Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A new season begun.

June 15.

We have had warmer weather for several days. A new season begun.

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

Bullfrogs trump, mosquitoes troublesome, toads and hylodes cease, and thundershowers. See June 15, 1852 ("The crickets creak louder and more steadily; the bullfrogs croak in earnest. The drouth begins. The dry z-ing of the locust is heard."); June 16, 1860 ("It appears to me that these phenomena occur simultaneously, say June 12th :• Heat about. 85° at 2 P.M.• Hylodes cease to peep.• Purring frogs (Rana palustris) cease.• Lightning-bugs first seen.• Bullfrogs trump generally.• Mosquitoes begin to be really troublesome.• Afternoon thunder-showers almost regular.• Sleep with open window.• Turtles fairly and generally begun to lay.")


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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