The longest days in the year have now come..

June 18. 

The hornet's nest is built with many thin layers of his paper, with an interval of about an eighth of an inch between them, so that his wall is one or two inches thick. This probably for warmth, dryness, and lightness. So sometimes the carpenter has learned to build double walls. 

When I attended to the lichens last winter, I made out: — First [listing species]

7 p. m. — To Cliffs. No moon. 

Methinks I saw and heard goldfinches. 

Pyrola, Mt. Pritchard

June 21, 2023

Pyrolas are beginning to blossom. 

The four-leaved loosestrife. 

The longest days in the year have now come. The sun goes down now (this moment) behind Watatic, from the Cliffs.

St. John's-wort is beginning to blossom; looks yellow.

I hear a man playing a clarionet far off. Apollo tending the flocks of King Admetus. How cultivated, how sweet and glorious, is music ! Men have brought this art to great perfection, the art of modulating sound, by long practice since the world began. What superiority over the rude harmony of savages ! There is something glorious and flower-like in it. What a contrast this evening melody with the occupations of the day! It is perhaps the most admirable accomplishment of man.

H. D. Journal, Journal, June 18, 1852

I hear a man playing a clarionet far off. See June 16, 1852 ("A flute from some villager. How rare among men so fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening!"); June 25, 1852 (“Now his day's work is done, the laborer plays his flute, — only possible at this hour. ");  August 3, 1852 (" I hear the sound of a distant piano. By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe")

June18. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 18

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 © 2009-2020

Nightfall, April First

April 1.

Now, at early starlight, I hear the Snipe’s hovering note as he circles over Nawshawtuct Meadow. Only once did I seem to see him; occasionally his squeak.  He is now heard near, now farther, but is sure to circle round again. It sounds very much like a winnowing-machine increasing rapidly in intensity for a few seconds.

There will be no moon till toward morning. There are but three elements in the landscape now, -- the star-studded sky, the water, reflecting the stars and the lingering daylight, and the dark narrow land between. A slight mist is rising from the surface of the water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  April 1, 1853


Now, at early starlight, I hear the Snipe’s hovering note as he circles over Nawshawtuct Meadow. See April 9, 1853(“Hear the snipe a short time at early starlight. . . . Louder than all is heard the shrill peep of the hylodes and the hovering note of the snipe, circling invisible above them all.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snipe

To the Assabet. Still no rain.

July 12.

July 12,  2012

I observed this morning a row of several dozen swallows perched on the telegraph-wire by the bridge, and ever and anon a part of them would launch forth as with one consent, circle a few moments over the water or meadow, and return to the wire again.

 2 p. m. — To the Assabet. Still no rain.

 The clouds, cumuli, lie in high piles along the southern horizon, glowing, downy, or cream-colored, broken into irregular summits in the form of bears erect, or demigods, or rocking stones, infant Herculeses; and still we think that from their darker bases a thunder-shower may issue.

The mower, perchance, cuts some plants which I have never seen in flower. 

I hear the toads still at night, together with bullfrogs, but not so universally nor loud as formerly. I go to walk at twilight, — at the same time that toads go to their walks, and are seen hopping about the sidewalks or the pump.

Now, a quarter after nine, as I walk along the river-bank, long after starlight, and perhaps an hour or more after sunset, I see some of those high-pillared clouds of the day, in the southwest, still reflecting a downy light from the regions of day, they are so high. It is a pleasing reminiscence of the day in the midst of the deepening shadows of the night.

As I sit on the river-bank beyond the ash tree there is an aurora, a low arc of a circle, in the north. The twilight ends to-night apparently about a quarter before ten. There is no moon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 12, 1852

Swallows perched on the telegraph-wire by the bridge. . . circle a few moments over the water or meadow, and return to the wire again. See July 12, 1859 ("I observe that they take their broods to the telegraph-wire for an aerial perch, where they teach them to fly.") See also July 12, 1854 ("Many young barn swallows sit in flocks on the bared dead willows over the water and let me float within four or five feet")

I hear the toads still at night, together with bullfrogs, but not so universally nor loud as formerly. See July 12, 1859 (“In the evening, the moon being about full, I paddle up the river to see the moonlight and hear the bullfrogs. The toads and the pebbly dont dont are most common.”) See also July 8, 1855 (“I am surprised at the number of large light-colored toads everywhere hopping over these dry and sandy fields. ”); June 15, 1860 (“ For some time I have not heard toads by day, and the hylodes appear to have done."); July 16, 1856 (“See several bullfrogs lying fully out on pads at 5 p. m. They trump well these nights.”);  July 17, 1852 (“As I walked by the river last evening, I heard no toads.”); July 17, 1856 (“I see many young toads hopping about on that bared ground amid the thin weeds, not more than five eighths to three quarters of an inch long.”);  July 17, 1860 ("Clean and handsome bullfrogs. . .sit imperturbable out on the stones all around the pond.”)

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

Swallows on a wire

launch forth,  circle and return

to the wire again

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