130 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
them up you do not at once detect the entrance 
with your eye, but rather feel it with your fin¬ 
ger on the side. They are lined with the finest 
of the grass. These were probably made when 
the snow was on the ground for their winter 
residence, while they gleaned the rye-field, and 
when the snow went off, they scampered to the 
woods. I think they were made by the Mus 
Leucopus, i. e., Arvida Emmonsii. 
I look at many woodchuck’s holes, but as yet 
they are choked with leaves. There is no sign 
that their occupants have come abroad. 
March 13,1859. I see a small flock of black¬ 
birds flying over, some rising, others falling, 
yet all advancing together, one flock, but many 
birds, some silent, others tchucking, — inces¬ 
sant alternation. This harmonious movement, 
as in a dance, this agreeing to differ, makes the 
charm of the spectacle to me. One bird looks 
fractional, naked, like a single thread or ravel¬ 
ing from the web to which it belongs. Alter¬ 
nation ! Alternation ! Heaven and Hell! Here 
again, in the flight of a bird, its ricochet mo¬ 
tion is that undulation observed in so many 
materials, as in the mackerel sky. 
If men were to be destroyed, and the books 
they have^written be transmitted to a new race 
of creatures, a new world, what kind of record 
would be found in them of so remarkable a 
phenomenon as the rainbow ? 
