I gave it ether and so saved it in a perfect state.

Attacus cecropia

June 2.

Still windier than before, and yet no rain. It is now very dry indeed, and the grass is suffering. Some springs commonly full at this season are dried up. The wind shakes the house night and day. 

From that cocoon of the Attacus cecropia which I found — I think it was on the 24th of May — on a red maple shrub, three or four feet from the ground, on the edge of the meadow by the new Bedford road just this side of Beck Stow’s, came out this forenoon a splendid moth. I had pinned the cocoon to the sash at the upper part of my window and quite forgotten it. About the middle of the forenoon Sophia came in and exclaimed that there was a moth on my window. At first I supposed that she meant a cloth-eating moth, but it turned out that my A. cecropia had come out and dropped down to the window-sill, where it hung on the side of a slipper (which was inserted into another) to let its wings hang down and develop themselves. 

At first the wings were not only not unfolded laterally, but not longitudinally, the thinner ends of the forward ones for perhaps three quarters of an inch being very feeble and occupying very little space. It was surprising to see the creature unfold and expand before our eyes, the wings gradually elongating, as it were by their own gravity; and from time to time the insect assisted this operation by a slight shake. It was wonderful how it waxed and grew, revealing some new beauty every fifteen minutes, which I called Sophia to see, but never losing its hold on the shoe. 

It looked like a young emperor just donning the most splendid ermine robes that ever emperor wore, the wings every moment acquiring greater expansion and their at first wrinkled edge becoming more tense. At first its wings appeared double, one within the other. At last it advanced so far as to spread its wings completely but feebly when we approached. This occupied several hours. 

It continued to hang to the shoe, with its wings ordinarily closed erect behind its back, the rest of the day; and at dusk, when apparently it was waving its wings preparatory to its evening flight, I gave it ether and so saved it in a perfect state. 

As it lies, not spread to the utmost, it is five and nine tenths inches by two and a quarter. 

P. M. —To Hill. 

Equisetum limosum pollen — a few — apparently two or three days. The late crataegus on the hill is in full bloom while the other is almost entirely out of bloom. 

Three yellowbirds’ nests, which I have marked since the 25th of May, the only ones which I have actually inspected, have now all been torn to pieces, though they were in places (two of them, at least) where no boy is at all likely to have found them. 

I see in the meadow-grass a fine cob web or spider’s nest three or four inches [in] diameter and, within it, on two twigs, two collections of little yellowish spiders containing a thousand or more, about half - as big as a pin-head, like minute fruit-buds or kernels clustered on the twig. One of the clusters disperses when I stoop over it and spreads over the nest on the fine lines. 

Hemlock leafed two or three days, the earliest young plants. The black spruce beyond the hill has apparently just begun to leaf, but not yet to blossom. Pinus rigida pollen a day or two or three on the plain. Sweet flag pollen about two days. 

Mr. Hoar tells me that Deacon Farrar’s son tells him that a white robin has her nest on an apple tree near their house. Her mate is of the usual color. All the family have seen her, but at the last accounts she has not been seen on the nest. 

Silene, or wild pink, how long? 

The Azalea nudiflora now in its prime. What splendid masses of pink! with a few glaucous green leaves sprinkled here and there —just enough for contrast.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 2, 1855

A spider's nest...containing a thousand or more. See June 8, 1860 ("I see a small mist of cobweb, globular, on a dead twig eight inches above the ground in the wood-path...., and when I disturb it I see it swarming with a mass of a thousand minute spiders.")


Ether. See May 12, 1851("If you have an inclination to travel, take the ether; you go beyond the furthest star.")

The Azalea nudiflora now in its prime. See June 2, 1856 ("To Azalea nudiflora, which is in prime."); May 29, 1855 ("Azalea nudiflora in garden"); May 17, 1854 (Azalea nudiflora in woods begins to leaf now") and May 31, 1853 ("I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora.")

June 2. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 2

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021