With some boys to Flint's Pond, to see the nests

June 23. 

June 23, 2018

P. M. – With some boys to Flint's Pond, to see the nests mentioned on [June 19]. 

The hermit(?) thrush's nest referred to on last page is a rather shallow nest of loose construction, though sufficiently thick-bottomed, about five inches in diameter and hardly one deep within, externally of rather coarse and loosely arranged stubble, chiefly everlasting stems with the flowers yet emitting some fragrance, some whorled loosestrife with the seed-vessels, etc., etc.; within, finer grass and pine-needles. Yet the grass is as often bent angularly as curved regularly to form the nest. 

The tanager's nest of the 19th is four and a half to five inches wide and an inch or more deep, considerably open to look through; the outside, of many very slender twigs, apparently of hemlock, some umbelled pyrola with seed-vessels, everlasting, etc.; within, quite round and regular, of very slender or fine stems, apparently pinweed or the like, and pine needles; hardly any grass stubble about it. 

The egg is a regular oval nine tenths of an inch long by twenty seven fortieths, pale-blue, sprinkled with purplish brown spots, thickest on the larger end. To-day there are three rather fresh eggs in this nest. Neither going nor returning do we see anything of the tanager, and conclude it to be deserted, but perhaps she stays away from it long. 

That rather low wood along the path which runs parallel with the shore of Flint's Pond, behind the rock, is evidently a favorite place for veery-nests. I have seen three there. 

One lately emptied I got to day, amid the dry leaves by some withered ferns. It is composed externally of a mass of much withered oak leaves, thick and pretty well stuck together, plastered or stuck down over the rim, is five to six inches in diameter and four high, two and a half wide within, and very deep, more than two inches. Next to the leaves come bark-shreds, apparently maple bark, and the lining is of a little fine grass, pine-needles, apparently a little hypnum root-fibre. A very deep well-shaped and rounded cavity.

Saw another with two eggs in it, one a much lighter blue than the other. This was by the path leading toward the rock, amid some sprouts at the base of a sapling oak, elevated about six inches above the general level (the veery's). It was a deep, firm nest three quarters of an inch thick, outwardly oak and chestnut leaves, then rather coarse bark-shreds, maple or oak, lined with the same and a few dark root-fibers. 

What that empty nest partly of mud, with conspicuous saliva, on a middle-sized maple, against main stem, near wood thrush’s? 

In the case of the hermit (?) thrush, wood thrush, and tanager's, each about fourteen feet high in slender saplings, you had to climb an adjacent tree in order to reach them. 

A male redstart seen, and often heard. What a little fellow! 

Lysimachia quadrifolia, how long? and veiny-leaved hawkweed, how long? 

Get an egg out of a deserted bank swallow's nest, in a bank only about four feet high dug in the spring for a bank wall near Everett's. The nest is flattish and lined abundantly with the small, somewhat downy, naturally curved feathers of poultry. Egg pure white, long, oval, twenty-seven fortieths by eighteen fortieths of an inch. 

Take two eggs out of the oviduct of an E. insculpta, just run over in the road. They have lately cooked a snapping turtle at Mrs. Wetherbee's, eggs and all, and she thinks there were just forty-two of them!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 23, 1858



Veery nests. See June 2, 1852 (“Nest of Wilson's thrush with bluish-green eggs.”); June 18, 1858 ("A little boy brings me an egg of Wilson's thrush, which he found in a nest in a low bush about a foot from the ground.”); June 19, 1853 ("In the middle of the path to Wharf Rock at Flint's Pond, the nest of a Wilson's thrush, five or six inches high, between the green stems of three or four golden rods, made of dried grass or fibres of bark, with dry oak leaves attached loosely, making the whole nine or ten inches wide, to deceive the eye. Two blue eggs. Like an accidental heap. Who taught it to do thus?"); June 19, 1858 (“boys have found this forenoon at Flint’s Pond one or more veery-nests on the ground. ”)

WILSON'S THRUSH or VEERY, Turdus Wilson,The song of this species, although resembling that of the Wood Thrush in a great degree, is less powerful, and is composed of continued trills repeated with different variations, enunciated with great delicacy and mellowness, so as to be extremely pleasing to one listening to them in the dark solitudes where the sylvan songster resides. It now and then tunes its throat in the calm of evening, and is heard sometimes until after the day has closed. J.J. Audubon

The tanager's nest of the 19th ... To-day there are three rather fresh eggs. See June 19, 1858 ("Two fresh eggs in small white oak sapling, some fourteen feet from ground. They saw a tanager near. (I have one egg.) ")See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Scarlet Tanager

You had to climb an adjacent tree in order to reach them. See June 11, 1855("In order to get the deserted tanager’s nest at the top [of] a pitch pine which was too weak to climb, we carried a rope in our pockets and took three rails a quarter of a mile into the woods, and there rigged a derrick, by which I climbed to a level with the nest, . . . Tied the three tops together and spread the bottoms. “)

Veiny-leaved hawkweed, how long? See June 23, 1859 ("Veiny-leaved hawkweed freshly out."); See also August 21, 1851 (" I have now found all the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly related yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural history in a new sense.”).

A male redstart seen, and often heard. What a little fellow! See June 23, 1855 ("Probably a redstart’s nest on a white oak sapling, twelve feet up, on forks against stem. Have it. See young redstarts about.”); May 29, 1855 ("females of the redstart, described by Wilson, — very different from the full-plumaged black males. ")  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Redstart

Get an egg out of a deserted bank swallow's nest. See November 20, 1857 ("Some bank swallows’ nests are exposed by the caving of the bank at Clamshell. The very smallest hole is about two and a half inches wide horizontally, by barely one high. All are much wider than high (vertically). . . .The nest is a regular but shallow one made simply of stubble, about five inches in diameter, and three quarters of an inch deep. ")

Another new plant anticipated. Naming Ledum Swamp.

February 4. 

P. M. – To C. Miles Swamp. 

Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole, growing with the Andromeda calyculata, Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, etc. 

The A. Polifolia is very abundant about the pond-hole, some of it very narrow-leaved and dark, even black, above, as if burnt. 

The ledum bears a general resemblance to the water andromeda, with its dark reddish-purplish, or rather mulberry, leaves, reflexed; but nearer it is distinguished by its coarseness, the perfect tent form of its upper leaves, and the large, conspicuous terminal roundish (strictly oval) red buds, nearly as big as the swamp pink's, but rounded. The woolly stem for a couple of inches beneath the bud is frequently bare and conspicuously club-shaped. The rust on the under sides of the leaves seems of a lighter color than that of Maine. The seed-vessels (which open at the base first) still hold on. 

This plant might easily be confounded with the water andromeda by a careless observer. When I showed it to a teamster, he was sure that he had seen it often in the woods, but the sight of the woolly under side staggered him. 

There are many small spruce thereabouts, with small twigs and leaves, an abnormal growth, reminding one of strange species of evergreen from California, China, etc. 

I brought some home and had a cup of tea made, which, in spite of a slight piny or turpentine flavor, I thought unexpectedly good. 

An abundance of nesaea on the east edge of the pond-hole (call it Ledum Pond-hole); and is that a lysimachia mingled with it?

The ledum does not grow amid the maples, nor, indeed, does the A. Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, nor even the water andromeda abundantly. It bears no more shade than that of the spruce trees, which do not prevail over the above-named shrubbery. 

As usual with the finding of new plants, I had a presentiment that I should find the ledum in Concord. It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 4, 1858

Discover the Ledum latiforium ....The rust on the under sides of the leaves seems of a lighter color than that of Maine. See July 25, 1857 (“Here [at Kimeo], among others, were the . . . Oxalis Acetosella, still occasionally in flower; Labrador tea (Ledum latifolium), out of bloom; Kalmia glauca, etc., etc., close to the track. ”); August 24, 1857 (“We waded into Coos Swamp on the south side the turnpike [at Natick] to find the ledum, but did not succeed. ”); June 19, 1856 (“Looked at a collection of the rarer plants made by Higginson and placed at the Natural History Rooms. Among which noticed ...Ledum latifolium, from White Mountains, rather 'broader—leafed than mine from Maine.”)  ~~ Recently reclassified from the genus Ledum, labrador-tea (Rhododendron groenlandicum) is a diminutive shrub of cool, wet swamps, spruce forests, and muskeg. It is recognized by its clusters of tiny white flowers and its folded-under leaves with brown hairs on the undersides. This shrub is named Labrador-tea because its aromatic leaves were commonly brewed as a tea by northern native Americans. Moose browse the leaves and twigs. ~ Go Botany

The A. Polifolia is very abundant about the pond-hole, some of it very narrow-leaved and dark, even black, above, as if burnt. See February 12, 1858 ("There is, apparently, more of the Andromeda Polifolia in that swamp than anywhere else in Concord."); November 15,1857 ("At C. Miles Swamp [f]ind plenty of Andromeda Polifolia ... where you can walk dry-shod in the spruce wood”). See also July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom.): February 17, 1854 ("In the open part of Gowing's Swamp I find the Andromeda Polifolia. Neither here nor in Beck Stow's does it grow very near the shore.)

This plant might easily be confounded with the water andromeda by a careless observer. See August 19, 1856 (“a careless observer would look through their thin flowery panicles without observing any flower at all.”)

There are many small spruce thereabouts, with small twigs and leaves, an abnormal growth, See November 15,1857 ("At C. Miles Swamp .. where you can walk dry-shod in the spruce wood”); February 12, 1858 ("About the ledum pond-hole there is an abundance of that abnormal growth of the spruce. . . , which have an impoverished look, altogether forming a broom-like mass, very much like a heath."); June 13, 1858 ("I see a song sparrow's nest here in a little spruce just by the mouth of the ditch."); August 8, 1858 ("The peculiar plants of [Ledum] swamp are, then, as I remember, these nine: spruce, Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, Ledum latifolium, Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, Platanthera blephari glottis, Scheuchzeria palustris, Eriophorum 'vaginatum.");' September 6, 1858 ("That swamp is a singularly wild place, without any natural outlet. I hear of a marsh hawk’s nest there this summer. I see great spiders there of an uncommon kind, whose webs —the main supporting line — stretch six feet in the clear from spruce to spruce, as high as my head, with a dense web of the usual form some fifteen inches in diameter beneath."); October 23, 1858 ("The spruce is changed and falling, but is brown and inconspicuous. A man at work on the Ledum Pool, draining it, says that. . . he had found three growths of spruce, one above another, there.")

It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery. See  July 14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. This is another instance of a common experience. When I am shown from abroad, or hear of, or in any [way] become interested in, some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon. Within a week R. W. E. showed me a slip of this in a botany, as a great rarity which George Bradford brought from Watertown. I had long been interested in it by Linnaeus's account. I now find it in abundance.”); January 9, 1855 (“Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots very much like the Andromeda Polifolia, amid sphagnum, lambkill, Andromeda calyculata, blueberry bushes, etc., though there is very little to be seen above the snow. It is, I have little doubt, the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia.”);  September 2, 1856 (“It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, perhaps wading in some remote swamp where I have just found something novel and feel more than usually remote from the town. Or some rare plant which for some reason has occupied a strangely prominent place in my thoughts for some time will present itself. My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things.”); November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else. In my botanical rambles I find that first the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, though it may at first seem very foreign to this locality, and for some weeks or months I go thinking of it and expecting it unconsciously, and at length I surely see it, and it is henceforth an actual neighbor of mine. This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name.”); August 22, 1860 ("I never find a remarkable Indian relic but I have first divined its existence, and planned the discovery of it. Frequently I have told myself distinctly what it was to be before I found it.”); and note to July 2, 1857 ("We find only the world we look for.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February 4

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 ©  2009-2023

I love this moisture in its season.

Rhexia virgini

August 1. 

Burdock, several days at least. Erechthites, apparently two or three days, by Peter's Path, end of Cemetery, the middle flowers first.

Crotalaria in fine lechea field, how long? Still out, and some pods fully grown. 

Liatris will apparently open in a day or two. 

Diplopappus umbellatus at Peter's wall. Desmodium Canadense, some time; several great stems five feet high, a little spreading. 

August 01, 2016

Since July 30th, inclusive, we have had perfect dog-days without interruption. The earth has suddenly invested with a thick musty mist. The sky has become a mere fungus. A thick blue musty veil of mist is drawn before the sun. The sun has not been visible, except for a moment or two once or twice a day, all this time, nor the stars by night. Moisture reigns. 

You cannot dry a napkin at the window, nor press flowers without their mildewing. You imbibe so much moisture from the atmosphere that you are not so thirsty, nor is bathing so grateful as a week ago. The burning heat is tempered, but as you lose sight of the sky and imbibe the musty, misty air, you exist as a vegetable, a fungus. 

Unfortunate those who have not got their hay. I see them wading in overflowed meadows and pitching fthe black and mouldy swaths about in vain that they may dry. In the meanwhile, vegetation is becoming rank, vines of all kinds are rampant. Squashes and melons are said to grow a foot in a night. But weeds grow as fast. The corn unrolls. Berries abound and attain their full size. 

Once or twice in the day there is an imperfect gleam of yellow sunlight for a moment through some thinner part of the veil, reminding us that we have not seen the sun so long, but no blue sky is revealed. The earth is completely invested with cloud like wreaths of vapor (yet fear no rain and need no veil), beneath which flies buzz hollowly and torment, and mosquitoes hum and sting as if they were born of such an air. 

The drooping spirits of mosquitoes revive, and they whet their stings anew. Legions of buzzing flies blacken the furniture. (For a week at least have heard that snapping sound under pads.) We have a dense fog every night, which lifts itself but a short distance during the day. At sundown I see it curling up from the river and meadows. 

However, I love this moisture in its season. I believe it is good to breathe, wholesome as a vapor bath.

Toadstools shoot up in the yards and paths. 

The Great Meadows being a little wet, — hardly so much as usual, — I took off my shoes and went barefoot some two miles through the cut-grass, from Peter's to Sphaerocarpa Pools and backward by river. Very little grass cut there yet. The cut-grass is bad for tender feet, and you must be careful not to let it draw through your hands, for it will cut like a fine saw. 

I was surprised to see dense beds of rhexia in full bloom there, apparently on hummocks a rod in diameter left by the ice, or in long ridges mixed with ferns and some Lysimachia lanceolata, arrowhead, etc. They make a splendid show, these brilliant rose-colored patches, especially in the neighborhood of Copan. It is about the richest color to be seen now. Yet few ever see them in this perfection, unless the haymaker who levels them, or the birds that fly over the meadow. 

Far in the broad wet meadows, on the hummocks and ridges, these bright beds of rhexia turn their faces to the heavens, seen only by the bitterns and other meadow birds that fly over. We, dwelling and walking on the dry upland, do not suspect their existence. How obvious and gay to those creatures that fly over the meadow! Seen only by birds and mowers. These gay standards otherwise unfurled in vain. 

Snake-head arethusa still in the meadow there. 

Ludwigia sphaerocarpa apparently a week out, a foot and a half to two feet high.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 1, 1856

Liatris will apparently open in a day or two See );August 26, 1858 ("The liatris is about (or nearly) in prime."); September 6, 1859 ("The liatris is, perhaps, a little past prime. It is a very rich purple in favorable lights and makes a great show where it grows."); September 28, 1858 ("Liatris done, apparently some time.").See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Liatris

Perfect dog-days without interruption. See July 30, 1856 (“This is a perfect dog-day. The atmosphere thick, mildewy, cloudy. It is difficult to dry anything. The sun is obscured, yet we expect no rain”)

Snake-head arethusa still in the meadow there. See July 7, 1856 ("The snake-head arethusa is now abundant amid the cranberries”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snakemouth Orchid

Far in the broad wet meadows, on the hummocks and ridges, these bright beds of rhexia turn their faces to the heavens, seen only by the bitterns and other meadow birds that fly over. See July 18, 1852 ("The petals of the rhexia have a beautiful clear purple with a violet tinge."); and note to August 5, 1858 ("I cannot sufficiently admire the rhexia, one of the highest-colored purple flowers, but difficult to bring home in its perfection, with its fugacious petals.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Rhexia Virginica (meadow-beauty)

Far in the meadows

 these bright beds of rhexia 

seen only by birds.

Have I not commonly noticed them dead after rain?

July 12.

P. M. — Down Turnpike to Red Lily Meadow. 

Hear the plaintive note of young bluebirds, a reviving and gleaming of their blue ray. 

In Moore's meadow by Turnpike, see the vetch in purple patches weighing down the grass, as if a purple tinge were reflected there. 

White vervain. Smooth sumach, apparently yesterday. Rue is beginning now to whiten the meadows on all hands. 

The Ranunculus aquatilis appears to be about done, though it may have been submerged by the rain of yesterday. I see hardly one freshly open, and it  quite moist and lowering yet. 

By the myosotis ditch there, is an abundance of Galium trifidum (apparently obtusum or latifolium, in press). It is densely massed and quite prickly, with three corolla-lobes. As yet I think I have observed only two varieties of G. trifidum, smooth and rough. 

Lactuca sanguinea, some time, with dark-purple stem, widely branched. Pycnanthemum muticum and the narrow-leaved, not long.

(short tail shrew dead in the trail

avesong September 17, 2023)

In the still wet road on the hill, just beyond Lincoln bound, a short-tailed shrew (Sorex brevicaudus of Say), dead after the rain. I have found them thus three or four times before. It is 4 1/2 inches long; tail 1 +; head and snout, 1 +. Roundish body. Lead-color above, somewhat lighter beneath, with a long snout, 3/8  inch beyond lower jaw, incisors black, delicate light-colored (almost silvery) mustachial bristles, and also from lower lip; nose emarginate; nails long and slender, a purple bar across each; ears white and concealed in the fur; the nostrils plainly perforated, though Emmons says that in the specimens of Sorex he had seen he could detect no perforations with a microscope. It has a peculiar but not very strong muskiness. There was an insect-wing in its mouth. Its numerous teeth distinct. 

Have I not commonly noticed them dead after rain? I am surprised to read in Emmons that it was first observed in Missouri, and that he has "not been able to meet with it" and doubts its existence in the State; retains it on the authority of former catalogues; says it nests on the surface and is familiar with water. 

In spirits. [Given to Agassiz]

Red lilies in prime, single upright fiery flowers, their throats how splendidly and variously spotted, hardly two of quite the same hue and not two spotted alike, —leopard-spotted, — averaging a foot or more in height, amid the huckleberry and lambkill, etc., in the moist, meadowy pasture. 

Apparently a bluebird's egg in a woodpecker's hole in an apple tree, second brood, just laid. In collection. 

Parsnip at Bent's orchard; how long? Also on July 5th, almost out. Agrimony well out. Chestnut in prime. 

See Lysimachia quadrifolia with from three to five (or six?) leaves in a whorl. 

Iberis umbellata, candytuft, roadside, Turtle's, naturalized; how long? New plant.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 12, 1856

A short-tailed shrew dead after the rain. I have found them thus three or four times before. See May 1, 1857 ("Apparently a skunk has picked up what I took to be the dead shrew in the Goose Pond Path."); July 31, 1856 ("Another short-tailed shrew dead in the wood-path.")

Emmons doubts its existence in the State.. See Ebenezer Emmons, Report on the Quadrupeds of Massachusetts 13 (1840) ("The Shrews are remarkable for their glandular apparatus, which gives them the strong musky odor . . . I have not been able to meet with it, and I have some doubts of the existence of this species Within the limits of this State.. . . From the fact, that in the summer many are found dead without any external injury, it is supposed that an annual mortality prevails among them. It is suggested, however, that it may arise from a deficiency of food produced in a dry season by the escape of worms on which they feed, . . .In the specimens of Sorex which have fallen under my observation, I have not been able to discover, even with the microscope, any nostrils, the termination, or the extremity, of the nose being apparently an imperforate membrane.")

July 12. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July 12

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

Midsummer 1851

July 16.

Set out at 3 P.M. for Nine-Acre Corner Bridge via Hubbard's Bridge and Conantum, returning via Dashing Brook, rear of Baker's, and railroad at 6.30 P.M.

The song sparrow, the most familiar and New England bird, sets this midsummer day to music, as if it were the music of a mossy rail or fence post; a little stream of song, cooling, rippling through the noon.

Berries are just beginning to ripen, and children are planning expeditions after them. The milkweeds, or silkweeds, are rich flowers, now in blossom. The Asclepias syriaca, or common milkweed; its buds fly open at a touch.

I see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and on the flowers of the milkweed (Asclepias pulchra) by the roadside, a really handsome flower; also the smaller butterfly, with reddish wings, and a larger, black or steel-blue, with wings spotted red on edge, and one of equal size, reddish copper-colored.

The earliest corn begins to tassel out. The lark sings in the meadow; the very essence of the afternoon is in his strain. This is a New England sound, but the cricket is heard under all sounds.

The twittering of swallows is in the air, reminding me of water. The meadow-sweet is now in bloom, and the yarrow prevails by all roadsides. I see the hardback too, homely but dear plant, just opening its red clustered flowers.

The small aster, too, now abounds (Aster miser), and the tall buttercup still. 

The tree-primrose, or scabish, still is seen over the fence. 

The red-wings and crow blackbirds are heard chattering on the trees.

St.John's-wort, one of the first of yellow flowers, begins to shine along the roadside.

I hear the kingbird twittering or chattering like a stout-chested swallow. 

The prunella sends back a blue ray from under my feet as I walk; the pale lobelia too. 

The plaintive, spring-restoring 'peep of a bluebird is occasionally heard.

The wild rose peeps from amid the alders and other shrubs by the roadside. 

The elder-blow fills the air with its scent. 

The angelica,with its large umbels, is gone to seed. On it I find one of those slow-moving green worms, with rings spotted black and yellow. 

The whiteweed is turning black . 

Grapes are half grown and lead the mind forward to autumn.

It is an air this afternoon that makes you indifferent to all things, - perfect summer, but with a comfortable breeziness. Notwithstanding the drifting clouds, you fear no rain to-day. You know not heat nor cold. What season of the year is this?

The yellow lilies reign in the river. The painted tortoises drop off the willow stumps as you go over the bridge. The river is now so low that you can see its bottom, shined on by the sun, and travellers stop to look at fishes as they go over, leaning on the rails. The pickerel-weed sends up its heavenly blue. The devil's-needles seem to rest in air over the water. The tansy is budded.

The color of the cows on Fair Haven Hill, how fair a contrast to the hillside! How striking and wholesome their clean brick-red! When were they painted? How carelessly the eye rests on them, or passes them by as things of course!

Now, at 4 P. M., I hear the pewee in the woods, and the cuckoo reminds me of some silence among the birds I had not noticed. The vireo sings like a robin at even, incessantly, - for I have now turned into Conant's woods.

The oven-bird helps fill some pauses. The poison sumach shows its green berries, now unconscious of guilt. The heart-leaved loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata) is seen in low open woods. The breeze displays the white under sides of the oak leaves and gives a fresh and flowing look to the woods.

The river is a dark-blue winding stripe amid the green of the meadow. What is the color of the world? Green mixed with yellowish and reddish for hills and ripe grass, and darker green for trees and forests; blue spotted with dark and white for sky and clouds, and dark blue for water.

I am refreshed by the view of Nobscot and the southwestern vales, from Conantum, seething with the blue element. I walk through these elevated fields, terraced upon the side of the hill so that my eye looks off into the blue cauldron of the air at his own level.

Methinks this is the first of dog-days. The air in the distance has a peculiar blue mistiness, or furnace-like look, though it is not sultry yet.

It is a world of orchards and small-fruits now, and you can stay at home if the well has cool water in it. Here the haymakers have just gone to tea, - at 5 o'clock, the farmer's hour, before the afternoon is ended, while he still thinks much work may still be done before night.

At the Corner Bridge the white lilies are budded. Green apples are now so large as to remind me of coddling and the autumn again. The season of fruits is arrived.

I come through the pine plains behind James Baker's, where late was open pasture, now open pitch pine woods; only here and there the grass has given place to a carpet of pine-needles. These are among our pleasantest woods, - open, level, with blackberry vines interspersed and flowers, as lady's- slippers, earlier, and pinks on the outskirts.

And now I hear the wood thrush from the shade, who loves these pine woods as well as I.

I pass by Walden's scalloped shore. The epilobium reflects a pink gleam up the vales and down the hills. The chewink jingles on a bush's top.

Still the cars come and go with the regularity of nature, of the sun and moon.

***

What more glorious condition of being can we imagine than from impure to be becoming pure? 

It is almost desirable to be impure that we may be the subject of this improvement.

That I am innocent to myself!

That I love and reverence my life!

That I am better fitted for a lofty society to-day than I was yesterday!

To make my life a sacrament! What is nature without this lofty tumbling?

May I treat myself with more and more respect and tenderness.

May I not forget that I am impure and vicious.

May I not cease to love purity.

May I go to my slumbers as expecting to arise to a new and more perfect day.

May I so live and refine my life as fitting myself for a society ever higher than I actually enjoy.

May I treat myself tenderly as I would treat the most innocent child whom I love; may I treat children and my friends as my newly discovered self.

Let me forever go in search of myself; never for a moment think that I have found myself; be as a stranger to myself, never a familiar, seeking acquaintance still.

May I be to myself as one is to me whom I love, a dear and cherished object.

What temple, what fane, what sacred place can there be but the innermost part of my own being? The possibility of my own improvement, that is to be cherished.

As I regard myself, so I am.

O my dear friends, I have not forgotten you.

I will know you to-morrow.

I associate you with my ideal self.

I had ceased to have faith in myself.

I thought I was grown up and become what I was intended to be, but it is earliest spring with me.

In relation to virtue and innocence the oldest man is in the beginning spring and vernal season of life.

It is the love of virtue makes us young ever.

That is the fountain of youth, the very aspiration after the perfect.

I love and worship myself with a love which absorbs my love for the world.

The lecturer suggested to me that I might become better than I am.

Was it not a good lecture, then?

May I dream not that I shunned vice; may I dream that I loved and practiced virtue.

 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 16, 1851

I might have added to the list of July 16th the Aralia hispida, bristling aralia; the heart-leaved loosestrife (Lysimachia ciliata) also the upright loosestrife (L. racemosa), with a rounded terminal raceme; the tufted vetch (Vicia cracca). Sweet-gale fruit now green. H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 18, 1851

The color of the cows on Fair Haven Hill, how fair a contrast to the hillside! How striking and wholesome their clean brick-red! See July 5, 1853 ("Such a habit have cows in a pasture of moving forward while feeding that, in surveying on the Great Fields to-day, I was interrupted by a herd of a dozen cows, which successively passed before my line of vision, feeding forward, and I had to watch my opportunity to look between them.") 

The lark sings in the meadow; the very essence of the afternoon is in his strain. This is a New England sound. See June 30, 1851 (“ The lark sings a note which belongs to a New England summer evening.”)

And now I hear the wood thrush from the shade, who loves these pine woods as well as I. See May 28, 1855 ("While we sit by the path in the depths of the woods three quarters of a mile beyond Hayden’s,. . ., the wood thrush sings steadily for half an hour, now at 2.30 P. M., amid the pines, — loud and clear and sweet."); June 15, 1851 ("I sit in the shade of the pines to hear a wood thrush at noon. The bird begins on a low strain, i. e. it first delivers a strain on a lower key, then a moment after another a little higher, then another still varied from the others, — no two successive strains alike, either ascending or descending.")