[4] 



WILLOW CATKINS 



March 2, 1859. The willow catkins by the rail- 

 road have now all crept out about an eighth of an 

 inch, giving to the bushes already a very pretty ap- 

 pearance when you stand on the sunny side, the sil- 

 very-white specks contrasting with the black scales. 

 Seen along the twigs, they are somewhat like small 

 pearl buttons on a waistcoat. Go and measure to 

 what length the silvery willow catkins have crept out 

 beyond their scales, if you would know what time o' 

 the year it is by Nature's clock. 



Journal, xn, 4. 



March 20, 1858. At Hubbard's wall, how hand- 

 some the willow catkins! Those wonderfully bright 

 silvery buttons, so regularly disposed in oval schools 

 in the air, or, if you please, along the seams which 

 their twigs make, in all degrees of forwardness, from 

 the faintest, tiniest speck of silver, just peeping from 

 beneath the black scales, to lusty pussies which have 

 thrown oflP their scaly coats and show some redness 

 at base on a close inspection. These fixed swarms of 

 arctic buds spot the air very prettily along the hedges. 

 They remind me somewhat by their brilliancy of the 

 snow-flecks which are so bright by contrast at this 

 season when the sun is high. Is not this, perhaps, the 

 earliest, most obvious, awakening of vegetable life.? 



Journal, x, 310. 



