2 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
spring, as I now hear the laborer’s sledge on 
the rails.As we grow older, is it not om¬ 
inous that we have more to write about evening, 
less about morning. We must associate more 
with the early hours. 
February 24, 1854. P. M. To Walden and 
Fair Haven. Nuthatches are faintly answering 
each other, tit for tat, on different keys — a 
faint creak. Now and then one utters a loud, 
distinct quail . This bird, more than any other 
I know, loves to stand with its head downward ; 
meanwhile, chickadees, with their silver tink¬ 
ling are flitting high above through the tops of 
the pines.Observed in one of the little 
pond holes between Walden and Fair Haven, 
where a partridge had traveled around in the 
snow, amid the bordering bushes, twenty-five 
rods ; had pecked the green leaves of the lamb- 
kill, and left fragments on the snow, and had 
paused at each high blueberry bush, and shaken 
down fragments of its bark on the snow. The 
buds appeared to be its main object. I finally 
scared the bird. 
February 24, 1855. The brightening of the 
willow or of osiers, that is a season in the 
spring, showing that the dormant sap is awak¬ 
ened. I now remember a few osiers which I 
have seen early in past springs, thus brilliantly 
green or red, and it is as if all the landscape 
