EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 95 
snow is melted look through this air as if I 
were under the influence of some intoxicating 
liquor. The earth is not quite steady nor palp¬ 
able to my sense, — a little idealized. 
March 9, 1853. Minott thinks, and quotes 
some old worthy as authority for saying, that 
the bark of the striped squirrel is one of the 
first sure signs of decided spring weather. 
March 9, 1854. Saw this morning a musk¬ 
rat sitting u in a round form on the ice,” or 
rather motionless, like the top of a stake or a 
mass of muck on the edge of the ice. He then 
dove for a clam, whose shells he left on the ice 
beside him. Boiled a handful of rock tripe 
( Umlilicaria Muhlenbergii ) (which Tuckerman 
says “ was the favorite rock tripe in Franklin’s 
journey ”) for more than an hour. It produced 
a black puff, looking somewhat like boiled tea- 
leaves, and was insipid, like rice or starch. The 
dark water in which it was boiled had a bitter 
taste, and was slightly gelatinous. The puff 
was not positively disagreeable to the palate. 
P. m. To Great Meadows. Saw several 
flocks of large grayish and whitish or speckled 
ducks, I suppose the same that P. calls shel¬ 
drakes. They, like ducks, commonly incline to 
fly in a line about an equal distance apart. I 
hear the common sort of quacking from them. 
It is pleasant to see them at a distance alight 
