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.”)

Circular patches

of snow in the shadow of

the still leafless trees.

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