A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle.

July 27. 

Lobelia cardinalis, three or four days, with similar white glands (?) on edges of leaves as in L. spicata. Why is not this noticed? 

Cornus sericea about done.

As I paddle by Dodge's Brook, a great devil's-needle alights on my paddle, between my hands. It is about three inches long and three and a half in spread of wings, without spots, black and yellow, with green eyes (?). It keeps its place within a few inches of my eyes, while I was paddle some twenty-five rods against a strong wind, clinging closely. Perhaps it chose that place for coolness this hot day. 

To-day, as yesterday, it is more comfortable to be walking or paddling at 2 and 3 p. m., when there is wind, but at five the wind goes down and it is very still and suffocating. I afterward saw other great devil's-needles, the forward part of their bodies light-blue and very stout. 

The Stellaria longifolia is out of bloom and drying up. Vide some of this date pressed. 

At Bath Place, above, many yellow lily pads are left high and dry for a long time, in the zizania hollow, a foot or more above the dry sand, yet with very firm and healthy green leaves, almost the only ones not eaten by insects now. This river is quite low. 

The yellow lilies stand up seven or eight inches above the water, and, opposite to Merriam's, the rocks show their brown backs very thick (though some are concealed), like sheep and oxen lying down and chewing the cud in a meadow. I frequently run on to one — glad when it's the smooth side — and am tilted up this way or that, or spin round as on a central pivot. They bear the red or blue paint from many a boat, and here their moss has been rubbed off. 

Ceratophyllum is now apparently in bloom commonly, with its crimson-dotted involucre. 

I am surprised to find kalmiana lilies scattered thinly all along the Assabet, a few small, commonly reddish pads in middle of river, but I see no flowers. It is their great bluish waved (some green) radical leaves which I had mistaken for those of the heart-leaf, the floating leaves being so small. These and vallisneria washed up some time. The radical leaves of the heart-leaf are very small and rather triangular. 

I see, on a rock in midstream, a peetweet within a foot of a turtle, both eying me anxiously within two rods, but not minding each other. 

Zizania scarce out some days at least.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 27, 1856

A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle... See  June 13, 1854 ("I float homeward over water almost perfectly smooth, my sail so idle that I count ten devil's-needles resting along it at once."); July 17, 1854 ("I am surprised to see crossing my course in middle of Fair Haven Pond great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore.").

June 13. 

Floating homeward, I 

count devil's-needles at rest 

on my idle sail.

July 17.

Flying shore to shore, 

yellowish devil's-needles 

cross their Atlantic. 

July 27

A devil's-needle 

keeps its place on my paddle

against a strong wind.

July 27, 1856

Sheltered in shadow of ferns in the meadow on the cool mud in the hot afternoon.

July 18. 

July 18

P. M. — To Wheeler meadow to look at willows. 

Again scare up a woodcock, apparently seated or sheltered in shadow of ferns in the meadow on the cool mud in the hot afternoon. 

Rosa Carolina, some time, at edge of Wheeler meadow near Island Neck. 

You see almost everywhere on the muddy river bottom, rising toward the surface, first, the coarse multifid leaves of the Ranunculus Purshii, now much the worse for the wear; second, perhaps, in coarseness, the ceratophyllum, standing upright; third, perhaps, the Bidens Beckii, with its leafets at top; then the Utricularia vulgaris, with its black or green bladders, and the two lesser utricularias in many places.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 18, 1856

Again scare up a woodcock. See July 3, 1856 ("I scare up one or two woodcocks in different places by the shore, where they are feeding, and in a meadow. They go off with a whistling flight. Can see where their bills have probed the mud. ");  July 16, 1854 ("Woodcock by side of Walden in woods."); July 18, 1856  ("Again scare up a woodcock, apparently seated or sheltered in shadow of ferns in the meadow on the cool mud in the hot afternoon.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Woodcock

July 18. See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 18

A Book of 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

So the tree gets planted!

July 14.

P. M. — To Muhlenbergii Brook. 

Anthony Wright found a lark's nest with fresh eggs on the 12th in E. Hubbard's meadow by ash tree, — two nests, probably one a second brood. 

Nasturtium hispidum (?), apparently three or four days. 

See and hear martins twittering on the elms by riverside. 

Bass out about two days at Island. 

There is a pyrus twenty feet high with small fruit at Assabet Spring. 

Noli-me-tangere already springs at Muhlenbergii Brook, some days. 

Saw apparently my little ruby(?)-crested wren(?) on the weeds there. 

Senecio long gone to seed and dispersed. 

Canada thistle some time on Huckleberry Pasture-side beyond. 

Ceratophyllum with a dense whorl of twelve little oval red-dotted apparent flower-buds (?) in an axil. 

While drinking at Assabet Spring in woods, noticed a cherry-stone on the bottom. A bird that came to drink must have brought it half a mile. So the tree gets planted!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 14, 1856

Bass out about two days at Island. See July 17, 1856 ("Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars"); July 18, 1854 ("We have very few bass trees in Concord, but walk near them at this season and they will be betrayed, though several rods off, by the wonderful susurrus of the bees, etc., which their flowers attract.") Compre July 3, 1853 ("There are no flowers on bass trees commonly this year."); June 3, 1857 ("The bass at the Island will not bloom this year. ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Basswood

Saw apparently my little ruby-crested wren on the weeds there. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the ruby-crowned or crested wren.

 ("

While drinking at Assabet Spring. See May 2, 1855 ("Open the Assabet spring."); July 12, 1857 ("I drink at every cooler spring in my walk these afternoons."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, At Assabet Spring

A bird that came to drink must have brought it half a mile. See September 1, 1860 ("See how artfully the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a bird may be compelled to transport it. . . .The bird is bribed with the pericarp to take the stone with it and do this little service for Nature. Thus a bird's wing is added to the cherry-stone which was wingless, and it does not wait for winds to transport it."); also September 21, 1860 ("I suspect that ... those [seeds] the wind takes are less generally the food of birds and quadrupeds than the heavier and wingless seeds") and  August 19, 1852 ("The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them.").