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116 enough. It was excellent for mittens; you could hardly wear it out. Spoke of the cuckoo, which was afraid of other birds, was easily beaten, would dive into the middle of a poplar, then come out on to some bare twig and look round for a nest to rob of young or eggs.

March 11, 1859. Mrs. A. takes on dolefully on account of the solitude in which she lives; but she gets little consolation. Mrs. B. says she envies her that retirement. Mrs. A. is aware that she does, and says it is as if a thirsty man should envy another the river in which he is drowning. So goes the world, it is either this extreme or that. Of solitude, one gets too much; another, not enough.

March 11, 1860. I see a woodchuck out on the calm side of Lee's Hill (Nawshawtuck). He has pushed away the withered leaves which filled his hole and come forth, and left his tracks on those slight patches of the recent snow which are left about his hole.

I was amused with the behavior of two red squirrels, as I approached the hemlocks. They were as gray as red, and white beneath. I at first heard a faint, sharp chirp, like a bird, within the hemlock, on my account, and then one rushed forward on a descending limb toward me, barking or chirruping at me after his fashion, within a rod. They seemed to vie with