EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 261 
somewhat like a hay-hook. I suspect it will be 
found there is really some advantage in large 
birds of passage flying in the wedge form and 
cleaving their way through the air, — that they 
really do overcome its resistance best in this 
way, and perchance the direction and strength 
of the wind determine the comparative length 
of the two sides. The great gulls fly generally 
up and down the river valley, cutting off the 
bends of the river, and so do these geese. They 
fly sympathizing with the river, a stream in the 
air, soon lost in the distant sky. If you scan 
the horizon at this season you are very likely 
to detect a flock of dark ducks moving with 
rapid wing athwart the sky, or see the undulat¬ 
ing line of migrating geese. 
Ball’s Hill, with its withered oak leaves and 
its pines, looks very fair to-day, a mile and a 
half off across the water, through a very thin 
varnish or haze. It reminds me of the isle 
which was called up from the bottom of the sea 
and given to Apollo. How charming the con¬ 
trast of land and water, especially where there 
is a temporary island in the flood with its new 
and tender shores of waving outline, so with¬ 
drawn, yet habitable; above all, if it rises into 
a hill high above the water, so contrasting with 
it the more, and, if that hill is wooded, suggest¬ 
ing wildness. Our vernal lakes have a beauty 
