15 :\ 



April 11, 1856. You take your way along the edge 

 of some swamp that has been cleared at the base of 

 some south hillside, where there is sufficient light and 

 air and warmth, but the cold northerly winds are 

 fended off, and there behold the silvery catkins of the 

 sallows, which have already crept along their lusty 

 osiers, more than an inch in length, till they look like 

 silvery wands, though some are more rounded, like 

 bullets. The lower part of some catkins which have 

 lost their bud-scales emit a tempered crimson blush 

 through their down, from the small scales within. 

 The catkins grow longer and larger as you advance 

 into the warmest localities, till at last you discover 

 one catkin in which the reddish anthers are beginning 

 to push from one side near the end, and you know that 

 a little yellow flame will have burst out there by to- 

 morrow, if the day is fair. 



Journal, viii, 276. 



