EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 215 
conceal the wound completely, the expanded 
down fills your hand to overflowing. Appar¬ 
ently there is a spring to the fine elastic threads 
which compose the down, which, after having 
been so long closely packed, on being the least 
relieved, spring open apace into the form of 
parachutes to convey the seed afar. Where 
birds, or the winds, or ice have assaulted them, 
this has spread like an eruption. 
March 23, 1856. I spend a considerable por¬ 
tion of my time observing the habits of the wild 
animals, my brute neighbors. By their various 
movements and migrations they fetch the year 
about to me. Very significant are the flight of 
geese and the migration of suckers, etc. But 
when I consider that the nobler animals have 
been exterminated here, the cougar, panther, 
lynx, wolverene, wolf, bear, moose, deer, beaver, 
turkey, etc., etc., I cannot but feel as if I lived 
in a tamed and, as it were, emasculated coun¬ 
try. Would not the motions of those larger 
and wilder animals have been more significant 
still? Is it not a maimed and imperfect na¬ 
ture that I am conversant with ? As if I were 
to study a tribe of Indians that had lost all its 
warriors. Do not the forest and the meadow 
now lack expression ? now that I never see nor 
think of the moose with a lesser forest on his 
head in the one, nor of the beaver in the 
