and quarter of an inch wide, with a waving fringe about it, and another smaller opening close to it without any fringe, through both of which I see distinctly into the white interior of the fish. When I touch one, he instantly closes his shell, and, if taken out quickly, spurts water like a salt-water clam. Evidently taking in their food and straining it with short waving motion of the ciliæ, there they lie both under the pads and in the sun. . . . The common carrot by the roadside, Daucus carota, is in some respects an interesting plant. Its umbel, as Bigelow says, is shaped like a bird's nest, and its large pinnatifid involucre, interlacing by its fine segments, resembles a fanciful ladies' work-basket.
July 3, 1853. The oven-bird's nest in Laurel Glen is near the edge of an open pine wood under a fallen pine twig and a heap of dry oak leaves. Within these on the ground is the nest with a dome-like top and an arched entrance of the whole height and width on one side. Lined within with dry pine needles. . . . The chestnut behind my old house site is fully out, and apparently has been partly so for several days.
Black huckleberries.—Tansy on the causeway.
July 3, 1854. I hear the purple finch these days about the houses, à twitter witter weeter wee, à witter witter wee.
