GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS 423 



Jan. 18, 1856. Observed some of those little hard 

 galls on the high blueberry pecked or eaten into by 

 some bird (ox iiossibhj mouse), for the little white gitibs 

 which lie curled up in them. What entomologists the 

 birds are ! Most men do not suspect that there are grubs 

 in them, and how secure the latter seem under these 

 thick, dry shells ! Yet there is no secret but it is confided 

 to some one. 



Feb. 4, 1856. I have often wondered how red cedars 

 could have sprung up in some pastures which I knew 

 to be miles distant from the nearest fruit-bearing cedar, 

 but it now occurs to me that these and barberries, 

 etc., may be planted by the crows, and probably other 

 birds. 



Feh. 8, 1856. E. Garfield says there were many quails 

 here last fall, but that they are suffering now. One 

 night as he was spearing on Conant's cranberry meadow, 

 just north the pond, his dog caught a sheldrake in the 

 water by the shore. Some days ago he saw what he 

 thought a hawk, as white as snow, fly over the pond, 

 but it may have been a white owl (which last he never 

 saw).^ He sometimes sees a hen-hawk in the winter, but 

 never a partridge or other small hawk at this season. 

 Speaks again of that large speckled hawk he killed 

 once, which some called a "Cape eagle." Had a hum- 

 bird's nest behind their house last summer, and was 

 amused to see the bird drive off other birds ; would pur- 

 sue a robin and alight on his back ; let none come near. 

 I. Garfield saw one's nest on a horizontal branch of a 

 white pine near the Charles Miles house, about seven 



^ Was it a gyrfalcon ? 



