JULY 



I have passed down the river before sunrise on 

 a summer morning, between fields of lilies still 

 shut in sleep ; and when, at length, the flakes of 

 sunlight from over the bank fell on the surface of 

 the water, whole fields of white blossoms seemed 

 to flash open before me, as I floated along, like the 

 unfolding of a banner, so sensible is this flower to 

 the influence of the sun's rays. 



THOREAU : A Week on the Concord and Merrimack 

 Rivers. 



26 



That note from the thicket is the whip-poor- 

 will's. What in all the vocalities of Nature is 

 there to compare with this voice of the cool and 

 the dusk, this cloistered melodist, who was never 

 yet heard in the profane courts of Day? It is 

 " most musical, most melancholy," a not unworthy 

 rival of the English nightingale. Yet close by 

 the whip-poor-will's covert one hears what might 

 be called the mechanical process of his song a 

 harsh, unlubricated whir, or rattle, which suggests 

 a laryngean ailment of some sort, as, in the same 

 way, the wild dove's note, heard close by, suggests 

 asthmatic breathing. 



EDITH M. THOMAS : The Round Year. 



