aspens pretty generally. As I go through the cut it is still warm, and more or less sunny, spring-like (about 40°); and the sand and reddish subsoil is bare for about a rod in width on the railroad. I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee, which I heard only once during the winter. . . . . It is remarkable that though I have not been able to find any open place in the river almost all winter, except under the further stone bridge and at Loring's Pond, this winter so remarkable for ice and snow, yet C———s should (as he says) have killed two sheldrakes at the falls of the factory, a place which I had forgotten,—some four or six weeks ago; singular that this hardy bird should have found that small opening which I had forgotten, while the ice everywhere else was from one to two feet thick, and the snow sixteen inches on a level. If there is a crack amid the rocks of some waterfall, this bright diver is sure to know it. Ask the sheldrake whether the rivers are completely sealed up.
March 1, 1860. I have thoughts, as I walk, on some subject that is running in my head, but all their pertinence seems gone before I can get home to set them down. The most valuable thoughts which I entertain are anything but what I thought. Nature abhors a vacuum,
