Looked for the black duck's nest.

June 23. 

June 23, 2017

Skinner, the harness-maker, tells me that he found a black duck's nest Sunday before the last, i. e. the 14th, with perhaps a dozen eggs in it, a mere hollow on the top of a tussock, four or five feet within a clump of bushes forming an islet (in the spring) in Hubbard's great meadow. He scared up the duck when within a few feet. 

Pratt says he knows of a black walnut at Hunt's on Ponkawtasset. 

P. M. — Looked for the black duck's nest, but could find no trace of it. Probably the duck led her young to the river as soon as hatched. What with gunners, dogs, pickerel, bullfrogs, hawks, etc., it is a wonder if any of them escape. 

Small rudbeckia, i. e. hirta, at Hubbard's Bath.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 23, 1857

Small rudbeckia, i. e. hirta . . . See June 20, 1856 ("Rudbeckia hirta budded.”); July 31, 1856 (“Measured a Rudbeckia hirta flower; more than three inches and three eighths in diameter.”)

A black duck's nest a mere hollow on the top of a tussock, four or five feet within a clump of bushes forming an islet . See June 24, 1857 ("Melvin thinks there cannot be many black ducks' nests in the town, else his dog would find them"); June 4, 1856 (“found, on a hummock in the open swamp, in the midst of bushes, at the foot of a pitch pine, a nest about ten inches over, made of dry sedge and moss. I think it must have been a duck’s nest.”);