EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 221 
changes to a dark purplish tint as the cloud 
moves along. And then as I look further along 
eastward in the horizon, I am surprised to see 
strong purple and violet tinges in the sun from 
a hillside a mile off, densely covered with full- 
grown birches. I would not have believed that 
under the spring sun so many colors were 
brought out. It is not the willows only that 
shine, but, under favorable circumstances, many 
other twigs, even a mile or two off. The dense 
birches, so far that their white stems are not 
distinct, reflect deep, strong purple and violet 
colors from the distant hillsides opposite to the 
sun. Can this have to do with the sap flowing 
in them ? 
As we sit there, we see coming swift and 
straight northeast along the river valley, not 
seeing us and therefore not changing his course, 
a male goosander, so near that the green reflec¬ 
tions of his head and neck are plainly visible. 
He looks like a paddle-wheel steamer, so oddly 
painted, black and white and green, and moves 
along swift and straight, like one. Ere long 
the same returns with his mate, the red-throated, 
the male taking the lead. The loud peop (?) 
of a pigeon woodpecker is heard, and anon the 
prolonged loud and shrill cackle calling the 
thin-wooded hillsides and pastures to life. It 
is like the note of an alarm clock set last fall so 
