Lightning-bugs to-night.

June 8. 

Wednesday. 

June 8.

Notice that one of these little silvery scales on a stone is now empty of eggs; how long? 

See a painted turtle beginning to lay. She has merely scratched the ground a little, and moistened it very much. This must be to make it adherent. It is at the same time beginning to rain. 

See lightning-bugs to-night. 

Noticed yesterday, dancing before our chamber windows, swarms of little plumed gnats with white wings and a reddish body forward. One on my book at night incessantly leaps backward. It seems to be a kind of Chironomus.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 8, 1859

See a painted turtle beginning to lay. See June 22, 1858 (“Observe a painted turtle laying or digging at 5 P.M. She has not excavated any hole, but has already watered the ground, and, as usual when I take her up under these circumstances, passes more water.”);  June 11, 1858 (“I notice that turtles which have just commenced digging will void considerable water when you take them up. This they appear to have carried up to wet the ground with.”)

See lightning-bugs to-night. June 3, 1852 (“It has been a sultry day, and a slight thunder-shower, and now I see fireflies in the meadows at evening.”); June 7, 1854 (“This muggy evening I see fireflies, the first I have seen or heard of at least.”); June 7, 1858 (“Fireflies pretty numerous over the river, though we have had no thunder-showers of late.”); June 11, 1851 (“When I get away from the town and deeper into the night, I hear whip-poor-wills, and see fireflies in the meadow.”); June 16, 1860 (“The meadows full of lightning-bugs to-night; first seen the 14th.”); June 17, 1852 (“In the damp, warm evening after the rain, the fireflies appear to be more numerous than ever.”); June 22, 1852 ("The fireflies in the meadows are very numerous, as if they had replenished their lights from the lightning.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Fireflies and first fireflies in June
It seems to be a kind of Chironomus. See May 6,1859 (“We were also troubled by getting them into our mouths and throats and eyes. This insect resembles the plate of the Chironomus plumosus [buzzer midge]")

June 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, June 8

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2021