EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 203 
Hylodes Pickeringii, a name that is longer 
than the frog itself ! A description of animals, 
too, from a dead specimen only, as if in a work 
on man you were to describe a dead man only, 
omitting his manners and customs, his institu¬ 
tions and divine faculties, from want of oppor¬ 
tunity to observe them, suggesting, perhaps, 
that the colors of the eye are said to be much 
more brilliant in the living specimen, and that 
some cannibal, your neighbor, who has tried 
him on his table, has found him to be sweet 
and nutritious, good on the gridiron, having 
had no opportunity to observe his habits, be¬ 
cause you do not live in the country. Nothing 
is known of his habits. Food —seeds of wheat, 
beef, pork, and potatoes. 
I told S-the other day that there was an¬ 
other volume of De Quincey’s “ Essays,” want¬ 
ing to see it in his library. “ I know it,” says 
he, “ but I shan’t buy any more of them, for 
nobody reads them.” I asked what book in his 
library was most read. He said, “ The Wide, 
Wide World.” 
In a little dried and bleached tortoise shell 
about one and three fourths inches long I can 
easily study his anatomy and the house he lives 
in. His ribs are now distinctly revealed under 
his lateral scales, slanted like rafters to the 
ridge of his roof, for his sternum is so large 
