8 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
ant to see high, dark blue waves half a mile 
off, running incessantly along the edge of white 
ice. There the motion of the blue liquid is the 
most distinct. 
As the waves rise and fall they seem to run 
swiftly along the edge of the ice. For a day 
or two past I have seen in various places the 
small tracks of skunks. They appear to come 
out commonly in the warmer weather in the 
latter part of February. 
I noticed yesterday the first conspicuous 
silvery sheen from the needles of the white 
pine waving in the wind. A small one was 
conspicuous by the side of the road, more than 
a quarter of a mile ahead. I suspect that 
those plumes which have been oppressed or 
contracted by snow and ice, are not only dried, 
but opened and spread by the wind. Those 
peculiar tracks which I saw some time ago, 
and still see, made in slosh, and since frozen 
at the andromeda ponds, I think must be mole 
tracks, and those 44 nicks ” on the sides are 
where they shoved back the snow with their 
vertical flippers. This is a very peculiar track, 
a broad channel in slosh and at length in ice. 
February 26, 1840. The most important 
events make no stir on their first taking place, 
nor indeed in their effects directly. They seem 
hedged about by secrecy. It is concussion or 
