Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/162

152 bay I see the reflection of the meadow, woods, and Hosmer Hill, at a distance, the tops of the trees cut off by a slight ripple. Even the pine groves on the near bank are distinctly reflected. Owing to the reflections of the distant woods and hills you seem to be paddling into a vast hollow country, doubly novel and interesting. Thus the voyageur is lured onward to fresh pastures. The melting heat begins again as soon as the sun gets up. The bull-frog lies on the very surface of the pads, showing his great yellow throat (color of the yellow breeches of the old school), and protuberant eyes, his whole back out, revealing a vast expanse of belly, his eyes like ranunculus, or yellow lily buds, winking from time to time, and showing his large, dark-bordered tympanum, imperturbable looking. His yellow throat swells up like a small moon at a distance over the pads when he croaks.

The floating pond-weed, Potamogeton natans, with the oblong oval leaf floating on the surface, now in bloom. The yellow water ranunculus still yellows the river in the middle where shallow, in beds many rods long. It is one of the capillary leaved plants.

By and by the Bidens (marigold) will stand in the river as now the ranunculus. The spring yellows are faint, cool, innocent as the saffron morning compared with the blaze of noon. The