The fall cricket—or is it alder locust?—sings the praises of the day.

  So about 9 A.M. up river to Fair Haven Pond.

  The flooded meadow, where the grasshoppers cling to the grass so thickly, is alive with swallows skimming just over the surface . . .

Sailed across to Bee Tree Hill. This hillside, laid bare two years ago and partly last winter, is almost covered with the Aster macrophyllus, now in its prime. It grows large and rank, two feet high. On one I count seventeen central flowers withered, one hundred and thirty in bloom, and half as many buds. As I looked down from the hilltop over the sprout-land, its rounded grayish tops amid the bushes I mistook for gray, lichen-clad rocks, such was its profusion and harmony with the scenery . . .