144 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
hands, perchance, not realizing that they can 
see it best at a distance, better now, perhaps, 
than ever they will again. What is an eagle 
in captivity! screaming in a court-yard ! I am 
not the wiser respecting eagles for having seen 
one there. I do not wish to know the length 
of its entrails. 
How neat and all compact the hawk ! Its 
wings and body are all one piece, the wings 
apparently the greater part, while its body is 
a mere fullness, a protuberance between its 
wings, an inconspicuous pouch hung there. It 
suggests no insatiable maw, no corpulence, but 
looks like a large moth, with little body in pro¬ 
portion to its wings, its body naturally more 
etherealized as it soars higher. These hawks, 
as usual, began to be common about the first of 
March, showing that they were returning from 
their winter quarters. 
Am surprised to hear from the pool behind 
Lee’s Cliff the croaking of the wood frog. It 
is all alive with them and I see them spread 
out on the surface. Their note is somewhat in 
harmony with the rustling of the now drier 
leaves. It is more like the note of the classical 
frog as described by Aristophanes, etc. How 
suddenly they awake. Yesterday, as it were, 
asleep and dormant; to-day, as lively as ever 
they are. The awakening of the leafy wood- 
