EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 267 
when it was frozen. I laid it open with my 
hands. There were three or four channels or 
hollowed paths a rod or more in length, not 
merely worn but made in the meadow centering 
at the mouth of this burrow. They were three 
or four inches deep, and finally became indis¬ 
tinct, and were lost amid the cranberry vines 
and grass toward the river. The entrance to 
the burrow was just at the edge of the upland, 
here a gentle sloping bank, and was probably 
just beneath the surface of the water six weeks 
ago. It was about twenty-five rods distant from 
the true bank of the river. From this a straight 
gallery about six inches in diameter every way 
sloped upward about eight feet into the bank 
just beneath the turf, so that the end was about 
a foot higher than the entrance. Here was 
a somewhat circular enlargement about one 
foot in horizontal diameter and of the same 
depth as the gallery. In it was nearly a peck 
of coarse meadow stubble, showing the marks 
of the scythe with which was mixed accident¬ 
ally a very little of the moss that grew with it. 
Three short galleries, only two feet long, were 
continued from this centre, somewhat like rays, 
toward the high land, as if they had been pre¬ 
pared in order to be ready for a sudden rise of 
the water, or had been actually made so far 
under such an emergency. The nest was of 
i 
