Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/90

76 inspiring, as the voice of a spring bird. That light spongy bark about the base of the nesæa appears to be good tinder. I have only to touch one end to a coal and it all burns out slowly, without blazing, in whatever position held, and even after being dipped in water.

Sunday, March 6, 1859. To Yellow Birch Swamp. We go through the swamp nearBee Tree or Oak Ridge listening for blackbirds or robins, and in the old orchard, for bluebirds. Found between two of the little birches in the path, where they grow densely, in indigo-bird sproutland, a small nest suspended between one and two feet from the ground. This is where I have seen the indigo-bird in summer, and the nest apparently answers to Wilson's account of that bird, being fastened with saliva to the birch on each side. Wilson says “It is built in a low bush, suspended between two twigs, one passing up each side.” It is about the diameter of a hair-bird's nest within, composed chiefly of fine bark shreds looking like grass, and one or two strips of grapevine bark, and very securely fastened to the birch on each side by a whitish silk or cobweb and saliva. It is thin, the lining being probably gone.

March 6, 1860. Fair and spring-like, i. e., rather still for March, with some raw wind. Pleasant in sun. Going by Messer's I