298 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
hardly as forward as the white maples, but 
they are not in so warm a position as some. 
. ... In clearing out the Assabet spring, dis¬ 
turbed two small speckled (palustris) frogs, 
just beginning to move.Heard the snipe 
over the meadows this evening. Probably was 
to be heard for a night or two. Sounds on 
different keys, as if approaching or receding 
over the meadows recently become bare. 
April 6, 1855.I go up the Assabet in 
my boat. The blackbirds have now begun to 
frequent the water’s edge in the meadow, the 
ice being sufficiently out. The aspect of April 
waters, smooth and commonly high, before many 
flowers (none yet), or any leafing, while the 
landscape is still russet, and frogs are just awak¬ 
ening, is peculiar. It began yesterday. A very 
few white-maple stamens stand out already 
loosely enough to blow in the wind, and some 
alder catkins look almost ready to shed pollen. 
On the hillsides I smell the dried leaves, and 
hear a few flies buzzing over them. The banks 
of the river are alive with song-sparrows and 
tree-sparrows. They now sing in advance of 
vegetation, as the flowers will blossom. Those 
slight tinkling, twittering sounds, called the 
singing of birds, they had come to enliven the 
bare twigs before the buds show any signs of 
starting.You can hear all day, from time 
