EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 21 
earth, and we see its blue arteries pulsing with 
new life now. I see from far over the mead¬ 
ows white cakes of ice gliding swiftly down the 
stream, — a novel sight. They are whiter than 
ever in this spring sun. 
The abundance of light, as reflected from 
clouds and the snow, etc., etc., is more spring¬ 
like than anything else of late.I had 
noticed for some time, far in the middle of the 
great meadows, something dazzling white, which 
I took, of course, to be a small cake of ice on 
its end ; but now that I have climbed the pitch 
pine bill, and can overlook the whole meadow, 
I see it to be the white breast of a small shel¬ 
drake accompanied, perhaps, by its mate, a 
darker one. They have settled warily in the 
very midst of the meadow, where the wind has 
blown a space of clear water for an acre or 
two. The aspect of the meadow is sky blue 
and dark blue, the former a thin ice, the lat¬ 
ter the spaces of open water which the wind has 
made ; but it is chiefly ice still. Thus as soon 
as the river breaks up, or begins to break up 
fairly, and the strong wind, widening the cracks, 
makes at length open spaces in the ice of the 
meadow, this hardy bird appears, and is seen 
sailing in the first widened crack in the ice 
where it can come at the water. Instead of a 
piece of ice I find it to be the breast of the 
