Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/334

324 is no fever. It is such an innocent pale yellow as the spring flowers. It is the pollen of the sun fertilizing plants. The color of the earliest spring flowers is as cool and innocent as the first rays of the sun in the morning, falling on woods and hills. The fog not only rises upward about two feet, but at once there is a motion from the sun over the surface.

And now I see an army of skaters advancing in loose array, chasseurs or scouts, as Indian allies are drawn in old books. Now the rays of the sun have reached my seat, a few feet above the water. Flies begin to buzz, mosquitoes to be less troublesome. A humming-bird hums by over the pads up the river, as if looking, like myself, to see if lilies have blossomed. The birds begin to sing generally, and if not loudest, at least most noticeably on account of the quietness of the hour, a few minutes before sunrise. They do not sing so incessantly and earnestly, as a regular thing, half an hour later.—Carefully looking both up and down the river, I could perceive that the lilies began to open about fifteen minutes after the sun from over the opposite bank fell on them, perhaps three-quarters of an hour after sunrise, which is about 4.30, and one was fully expanded about twenty minutes later. When I returned over the bridge about 6.15, there were perhaps a dozen open