APRIL 



19 



After crossing the arrow-head fields, we see a 

 woodchuck run along and climb to the top of a 

 wall and sit erect there, our first. It is almost 

 exactly the color of the ground, the wall, and the 

 bare brown twigs altogether. When in the Miles 

 swamp field we see two, one chasing the other, com- 

 ing very fast down the lilac-field hill, straight to- 

 ward us, while we squat still in the middle of the 

 field. The foremost is a small gray or slaty-col- 

 ored one ; the other, two or three times as heavy, 

 and a warm tawny, decidedly yellowish in the sun, 

 a very large and fat one, pursuing the first. 



THOREAU: May Days. 



20 



By the river I see distinctly redwings and hear 

 their conqueree. They are not associated with 

 grackles. They are an age before their cousins, 

 have attained to clearness and liquidity, they are 

 officers, epauletted. The others are rank and file. 

 I distinguish one even by its flight, hovering slowly 

 from treetop to treetop, as if ready to utter its 

 liquid notes. Their whistle is very clear and sharp, 

 while that of the grackle is ragged and split. 



THOBEAU: Early Spring in Massachusetts. 



