EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 311 
chestnut crown, holds up its head and pours 
forth its die die die die die die .Saw a 
pine warbler, by ventriloquism, sounding further 
off than it was, which was seven or eight feet, 
hopping and flitting from twig to twig, appar¬ 
ently picking the small flies at and about the 
base of the needles at the extremities of the 
twigs.A warm and hazy, but breezy, 
day. The sound of the laborers striking the 
iron nails of the railroad with their sledges is 
as in the sultry days of summer, — resounds, 
as it were, from the hazy sky as from a roof, a 
more confined, and in that sense more domestic, 
sound echoing along between the earth and the 
low heavens. The same strokes would produce 
a very different sound in the winter.Be¬ 
yond the desert, hear the hooting owl which, as 
formerly, I at first mistook for the hounding 
of dog, a squealing sound followed by hoo hoo 
hoo deliberately, and particularly sonorous and 
ringing. This at 2 p. M. . . . . 
The cowslips are well out, the first conspicu¬ 
ous herbaceous flower, for that of the skunk’s- 
cabbage is concealed in its spathe. 
April 9, 1855. 5^ A. m. To red bridge just 
before sunrise.Hear the coarse, rasping 
cluck or chatter of crow blackbirds, and distin¬ 
guished their long, broad tails. Wilson says 
that the only note of the rusty grackle is a 
