ours at last, for we remain and take possession of the field. In this climate in which we do not commonly bury our dead in the winter on account of the frozen ground, and find ourselves exposed on a hard, bleak crust, the coming out of the frost and the first turning up of the soil with a spade or plow, is an event of importance.
p. m. To Hill. As I ascend the east side of the hill I hear the distant faint peep of the hylodes and the tut tut of the croaking frogs from the west. How gradually and imperceptibly the peep of the hylodes mingles with and swells the volume of sound which makes the voice of awakening nature! If you do not listen carefully for its first note you probably will not hear it; and not having heard that, your ears become used to the sound, so that you will hardly notice it at last, however loud and universal. I hear it now faintly from through and over the bare gray twigs" and the sheeny needles of an oak and pine wood, and from over the russet fields beyond. It is so intimately mingled with the murmur or roar of the wind as to be wellnigh inseparable from it. It leaves such a lasting trace on the ear's memory that often I think I hear the peeping when I do not. It is a singularly emphatic and ear-piercing proclamation of animal life, when, with a very few and slight exceptions, vegetation is yet dormant. The dry
