16 August 1852 – 22 August 1852

P. M. — Down river in boat with George Bradford. Zizania aquatica, Indian or Canadian rice, or water oats, like slender corn. How long?

Twenty minutes before 5 a. m. — To Cliffs and Walden. | Dawn. No breathing of chip-birds nor singing of robins as in spring, but still the cock crows lustily. The creak of the crickets sounds louder. As I go along the back road, hear two or three song sparrows. This morning’s red, there being a misty cloud there, is equal to an evening red. The woods are very still. I hear only a faint peep or twitter from one bird, then the never-failing wood thrush, it being about sunrise, and after, on the Cliff, the phoebe note of a chickadee, a night-warbler, a creeper (?), and a pewee (?), and, later still, the huckleberry-bird and red-eye, but all few and faint. Cannot distinguish the steam of the engine toward Waltham from one of the morning fogs over hollows in woods. Lespedeza violacea var. (apparently) angus- tifolia (?), sesstliflora of Bigelow. Also another L. vio- lacea, or at least violet, perhaps different from what I saw some time since. Gerardza pedicularia, bushy ge- rardia, almost ready. The white cornel berries are dropping off before they are fairly white. Is not the hibiscus a very bright pink or even flesh- color? It is so delicate and peculiar. I do not think of any flower just like it. It reminds me of some of the wild geraniums most. It is a singular, large, delicate, high-colored flower with a tree-like leaf. Gaylussacia frondosa, blue-tangle, dangle-berry, ripe perhaps a week. Weston of Lincoln thought there were more grapes, both cultivated and wild, than usual this year, because the rose-bugs had not done so much harm.

3 Pp. M.— To Joe Clark’s and Hibiscus Bank.

2 vp. m.— To Corner Spring, Burnt Plain, and Brister Hill.

Weeds in potato-fields are now very rank. What should we come to if the season were longer, and the reins were given to vegetation? ‘Those savages that do not wither before the glance of civilization, that are waiting their turn to be cultivated, preparing a granary for the birds. The air within a day or two is quite cool, almost too cool for a thin coat, yet the alter- nate days are by some reckoned among the warmest in the year, scalding hot. That will apply very well to the greatest heat of August. Young turkeys are stray- ing in the grass, which is alive with grasshoppers. 38 p. M.— To Bear Hill via railroad and Flnt’s. The bees, wasps, etc., are on the goldenrods, im- patient to be interrupted, improving their time before the sun of the year sets. A man killed by hghtning would have a good answer ready in the next world to the question “How came you here?” which he need not hesitate to give. Can that be Mulgedvum leuco- pheum, with the aspect of a lettuce but bluish flowers, seven feet high with a panicle two feet by ten inches? Cat-tails ripe. The common epilobium holds not a neat flower but rich-colored. Moralists say of men, By their fruits ye shall know them, but botanists say of plants, By their flowers ye shall know them. This is very well generally, but they must make exceptions sometimes when the fruit is fairer than the flower. They are to be compared at that stage in which they are most significant to man. I say that sometimes by their fruits ye shall know them. The bright red or scarlet fruit of the scarlet thorn (Crataegus coccinea) in the woods off Bear Hill road, Winn’s woods. How handsomely they contrast with the green leaves! Are edible also. Fruits now take the place of flowers to some extent. These brilliant-colored fruits, flower-like. There are few flowers have such brilliant and remarkable colors as the fruit of the arum, trilium, convallarias, draceena, cornels, viburnums, acteea, etc., etc. I must notice this kind of flowers now. The leaves of the dogsbane are turning yellow. There are as few or fewer birds heard than flowers seen. ‘The red-eye still occasionally. Agrimony still. ‘The dry, pearly, and almost incorruptible heads of the Life Everlasting.” Ah! this is a truly elysian flower now, beyond change and decay, not lusty but immor- tal,— pure ascetics, suggesting a widowed virginity. Bidens frondosa in corn-fields under Bear Hill, west side. The large kind. Polygonum arifolium, a very large scratchweed, in the ditch in Baker’s Swamp, reminding me of a boa-constrictor creeping over the plants’ stems, a third of an inch in diameter. Some time earlier in this month. The sound of the crickets gradually prevails more and more. I hear the year falling asleep. When dry seeds come, then I hear these dry locust and cricket sounds. Berries are still abun- dant on Bear Hill, but how late when huckleberries begin to be wormy and pickers are deserting the fields ?