EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 75 
with a still finer grass. The hole was on one 
side, and the bottom was near two inches thick. 
There were many small paths or galleries in 
the meadow leading to this from the brook 
some rod or more distant. 
The small gyrinus is circling in the brook. 
I see where much fur of a rabbit, which prob¬ 
ably a fox was carrying, has caught on a moss- 
rose twig as he leaped a ditch.There is a 
peculiar redness in the western sky just after 
sunset. There are many great dark slate-col¬ 
ored clouds floating there, seen against more 
distant and thin wispy, bright, yermillion, (?) 
almost blood-red, ones, which in many places 
appear as the lining of the former.I 
see in many places where, after the late freshet, 
the musquash made their paths under the ice, 
leading from the water a rod or two to a bed 
of grass above the water level. 
March 6, 1858. P. M. Up river on ice to 
Fair Haven Pond. The river is frozen more 
solidly than during the past winter, and for the 
first time for a year I could cross it in most 
places. I did not once cross it the past winter, 
though by choosing a safe place I might have 
done so without doubt once or twice. But I 
have had no river walks before. I see the first 
hen-hawk or hawk of any kind, methinks, since 
the beginning of winter. Its scream, even, is 
