Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/181

Rh The sun is now declining with a warm and bright light on all things, a light which answers to the late afterglow of the year, when, in the fall, wrapping his cloak about him, the traveler goes home at night to prepare for winter. This is the foreglow of the year, when the walker goes home at eve to dream of summer.

March 18, 1856. Round by Hpllowell Place via Clam-shell. I see with my glass as I go over the railroad bridge, sweeping the river, a great gull standing far away on the top of a musk-rat cabin, which rises just above the water. When I get round within sixty rods of him, ten minutes later, he still stands on the same spot, constantly turning his head to every side looking out for food. Like a wooden image of a bird he stands there, heavy to look at, head, breast, beneath, and rump, pure white, slate-colored wings tipped with black, and extending beyond the tail, the herring gull. I can see down to his webbed feet. But now I advance and he rises easily, and goes off northeastward over the river with a leisurely flight.

At Clam-shell Hill I sweep the river again, and see standing midleg deep on the meadow where the water is very shallow, with deeper around, another of these wooden images, which is harder to scare. I do not fairly distinguish black tips to its wings. It is ten or fifteen