The _Lysimachia quadrifolia_ exhibits its small yellow blossoms now in the wood-path. Butter-and-eggs has blossomed. The _Uvularia vulgaris_, or bladderwort, a yellow pea-like flower, has blossomed in stagnant pools. _June 23._ It is a pleasant sound to me, the squeaking and the booming of nighthawks flying over high open fields in the woods. They fly like butterflies, not to avoid birds of prey but, apparently, to secure their own insect prey. There is a particular part of the railroad just below the shanty where they may be heard and seen in greatest numbers. But often you must look a long while before you can detect the mote in the sky from which the note proceeds. The common cinquefoil (_Potentilla simplex_) greets me with its simple and unobtrusive yellow flower in the grass. The _P. argentea_, hoary cinquefoil, also is now in blossom. _P. sarmentosa_, running cinquefoil, we had common enough in the spring. _June 26. Thursday._ The slight reddish-topped grass (red-top?) now gives a reddish tinge to some fields, like sorrel. Visited a menagerie this afternoon. I am always surprised to see the same spots and stripes on wild beasts from Africa and Asia and also from South America,—on the Brazilian tiger and the African leopard,—and their general similarity. All these wild animals—lions, tigers, chetas, leopards, etc.—have one hue,—tawny and commonly spotted or striped,—what you may call pard-color, a color and marking which I had not associated with America. These are wild beasts. What constitutes the difference between a wild beast and a tame one? How much more human the one than the other! Growling, scratching, roaring, with whatever beauty and gracefulness, still untamable, this royal Bengal tiger or this leopard. They have the character and the importance of another order of men. The majestic lion, the king of beasts,—he must retain his title. I was struck by the gem-like, changeable, greenish reflections from the eyes of the grizzly bear, so glassy that you never saw the surface of the eye. They [were] quite demonic. Its claws, though extremely large and long, look weak and made for digging or pawing the earth and leaves. It is unavoidable, the idea of transmigration; not merely a fancy of the poets, but an instinct of the race.