Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/204

190 a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced spring, or reminds us of it. And even the first pleasant spring day, perhaps, we walk with our greatcoat buttoned up, and gloves on.

Trying the other day to imitate the honking of geese, I found myself flapping my sides with my elbows, and uttering something like snowack with a nasal twang and twist of my head, and I produced the note so perfectly in the opinion of the hearers, that I thought I might possibly draw a flock down.

We notice the color of the water especially at this season, when it is recently revealed (and in the fall), because there is little color elsewhere. It shows best in a clear air, contrasting with the russet shores.

March 20, 1858. By river. The tree-sparrow is perhaps the sweetest and most melodious warbler at present and for some days. It is peculiar, too, for singing in concert along the hedge-rows, much like a canary, especially in the mornings, very clear, sweet, melodious notes, between a twitter and a warble, of which it is hard to catch the strain, for you commonly hear many at once. The note of the Fringilla hiemalis, or chill-till, is a jingle, with also a shorter and dryer crackling chip as it flits by.

At Hubbard's wall how handsome the willow catkins! Those wonderfully bright silvery