Frogs are perfect thermometers.

April 30. 

April 30, 2018

P. M. – 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. 

I learn that one farmer, seeing me standing a long time still in the midst of a pool (I was watching for hylodes), said that it was his father, who had been drinking some of Pat Haggerty's rum, and had lost his way home. So, setting out to lead him home, he discovered that it was I. 

I find a Fringilla melodia nest with five eggs. Part, at least, must have been laid before the snow of the 27th, but it is perfectly sheltered under the shelving turf and grass on the brink of a ditch. The snow would not even have touched the bird sitting on them. 

It is much warmer, and now for the first time since April 23d I find frogs out. (Perhaps I could have found some yesterday.) 

I noticed one of the large scroll ferns, with its rusty wool, up eight inches on the 28th. 

See a white-throated sparrow by Cheney's wall, the stout, chubby bird. 

After sundown. By riverside. —The frogs and toads are now fairly awake. Both are most musical now at evening. I hear now on various sides, along the river and its meadows, that low, stertorous sound, like that of the Rana halecina, – which I have heard occasionally for a few days. (I also hear it in Stow's field by railroad, with toads’ ringing.) It is exceedingly like the note of the R. halecina, yet I fancy it is some what more softly purring, with frequently a low quivering, chuckling, or inquisitive croak, which last takes the place of the bullfrog-like er er er of the halecina. This is the only difference between it and the halecina that I am sure of. The short quivering croak reminds me of the alarm (?) note of the hylodes. I suspect it is the R. palustris, now breeding. 

I hear no snipe. 

Frogs, etc., are perfect thermometers. Some that I had in a firkin were chilled to stiffness, while their fellows buried themselves again in the mud of the meadows; i.e., in a cold night at this season they are stiffened in a tub of water, the small R. palustris, not being able to bury themselves in mud. They appear to lose their limbs or portions of them, which slough off in consequence.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 30, 1858

I find a Fringilla melodia nest with five eggs. See June 14, 1855 ("A song sparrow’s nest in ditch bank under Clamshell, of coarse grass lined with fine, and five eggs nearly hatched and a peculiar dark end to them."); June 9, 1855 ("A song sparrow’s nest low in Wheeler’s meadow, with five eggs, made of grass lined with hair."); May 27, 1856 ("Fringilla melodia’s nest in midst of swamp, with four eggs, made partly of usnea; . . . eggs with very dark blotches"); 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 also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia)


Standing a long time still in the midst of a pool watching for hylodes. See April 18, 1858 ("All that is required in studying them is patience"); and  note to March 27, 1853 ("Stood perfectly still amid the bushes on the shore, before one showed himself; finally five or six, and all eyed me, gradually approached me within three feet to reconnoitre, and, though I waited about half an hour, would not utter a sound.")

It is some what more softly purring, with frequently a low quivering, chuckling, or inquisitive croak. See  May 23, 1856 ("The ring of toads is loud and incessant. . . .At the same time I hear a low, stertorous, dry, but hard-cored note from some frog in the meadows and along the riverside; often heard in past years but not accounted for. Is it a Rana palustris?"); May 8. 1857 ("It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs (which I suspect to be Rana palustris). . . . Their croak is very fine or rapid, and has a soft, purring sound at a little distance.") A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the  Rana palustris Pickerel frog (Lithobates palustris)

A little brown snake with blackish marks.

April 29. 

Storrow Higginson plucked the uva-ursi fully out the 25th; perhaps two or three days, for it was nearly out, he says, the 18th!!! By his account it was on Pine Hill.  

I heard yesterday at Ledum Swamp the lively, sweet, yet somewhat whimsical note of the ruby crowned wren, and had sight of him a moment. Did I not hear it there the 10th? 

Noticed a man killing, on the sidewalk by Minott's, a little brown snake with blackish marks along each side of back and a pink belly. Was it not the Coluber amaenus?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 29, 1858

Heard yesterday at Ledum Swamp the lively, sweet, yet somewhat whimsical note of the ruby crowned wren.  See April 25, 1854 (“A very interesting and active little fellow, darting about amid the tree-tops, and his song quite remarkable and rich and loud for his size. Begins with a very fine note, before its pipes are filled, not audible at a little distance, then woriter weter, etc., etc., winding up with teter teter, all clear and round. (His song is comical and reminds me of the thrasher.)”);  May 6, 1855 ("Hear at a distance a ruby(?)-crowned wren, so robin-like and spirited.  . . . I think this the only Regulus I have ever seen.”); April 30, 1857 (“Hear again the same bird heard at Conantum April 18th, which I think must be the ruby-crowned wren. ”); April 26, 1860 ("Hear the ruby-crowned wren in the morning, near George Heywood’s.”). See also note to April 20, 1859 ("My ruby-crowned or crested wren”) and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau: the ruby-crowned or crested wren.

A man killing a little brown snake with blackish marks along each side of back and a pink belly. See October 11, 1856 (“I find a little snake which somebody has killed with his heel. It is apparently Coluber amaenus, the red snake. Brown above, light-red beneath, about eight inches long . . . It is a conspicuous light red beneath, then a bluish-gray line along the sides, and above this brown with a line of lighter or yellowish brown down the middle of the back. ”); September 9, 1857 ("On my way home, caught one of those little red bellied snakes in the road, where it was rather slugish, as usual. Saw another in the road a week or two ago. The whole length was eight inches. . .It was a dark ash-color above, with darker longitudinal lines, light brick-red beneath. There were three triangular buff spots just behind the head, one above and one each side. It is apparently Coluber amaenus”). See also April 26, 1857 ("I have the same objection to killing a snake that I have to the killing of any other animal, yet the most humane man that I know never omits to kill one.”). Compare April 22, 1857 (“Near Tall's Island, rescue a little pale or yellowish brown snake that was coiled round a willow half a dozen rods from the shore and was apparently chilled by the cold. Was it not Storer's "little brown snake?”) ~ rebellied snake or worm snake or both?: Snakes of Massachusetts

A time to see the osprey.

April 28. 

Blustering northwest wind and wintry aspect. 

April 28, 2018

A. M. — Down river to look at willows. 

The common S. cordata apparently not yet within two days at least. This salix is not always conspicuously double-scaled, nor is the scale carried up on the catkin. It is not always even on that of the S. Torreyana. 

I see the fish hawk again . . . As it flies low, directly over my head, I see that its body is white beneath, and the white on the forward side of the wings beneath, if extended across the breast, would form a regular crescent. Its wings do not form a regular curve in front, but an abrupt angle. They are loose and broad at tips. This bird goes fishing slowly down one side of the river and up again on the other, forty to sixty feet high, continually poising itself almost or quite stationary, with its head to the northwest wind and looking down, flapping its wings enough to keep its place, some times stationary for about a minute. It is not shy. This boisterous weather is the time to see it. 

I see the myrtle-bird in the same sunny place, south of the Island woods, as formerly. Thus are the earliest seen each spring in some warm and calm place by the waterside, when it is cool and blustering elsewhere. 

The barn swallows and a martin are already skimming low over that small area of smooth water within a few feet of me, never leaving that spot, and I do not observe them thus playing elsewhere. Incessantly stooping back and forth there. 

P. M. — To Ledum Swamp. 

At Clamshell Ditch, one Equisetum sylvaticum will apparently open to-morrow. 

Strawberries are abundantly out there; how long?

Some Salix tristis, bank near baeomyces. Did I not put it too early in last year's list of willows? Probably earlier elsewhere? 

The snow was generally gone about 10 A.M., except in circular patches in the shadow of the still leafless trees.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 28, 1858

This boisterous weather is the time to see it. See April 28, 1860 (" Sitting on Mt. Misery, I see a very large bird of the hawk family, blackish with a partly white head but no white tail, - probably a fish hawk; sail quite near, looking very large. "); April 14, 1852 (“The streams break up; the ice goes to the sea. Then sails the fish hawk overhead, looking for his prey.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Osprey (Fish Hawk)

Thus are the earliest seen each spring in some warm and calm place by the waterside, when it is cool and blustering elsewhere. See April 28, 1855 ("In a cold and windy day like this you can find more birds than in a serene one, because they are collected under the wooded hillsides in the sun.”)

At Clamshell Ditch, one Equisetum sylvaticum will apparently open to-morrow. Strawberries are abundantly out. See May 6, 1856 (“Equisetum sylvaticum a day or two on the ditch bank there.”); May 10, 1857 (“This side Clamshell, strawberries and cinquefoil are abundant. Equisetum sylvaticum.”)

Snows hard in afternoon and evening. Quite wintry.

April 27. 

April 27, 2018

It has been so cold since the 23d that I have not been able to catch a single frog, have hardly seen where one jumped, as I walked through the meadows looking for them, though in some warmer places I heard a low stertorous R. halecina-like note from a few. 

The tortoises are stirring much more. 

Frogs appear to love warm and moist weather, rainy or cloudy. They will sit thickly along the shore, apparently small bullfrogs, etc., R. palustris. 

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. When I put them suddenly in the sun they sink and rest on the bottom a moment. 

In the French work for schools of Edwards and Comte, it is said that the perch spawns not till the age of three years, and in the spring. “The ova are joined together by some glutinous matter in long strings (codons) intertwined with the reeds.” (Page 36.) 

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? 

Snows hard in afternoon and evening. Quite wintry. About an inch on ground the next morning.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 27, 1858

It has been so cold since the 23d that I have not been able to catch a single frog. See April 24, 1858 (“This shows how sensitive they are to changes of temperature. Hardly one puts its head out of the water, if ever he creeps out the grassy or muddy bottom this cold day. ”)

The newly laid spawn at the cold pool on Hubbard's land was all gone. See April 22, 1858 (“The spawn of April 18th is gone! It was fresh there and apparently some creature has eaten it.”)

Snows hard in afternoon and evening. Quite wintry. See note to April 2, 1861 ("A drifting snow-storm, perhaps a foot deep on an average.”)

A little snow in the night.

April 26.

April 26 2018

A little snow in the night, which is seen against the fences this morning. 

See a chewink (male) in the Kettell place woods.

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, April 26, 1858


A little snow in the night. See April 26, 1860 ("A man came from Lincoln last night with an inch of snow on the wheels of his carriage.")

See a chewink (male) in the Kettell place woods. See April 26, 1855 ("See and hear chewinks, — all their strains; the same date with last year, by accident."); April 26, 1854 ("Hear the first chewink hopping and chewinking among the shrub oaks.”) See also  April 28, 1856 (“See, but not yet hear, the familiar chewink amid the dry leaves amid the underwood on the meadow’s edge.”) and  also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chewink (Rufous-sided Towhee)

Goodwin says he heard a stake-driver several days ago.

April 25.

P. M. — To Assabet. 

Approaching the Island, I hear the phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe, the sharp whistling note, of a fish hawk, and, looking round, see him just afterward launching away from one of the swamp white oaks southwest of the Island. 

There is about half a second between each note, and he utters them either while perched or while flying. He shows a great proportion of wing and some white on back. The wings are much curved. He sails along some eighty feet above the water’s edge, looking for fish, and alights again quite near. 

I see him an hour afterward about the same spot. 

See a barn swallow. Also see one myrtle-bird, and Goodwin says he heard a stake-driver several days ago.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 25, 1858

Approaching the Island, I hear the phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, phe, the sharp whistling note, of a fish hawk, and, looking round, see him just afterward launching away from one of the swamp white oaks. See April 28, 1858 (“ I see the fish hawk again . . . This bird goes fishing slowly down one side of the river and up again on the other, forty to sixty feet high, continually poising itself almost or quite stationary, with its head to the northwest wind and looking down, flapping its wings enough to keep its place, some times stationary for about a minute. It is not shy. This boisterous weather is the time to see it. ”) Compare April 15, 1855 ("Half a mile further we see another fish hawk upon a dead limb midway up a swamp white oak over the water. . . When he launches off, he utters a clear whistling note, — phe phe, phe phe, phe phe, — somewhat like that of a telltale, but more round and less shrill and rapid, and another, perhaps his mate, fifty rods off, joins him. "); April 16, 1856 ("As I walk along the bank of the Assabet, I hear the yeep yeep yeep yeeep yeeep yeep, or perhaps peop, of a fish hawk, repeated quite fast, but not so shrill and whistling as I think I have heard it, and directly I see his long curved wings undulating over Pinxter Swamp, now flooded.”) See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Osprey (Fish Hawk)

Stake-Driver

Goodwin says he heard a stake-driver [the American Bittern]. See March 22, 1855 ("The river has skimmed over a rod in breadth along the sides. See a heavy-flapping, bittern-like bird flying northeast. It was small for a fish hawk. Can it be the stake-driver ? or a gull? "); April 24, 1854 ("A.M. — Up railroad. . . . As I stand still listening on the frosty sleepers at Wood's crossing by the lupines, I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself."); May 9, 1857 ("Hear stake-driver."); May 12, 1855 (“We sit about half an hour, and it is surprising what various distinct sounds we hear there deep in the wood, as if the aisles of the wood were so many ear trumpets,-- the cawing of crows, the peeping of hylas in the swamp and perhaps the croaking of a tree-toad, the oven-bird, the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush, a distant stake-driver, the night-warbler and black and white creeper, the lowing of cows, the late supper horn, the voices of boys, the singing of girls, -- not all together but separately, distinctly, and musically, from where the partridge and the red-tailed hawk and the screech owl sit on their nests.”) May 20, 1856 ("See and hear a stake-driver in the swamp. It took one short pull at its pump and stopped."); June 11, 1860 ("Just as we are shoving away from this isle, I hear a sound just like a small dog barking hoarsely, and, looking up, see it was made by a bittern (Ardea minor), a pair of which flap over the meadows and probably nest in some tussock thereabouts."); June 15, 1857 ("as I passed a swamp, a bittern boomed."); July 22, 1859 ("Heard from a bittern, a peculiar hoarse, grating note, lazily uttered as it flew over the meadows. A bittern's croak: a sound perfectly becoming the bird, as far as possible from music."); August 5, 1854 (Near Lee's (returning), see a large bittern, pursued by small birds, alight on the shorn meadow near the pickerel-weeds, but, though I row to the spot, he effectually conceals himself.); August 13, 1852 ("Saw the head and neck of a great bittern projecting above the meadow-grass, exactly like the point of a stump, only I knew there could be no stump there.")August 22, 1854 ("See a blue heron — apparently a young bird, of a brownish blue — fly up from one of these pools, and a stake-driver from another, and also see their great tracks on the mud, and the feathers they had shed,"); August 31, 1855 ("Passed in boat within fifteen feet of a great bittern, standing perfectly still in the water by the riverside, with the point of its bill directly up, as if it knew that from the color of its throat, etc., it was much less likely to be detected in that position, near weeds."); September 20, 1851 ("I scare up the great bittern in meadow by the Heywood Brook near the ivy. He rises buoyantly as he flies against the wind, and sweeps south over the willow with outstretched neck, surveying."); September 20, 1855 ("The great bittern, as it flies off from near the rail road bridge, filthily drops its dirt and utters a low hoarse kwa kwa; then runs and hides in the grass, and I land and search within ten feet of it before it rises. "); September 25, 1855 ("Scare up the usual great bittern above the railroad bridge, whose hoarse qua qua, as it flies heavily off, a pickerel-fisher on the bank imitates.");; October 26, 1858 ("[Minott] says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot. ” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, American Bittern (the Stake-Diver)

I go at 8 A.M. to catch frogs to compare with the R. palustris.

April 24.

A cold northwest wind.

April 24, 2018

I go at 8 A.M. to catch frogs to compare with the R. palustris and bull frog which I have, but I find it too cold for them. Though I walk more than a mile along the river, I do not get sight of one, and only of one or two turtles. Neither do I find any more frogs (though many Emys picta) at 4 P. M., it being still cold. 

Yet the frogs were quite numerous yesterday. This shows how sensitive they are to changes of temperature. Hardly one puts its head out of the water, if ever he creeps out the grassy or muddy bottom this cold day. 

That proserpinaca deserves to be named after the frog, — ranunculus, or what-not, — it is so common and pretty at the bottom the shallow grassy pools where I go looking for spawn. 

It is remarkable that I see many E. picta dead along the shore, dead within a few weeks apparently, also a sternothaerus. One of the last, alive, emitted no odor to-day. 

I find washed up by the riverside part of a pale-greenish egg-shell bigger than a hen’s egg, which was probably the egg of a duck laid on the meadow last year or lately. 

There is an abundance of the R. halecina spawn near the elm at the hill shore north of Dodd's. It is now semiopaque, greenish, and flatted down and run together, mostly hatched; and a good deal has been killed, apparently by the cold. The water thereabouts is swarming with the young pollywogs for a rod about, but where have all the frogs hidden themselves? 

E. Hoar saw the myrtle-bird to-day. 

The pollywogs must be a long time growing, for I see those of last year not more than two inches long, also some much larger. 

The hatched frog-spawn is quite soft and apparently dissolving at last in the water. Yet possibly that mass of jelly once brought me on a stake was this jelly consolidated. 

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.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 24, 1858

Many Emys picta. See April 24, 1856 ("A young Emys Picta one and five eighths inches long and one and a half wide. . . . already covered with some kind of green moss."); See also March 28, 1857 ("The Emys picta, now pretty numerous . . .He who painted the tortoise thus, what were his designs?");  April 22, 1858 ("The Emys picta are evidently breeding also.") and  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

A sternothaerus emitted no odor to-day. See April 1, 1858 ("I see six Sternothaarus odoratus . . . and smelt of five of these, and they emitted none of their peculiar scent! It would seem, then, that this may be connected with their breeding, or at least with their period of greatest activity.");   June 16, 1858 ("Two sternothaerus which I smell of have no scent to-day.  ")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musk Turtle (Sternothaerus odoratus )

That proserpinaca [palustris] deserves to be named after the frog:  Rana palustris, the pickerel frog; Proserpinaca is a genus of flowering plants found in aquatic or terrestrial wetland habitat  Palustris is a Latin word meaning swampy or marshy often used for species names to refer to the typical habitat of the species. ~ Wikipedia

There is an abundance of the R. halecina spawn near the elm at the hill shore north of Dodd's. The water thereabouts is swarming with the young pollywogs for a rod about. See April 14, 1858 (“My Rana halecina spawn in tumbler is now flatted out and begins to betray the pollywog form.”); 

I find that my fish ova were not all killed some weeks ago in the firkin, as I supposed. See note to April 16, 1858 ("I think that the spawn could not have been laid long when I found it April 3d, . . .My fish ova in a tumbler has gradually expanded ... (Some are still in the egg on the 18th.)")

Catch two Rana palustris coupled.

April 23. 

Bloodroot
April 25,2014

I receive to-day Sanguinaria Canadensis [bloodroot] from Brattleboro, well in bloom, - how long?- in a large box full of mayflowers. 

The toads ring now by day, but not very loud nor generally. 

I see the large head apparently of a bullfrog, by the riverside. 

Many middle-sized frogs, apparently bull frogs, green above and more or less dark-spotted, with either yellow or white throats, sitting along the water's edge now. 

Catch two Rana palustris coupled. They jump together into the river. 

The male is two and a quarter inches long. This I find to be about an average-sized one of four or five that I distinguish. Above, pale-brown or fawn-brown (another, which I think is a male from the size and the equally bright yellow of the abdomen and inside of limbs, is dusky-brown, and next day both the males are of this color; so you must notice the change of color of frogs), with two rows of very oblong, two or three or more times as long as broad, squarish-ended dark-brown spots with a light-brown edge, the rear ones becoming smaller and roundish: also a similar row along each side, and, beneath it, a row of smaller roundish spots; as Storer says, a large roundish spot on the upper and inner side of each orbit and one on the top of the head before it; the throat and forward part of the belly, cream-colored; abdomen and inside of the limbs bright ochreous-yellow, part of which is seen in looking at the back of the frog. Tympanum slightly convex in middle. 

Rana Palustris

The female is about an eighth of an inch longer (another one is three quarters of an inch longer), beside being now fuller (probably of spawn). The pale brown, or fawn-brown, is more brassy or bronze-like and does not become darker next day. She has no very oblong squarish spots on back, but smaller and roundish ones and many fine dusky spots interspersed; is thickly dark spotted on sides. Throat and belly, white or pale cream-color; sides of abdomen only and inside of limbs, much paler yellow than the male; has no dark spots on orbits or on head in front (another specimen has). 

Saw a Viola blanda in a girl's hand.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 23, 1858

The toads ring now by day, but not very loud nor generally. See April 13, 1858 ("Hear the first toad in the rather cool rain."); April 18, 1855 ("In the evening hear far and wide the ring of toads,"); April 19, 1858 (" Perhaps I first hear them at night, though cooler, because it is still. ");April 20, 1860 ("It is a warm evening, and I hear toads ring distinctly for the first time"); April 23, 1861 ("Toads ring");. April 25, 1856 ("The toads have begun fairly to ring at noonday. . . The voice of the toad, the herald of warmer weather"); May 1, 1858 (" The toads are so numerous, some sitting on all sides, that their ring is a continuous sound throughout the day and night. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The ring of toads

See the large head apparently of a bullfrog, by the riverside. Many middle-sized frogs, apparently bull frogs, green above and more or less dark-spotted, with either yellow or white throats,  sitting along the water's edge now. Catch two Rana palustris coupled. See April 17, 1855 (“Yesterday I saw several larger frogs out. Perhaps some were small bullfrogs. That warmth brought them out on to the bank, and they jumped in before me. The general stirring of frogs. To-day I see a Rana palustris — I think the first — and a middling sized bullfrog, I think. ”); April 18, 1858 (" I suspect that all these frogs may be the R. fontinalis, and none of them bullfrogs.. . . I doubt if I have seen a bullfrog yet.”); April 27, 1856 (Apparently a small bullfrog by riverside, though it looks somewhat like a Rana fontinalis; also two or three (apparently) R. palustris in that well of Monroe’s, which have jumped in over the curb, perhaps.”);  May 1, 1858  ("I find many apparent young bullfrogs in the shaded pools on the Island Neck. Probably R. fontinalis.”);  May 1, 1858 ("I do not see a single R. halecina. What has become of the thousands with which the meadows swarmed a month ago? They have given place to the R. palustris. Only their spawn, mostly hatched and dissolving, remains, and I expect to detect the spawn of the palustris soon.").

Saw a Viola blanda in a girl's hand. See April 25, 1859 ("The Viola blanda are numerously open, say two days at least."); 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.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Violets

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.")

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. ")