Hear at distance the hum of bees like the rumbling of a distant train of cars.

July 17. 

July 17, 2016

Found a great many insects in white lilies which opened in pan this forenoon, which had never opened before. What regular and handsome petals! regularly concave toward the inside, and calyx hooked at tip. 

P. M. — To Water Dock Meadow and Linnaea Hill side. 

Hear a new note from bank swallows when going over the Hosmer pastures, a sort of screep screep, shrill and like what I have referred to the barn swallow. They are probably out with young. 

Ludwigia palustris and ilysanthes have been out apparently some time on the flat Hosmer shore or meadow, where the surface has been laid bare by the ice. There, too, the Hypericum Sarothra has pushed up abundantly. 

I see many young toads hopping about on that bared ground amid the thin weeds, not more than five eighths to three quarters of an inch long; also young frogs a little larger. 

Horse-mint out at Clamshell, apparently two or three days.

Bathed at Clamshell. See great schools of minnows, apparently shiners, hovering in the clear shallow next the shore. They seem to choose such places for security. They take pretty good care of themselves and are harder to catch with the hands than you expect, darting out of the way at last quite swiftly. Caught three, however, between my hands.

They have brighter golden irides, all the abdomen conspicuously pale-golden, the back and half down the sides pale-brown, a broad, distinct black band along sides (which methinks marks the shiner), and comparatively transparent beneath behind vent. 

When the water is gone I am surprised to see how they can skip or spring from side to side in my cup-shaped two hands for a long time. This to enable them to get off floating planks or pads on the shore when in fright they may have leaped on to them. But they are very tender, and the sun and air soon kill them. If there is any water in your hand they will pass out through the smallest crack between your fingers. They are about three quarters of an inch long generally, though of various sizes. 

Half a dozen big bream come quite up to me, as I stand in the water. They are not easily scared in such a case. 

The large skunk-cabbage fruit looks quite black now where the haymakers have passed. 

Stooping to drink at the Hosmer Spring, I saw a hundred caddis-cases, of light-colored pebbles, at the bottom, and a dozen or twenty crawled half-way up the side of the tub, apparently on their way out to become perfect insects. 

Cows in their pasture, going to water or elsewhere, make a track four or five inches deep and frequently not more than ten inches wide. 

The great water dock has been out some days at least. Its valves are quite small at first, but lower leaves pointed. 

I hear in the meadow there a faint incessant z-ing sound, as of small locusts in the meadow-grass. 

Under the oak in Brown's moraine pasture, by Water Dock Meadow, a great arum more than three feet high, like a tropical plant, in open land, with leafets more than a foot long. There is rich-weed there, apparently not quite out. 

Going up the hillside, between J. P. Brown's and rough-cast house, am surprised to see great plump ripe low blackberries. How important their acid (as well as currants) this warm weather! 

It is 5 p. m. The wood thrush begins to sing. A very warm afternoon. Thermometer at 97° at the Hosmer Desert. I hear the early locust. 

I have come to collect birds' nests. The thrasher's is apparently made partly beneath the surface, some dirt making its sides. I find the nests by withered twigs and leaves broken off in the spring, but commonly nearly concealed by the recent growth. 

The jay's nest had been filled with white oak leaves. Not one could have been blown into it. 

On Linnaea Hill many thimble-berries and some raspberries.

Evening by river to Ed. Homer’s. 

Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars. 

Returning after ten, by moonlight, see the bullfrogs lying at full length on the pads where they trump.

July 17, 2016

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 17, 1856

Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass . . .like the rumbling of a distant train of cars. See July 14, 1856 ("Bass out about two days at Island.");  July 18, 1854 ("At a little distance it is like the sound of a waterfall or of the cars; close at hand like a factory full of looms.”); July 16, 1852 ("The tree resounds with the hum of bees,. . . a sound unlike any other in nature . .  .”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

They have . . . a broad, distinct black band along sides (which methinks marks the shiner), and comparatively transparent beneath behind vent. . . . See March 29, 1854 ("poised over the sand on invisible fins, the outlines of a shiner". . . "distinct longitudinal light-colored line midway along their sides and a darker line below it”)

Surprised to see great plump ripe low blackberries. See  July 17, 1852 ("Notwithstanding the rain, some children still pursue their blackberrying on the Great Fields.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

It is 5 p. m. The wood thrush begins to sing. See July 19, 1854 ("A wood thrush to-night."); July 20, 1852 ("It is starlight. . . .And now, when we had thought the day birds gone to roost, the wood thrush takes up the strain.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Thrush

See the bullfrogs lying at full length on the pads where they trump... See July 17, 1860 ("Clean and handsome bullfrogs. . .sit imperturbable out on the stones all around the pond.”)