12 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
in two in the rat’s effort to wrench them open, 
leaving the frozen fish half-exposed. All the 
rest show the marks of their teeth at one end 
or the other. You can see distinctly also the 
marks of their teeth where with a scraping cut 
they have scraped off the tough muscle which 
fastens the fish to its shell, also sometimes all 
along the nacre next the edge. .... These 
shells lie thickly around the edge of each small 
circle of thinner black ice in the midst of the 
white, showing where was open water a day or 
two ago. At the beginning and end of winter, 
when the river is partly open, the ice thus serves 
the muskrat instead of other stool.Hence 
it appears that this is still a good place for clams 
as it was in Indian days. 
February 26, 1857. What an accursed land, 
methinks unfit for the habitation of man, where 
the wild animals are monkeys ! 
February 27, 1841. Life looks as fair at this 
moment as a summer’s sea .... like a Persian 
city or hanging gardens in the distance, so 
washed in light, so untried, only to be thridded 
by clean thoughts. All its flags are flowing 
and tassels streaming, and drapery flapping like 
some pavilion. The heavens hang over it like 
some low screen, and seem to undulate in the 
breeze. Through this pure, unwiped hour, as 
through a crystal glass, I look out upon the 
V 
