Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/111

Rh Under Fair Haven. First grew the Viola pedata here; then lupines, mixed with the delicate snapdragon. This soil must abound with the blue principle.

Utricularia vulgaris, common bladderwort, a dirty-conditioned flower, like a sluttish woman with a gaudy yellow bonnet.

Those spotted maple leaves, what mean their bright colors? Yellow, with a greenish centre and crimson border, on the green leaves, as if the great chemist had dropped some strong acid, by chance, from a phial designed for autumnal juice! Very handsome. Decay and disease are often beautiful, like the pearly tear of the shell-fish and the hectic glow of consumption.

June 11, 1853. The upland fields are already less green where the June grass is ripening its seed. They are greenest when only its blade is seen. In the sorrel fields, also, what lately was the ruddy, rosy cheek of health, now that the sorrel is ripening and dying, has become the tanned and imbrowned cheek of manhood.

Probably blackbirds were never less numerous along our river than in these years. They do not depend on the clearing of the woods and the cultivation of the orchards, etc. The streams and meadows in which they delight always existed. Most of the towns, soon after they were settled, were obliged to set a price upon their heads.