The chill-lill of the blue snowbirds is heard again. A partridge goes off on Fair Haven Hill-side . . . I detect a few catkins at a distance by their distinct yellowish color . . .

  P.M.—To Martial Mile’s Meadow, by boat to Nut Meadow Brook. Launched my new boat . . . The cranberries now make a show under water, and I always make it a point to taste a few . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] says he saw a painted tortoise yesterday. Very likely. We started two ducks feeding behind a low spit of meadow . . . The spear-heads of the skunk-cabbage are now quite conspicuous . . .

  At Nut Meadow Brook, water-bugs and skaters are now plenty . . . C. saw a frog. Hubbard’s field a smooth russet bank lit by the setting sun and the pale skim-milk sky above. I told Stacy the other day that there was another volume of De Quincey’s Essays (wanting to see it in his library). “I know it,” says he, “but I shan’t buy any more of them, for nobody reads them.” I asked what book in his library was most read. He said, “The Wide, Wide World.”