Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/145

Rh about, and here and there a leech in the shallow water, moving as serpents are represented to do. Large devil's needles are buzzing back and forth. They skim along the edge of the blue flags, apparently quite round this cove or further, like hen-harriers beating the bush for game. And now comes a humming-bird, humming from the woods, and alights on the blossom of a blue flag. The bull-frogs begin with one or two notes, and with each peal add another trill to their trump, er roonk—er-er-roonk—er-er-er-roonk, etc. I am amused to hear one after another, and then an unexpectedly deep and confident bass, as if he had charged himself with more wind than the rest. And now, as if by a general agreement, they all trump together, making a deafening noise. Sometimes one jumps up a foot out of water in the midst of these concerts. What are they about? Suddenly a tree-toad in the overhanging woods begins, and another answers, and another, with loud ranging notes, such as I never heard before, and in three minutes they are all silent again. A red-eye sings on a tree top, and a cuckoo is heard from the wood. These are the evening sounds.

As we look over the water now, the opposite woods are seen dimly through what appears not so much the condensing dew and mist as the dry