Wednesday, June 2, 2010

A moonlit paddle

June 2.

A cool evening. A cold, white twilight sky after the air has been cleared by rain, and now the trees are seen very distinctly against it, - not yet heavy masses of verdure, but a light openwork, the leaves being few and small yet, as regularly open as a sieve.

Bats go over, and a kingbird, very late. Mosquitoes are pretty common.

There is more distinct sound from animals than by day, and an occasional bullfrog's trump is heard. Turning the island, I hear a very faint and slight sound once, and suspect a screech owl, which I after see on an oak. I soon hear its mournful scream, probably to its mate, not loud now, but, though within twenty or thirty rods, sounding a mile off.

Water-bugs dimple the surface now quite across the river, in the moonlight, for it is a full moon. 

The evergreens are very dark and heavy.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, June 2, 1860

Water-bugs dimple the surface now quite across the river, in the moonlight, for it is a full moon. See June 30,1852 (“I see the bright curves made by the water-bugs in the moonlight . . .now at 9 o'clock. ”); August 8, 1851 (“As I recross the string-pieces of the bridge, I see the water-bugs swimming briskly in the moonlight . . .”)

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