thrown into the pond and wells. These may have been dropped out of the back window.
March 1, 1858. . . . . I see about a dozen black ducks on Flint's Pond asleep with their heads on their backs and drifting across the pond before the wind. I suspect that they are nocturnal in their habits and therefore require much rest by day. So do the seasons revolve and every chink is filled. While the waves toss, this bright day, the ducks asleep are drifting before the wind across the ponds. Every now and then one or two lift their heads and look about as if they watched by turns. . . . . Just after sundown I see a large flock of wild geese in a perfect harrow cleaving their way toward the northeast, with Napoleonic tactics splitting the forces of winter.
March 31, 1860. . . . . The small red butterfly in the woodpaths and sproutlands, and I hear at mid p. m. a very faint but positive ringing sound rising above the susurrns of the pines, of the breeze, which I think is the note of a distant and perhaps solitary toad, not loud and ringing as it will be. Toward night I hear it more distinctly and am more confident about it. I hear this faint first reptilian sound added to the sound of the winds thus, each year a little in advance of the unquestionable note of the toad. Of constant sounds in the warmer parts of warm
