Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/163

Rh a certain fertility, an Ohio soil, as if they were making a humus for new literatures to spring in. I heard the bellowing of bullfrogs and the hum of mosquitoes reverberating through the thick embossed covers when I had closed the book. Decayed literature makes the richest of all soils.

March 16, 1854. Another fine morning. Willows and alders along water courses all alive these mornings, and ringing with the trills and jingles and warbles of birds, even as the waters have lately broken loose and tinkle below, song-sparrows, blackbirds, not to mention robins, etc., etc. The song-sparrows are very abundant, peopling each bush, willow, or alder for a quarter of a mile and pursuing each other as if now selecting their mates. It is their song which especially fills the air, made an incessant and indistinguishable trill and jingle by their numbers. I see ducks afar sailing on the meadow leaving a long furrow in the water behind them. Watch them at leisure without scaring them, with my glass, observe their free and undisturbed motions. Some dark brown, partly on water, alternately dipping with their tails up, partly on land. Others with bright white breasts, etc., and black heads, of about the same size or larger. (Later date. Probably both, are sheldrakes.) They dive and