Some hickories are yellow.

September 24.

According to Emerson, Lonicera hirsuta, hairy honeysuckle, grows in Sudbury.

Some hickories are yellow. 

Hazel bushes a brownish red. 

Most grapes are shrivelled.

Pasture thistle still.

The zizania ripe, shining black, cylindrical kernels, five eighths of an inch long.

The fruit of the thorn trees on Lee's Hill is large, globular, and gray-dotted, but I cannot identify it certainly.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 24, 1852

Some hickories are yellow. See note to October 4, 1858 ("The hickories on the northwest side of this hill are in the prime of their color, of a rich orange; some intimately mixed with green, handsomer than those that are wholly changed") and  October 8, 1856 ("The hickory leaves are among the handsomest now, varying from green through yellow."); October 10, 1857 ("Generally speaking, chestnuts, hickories, aspens, and some other trees attain a fair clear yellow only in small specimens in the woods or sprout-lands, or in their lower leaves.");October 15, 1858 ("Small hickories are the clearest and most delicate yellow in the shade of the woods.")

The zizania ripe, shining black, cylindrical kernels, five eighths of an inch long. [Zizania aquatica var. aquatica ( Annual wild rice)] See July 22, 1854 ("Zizania, a day, with a handsome light-green panicle a foot or more long, a long slender stem, and corn-like leaves frequently more than an inch wide"); August 14, 1859 ("The zizania now makes quite a show along the river."); August 18, 1854  ("The zizania on the north side of the river near the Holt, or meadow watering-place, is very conspicuous and abundant."); August 24, 1858 ("The zizania is the greater part out of bloom; i. e., the yellowish-antlered (?) stamens are gone; the wind has blown them away"); September 3, 1858 ("Zizania still."); September 16, 1860 ("See no zizania seed ripe, or black, yet, but almost all is fallen."); September 25, 1858 ("The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it?")

The fruit of the thorn trees on Lee's Hill is large, globular, and gray-dotted, but I cannot identify it certainly. See September 23, 1852 ("I gathered some haws very good to eat to-day."); September 24, 1859 ("Those thorns by Shattuck's barn, now nearly leafless, have hard green fruit as usual.");  September 25, 1856  ("The haws of the common thorn are now very good eating and handsome."); September 25, 1856 ("the Crataegus Crus-Galli on the old fence line between Tarbell and T. Wheeler beyond brook are smaller, stale, and not good at all. “); See also   May 21, 1853 ("There are, apparently, two kinds of thorns close together on Nawshawtuct,"); June 6, 1857 ("There is a thorn now in its prime. . .with leaves more wedge-shaped at base than the Cratcegus coccinea; apparently a variety of it, between that and Crus-Galli."); September 4, 1853 ("The scarlet thorn is in many places quite edible and now a deep scarlet."); September 13, 1859("Some haws of the scarlet thorn are really a splendid fruit to look at now and far from inedible. "); October 5, 1857 ("I see many haws still green and hard, though their leaves are mostly fallen. Do they ever turn red and edible?")

I mark a willow eight feet above summer level.

September 16. 

7 a.m. — River fallen one and a half inches. Is three feet and seven eighths of an inch above summer level, i. e. at notch on tree. 

I mark a willow eight feet above summer level.

See no zizania seed ripe, or black, yet, but almost all is fallen.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 16, 1860

River fallen one and a half inches. Is three feet and seven eighths of an inch above summer level, i. e. at notch on tree. See June 23, 1860 ("At 7 p. m. the river is fifteen and three fourths inches above summer level.") September 13, 1860 ("The river this morning, about 7 A.M., is already twenty-eight and a half inches above summer level, and more than twenty inches of this is owing to the rain of yesterday and last night!! . . . At evening the river is five inches higher than in the morning.");  September 14, 1860 ("A. M. — River still rising; at 4 p. m. one and an eighth inches higher than in morning."); September 15, 1860 ("In morning river is three feet two and a half plus inches above summer level. Thus it reached its height the third day after the rain; had risen on the morning of the third day about thirty inches on account of the rain of one day (the 12th)."); September 17, 1860 ("6.30 a. m. — River thirty-four and an eighth above summer level, or fallen about four inches since evening of 15th."); September 19, 1860 (" 4 p. m. — River fallen about one foot."); September 27, 1860 ("Sept. 27. A. M. —. River about thirty-five inches above summer level, and goes no higher this time.")

See no zizania seed ripe, or black, yet, but almost all is fallen. See September 4, 1852 ("The zizania ripe, shining black, cylindrical kernels, five eighths of an inch long."); September 25, 1858 ("The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it?")

You have not seen our weedy river, you do not know the significance of its weedy bars, until you have seen the blue heron wading and pluming itself on it.

August  14. 

P. M. — To Barrett's Bar. 

The zizania now makes quite a show along the river, overtopping the withered heads of the early canary grass. 

When I reached the upper end of this weedy bar, at about 3 p. m., this warm day, I noticed some light-colored object in mid-river, near the other end of the bar. At first I thought of some large stake or board standing amid the weeds there, then of a fisherman in a brown holland sack, referring him to the shore beyond. Supposing it the last, I floated nearer and nearer till I saw plainly enough the motions of the person, whoever it was, and that it was no stake.

Looking through my glass thirty or forty rods off, I thought certainly that I saw C, who had just bathed, making signals to me with his towel, for I referred the object to the shore twenty rods further. I saw his motions as he wiped himself, — the movements of his elbows and his towel. Then I saw that the person was nearer and therefore smaller, that it stood on the sand-bar in mid stream in shallow water and must be some maiden [in] a bathing-dress, — for it was the color of brown holland web, — and a very peculiar kind of dress it seemed. 

But about this time I discovered with my naked eye that it was a blue heron standing in very shallow water amid the weeds of the bar and pluming itself. 

I had not noticed its legs at all, and its head, neck, and wings, being constantly moving, I had mistaken for arms, elbows, and towel of a bather, and when it stood stiller its shapely body looked like a peculiar bathing-dress. I floated to within twenty-five rods and watched it at my leisure. Standing on the shallowest part of the bar at that end, it was busily dressing its feathers, passing its bill like a comb down its feathers from base to tip. 

From its form and color, as well as size, it was singularly distinct. Its great spear-shaped head and bill was very conspicuous, though least so when turned toward me (whom it was eying from time to time). It coils its neck away upon its back or breast as a sailor might a rope, but occasionally stretches itself to its full height, as tall as a man, and looks around and at me. Growing shy, it begins to wade off, until its body is partly immersed amid the weeds, — potamogetons, — and then it looks more like a goose. The neck is continually varying in length, as it is doubled up or stretched out, and the legs also, as it wades in deeper or shallower water. 

Suddenly comes a second, flying low, and alights on the bar yet nearer to me, almost high and dry. Then I hear a note from them, perhaps of warning, — a short, coarse, frog-like purring or eructating sound. You might easily mistake it for a frog. I heard it half a dozen times. It was not very loud. Anything but musical. 

The last proceeds to plume himself, looking warily at me from time to time, while the other continues to edge off through the weeds. Now and then the latter holds its neck as if it were ready to strike its prey, — stretched forward over the water, — but I saw no stroke.

The arch may be lengthened or shortened, single or double, but the great spear-shaped bill and head are ever the same. A great hammer or pick, prepared to transfix fish, frog, or bird. 

At last, the water becoming too deep for wading, this one takes easily to wing — though up to his body in water — and flies a few rods to the shore. It rather flies, then, than swims. It was evidently scared. These were probably birds of this season. I saw some distinct ferruginous on the angle of the wing. 

There they stood in the midst of the open river, on this shallow and weedy bar in the sun, the leisurely sentries, lazily pluming themselves, as if the day were too long for them. 

They gave a new character to the stream. Adjutant they were to my idea of the river, these two winged men. 

You have not seen our weedy river, you do not know the significance of its weedy bars, until you have seen the blue heron wading and pluming itself on it. I see that it was made for these shallows, and they for it. Now the heron is gone from the weedy shoal, the scene appears incomplete. Of course, the heron has sounded the depth of the water on every bar of the river that is fordable to it. The water there is not so many feet deep, but so many heron's tibiae. Instead of a foot rule you should use a heron's leg for a measure. If you would know the depth of the water on these few shoalest places of Musketaquid, ask the blue heron that wades and fishes there. 

In some places a heron can wade across. 

How long we may have gazed on a particular scenery and think that we have seen and known it, when, at length, some bird or quadruped comes and takes possession of it before our eyes, and imparts to it a wholly new character. The heron uses these shallows as I cannot. I give them up to him. 

By a gauge set in the river I can tell about what time the millers on the stream and its tributaries go to work in the morning and leave off at night, and also can distinguish the Sundays, since it is the day on which the river does not rise, but falls. If I had lost the day of the week, I could recover it by a careful examination of the river. It lies by in the various mill-ponds on Sunday and keeps the Sabbath. What its persuasion is, is another question. 


David Heard says that the cattle liked the pipes so well that they distinguished their rustle from that of other grass as he was bringing them to them, and were eager to get them. The cattle distinguished the peculiar rustle of the pipes in the meadow-hay which was being brought to them, and were eager to get them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 14, 1859






The zizania now makes quite a show along the river. See August 18, 1854 ("The zizania on the north side of the river near the Holt, or meadow watering-place, is very conspicuous and abundant.")

There they stood in the midst of the open river, on this shallow and weedy bar in the sun, the leisurely sentries, lazily pluming themselves, as if the day were too long for them. See note to August 19, 1858 ("Blue herons, which have bred or been bred not far from us (plainly), are now at leisure, or are impelled to revisit our slow stream. I have not seen the last since spring. "); August 22, 1858 ("See one or two blue herons every day now, driving them far up or down the river before me."); August 24, 1854 (“See a blue heron standing on the meadow at Fair Haven Pond. At a distance before you, only the two waving lines appear, and you would not suspect the long neck and legs.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron

Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies.

September 25. 

A smart white frost last night, which has killed the sweet potato vines and melons. 

P. M. — Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies. 

The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it? 

The Gentiana Andrewsii are now in prime at Gentian Shore. Some are turned dark or reddish-purple with age. 

There is a very red osier-like cornel on the shore by the stone-heaps. 

Edward Hoar says he found last year Datum Stramomlum in their garden. Add it, then, to our plants. 

In the evening Mr. Warren brings me a snipe and a pectoral sandpiper. This last, which is a little less than the snipe but with a longer wing, must be much like T. solitarius, and I may have confounded them. The shaft of the first primary is conspicuously white above. 

The catbird still mews occasionally, and the chewink is heard faintly. 

Melvin says he has found the pigeon hawk’s nest here (distinct from partridge hawk’s); also that he sometimes sees the larger yellow-legs here. Goodwin also says the last.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 25, 1858

Go a-graping up Assabet with some young ladies. See August 12, 1853 ("To Conantum by boat, berrying, with three ladies.")

The Gentiana Andrewsii are now in prime at Gentian Shore. See  August 29, 1858  ("Gentiana Andrewsii, one not quite shedding pollen.")

The catbird still mews occasionally, and the chewink is heard faintly. See October 4, 1857 ("Hear a catbird and chewink, both faint."); also September 21, 1854 ("Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher.");  September 25, 1855 ("Meanwhile the catbird mews in the alders by my side"); September 21, 1856 ("I hear of late faint chewink notes in the shrubbery, as if they were meditating their strains in a subdued tone against another year."); ; September 19, 1858 ("Hear a chewink’s chewink. But how ineffectual is the note of a bird now! We hear it as if we heard it not, and forget it immediately.")

Melvin says that he sometimes sees the large yellow-legs here. See September 14, 1854 ("A flock of thirteen tell tales, great yellow-legs, start up with their shrill whistle from the midst of the great Sudbury meadow")

The squirrel lives in a hazel grove.

September 3. 

P. M. — Up Assabet a-hazelnutting. 

I see a small striped snake, some fifteen or eighteen inches long, swallowing a toad, all but the head and one foreleg taken in. It is a singular sight, that of the little head of the snake directly above the great, solemn, granitic head of the toad, whose eyes are open, though I have reason to think that he is not alive, for when I return some hours after I find that the snake has disgorged the toad and departed. 

The toad had been swallowed with the hind legs stretched out and close together, and its body is compressed and elongated to twice its length, while the head, which had not been taken in, is of the original size and full of blood. The toad is quite dead, apparently killed by being so far crushed; and its eyes are still open. The body of the snake was enlarged regularly from near the middle to its jaws. It appeared to have given up this attempt at the eleventh hour. Probably the toad is very much more elongated when perfectly swallowed by a small snake. It would seem, then, that snakes undertake to swallow toads which are too big for them. 

I see where the bank by the Pokelogan is whitewashed, i. e. the grass, for a yard or two square, by the thin drop pings of some bird which has roosted on a dead limb above. It was probably a blue heron, for I find some slate-blue feathers dropped, apparently curving breast feathers, broadly shafted with white. 

I hear a faint warble from time to time from some young or old birds, from my window these days. Is it the purple finch again, — young birds practicing?

Zizania still. 

The hazelnut bushes up this way are chiefly confined to the drier river-bank. At least they do not extend into the lower, somewhat meadowy land further inland. They appear to be mostly stripped. The most I get are left hanging over the water at the swimming-ford. 

How important the hazelnut to the ground squirrel! They grow along the walls where the squirrels have their homes. They are the oaks that grow before their doors. They have not far to go to their harvesting.  These bushes are generally stripped, but isolated ones in the middle of fields, away from the squirrel-walks, are still full of burs. 

The wall is highway and rampart to these little beasts. They are almost inaccessible in their holes beneath it, and on either side of it spring up, also defended by the wall, the hazel bushes on whose fruit the squirrels in a great measure depend. Notwithstanding the abundance of hazelnuts here, very little account is made of them, and I think it is because pains is not taken to collect them before the squirrels have done so. Many of the burs are perfectly green yet, though others are brightly red-edged. 

The squirrel lives in a hazel grove. There is not a hazel bush but some squirrel has his eye on its fruit, and he will be pretty sure to anticipate you. As we say, “The tools to those who can use them,” so we may say, “The nuts to those who can get them.” 

That floating grass by the riverside whose lower leaves, so flat and linear, float on the surface of the water, though they are not now, at least, lake-colored, is apparently the Glyceria fluitans, floating fescue grass, still blooming and for a good while. I got it yesterday at Merrick’s shore. 

At the sand-bar by the swimming-ford, I collect two small juncuses, not knowing but I have pressed them before. One appears to be Juncus scirpoides (?), small as it is; the other, Juncus articulates (? ?). 

At Prichard’s shore I see where they have plowed up and cast into the river a pile of elm roots, which interfered with their laying down the adjacent field. One which I picked up I at first thought was a small lead pipe, partly coiled up and muddy in the water, it being apparently of uniform size. It was just nineteen feet and eight inches long; the biggest end was twenty-one fortieths of an inch in diameter, and the smallest nineteen fortieths. This difference was scarcely obvious to the eye. No doubt it might have been taken up very much longer. It looked as if, when green and flexible, it might answer the purpose of a rope, — of a cable, for instance, when you wish to anchor in deep water. The wood is very porous. 

The narrow brown sheaths from the base of white pine leaves now strew the ground and are washed up on the edge of puddles after the rain.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 3, 1858

See a small striped snake, some fifteen or eighteen inches long, swallowing a toad, all but the head and one foreleg taken in. See May 19, 1856 (“Saw a small striped snake in the act of swallowing a Rana palustris, within three feet of the water. The snake, being frightened, released his hold, and the frog hopped off to the water. ”)

The narrow brown sheaths from the base of white pine leaves now strew the ground. September 5, 1857 ("I now see those brown shaving like stipules of the white pine leaves, which are falling, i.e. the stipules, and caught in cobwebs.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

My stub sail frightens a haymakers’ horse tied under a maple.

August 24.

August 24, 2018

Edward Hoar brings Cassia Chamoecrista from Greenport, L. I., which must have been out a good while. 

P. M. —Sail to Ball’s (?) Hill.

It is a strong but fitful northwest wind, stronger than before. Under my new sail the boat dashes off like a horse with the bits in his teeth. Coming into the main stream below the island, a sudden flaw strikes me, and in my efforts to keep the channel I run one side under, and so am compelled to beach my boat there and bail it. 

They are haying still in the Great Meadows; indeed, not half the grass is cut, I think. 

I am flattered because my stub sail frightens a haymakers’ horse tied under a maple while his masters are loading. His nostrils dilate; he snorts and tries to break loose. He eyes with terror this white wind steed. No wonder he is alarmed at my introducing such a competitor into the river meadows. Yet, large as my sail is, it being low I can scud down for miles through the very meadows in which dozens of haymakers are at work, and they may not detect me. 

The zizania is the greater part out of bloom; i. e., the yellowish-antlered (?) stamens are gone; the wind has blown them away. 

The Bidens Beckii has only begun a few days, it being rather high water. 

No hibiscus yet.

The white maples in a winding row along the river and the meadow’s edge are rounded hoary-white masses, as if they showed only the under sides of their leaves. Those which have been changed by water are less bright than a week ago. They now from this point (Abner Buttrick’s shore) are a pale lake, mingling very agreeably with the taller hoary-white ones. This little color in the hoary meadow edging is very exhilarating to behold and the most memorable phenomenon of the day. It is as when quarters of peach of this color are boiled with white apple-quarters. Is this anything like murrey color? In some other lights it is more red or scarlet. 

Climbing the hill at the bend, I find Gerardia Pedicularia, apparently several days, or how long? 

Looking up and down the river this sunny, breezy afternoon, I distinguish men busily haying in gangs of four or five, revealed by their white shirts, some two miles below, toward Carlisle Bridge, and others still, further up the stream. They are up to their shoulders in the grassy sea, almost lost in it. I can just discern a few white specks in the shiny grass, where the most distant are at work. 

What an adventure, to get the hay from year to year from these miles on miles of river meadow! You see some carrying out the hay on poles, where it is too soft for cattle, and loaded carts are leaving the meadows for distant barns in the various towns that border on them. 

I look down a straight reach of water to the hill by Carlisle Bridge, —and this I can do at any season, — the longest reach we have. It is worth the while to come here for this prospect, — to see a part of earth so far away over the water that it appears islanded between two skies. If that place is real, then the places of my imagination are real. 

Desmodium Marylandicum apparently in prime along this Ball’s (?) Hill low shore, and apparently another kind, Dillenii (??) or rigidum (??), the same. These and lespedezas now abound in dry places. 

Carrion flower fruit is blue; how long? 

Squirrels have eaten hazelnuts and pitch pine cones for some days. Now and of late we remember hazel bushes, —we become aware of such a fruit-bearing bush. They have their turn, and every clump and hedge seems composed of them. The burs begin to look red on their edges. 

I notice, in the river, opposite the end of the meadow path, great masses of ranunculus stems, etc., two or three feet through by a rod or more long, which look as if they had been washed or rolled aside by the wind and waves, amid the potamogeton. 

I have just read of a woodchuck that came to a boat on Long Island Sound to be taken in! 

Pipes (Equisetum limosum) are brown and half-withered along the river, where they have been injured by water.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 24, 1858

The Bidens Beckii has only begun a few days, it being rather high water. See August 1, 1859 ("The B. Beckii (just beginning to bloom) just shows a few green leafets above its dark and muddy masses, now that the river is low."); August 2, 1856("Very common now are the few green emerald leafets of the Bidens Beckii, which will ere long yellow the shallow parts."); August 9, 1856 ("All the Bidens Beckii is drowned too, and will be delayed, if not exterminated for this year."); August 11, 1853 ("The weeds still covered by the flood, so that we have no Bidens Beckii."); August 12, 1854 ("The Bidens Beckii yellows the side of the river just below the Hubbard Path, but is hardly yet in fullest flower generally."); September 12, 1859 (" much of the Beckii was drowned by the rise of the river");  September 14, 1854 ("The Bidens Beckii is drowned or dried up, and has given place to  the great bidens, the flower and ornament of the riversides at present, and now in its glory, "); September 18, 1856 ("On account of freshet I have seen no Bidens Beckii");  September 25, 1852 ("Found the Bidens Beckii (?) September 1st"); October 20, 1856 ("Owing to the great height of the river, there has been no Bidens Beckii . . . this year,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Bidens Beckii

Bidens cernua Large-flowered bidens,
or beggar-ticks,or bur-marigold,
now abundant by riverside.
September 19, 1851

 a straight reach of water to the hill by Carlisle Bridge, —— the longest reach we have. See April 10, 1852("This meadow is about two miles long at one view from Carlisle Bridge southward, appearing to wash the base of Pine hill, and it is about as much longer northward and from a third to a half a mile wide."); April 24, 1852 ("The water is still over the causeway on both sides of Carlisle Bridge for a long distance. It is a straight flood now for about four miles")

I look down a straight reach of water to see a part of earth so far away over the water that it appears islanded between two skies. If that place is real, then the places of my imagination are real. See August 23, 1851 ("Our little river reaches are not to be forgotten. I noticed that seen northward on the Assabet from the Causeway Bridge near the second stone bridge. There was [a] man in a boat in the sun, just disappearing in the distance round a bend, lifting high his arms and dipping his paddle as if he were a vision bound to land of the blessed, — far off, as in picture. When I see Concord to purpose, I see it as if it were not real but painted,")

I distinguish men busily haying in gangs of four or five, revealed by their white shirts. See August 18, 1854 ("Men in their white shirts look taller and larger than near at hand.");  See also July 30, 1856 ("I saw haymakers at work dressed simply in a straw hat, boots, shirt, and pantaloons, the shirt worn like a frock over their pants. The laborer cannot endure the contact with his clothes."); August 3, 1859 ("The haymakers are quite busy on the Great Meadows, it being drier than usual. It being remote from public view, some of them work in their shirts or half naked. "); August 5, 1854 ("I find that we are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season, and almost every meadow or section of a meadow has its band of half a dozen mowers and rakers, either bending to their manly work with regular and graceful motion.")

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

A time to visit swamps and meadows

August 18

A great drought now for several weeks.  A good time to visit swamps and meadows. 

We can walk across the Great Meadows now in any direction. They are quite dry. Even the pitcher-plant leaves are empty. The meadows are covered with spatular sundew. Saw a snipe. 

There are fifteen or twenty haymakers here yet, but almost done. They and their loads loom at a distance. Men in their white shirts look taller and larger than near at hand. 

The bobolinks alight on the wool-grass. Do they eat its seeds? 

The zizania on the north side of the river near the Holt, or meadow watering-place, is very conspicuous and abundant.

The solidago nemoralis is now abundantly out on the Great Fields.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 18, 1854

Men in their white shirts look taller and larger than near at hand. See August 24, 1858 ("I distinguish men busily haying in gangs of four or five, revealed by their white shirts, some two miles below, toward Carlisle Bridge, and others still, further up the stream. They are up to their shoulders in the grassy sea, almost lost in it. I can just discern a few white specks in the shiny grass, where the most distant are at work. ")
The bobolinks alight on the wool-grass. See August 18, 1858 (“Almost every bush along this brook is now alive with these birds.”)

The zizania on the north side of the river near the Holt, or meadow watering-place, is very conspicuous and abundant. See August 14, 1859 ("The zizania now makes quite a show along the river"); August 24, 1858 ("The zizania is the greater part out of bloom; i. e., the yellowish-antlered (?) stamens are gone; the wind has blown them away")

The solidago nemoralis is now abundantly out on the Great Fields. See August 21, 1856 ("The prevailing solidagos now are, 1st, stricta (the upland and also meadow one which I seem to have called puberula); 2d, the three-ribbed, of apparently several varieties, which I have called arguta or gigantea (apparently truly the last); 3d, altissima, though commonly only a part of its panicles; 4th, nemoralis, just beginning generally to bloom.Then there is the odora, 5th, out some time, but not common; and, 6th, the bicolor, just begun in some places."); August 30, 1853 ("The sun has shone on the earth, and the goldenrod is his fruit. ")