The bullfrogs now commonly trump at night, and the mosquitoes are now really troublesome. For some time I have not heard toads by day, and the hylodes appear to have done.
A thunder-shower in the north goes down the Merrimack.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 15, 1860
June 15 . 2 P . M . — River four and one half above summer level . For some time I have not heard toads by day , ' and not for a long time in numbers ; yet they still ring at night . Perhaps it is entirely a matter of temperature , – that in June and maybe the latter half of May ( ? ) they require the coolness of the evening to arouse them . The hylodes appear to have done . I paddle to Clamshell . Notice the down of the white willow near the bridge , twenty rods off , whitening Sassafras Shore for two or three rods like a dense white foam . It is all full of lit tle seeds not sprouted , is as dense as fur , and has first blown fifteen rods overland . This is a late willow to ripen , but the black willow shows no down yet , as I notice . It is very conspicuously white along the shore , a foot or two wide , – a dense downy coat or fleece on the water . Has blown northeast . See froth about the base of some grass in a meadow . The large early wool - grass of the meadows will shed pollen in a day or two — can see stamens — on Hos mer ' s Flat shore . This it is grows in circles . As I stood there I heard that peculiar hawk - like ( for rhythm ) but more resonant or clanging kind of scream which I may have heard before this year , plover - like , indefinitely far , — over the Clamshell plain . After proceeding half a dozen rods toward the hill , I heard the familiar willet note of the upland plover and , looking up , saw one standing erect — like a large tell tale , or chicken with its head stretched up — on the rail fence . After a while it flew off southwest and low , then wheeled and went a little higher down the river . Of pigeon size , but quick quivering wings . Finally rose higher and flew more or less zigzag , as if uncertain where it would alight , and at last , when almost out of sight , it pitched down into a field near Cyrus Hubbard ' s . It was the same note I heard so well on Cape Cod in July , ' 55 , and probably the same I heard in the Shaw sheen valley , May 15 , 1858 . I suspect , then , that it breeds here . The button - bush is now fairly green . The Carex stricta tufts are now as large as ever , and , the culms falling over , they are like great long - haired 355 heads , now drooping around the great tussocks . I know of no other sedge that make so massive and conspicuous a tussock , yet with a slender leaf . This the one that reflects the peculiar glaucous sheen from its bent surfaces . The turtles are apparently now in the midst of their laying . I go looking for them , to see where they have left the water for this purpose . See a snapping turtle whose shell is about ten inches long making her hole on the top of the sand - bank at the steam - mill site , within four rods of the road . She pauses warily at sound of my boat , but I should have mistaken her for a dark stone if she had [ not ] lifted her snout above her shell . I went to her as she lay and hissed by the hole at 4 P . M . It was about three and a half inches across , and not perpendicular but chiefly on one side ; say five inches deep ( as yet ) , and four plus inches wide beneath , but only about one inch of the bottom exposed when you looked straight down , — in short , like the common Emys picta ' s hole . She had copiously wet the ground before or while digging , as the picta does . Saw two or three similar holes made by her afterward . There was her broad track ( some ten inches wide ) up the sandy or gravelly bank , and I saw where she had before dug , or begun to dig , within a rod of this , but had retreated to the river . I withdrew to the bridge to observe her ( not having touched her ) , but she took the occasion to hasten to the river . A thunder - shower in the north goes down the Merrimack . We have had warmer weather for several days , say since 12th . A new season begun , — daily baths , thin coat , etc . The bullfrogs now commonly trump at night , and the mosquitoes are now really troublesome .
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