minutes before I get him to rise, and then he goes off in the same leisurely manner, stroking the air with his wings, and now making a great circle back in his course, so that you cannot tell which way he is bound. By standing so long motionless in these places they may, perchance, accomplish two objects, i. e., catch passing fish (suckers?) like a heron, and escape the attention of man. His utmost motions were to plume himself once, and turn his head about. If he did not move his head he would look like a decoy.
March 18, 1858. 7 a. m. By river. Almost every bush has its song-sparrow this morning, and their tinkling strains are heard on all sides. You see them just hopping under a bush or into some other covert as you go by, turning with a jerk this way and that; or they flit away just above the ground, which they resemble. Theirs is the prettiest strain I have heard yet. M is already out in his boat for all day with his white hound in the prow, bound up the river for musquash, etc., but the river is hardly high enough to drive them out.
p. m. To Fair Haven Hill via Hubbard's Bathing Place. How much more habitable a few birds make the fields! At the end of the winter, when the fields are bare, and there is nothing to relieve the monotony of withered
