Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/158

144 hands, perchance, not realizing that they can see it best at a distance, better now, perhaps, than ever they will again. What is an eagle in captivity! screaming in a court-yard! I am not the wiser respecting eagles for having seen one there. I do not wish to know the length, of its entrails.

How neat and all compact the hawk! Its wings and body are all one piece, the wings apparently the greater part, while its body is a mere fullness, a protuberance between its wings, an inconspicuous pouch hung there. It suggests no insatiable maw, no corpulence, but looks like a large moth, with little body in proportion to its wings, its body naturally more ether eali zed as it soars higher. These hawks, as usual, began to be common about the first of March, showing that they were returning from their winter quarters.

Am surprised to hear from the pool behind Lee's Cliff the croaking of the wood frog. It is all alive with them and I see them spread out on the surface. Their note is somewhat in harmony with the rustling of the now drier leaves. It is more like the note of the classical frog as described by Aristophanes, etc. How suddenly they awake. Yesterday, as it were, asleep and dormant; to-day, as lively as ever they are. The awakening of the leafy