Blackberries still very plenty, and sweet; they have not brought any to the village lately, people seem tired of them. Found also a few red raspberries, whortleberries, and the acid rose-berry. This is a land of berries; a large portion of our trees and plants yield their seed in this form. Among such are the several wild cherries, and plums, the amelanchiers and dog-woods, the mountain ash, the sumachs, and the thorns; all the large bramble tribe, with their pleasant fruits, roses, raspberries, the blackberry, and the gooseberry; the numerous whortleberries, and bilberries, viburnums, and honeysuckles, spikenards, and cohoshes; pokeweed, the trilliums, the convallarias, and the low cornel, clintonia, and medeola; the strawberry, the partridge plant, and squaw-vine, &c., &c. These are all common, and very beautiful while in season. Without going at all out of our way this morning, we gathered a very handsome bunch of berries, some of a dark purple, others light, waxy green, these olive, those white, this scarlet, that ruby color, and others crimson, and pale blue. The berry of the round-leaved dog-wood is of a very delicate blue.
The snowberry, so very common in our gardens, is a native of this State, but I have never heard of its being found in this county.
The birds were feasting upon all these berries at the Cliffs; saw quite a gathering of them in a sumach grove, robins, blue-birds, sparrows, goldfinches, cat-birds, wild pigeons, and woodpeckers; there were several others also perched so high that it was not easy to decide what they were. The little creatures were all very active and cheerful, but quite songless; a chirrup, or a wild call, now and then, were the only sounds heard among them.
Saturday, 9th.—Pleasant morning in the woods. Much amused
