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158 to be due to moisture more than direct heat. It is not on bare, dry banks, but in hollows where the snow melts last, that it is most conspicuous.

March 17, 1855. See now along the edge of the river, the ice being gone, many fresh heaps of clam-shells which were opened by the musquash when the water was higher, about some tree where the ground rises. And in very many places you see where they formed new burrows into the bank, the sand being pushed out into the stream about the entrance, which is still below water, and you feel the ground undermined as you walk.

March 17, 1857. These days, beginning with the 14th, more spring-like. I hear the note of the woodpecker from the elms, that early note. Launch my boat. No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of the spring, but he will presently discover some evidence that vegetation had awaked some days at least before. Early as I have looked this year, perhaps the first unquestionable growth of an indigenous plant detected was the fine tips of grass blades which the frost had killed, floating pale and placid, though still attached to their stems, spotting the pools like a slight fall or flurry of dull-colored snow-flakes. After a few mild and sunny days, even in February, the grass in still