Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/125

Rh Mountain laurel at the pond.

June 12, 1855. Down river to swamp east of Poplar Hill. I hear the toad still, which I have called spray frog falsely. He sits close to the edge of the water, and is hard to find. Hard to tell the direction though you may be within three feet. I detect him chiefly by the motion of the great swelling bubble on his throat. A peculiarly rich sprayey dreamer now at 2 How serenely it ripples over the water! What a luxury life is to him! I have to use a little geometry to detect him. Am surprised at my discovery at last, while C. sits by incredulous. Had turned our prow to shore to search. This rich sprayey note possesses all the shore. It diffuses itself far and wide over the water, and enters into every crevice of the noon, and you cannot tell whence it proceeds.

Young redwings now begin to fly feebly amid the button bushes, and the old ones chatter their anxiety.

In the thick swamp behind the hill I look at the vireo's nest which C. found. He took one cow-bird's egg from it, and I now take the other which he left. There is no vireo's egg, and it is said they always desert their nest when there are two cow-bird's eggs laid in it.

Nuttall says of the cow-bird's egg: &quot;If the egg be deposited in the nest alone, it is uniformly