Brown speaks of a great brown moth,—probably emperor moth,—which came out in Worcester a few days ago. I see under the window, half dead, a large sphinx-like moth which apparently flew last night. The surface of the still water nowadays with a kind of lint, looking like dust at a little distance. Is it the down of the leaves blown off? In many places it reaches quite across the river. It is interesting to distinguish the different surfaces,—here broken into waves and sparkling with light, there, where covered with this linty dust or film, merely undulating without breaking, and there quite smooth and stagnant . . .

  P.M.—To Walden.

  Now is the time [to] observe the leaves, so fair in color and so perfect in form. I stood over a sprig of choke-cherry, with fair and perfect glossy green obovate and serrate leaves, in the woods this P.M., as if it were a rare flower . . .