Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/326

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EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.

cluck, though he is told that at Hudson's Bay at the breeding time they sing with a fine note. Here they utter not only a cluck, but a fine shrill whistle. They cover the top of a tree now, and their concert is of this character. They all seem laboring together to get out a clear strain, as it were wetting their whistles against their arrival at Hudson's Bay. They begin, as it were, by disgorging or spitting it out like so much tow, from a full throat, and conclude with a clear, fine, shrill, ear-piercing whistle. Then away they go all chattering together.

April 9, 1858. . . . . I doubt if men do ever simply and naturally glorify God in the ordinary sense, but it is remarkable how sincerely in all ages they glorify nature. The praising of Aurora, for instance, under some form in all ages is obedience to as irresistible an instinct as that which impels the frogs to peep.

April 9, 1859. p. m. . . . . We go seeking the south sides of hills and woods, or deep hollows to walk in, this cold and blustering day. We sit by the side of little Goose Pond to watch the ripples on it. Now it is merely smooth, and then there drops down upon it, deep as it lies amid the hills, a sharp and narrow blast of the icy north wind careering above, striking it perhaps by a point or an edge, and