the occasional incident of the visit of some winged creature

July 25th. [1860] As I sit in my study, with the windows open, the occasional incident of the visit of some winged creature, wasp, hornet, or bee, entering out of the warm sunny atmosphere, soaring round the room in large sweeps, then buzzing against the glass, as not satisfied with the place, and desirous of getting out. Finally, the joyous, uprising curve with which, coming to the open part of the window, it emerges into the cheerful glow of the outside.

The queer gestures and sounds of a hen looking about for a place to deposit her egg

July 16th [1850]. -- The tops of the chestnut-trees are peculiarly rich, as if a more luscious sunshine were falling on them than anywhere else. "Whitish," as above, don't express it.

The queer gestures and sounds of a hen looking about for a place to deposit her egg; her selfimportant gait; the sideway turn of her head and cock of her eye, as she prys into one and another nook, croaking all the while, evidently with the idea that the egg in question is the most important thing that has been brought to pass since the world began. A speckled black-and-white and tufted hen of ours does it to most ludicrous perfection; and there is something laughably womanish in it too.

human language, after all, is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls and other utterances of brute nature

Lenox, July 14th. [1850] -- The tops of the chestnut-trees have a whitish appearance, they being, I suppose, in bloom. Red raspberries are just through the season.

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Language, human language, after all, is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls and other utterances of brute nature, sometimes not so adequate.