They trouble me by getting into my shoes.

September 4. 

P. M. — To Miles Swamp, Conantum. 

What are those small yellow birds with two white bars on wings, about the oak at Hubbard's Grove?

Aralia racemosa berries just ripe, at tall helianthus by bass beyond William Wheeler's; not edible. 

Indian hemp out of bloom. 

Butterflies in road a day or two. 

The crackling flight of grasshoppers. The grass also is all alive with them, and they trouble me by getting into my shoes, which are loose, and obliging me to empty them occasionally. 

Measured an archangelica stem (now of course dry) in Corner Spring Swamp, eight feet eight inches high, and seven and a quarter inches in circumference at ground. It is a somewhat zigzag stem with few joints and a broad umbelliferous top, so that it makes a great show. One of those plants that have their fall early. 

There are many splendid scarlet arum berries there now in prime, forming a dense ovate head on a short peduncle; the individual berries of various sizes, between pear and mitre and club form, flattened against each other on a singular (now purple and white) core, which is hollow. What rank and venomous luxuriance in this swamp sprout-land! 

Viola pedata again. 

I see where squirrels have eaten green sweet viburnum berries on the wall, together with hazelnuts. The former, gathered red, turn dark purple and shrivelled, like raisins, in the house, and are edible, but chiefly seed. 

The fever-bush is conspicuously flower-budded. Even its spicy leaves have been cut by the tailor bee, and circular pieces taken out. He was, perhaps, attracted by its smoothness and soundness. 

Large puffballs, sometime.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 4, 1856

Indian hemp out of bloom. See note to September 2, 1856 ("Some years ago I sought for Indian hemp (Apocynum cannabinum) hereabouts in vain . . .”)

Butterflies in road a day or two. See September 3, 1854 (“I see some fleets of yellow butterflies in the damp road after the rain, as earlier.”)

Splendid scarlet arum berries there now in prime . . .See September 2, 1853 ("The dense oval bunches of arum berries now startle the walker in swamps. They are a brilliant vermilion on a rich ground . . .”)

Viola pedata again. See August 12, 1858 (“Saw a Viola pedata blooming again.”); October 23, 1853 ("Many phenomena remind me that now is to some extent a second spring, — not only the new-springing and blossoming of flowers, but the peeping of the hylodes for some time, and the faint warbling of their spring notes by many birds. . . .The Viola pedata looking up from so low in the wood-path makes a singular impression."); October 22, 1859 (" In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us.”)

He was, perhaps, attracted by its smoothness and soundness. . . . See August 11, 1852 ("I am attracted by the clear dark-green leaves of the fever-bush.”); August 19, 1852 (The clear dark-green leaves of the fever-bush overhang the stream.”)