Dec. 31, 1850. . . . The blue jays evidently notify each other of the presence of an intruder, and will sometimes make a great chattering about it, and so communicate the alarm to other birds, and to beasts.
Dec. 31, 1851. The third warm day; now overcast and beginning to drizzle. Still it is inspiriting as the brightest weather, though the sun surely is not going to shine. There is a latent light in the mist, as if there were more electricity than usual in the air. There are warm, foggy days in winter which excite us.—It reminds me, this thick, spring-like weather, that I have not enough valued and attended to the pure clarity and brilliancy of the winter skies. . . . Shall I ever in summer evenings see so celestial a reach of blue sky contrasting with amber as I saw a few days since. The day sky in winter corresponds for clarity to the night sky in which the stars shine and twinkle so brightly in this latitude.
I am too late, perhaps, to see the sand foliage in the deep cut; should have been there day before yesterday. It is now too wet and soft. Yet in some places it is perfect. I see some perfect leopard's paws. These things suggest that there is motion in the earth as well as on the surface; it lives and grows. . . . I seem to see some of the life that is in the spring bud
