9 July 1860 – 15 July 1860

Clears up at noon. See two handsome rose-breasted grosbeaks on the Corner causeway. One utters a peculiar squeaking or snapping note, and, both by form of bill and this note, and color, reminds me of some of those foreign birds with great bills in cages.

2 p.m. — To Pleasant Meadow via Lincoln Bridge. The Festuca ovina is a peculiar light-colored, whitish grass, as contrasted with the denser dark-green sod of pastures; as on the swells by the tin-hole near Brister’s. Entering J. Baker’s great mud-hole, this cloudy, cool afternoon, I was exhilarated by the mass of cheer- ful bright-yellowish light reflected from the sedge (Ca- rex Pennsylvanica) growing densely on the hillsides laid bare within a year or two there. It is of a distinct cheerful yellow color even this overcast day, even as if they were reflecting a bright sunlight, though no sun is visible. It is surprising how much this will light up a hillside or upland hollow or plateau, and when, in a clear day, you look toward the sun over it late in the afternoon, the scene is incredibly bright and elysian. These various lights and shadows of the grass make the charm of a walk at present. I find in this mud-hole a new grass, Katonia Penn- sylvanica, two and a half feet high. Juncus, apparently marginatus, say ten days.

Heavy rain in the night [of the] 10th-11th. An unusual quantity of rain within a week past; too much now for our garden. The lower leaves of vines yellowed. | To-day and yesterday are cool and comfortable days, with a breeze. Thermometer at 2 p. m., 70 to 77. 2 p.M.— To Pine Hill. Herd’s-grass and red-top in prime. I often notice them growing in parallel rows of reddish and green, the seed apparently having fallen so. Haying is now generally under way. As I go along the railroad causeways, I am interested now, and of late, by those patches a rod or two.over —amid the red-top, herd’s-grass, etc., of A. Wheeler’s meadow — of Agrostis scabra, that exceedingly fine slender-branched grass drooping and waving in the wind. It gives a pale pinkish(? )-purple sheen to those parts, completely monopolizing (apparently) the ground there. It makes the most purple impression of any grass. Call it early purple grass, as compared with the Eragrostis pectinacea. Probably it is not quite in prime. It is the most finely branched and slender-culmed for its size, and near at hand the most invisible of any grass at present, and less noticeable close at hand than in a favorable light at a distance. You will see, thus, scattered over a meadow, little flecks and patches of it, almost like a flat purplish cobweb of the morning, and it seems to recline on the other grasses. It is the finest hair that waves in the fields now; Proserpine’s hair. Find a yellow butterfly about dead, probably in con- sequence of the heavy rain of last night. In the pool in Laurel Glen, Glyceria acutiflora almost."

Hear a nuthatch in the street. So they breed here. The best way to drink, especially at a shallow spring, or one so sunken below the surface as to be difficult to reach, is through a tube. You can commonly find growing near a spring a hollow reed or weed of some kind suitable for this purpose, such as rue or touch-me- not or water saxifrage, or you can carry one In your pocket. Juncus militaris. The river at 8 p. M. is eight and three quarters inches above summer level. Just after the sun is set I observe the dewdrops on the pontederia leaves. (Do not know how early they begin to form.) Even when the leaf stands perpendicular, the drop is collected at the uppermost point, and then, on a slight jar or agitation of the water, runs down the leaf. This is the only broad and thick leaf that rises above the water, and therefore it appears to be the only one that collects the dew thus early. A Mr. Bradshaw, taxidermist, carpenter, etc., etc., of Wayland, tells me that he finds the long-eared owl there in summer, and has set it up.

2P.M.— To Little Truro. You now especially notice some very red fields where the red-top grass grows luxuriantly and is now in full bloom, — a red purple, passing into brown, looking at a distance like a red-sandstone soil. The different culti- vated fields are thus like so many different-colored checkers on a checker-board. First we had the June- grass reddish-brown, and the sorrel red, of June; now the red-top red of July. For a week — and if you look very closely, for a fortnight or more — past, the season has had a more advanced look, from the reddening, imbrowning, or yellowing, and ripening of many grasses, as the sweet-scented vernal (for some time generally withered) and the June-grass, and some grain, — rye, wheat, etc., — so that the fields and hillsides present a less liquid green than they did. The vernal freshness of June is passed. Our mowing-fields new laid down with herds’-grass, red-top, and clover — 2. ¢. the second year — are red or reddish squares divided as regularly with greener herd’s-top [sc] : : ae a = v :: et eh in parallel lines, probably the seed, of : i gut i Rae ap a different weight, having fallen thus, eas ili ae ing the red spaces often eight or ten feet #"* NSS, a wide. ‘The various colors or tints of grasses, in some large pasture for instance, especially in cloudy weather, supply the place of light and shade. The pasture is distinctly parded with them half a mile off, — the very light, whitish Festuca ovina, the dark-green Poa com- pressa, and rounded yellow patches of sedge (Carea: sco- parva, etc.).

2 p.m. — To Botrychium Swamp. Botrychium Virginianum apparently in prime. Alope- curus aristulatus past prime. Pratt’s Pond side. Per- ceive now the light-colored tops of chestnuts in bloom, and, when I come near them, an offensive, sickening odor, somewhat like that of the barberry blossoms, but worse. Returning, I notice on a large pool of water in A. Heywood’s cow-yard a thick greenish-yellow scum mantling it, an exceedingly rich and remarkable color, as if it were covered with a coating of sulphur. This sort of scum seems to be peculiar to cow-yards, and contrasts with that red one by the Moore’s Swamp road last summer. Out of foulness Nature thus extracts beauty. These phenomena are observed only in summer or warm weather, methinks. 7 p. M. — On river. Water ten and five eighths above summer level; prob- ably about done rising. The spartina grass. ~ I look for dewdrops on the pontederia, but see none at first; but finally, looking in a still and shady place behind some willows, I see many drops fully formed sparkling in the light, at just eight minutes after seven by my watch (the sun sets at thirty-five minutes after seven; say, then, half an hour before sunset). But, it being windy, I did not notice any generally, even long after sunset. Also looked to see if the lilies withdraw under water | at night, as stated in Mrs. Lincoln’s Botany. The buds ~ which opened and closed to-day, and other buds, now rest half an inch or more deep in the water, which they would naturally do by their form and weight. When they open in the morning they will probably rest more buoyantly on the surface, but I have never discovered that they withdrew under water. The fowl-meadow grass is now in prime and covering the islands very densely. It has a purplish tinge and a very green culm contrasting with its panicle. The surface of the earth in summer is painted of various shades of green in mowing and pasture and meadow and some waste land by the grasses. The Agrostis vulgaris of pastures and hilltops is a dark green, the Festuca ovina a very light (even whitish) green. How rich some fields of red-top at present! Per- fect squares, it may be, like rich carpets spread out, and contrasting with very different tints of green next to them. The true grasses (excepting the grains) which thus at a distance paint the landscape generally at this season or earlier are (1) herd’s-grass, (2) red-top, (3) Agrostis scabra, (4) blue-joint (?), (5) June-grass, (6) Poa com- pressa, (7) fowl-meadow, (8) sheep’s fescue, (9) piper grass (?), (10) vernal grass, (11) canary grass, espe- cially Nos. 5, 2, 8, 6, 1; but of these only one (8), prob- ably, is indigenous, and Nos. 5, 6, 10, 11 are now gen- erally done. The Cyperacee which now or earlier color the land- scape generally by their mass are (1) Carex Pennsylva- nica, (2) C. scoparia, (3) monile, (4) stellulata, (5) lanu- ginosa, (6) bullata, (7) siccata, (8) crinita, (9) lupulina, (10) Scirpus eriophorum, (11) Eleocharis acicularis, (12) Scirpus lacustris, (13) eriophorums, etc. Nos. 1 and 7 give a yellow hue to upland open wilds or wood- lands and dry hollows, where the forest has recently stood, — not pastured. 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 make the mass of the sedge on the river meadows, of a general yellow hue; 2 and 8 flourish more about their edges; 11 greens the muddy banks at low water; and 12 stands in dark- green patches here and there along the muddy shores of the river.

It seemed to me yesterday that the foliage had attained its maximum of darkness, and as I as- cended the hill at eve the hickories looked even autum- nal. Especially I was struck by the dark but still per- fect green leaf of the swamp white oak. I hear this forenoon the link link of the first bobolink going over our garden, — though I hear several full strains of bobolinks to-day, as in May, carrying me back to Apple Sunday, but they have been rare a long time. Now as it were the very cope of the dark-glazed heavens yields a slightly metallic sound when struck. ™ T hear on all sides these days the loud tinkling rattle of the mowing-machine, but, alas, the mower goes to the blacksmith’s to whet his scythe only every second or third day! P. M. — To Hill and Assabet Bath. On Hill. — No crops clothe the earth with richer hues and make a greater impression of luxuriousness than the cultivated grasses. Field after field, densely packed like the squares of a checker-board, all through and about the villages, paint the earth with various shades of green and other colors. There is the rich glaucous green of young grain now, of various shades, depend- ing on its age and kind; the flashing blades of corn which does not yet hide the bare ground; the yellowing tops of ripening grain; the dense uniform red of red-top, the most striking and high-colored of all (that is, cul- tivated); the very similar purple of the fowl-meadow (the most deep-piled and cumulous-looking, like down) along the low river-banks; the very dark and dusky, as it were shadowy, green of herd’s-grass at a distance, as if clouds were always passing over it, — close at hand it is of a dark purplish or slaty purple, from the color of its anthers; the fresh light green where June-grass has been cut, and the fresh dark green where clover has been cut; and the hard, dark green of pastures (red-top) generally, — not to speak of the very light- colored wiry fescue there.