21 August 1854 – 27 August 1854

P. M.—To Conantum via Hubbard Bath. Leaves of small hypericums begin to be red. The river is warmer than I supposed it would become again, yet not so warm as in July. A small, wary dipper, — solitary, dark-colored, diving amid the pads. The same that lingered so late on the Assabet. Red choke-berries are dried black; ripe some time ago. In Hubbard’s meadow, between the two woods, I can- not find a pitcher-plant with any water in it. Some of the Hubbard aster are still left, against the up- per Hubbard Wood by the shore, which the mowers omitted. It looks like a variety of A. Tradescanti,! with longer, less rigid, and more lanceolate toothed cauline leaves, with fewer and more distant branchlets, and the whole plant more simple and wand-like. The bayonet rush has not generally blossomed this year. What has, long ago. Have noticed winged grasshoppers or locusts a week ormore. Spikenard berries are now mahogany-color. ‘Trillium berries bright-red. I see a woodchuck at a distance, cantering like a fat pig, ludicrously fat, first one end up, then the other. It runs with difficulty. The fever-bush berries are partly turned red, perhaps prematurely. Now, say, is hazel- nut time. I think that my Aster corymbosus — at least the early ones — are A. cordifolius, since Wood makes this to vary to white and to have a flexuous stem. I see robins in small flocks and pigeon woodpeckers with them. Now see in pastures tufts of grass which have been pulled up by cattle, withered, quite thickly strewn. Spiranthes cernua, a day or two. Brought home a great Eupatorium purpureum from Miles’s Swamp (made species fistulosum by Barratt). It is ten-and a half feet high and one inch in diameter; said to grow to twelve feet. The corymb, eighteen and a half inches wide by fifteen inches deep; the largest leaves, thirteen by three inches. The stem hollow throughout. This I found, to my surprise, when I undertook to make a flute of it, trusting it was closed at the leaves; but there is no more pith there than elsewhere. It would serve many purposes, as a water- pipe, etc. Probably the Indians knew it and used. They might have blowed arrows through a straight one. It would yield an available hollow tube six feet long. Did I see the yellow redpoll back? Head not con- spicuously reddish.

‘The haze, accompanied by much wind, is so thick this forenoon that the sun is obscured as by a cloud. I see no rays of sunlight. A bee much like a honey-bee cutting rounded pieces out of rose leaves. P. M.— To Great Meadows on foot along bank into Bedford meadows; thence to Beck Stow’s and Gowing’s Swamp.

Wednesday. P. M.—To Gowing’s Swamp | and Hadlock Meadows.

P. M.—To Fair Haven Pond by boat. A strong wind from the south-southwest, which I expect will waft me back. So many pads are eaten up and have disappeared that it has the effect of a rise of the river drowning them. This strong wind against which we row is quite exhilarating after the stiller summer. Yet we have no rain, and I see the blue haze between me and the shore six rods off.

1 think I never saw the haze so thick as now, at 11 a. m., looking from my attic window. I cannot quite distinguish J. Hosmer’s house, only the dark outline of the woods behind it. There appears to be, as it were, a thick fog over the Dennis plains. Between me and Nawshawtuct is a very blue haze like smoke. Indeed many refer all this to smoke. Tortoise eggs are nowadays dug up in digging po- tatoes. P. M. — Up Assabet by boat to Bath.

For a week we have had warmer weather than for a long time before, yet not so warm nearly asin July. I hear of a great many fires around us, far and near, both meadows and woods; in Maine and New York also. There may be some smoke in this haze, but I doubt it. P. M. — To Dugan Desert. I hear part of a phcebe’s strain, as I go over the railroad bridge. It is the voice of dying summer. The pads now left on the river are chiefly those of the white lily. I noticed yesterday where a large piece of meadow had melted and sunk on a sandy bottom in the Assabet, and the weeds now rose above the surface where it was five feet deep around. It is so dry that I take the left of the railroad bridge and go through the meadows along the river. In the hollows where the surface of the meadow has been taken out within a year or two, spring up pontederias and lilies, proserpinaca, polygonums, Ludwigia palustris, etc., etc. Nasturtium hispidum still in bloom, and will be for some time. I think I hear a red-eye. Rudbeckia,—the small one, —still fresh. The Poa hirsuta is left on the upper edge of the meadows (as at J. Hosmer’s), as too thin and poor a grass, beneath the attention of the farmers. How fortunate that it grows in such places and not in the midst of the rank grasses which are cut! With its beautiful fine purple color, its beautiful purple blush, it reminds me and supplies the place of the rhexia now about done.’ Close by, or held in your hand, its fine color is not obvious,—it is but dull,—but [at] a distance, with a suitable light, it is exceedingly beau- tiful. It is at the same time in bloom. This is one of the most interesting phenomena of August.’ I hear these afternoons the faint, cricket-like note of the Rana palustris squatting by the side of the river, easily confounded with that of the interrupted cricket, only the last is more ringing and metallic.* How long has it been heard? The choke-cherry leaves are, some of them, from scarlet inclining to crimson. Radical leaves of the yellow thistle spot the meadow.