the former rising from the midst of those radical leaves when it almost puts my eyes out. The radical leaves of the shepherd's purse are particularly bright. . . . . Men of science, when they pause to contemplate the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, or as they sometimes call Him "the Almighty Designer," speak of Him as a total stranger whom it is necessary to treat with the highest consideration. They seem suddenly to have lost their wits.
March 8, 1860. To Cliffs and Walden. See a small flock of grackles on the willow row above railroad bridge. How they sit and make a business of chattering, for it cannot be called singing, and there is no improvement from age to age, perhaps. Yet as nature is a becoming, these notes may become melodious at last. At length, on my very near approach, they flit suspiciously away, uttering a few subdued notes as they hurry off. This is the first flock of blackbirds I have chanced to see, though C. saw one the 6th.
To say nothing of fungi, lichens, mosses, and other cryptogamous plants, you cannot say that vegetation absolutely ceases at any season in this latitude. For there is grass in some warm exposures and in springy places always growing more or less, and willow catkins expanding and peeping out a little farther every
