Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/102

88 crystallizing it. I must be on the lookout now for gulls and the ducks. That dark-blue meadowy revelation. It is as when the sap of the maple bursts forth early and runs down the trunk to the snow. Saw two or three hawks sailing Saw some very large willow buds expanded (their silk) to thrice the length of their scales, indistinctly barred or waved with darker lines around them. They look more like, are more of spring than anything else I have seen. Heard the spring note of the chickadee now before any spring bird has arrived.

March 8, 1854. What pretty wreaths the mountain cranberry makes, curving upward at the extremity. The leaves are now a dark red, and wreath and all are of such a shape as might fitly be copied in wood or stone, or architectural foliage.

March 8, 1855. As the ice melts in the swamps I see the horn-shaped buds of the skunk cabbage, green with a bluish bloom, standing uninjured, ready to feel the influence of the sun, more prepared for spring, to look at, than any other plant.

March 8, 1857. When I cut a white pine twig, the crystalline sap at once exudes. How long has it been thus? Got a glimpse of a hawk, the first of the season. The tree sparrows sing a little on the still, sheltered, and