EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 143 
so swiftly in zigzag course that commonly I only 
see the ripple he makes, in proportion, in this 
brook only a foot wide, like that made .by a 
steamer in a canal. If I catch a glimpse of him 
before he buries himself in the mud, it is only 
a dark film without distinct outline. By his 
zigzag course he bewilders the eye and avoids 
capture perhaps. 
March 15,1860. 2 p.m. To Lee’s Cliff. . . . 
A henhawk sails away from the wood south¬ 
ward. I get a very fair sight of it sailing over¬ 
head. What a perfectly regular and neat out¬ 
line it presents ! an easily recognized figure any¬ 
where. Yet I never see it represented in books. 
The exact correspondence of the marks on one 
side to those on the other, as of the black or 
dark tip on one wing to that of the other, and 
the dark line midway the wing. I do not be¬ 
lieve that one can get as correct an idea of the 
form and color of the under sides of a hen- 
hawk’s wings by spreading those of a dried 
specimen in his study as by looking up at a free 
and living hawk soaring above him in the fields. 
The penalty for obtaining a petty knowledge 
thus dishonestly is that it is less interesting to 
men generally as it is less significant. Some 
seeing and admiring the neat figure of the hawk 
sailing two or three hundred feet above their 
heads, wish to get nearer and hold it in their 
