EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 173 
the only indigenous flower in bloom in this 
town at present, and probably I and my com¬ 
panion are the only men who have detected it 
this year. Yet this foreign fly has left its 
home, probably a mile off, and winged its way 
to this warm bank to find it. Six weeks hence 
children wflll set forth a-maying, and have in¬ 
different luck. But the first sunny and warmer 
day in March the honey-bee comes forth, 
stretches its wings, and goes forth in search 
of the earliest flower. 
March 18, 1861. When I pass by a twig of 
willow, though of the slenderest kind, rising 
above the sedge in some dry hollow, early in 
December or midwinter, above the snow, my 
spirits rise, as if it were an oasis in the desert. 
The very name, sallow ( salix , from the Celtic 
sal-lis , near w r ater), suggests that there is some 
natural sap or blood flowing there. It is a di¬ 
vining rod that has not failed, but stands with 
its root in the fountain. The fertile willow- 
catkins are those green caterpillar-like ones, 
commonly an inch or more in length, which 
develop themselves rapidly after the sterile yel¬ 
low ones, w 7 hich we had so admired, are fallen 
or effete. Arranged around the bare twigs, 
they often form green wands from eight to 
eighteen inches long. A single catkin consists 
of from twenty-five to one hundred pods, more 
