ways to me, and was going to call Sophia to look at it, but then it turned its breast full toward me, and I saw the large, triangular, blood-red spot occupying the greater part of it. . . . It is a memorable event to meet with so rare a bird. Birds answer to flowers, both in their abundance and their rareness. The meeting with a rare and beautiful bird like this is like meeting with some rare and beautiful flower, which you may never find again per chance, like the great purple-fringed orchis, at least. How much it enhances the wildness and the richness of the forest.
June 13, 1854. 2 p. m. By boat to Bittern Cliff, and so to Lee's Cliff. I hear the muttering of thunder and see a dark cloud in the horizon; am uncertain how far up stream I shall get.
Now in shallow places near the bends the large and conspicuous spikes of the broad-leaved potamogeton rise thickly above the water. . . .
I see the yellow water ranunculus in dense fields now in some places on the side of the stream, two or three inches above water, and many gone to seed.
The flowering fern is reddish and yellowish-green on the meadows.
It is so warm that I stop to drink wherever there is a spring.
