March 12 + 

Yesterday I collected two distinct and several twinges and hereby save them up. They were more than that⁠—they were pangs, and pangs that twanged. + 

(Why do I make fun of my suffering?) + 

One was when I saw the well-known figure of the Archaeopteryx remains in the slab of Lithographic sandstone of Bavaria: a reproduction in an illustrated encyclopaedia. The other was when someone mentioned mud, and I thought of the wide estuary of the T⁠⸺, its stretches of mudflats and its wildfowl. We were turning over some pages and she said: + 

“What’s that?” + 

“Archaeopteryx,” said I. + 

“Whatever is Archaeopteryx?” + 

“An extinct bird,” I answered mournfully. + 

Like an old amour, my love of paleontology and anatomy, and all the high hopes I entertained of them, came smarting to life again, so I turned over the page quickly. + 

But why need I explain to you, O my Journal? To others, I could not explain. I was tongue-tied. + 

“I used to get very muddy,” I remarked lamentably, “in the old days when stalking birds on the mudflats.” + 

And they rather jeered at such an occupation in such a place, just as those beautiful sights and sounds of Zostera-covered mud-banks, twinkling runnels, swiftly running thin-legged waders, their whistles and cries began to steal over my memory like a delicate pain. + 

To my infinite regret, I have no description, no photograph or sketch, no token of any sort to remember them by. And their doom is certain. Heavens! how I wasted my impressions and experiences then! Swinburne has some lines about saltings which console me a little, but I know of no other descriptions by either pen or brush. + 