1891.
June 21
England.
Liverpool. - Cloudless but very hazy or smoky.
Uncomfortably warm in the sun, just pleasantly
cool in the shade.
  To the Botanic Gardens at 2 P.M.  They are 
attractively and tastefully laid out. Tall hedges
of hawthorn separate areas of turf studded
with flower beds. The turf is almost wholly
free from weeds (I saw only one plantain leaf),
very dense and soft and sprinkled with
daisies and buttercups in places. There were 
trees mostly hawthorns bearing pink flowers
in clusters or single large white flowers.
The foliage of these & other trees is dark
& sooty, probably smoke stained. Pink-flowering
rhododendrons abounded. The loam in the
flower beds is precisely like that at home.
  House Sparrows appeared to be the only small
birds in these gardens. They were less numerous
than in our Mass. cities. Their notes are
certainly shriller and more chirping than those
of the American bird and the female appears 
to be much more brightly colored & handsomely
marked looking like a dull male.
  Saw my first Rooks here, about a dozen birds
which rose from a field & alighted in a row on
a wall. They were perfectly silent & reminded me
of Fish Crows.
  Neither Butterflies nor Toads seen in these gardens.
Later we went to the "Dingle" a suburban street
the houses surrounded by large gardens & trees & shrubbery.