Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/311

Rh black flies which pestered us till into evening were of various sizes, the largest more than one eighth of an inch long. There were scarcely any mosquitoes, it was so cool.

A small owl came in the evening and sat within twelve feet of us, turning its head this way and that, and peering at us inquisitively.

July 10, 1858. When I tasted the water under the snow arch I was disappointed at its warmth, though it was in part melted snow, but half a mile lower down it tasted colder. Probably the air being cooled by the neighborhood of the snow, it seemed thus warmer by contrast. The most peculiar and memorable songster was the one with a note like that I heard on Monadnock, keeping up an exceedingly brisk and lively strain. It was remarkable for its incessant twittering flow. Yet we never got sight of the bird, at least while singing, so that I could not identify it, and my lameness prevented my pursuing it. I heard it afterwards even in the Franconia Notch. It was surprising from its steady, uninterrupted flow, for, when one stopped, another appeared to take up the strain. It reminded me of a fine corkscrew stream issuing with incessant tinkle from a cork, flowing rapidly, and I said he had pulled out the spile and left it running. That was the rhythm, but with a sharper tinkle of course. It had no more variety