Thursday, August 30, 2018

This is the sound which Farmer hears.

August  30

P. M. — To bayonet rush by river. Find at Dodd’s shore: Eleocharis obtusa, some time out of bloom (fresh still at Pratt’s Pool); also Juncus acumiuatus (?), just done (also apparently later and yet in bloom at Pout’s Nest);  also what I called Juncus scirpoides, but which  appears to be Juncus paradoxus, with seeds tailed at both ends, (it is fresher than what I have seen before, and smaller), not done. Some of it with few flowers! A terete leaf rises above the flower. It looks like a small bayonet rush.

The Juncus militaris has been long out of bloom. The leaf is three feet long; the whole plant, four or five. It grows on edge of Grindstone Meadow and above. It would look more like a bayonet if the leaf were shorter than the flowering stem, which last is the bayonet part. This is my rainbow rush. 

All over Ammannia Shore and on bare spots in meadows generally, Fimbristylis autumnalis, apparently in prime; minute, two to five inches high, with aspect of F. capillaris. 

As I am now returning over Lily Bay, I hear behind me a singular loud stertorous sound which I thought might have been made by a cow out of order, twice sounded. Looking round, I saw a blue heron flying low, about forty rods distant, and have no doubt the sound was made by him. Probably this is the sound which Farmer hears.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 30, 1858



The sound which Farmer hears
. See August 29, 1858 ("He hears — heard a week ago — the sound of a bird flying over, like cra-a-ack, cr-r-r-a-k, only in the night, and thinks it may be a blue heron") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron

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