CONCORD. 
I have been much on the river these past few days. 
Never have I knom it more attractive, at least in summer. 
The marshes have not been flooded since April and there is 
the rankest possible growth of vegetation everywhere, not 
as yet attacked by the hay-makers nor beaten down by wind 
or rain. 
The "blue-joint" ( Phalaris ) has attained its full 
height (almost that of a tall man,in places) and is in 
lossom. The wild rice, too, is fully grown and very abun¬ 
dant, especially along the shallow reach which I call Beaver 
Bam Rapid. It has fruited but the grain is not yet ripe, 
although the Blackbirds seem to be attacking it. The expansion 
of the river in front of Ball's Hill is lined on both sides 
with a wide belt of pickerel weed in fullest flower. The 
tose or pink-purple blossoms stand erect in serried ranks, 
making a great show. Just outside these float the water 
in foreground 
lilies forming,/the forenoon, a narrower band of snow white. 
They grow so near together in places as to almost touch 
one another or so it seems when they are viewed from a little 
distance. Along some of the stretches Utricularia 
now in fullest flower, forms narrower belts of bright yellow. 
This, too, is the season when the bird life along 
this part of the river seems most abundant and interesting. 
There are Swallows in swarms and Red-wings by hundreds, 
skimming close over the water or rising with loud rustle 
of wings from the beds of wild rice and reeds. The Red-wings 
are singing almost as freely and quite as joyously as in June, 
