Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/312

298 hardly as forward as the white maples, but they are not in so warm a position as some In clearing out the Assabet spring, disturbed two small speckled (palustris) frogs, just beginning to move Heard the snipe over the meadows this evening. Probably was to be heard for a night or two. Sounds on different keys, as if approaching or receding over the meadows recently become bare.

April 6, 1855 I go up the Assabet in my boat. The blackbirds have now begun to frequent the water's edge in the meadow, the ice being sufficiently out. The aspect of April waters, smooth and commonly high, before many flowers (none yet), or any leafing, while the landscape is still russet, and frogs are just awakening, is peculiar. It began yesterday. A very few white-maple stamens stand out already loosely enough to blow in the wind, and some alder catkins look almost ready to shed pollen. On the hillsides I smell the dried leaves, and hear a few flies buzzing over them. The banks of the river are alive with song-sparrows and tree-sparrows. They now sing in advance of vegetation, as the flowers will blossom. Those slight tinkling, twittering sounds, called the singing of birds, they had come to enliven the bare twigs before the buds show any signs of starting You can hear all day, from time