26 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



slumber after the alarm and activity we had just 

 witnessed. 



March 1, 1856. It is remarkable that though I have 

 not been able to find any open place in the river almost 

 all winter, except under the further stone bridge and at 

 Loring's Brook, — this winter so remarkable for ice and 

 snow, — Coombs * should (as he says) have killed two 

 sheldrakes at the falls by the factory,^ a place which I 

 had forgotten, some four or six weeks ago. Singular that 

 this hardy bird should have found this small opening, 

 which I had forgotten, while the ice everywhere else was 

 from one to two feet thick, and the snow sixteen inches 

 on a level. If there is a crack amid the rocks of some 

 waterfall, this bright diver is sure to know it. Ask the 

 sheldrake whether the rivers are completely sealed up. 



April 5, 1856. Saw half a dozen white sheldrakes in 

 the meadow, where Nut Meadow Brook was covered 

 witli the flood. There were two or three females with 

 them. These ducks would all swim together first a little 

 way to the right, then suddenly turn together and swim 

 to the left, from time to time making the water fly in a 

 white spray, apparently with awing. Nearly half a mile 

 off I could see their green crests in the sun. They were 

 partly concealed by some floating pieces of ice and snow, 

 which they resembled. 



April 24, 1856. A Garfield (I judge from his face) 

 confirmed the story of sheldrakes killed in an open 

 place in the river between the factory and Harrington's, 

 just after the first great snow-storm (which must have 



^ [A Concord man, one of the pigeon-catchers.] 

 2 [On the Assabet River.] 



