A bouquet from this date in Thoreau’s Journal:
1850: The first of June, when the lady’s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons.
1855: Thus it is after the first important rain at this season. The song of birds is more lively and seems to have a new character; a new season has commenced.
1857: One thing that chiefly distinguishes this season from three weeks ago is that fine serene undertone or earth-song as we go by sunny banks and hillsides, the creak of crickets, which affects our thoughts so favorably, imparting its own serenity.
1860: Now there is a similar departure of the warblers, on the expansion of the leaves and advent of yet warmer weather. Their season with us, i.e. the season of those that go further, is when the buds are bursting, till the leaves are about expanded; and probably they follow these phenomena northward till they get to their breeding-places, flying from tree to tree, i.e. to the next tree which contains their insect prey….The clear brightness of June was well represented yesterday by the buttercups along the roadside. Their yellow cups are glossy and varnished within, but not without.
You may say that now, when most trees have fully expanded leaves and the black ash fairly shows green, the leafy season has fairly commenced. (I see that I so called it May 31 and 27, 1853.)
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