EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 293 
zephyr is positively agreeable on my cheek. 
I am thinking what an elysian day it is, and 
how I seem always to be keeping the flocks of 
Admetus such days, that is my luck, when I 
hear a single short stertorous croak from some 
pool half-filled with dry leaves. You may see 
anything now, the buff-edged butterfly and 
many hawks along the meadow, and hark! 
while I was writing down that field note, the 
shrill peep of the hylodes was borne to me from 
afar through the woods. 
I rode with my employer a dozen miles to¬ 
day, keeping a profound silence almost all the 
way, as the most simple and natural course. I 
treated him simply as if he had bronchitis and 
could not speak, just as I would a sick man, a 
crazy man, or an idiot. The disease was only 
an unconquerable stiffness in a well-meaning 
and sensible man. 
Begin to look off the hills and see the land¬ 
scape again through a slight haze, with warm 
wind on the cheek. 
April 5, 1855. 9 A. M. To Sudbury line by 
boat.It is a smooth April morning water, 
and many sportsmen are out in their boats. I 
see a pleasure boat on the smooth surface away 
by the Rock, resting lightly as a feather in the 
air. Scare up a snipe close to the water’s edge, 
and soon after a hen-hawk from the Clam-shell 
