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Thoreau writes in his journal:

Sat by fire July 2nd (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 27).

Thoreau is tardy to a meeting of the Institute of 1770 along with six other Institute members (The Transcendentalists and Minerva, 1:82).

2 June 1837. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau writes an essay on the prompt “The mark or standard by which a nation is judged to be barbarous or civilized. Barbarities of civilized states,” for a class assignment given him on 19 May (Thoreau’s Harvard Years, part 2:13; Early Essays and Miscellanies, 108-111; MS, Abernethy collection of American Literature. Middlebury College Special Collections, Middlebury, Vt.).

2 June 1841. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

I am brought into the near neighborhood and man become a silent observer of the moon’s paces to-night, by means of a glass, while the frogs are peeping all around me on the earth, and the sound of the accordion seems to come from some bright saloon yonder.

(Journal, 1:262-263).

2 June 1851.

Concord, Mass. Thoreau writes in his journal on 3 June:

Returned to Boston yesterday. Conversed with John Downes, who is connected with the Coast Survey, and is printing tables for astronomical, geodesic, and other uses. He tells me he once saw the common sucker in numbers piling up stones as big as his fist (like the piles which I have seen), taking them up or moving them with their mouths.

(Journal, 2:224)

Cambridge, Mass. Thoreau checks out Voyages à l’ouest des monts Alléghanys dans les états de l’Ohio, du Kentucky et du Tennessee, et retour à Charleston par les hautes-Carolines by François André Michaux from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 289).

2 June 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Wednesday. Measured C. Davis’s elm at top of his fence, just built, five feet from the ground. It is fifteen and two twelfths feet in circumference and much larger many feet higher. Buttercups now spot the churchyard . . .

(Journal, 4:78-79)

2 June 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

3.30 A.M.—When I awake I hear the low universal chirping or twittering of the chip-birds, like the bursting bead on the surface of the uncorked day . . .

4 A.M.—To Nawshawtuct.

I go to the river in a fog through which I cannot see more than a dozen rods,—three or four times as deep as the houses. As I row down the stream, the dark, dim outlines of the trees on the banks appear . . .

4 P.M.—To Conantum.

Equisetum limosum out some days. Look for it at Myosotis Brook, bottom of Wheildon’s field. Sidesaddle-flower—purple petals (?) now begin to hang down. Arethusas are abundant in what I may call Arethusa Meadow. They are the more striping for growing in such green localities, -in meadows where their brilliant purple, more or less red, contrasts with the green grass.

(Journal, 5:215-220)

2 June 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

P.M.—Up Assabet to Castilleja and Annursnack.

While waiting for Mother and Sophia I look now from the yad to the waving and slightly glaucous-tinged June meadows . . .

I find sanicle just out on the Island . . . We went near to the stone bridge and crossed direct via the house-leek, of which I brought home a bunch . . . Took tea at Mrs. Barrett’s.

When we returned to our boat at 7 P.M., I notice first, to my surprise, that the river was all alive with leaping fish . . .

Caraway naturalized, and out apparently two or three days, in C. Barrett’s front yard.

(Journal, 6:323-325)

2 June 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Still windier than before, and yet no rain. It is now very dry indeed, and the grass is suffering. Some springs commonly full at this season are dried up. The wind shakes the house night and day . . .

P.M.—To Hill . . .

Mr. Hoar tells me that Deacon Farrar’s son tells him that a white robin has her nest on an apple tree near their house. Her mate is of the usual color. All the family have seen her . . .

(Journal, 7:401-404)

2 June 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Carum, i.e. caraway, in garden Saw most hummingbirds when cherries were in bloom,—on them.

P. M.—With R. W. E. [Ralph Waldo Emerson] to Perez Blood’s auction . . . 5 P.M.—To Azalea nudiflora, which is in prime . . .

(Journal, 8:362-363)

Concord, Mass. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in his journal:

The finest day the high noon of the year, went with Thoreau in a wagon to Perez Blood’s auction; found the myrica flowering; it had already begun to shed its pollen one day, the lowest flowers being effete; found the English hawthorn on Mrs Ripley’s hill, ready to bloom; went up the Asabet, & found the Azalea Nudicaulis in full bloom; a beautiful show, the viola muhlenbergi, the ranunculus recurvatus; sas swamp white oak, (chestnut-like leaves) white maple, red maple,—no chestnut oak on the river—Henry told his story of the Ephemera, the manna of the fishes, which falls like a snow storm one day in the year, only on this river, not on the Concord, high up in the air as he can see, & blundering down to the river,—(the shad-fly) the true angler’s fly; the fish die of repletion when it comes, the kingfishers wait for their prey.¹ Around us the pepeepee of the king bird kind was noisy. He showed the history of the river from the banks, the male & female bank, the pontederia keeps the female bank, on whichever side.

(The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 14:93-94)

1 See entry 6 June 1857.

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