nion suitings--for
garments of less irksome weight and texture. This I did.

I recall nothing else of importance transpiring upon this date which is
worthy of being recorded, except that, in the course of a short walk
this afternoon, I came upon a half unfolded specimen of _Viola
cucullata_--or, to use the vulgar appellation, common blue
violet--pushing its way through the leafy mould and mildew of the
winter's accumulation. I made this discovery in a spinney, or copse,
near a small tarn some half mile to the eastward of Fernbridge's
precincts. I am aware that the resident populace hereabout customarily
refer to this spot as the wet woods back of Whitney's Bog, but I
infinitely prefer the English phraseology as more euphonious and at the
same time more poetic. With all due gentleness I uprooted _Viola
cucullata_ from its place in the boscage and, after it has been suitably
pressed, I mean to add it to my collection of the fauna indigenous to
the soil of Western New Jersey, not because of its rarity, for it is,
poor thing, but a common enough growth, but because of its having been
the first tender harbinger of the budding year which has come directly
to my attention. I shall botanize extensively this year. For with me to
botanize is one of the dearest of pursuits, amounting to a veritable
passion.

* * * * *

APRIL THE EIGHTH.--Blank; no entries.

* * * * *

APRIL THE NINTH.--Also blank.

* * * * *

APRIL THE TENTH.--It is illness and not a disinclination to pursue my
self-appointed task of preserving this repository of my thoughts and
deeds which for the past two days has kept me from you, friend diary. As
a consequence of venturing abroad upon the seventh instant without my
heavy undergarments and likewise without galoshes, having been deceived
into committing these indiscretions by a false and treacherous mildness
of atmospheric conditions leading to the assumption that the vernal
season had come or was impending--a circumstance already described some
paragraphs back--I found myself upon the morn following to be the victim
of a severe cold, complicated with quinsy or sore throat. I have ever
since been confined to my room, if not to my couch, in an acutely
indisposed state, endeavouring to rid myself of these impairments by
recourse to a great variety of panaceas applied both internally and
otherwise. Not until the pr