70 • EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
slap of its tail. I feel pretty sure that this 
is an involuntary movement, the tail, by the 
sudden turn of the body, being brought down 
on the water or ice like a whip-lash. 
March 5, 1859. Going down town this A. M. 
I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm 
within twenty feet, uttering peculiar notes and 
more like a song than I remember to have 
heard from it. There was a chickadee close by 
to which it may have been addressed. It was 
something like “ To -what what what what ivhat ” 
rapidly repeated, and not the usual “ quah quah .” 
And this instant it occurs to me that this may 
be that earliest spring note which I hear and 
have referred to a wood-pecker ! This is be¬ 
fore I have chanced to see a bluebird, black¬ 
bird, or robin in Concord this year. It is the 
spring note of the nuthatch. It paused in its 
progress about the trunk or branch, and uttered 
this lively but peculiarly inarticulate song, an 
awkward attempt to warble almost in the face 
of the chickadee, as if it were one of its kind. 
It w T as thus giving vent to the spring within it. 
If I am not mistaken, this is what I have heard 
in former springs or winters long ago, fabulously 
early in the season, when we men had but just 
begun to anticipate the spring, for it would 
seem that we in our anticipations and sympa¬ 
thies include in succession the moods and ex- 
