate the thrasher exactly, before that bird had arrived, and now it imitates the purple finch.");

Viola ovata on bank above Lee's Cliff. Edith Emerson found them there yesterday. See April 27, 1860 ("Viola ovata common."); April 29, 1855 (“Viola ovata will open to-morrow.”); May 1, 1856 ("Viola ovata on southwest side of hill, high up near pines.”); May 5, 1853 ("The Emerson children found blue and white violets May 1st at Hubbard's Close, probably Viola ovata and blanda; but I have not been able to find any yet.");  May 6, 1855 (“Beyond Clamshell, some white Viola ovata, some with a faint bluish tinge.”); May 9, 1852 (“ That I observed the first of May was a V. ovata, a variety of sagittate. [arrowhead violet]”)

Frogs are strange creatures.

April 18.

April 18, 2018

P. M. – To Hubbard's Grove. 

A dandelion open; will shed pollen to-morrow. 

The Rana sylvatica tadpoles have mostly wiggled away from the ova. 

Put some R. halecina spawn which has flatted out in a ditch on Hubbard’s land. 

I saw in those ditches many small pickerel, landlocked, which appeared to be transversely barred! They bury themselves in the mud at my approach.

Examined the pools and ditches in that neighborhood, i.e. of Skull-Cap Ditch, for frogs. All that I saw distinctly, except two R. fontinalis, were what I have considered young bullfrogs, middling-sized frogs with a greenish-brown back and a throat commonly white or whitish. 

I saw in a deep and cold pool some spawn placed just like that of the R. sylvatica and the R. halecina, – it was in the open field, – and the only frog I could distinguish near it was a middling sized one, or larger, with a yellow throat, not distinctly green, but brown or greenish-brown above, but green along each upper jaw. A small portion of bright golden ring about the eye was to be seen in front. 

In the spring near by, I see two unquestionable R. fontinalis, one much the largest and with brighter mottlings, probably on account of the season. The upper and forward part of their bodies distinct green, but their throats, white or whitish, not yellow. 

There were also two small and dark-colored frogs, yet with a little green tinge about the snouts, in the same spring.

I suspect that all these frogs may be the R. fontinalis, and none of them bullfrogs. Certainly those two unquestionable R. fontinalis had no yellow to throats, and probably they vary very much in the greenness of the back. Those two were not so much barred on the legs as mottled, and in one the mottlings had quite bright halos. They had the yellow segment in front part of eye, as also had the two smallest. Have the bullfrogs this? I doubt if I have seen a bullfrog yet.

I should say, with regard to that spawn, that I heard in the neighboring pool the stertorous tut tut tut like the R. halecina, and also one dump sound.

Frogs are strange creatures. One would describe them as peculiarly wary and timid, another as equally bold and imperturbable. 

All that is required in studying them is patience. You will sometimes walk a long way along a ditch and hear twenty or more leap in one after another before you, and see where they rippled the water, without getting sight of one of them. 

Sometimes, as this afternoon the two R. fontinalis, when you approach a pool or spring a frog hops in and buries itself at the bottom. You sit down on the brink and wait patiently for his reappearance. After a quarter of an hour or more he is sure to rise to the surface and put out his nose quietly without making a ripple, eying you steadily. At length he becomes as curious about you as you can be about him. He suddenly hops straight toward [you], pausing within a foot, and takes a near and leisurely view of you.

Perchance you may now scratch its nose with your finger and examine it to your heart's content, for it is become as imperturbable as it was shy before. You conquer them by superior patience and immovableness; not by quickness, but by slowness; not by heat, but by coldness. 

You see only a pair of heels disappearing in the weedy bottom, and, saving a few insects, the pool becomes as smooth as a mirror and apparently as uninhabited. At length, after half an hour, you detect a frog's snout and a pair of eyes above the green slime, turned toward you, -etc.

It is evident that the frog spawn is not accidentally placed, simply adhering to the stubble that may be nearest, but the frog chooses a convenient place to deposit it; for in the above-named pool there was no stout stubble rising above the surface except at one side, and there the spawn was placed.

It is remarkable how much the musquash cuts up the weeds at the bottom of pools and ditches, – burreed, sweet flags, pontederia, yellow lily, fine, grass like rushes, and now you see it floating on the surface, sometimes apparently where it has merely burrowed along the bottom.

I see where a ditch was cut a few years ago in a winding course, and now a young hedge of alders is springing up from the bottom on one side, winding with the ditch. The seed has evidently been caught in it, as in a trap.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 18, 1858

A dandelion open; will shed pollen to-morrow. See April 18, 1860 ("Melvin has seen a dandelion in bloom. "). See also April 29, 1857 ("I commonly meet with the earliest dandelion set in the midst of some liquid green patch. It seems a sudden and decided progress in the season.")

I suspect that all these frogs may be the R. fontinalis, and none of them bullfrogs. See  April 5, 1858 ("What I call the young bullfrog, about two and a half inches long, — though it has no yellow on throat. It has a bright-golden ring outside of the iris as far as I can see round it. Is this the case with the bullfrog? May it not be a young Rana fontinalis?"); see also Peabody Museum,  Green Frog - Rana clamitans ("often green, however, dorsal coloration can also be brown, black or even grayish. The upper lip is usually bright green, but not always. ... Often confused with the American Bullfrog, which lacks the complete dorsolateral ridge and has a yellow-green belly.") and A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Identifying the Green Frog in Spring (Rana Fontinalis)

You conquer them by superior patience and immovableness; not by quickness, but by slowness. See April 15, 1858 ("The naturalist accomplishes a great deal by patience, more perhaps than by activity. He must take his position, and then wait and watch. It is equally true of quadrupeds and reptiles. Sit still in the midst of their haunts. ")

The female flowers of the alder are now very pretty when seen against the sun.

April 17.

P. M. – Via Assabet to Coral Rock. 

See several kingfishers. Red-wings still in flocks, and crow blackbirds feeding amid leaves by Assabet side, half a dozen together. 

The female flowers of the alder are now very pretty when seen against the sun, bright-crimson. 

I take up a wood turtle on the shore, whose sternum is covered with small ants. 

The sedge is shooting up in the meadows, erect, rigid, and sharp, a glaucous green unlike that of the grass on banks. 

The linnaea-like plant turns out to be golden saxifrage. Its leaf is the same form, but smooth and not shrubby. 

The Rana halecina spawn in tumbler begins to struggle free of the ova, but it is not so much developed as the R. sylvatica. Some of the first may be a little more forward in the meadows. I see some to-day, probably this kind, flatted out, though I do not see the frog. It made the same sound, however. The R. sylvatica is probably generally the earliest.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 17, 1858

The female flowers of the alder are now very pretty when seen against the sun, bright-crimson. See April 8, 1859 ("The fertile flowers are an interesting bright crimson in the sun.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Alders

I take up a wood turtle on the shore, whose sternum is covered with small ants.  See. April 17, 1859 ("A wood tortoise on bank; first seen."); see also. April 6, 1855 (" I see a large wood tortoise just crawled out upon the bank, with three oval, low, bug-like leeches on its sternum."); May 7, 1858 ("I see a wood tortoise by the river there, half covered with the old withered leaves. Taking it up, I find that it must have lain perfectly still there for some weeks,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Turtlw (Emys insculpta)

Fish embryos suddenly hatched

April 16

My fish ova in a tumbler has gradually expanded till it is some three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, and for more than a week the embryos have been conspicuously active, hardly still enough to be observed with a microscope. Their tails, eyes, pectoral fins, etc., were early developed and conspicuous. They keep up a regular jerking motion as they lie curved in the egg, and so develop themselves. 

This morning I set them in the sun, and, looking again soon after, found that they were suddenly hatched, and more than half of them were free of the egg. They were nearly a quarter of an inch long, or longer than the diameter of a perfect egg. The substance of the egg-shell seemed to have expanded and softened, and the embryo by its incessant quirking elongated it so that it was able to extend itself at full length. It then almost incessantly kept up a vibratory motion of its tail and its pectoral fins, and every few moments it bunted against the side of the egg, wearing it away and extending it, till it broke through. Sometimes it got its head out first and then struggled many minutes before it escaped completely. 

It was a pretty sight to see them all rising immediately to the surface by means of the tail and pectoral fins, the first vibrating from one twentieth to one thirtieth of an inch, at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and then, ceasing their motions, they steadily settled down again. Think of the myriads of these minnows set free of a warm morning, and rising and falling in this wise in their native element!!

(Some are still in the egg on the 18th.) 

The incessant activity of these minnows, and apparent vigor, are surprising. Already they dart swiftly an inch one side like little pickerel, tender as they are, carrying the yolk with them, which gradually diminishes, as I notice, in a day or two after. They have no snouts yet, or only blunt and rounded ones. I have not detected any general resting even at night, though they often rest on the bottom day or night. 

They are remarkably aroused when placed in the morning sun. This sets them all in motion. Looking at them through a jar between you and the sun, a hundred at once, they reflect the colors of the rainbow, — some purple, others violet, green, etc., etc. It is a wonder how they survive the accidents of their condition. 

By what instinct do they keep together in a school? I think that the spawn could not have been laid long when I found it April 3d, it was so perfect and the embryo so slightly, if at all, developed. That was a sudden very warm day. In that case, they may be hatched in a fortnight. That appeared to have been a general breeding-place for this species of fish. I looked a good while on the 14th, but could find none near home. 

My hylodes in the tumbler will always hop to the side toward the window as fast as I turn it. 

We may think these days of the myriads of fishes just hatched which come rising to the surface. The water swarms with them as with the mosquito.

P. M. — To Conantum. 

The Rana sylvatica spawn at Hubbard's Grove begins to kick free. This is early. I put some in a bottle, which being shaken in my walk, I find the embryos all separated from the ova when I get home. These are now regular little pollywogs and wiggle about in a lively manner when the water is shaken. 

They are chiefly tail and head. They look like the samara of the ash, and in both cases this winged or feather-like tail it is that transports them. I can already see their little feet or fins. 

The bodkin-like bulb, considerably grown, in my tumbler and elsewhere, is probably the water-purslane. I see it floating free and sending out many rootlets, on pools and ditches. In this way it spreads itself. 

The earliest red maple I can see in this walk is well out, on the Hubbard Bridge causeway. Probably some was yesterday. 

I sat a long time by the little pool behind Lee's, to see the hylodes. Not one was heard there; only the skater insects were slightly rippling the surface, pursuing one another and breeding amid the grass. The bottom is covered with pretty proserpinaca. 

At length I see one hylodes with heels up, burying itself at the bottom. How wary they are! After nearly half an hour I see one sitting out on a blade of the floating purple grass, but down he goes again. They see or hear you three or four rods off. They are more active toward night.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, April 16, 1858


I think that the spawn could not have been laid long when I found it April 3d, it was so perfect and the embryo so slightly, if at all, developed. For more than a week the embryos have been conspicuously active, as they lie curved in the egg. This morning I  found that they were suddenly hatched, and more than half of them were free of the egg. See April 3, 1858 (“When returning, we discovered, on the south side of the river, just at the old crossing-place from the Great Meadows, north of the ludwigia pool, a curious kind of spawn. It was white, each ovum about as big as a robin-shot or larger, with mostly a very minute white core, no black core, and these were agglutinated together in the form of zigzag hollow cylinders, two or three inches in diameter and one or two feet long, looking like a lady's ruff or other muslin work, on the bottom or on roots and twigs of willow and button-bush, where the water was two or three feet deep. The greater part lay on the bottom, looking like a film, these cylinders being somewhat coiled about there. When you took it up, the two sides fell together, and it was flat in your hand like the leg of a stocking. In one place there were a dozen very large red-bellied and brown-backed leeches in it, evidently battening on it. ); April 7, 1858 ("I brought home t... two kinds of spawn in a pail. ... The other (probably fish) spawn is seen to be arranged in perfect hexagons; i. e., the ova so impinge on each other; but where there is a vent or free side, it is a regular arc of a circle. Is not this the form that spheres pressing on each other equally on all sides assume? I see the embryo, already fish-like (?), curved round the yolk, with a microscope.”); April 14, 1858 (“My Rana halecina spawn in tumbler is now flatted out and begins to betray the pollywog form. I had already noticed a little motion in it from time to time, but nothing like the incessant activity of the embryo fishes. . . .At Ed. Hoar's in the evening.. . .. with his microscope I see the heart beating in the embryo fish and the circulations distinctly along the body.”); April 22, 1858 (“The spawn of April 18th is gone! It was fresh there and apparently some creature has eaten it.”)April 24, 1858 (“I find that my fish ova were not all killed some weeks ago in the firkin, as I supposed, for many that were accidentally left in it have hatched, and they bore the cold of last night better than those hatched earlier and kept in the larger vessel (tub), which froze but thinly, while the firkin froze a quarter of an inch thick last night.”); April 27, 1858 (“I noticed yesterday that again the newly laid spawn at the cold pool on Hubbard's land was all gone, and that in the larger pool south of it was much diminished. What creature devours it? ”); April 27, 1858 (“My young fishes had the pectoral fins and tail very early developing, but not yet can I detect any other fins with my glass. They had mouths, which I saw them open as soon as hatched, and more and more a perch-like head. I think that with Hoar's microscope I detected two dorsal fins such as the perch have. ”); April 30, 2018 ("I carry the rest of my little fishes, fifteen or twenty, to the cold pool in Hubbard's ground. They are about a quarter-inch long still, and have scarcely increased in length.”); June 16, 1858 ("Looking into Hubbard's Pool, I at length see one of the minims which I put into it. I brought the last here April 30th. It is now a little perch about an inch and a quarter long; it was then about a quarter of an inch long. I can now see the transverse bars a rod off. It is swimming actively round and round the pool, but avoids the quite shallow water of the edges, so it does not get landlocked or lost in the weedy overflowed edges. I put twenty or thirty into this pool in all. They grow very fast, then, at last.”)

The earliest red maple I can see in this walk is well out. See April 24, 1854 ("The first red maple blossoms — so very red over the water — are very interesting");. April 26, 1855 ("The blossoms of the red maple (some a yellowish green) are now most generally conspicuous and handsome scarlet crescents over the swamps.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Maple

I sat a long time by the little pool behind Lee's, to see the hylodes. Not one was heard there; . . How wary they are! See March 31, 1857 (" If you do not listen carefully for its first note, you probably will not hear it, and, not having heard that, your ears become used to the sound, so that you will hardly notice it at last, however loud and universal.. . . The shrill peeping of the hylodes locates itself nowhere in particular.")

My hylodes in the tumbler will always hop to the side toward the window as fast as I turn it. See  April 15, 1858 ("Catch a peeper at Hayden’s Pool. I suspect it may have been a female . . . It was a pale fawn-color out of water, nine tenths of an inch long, marked with dusky like this though not so distinctly. It could easily climb up the side of a tumbler, and jumped eighteen inches at once.")