1886
May 2
Sunday
Concord, Massachusetts.
  I came to Concord last night to spend
Sunday only, my business in Cambridge and
Boston being still uncompleted.
  Early this morning there was a grand
chorus of bird voices such as we used to hear
in Cambridge before the wretched sparrows
came. Robins, Song Sparrows, Bluebirds,
Purple Finches, Grass Finches etc. made the air
ring. About a Martin box which was put up
only yesterday several pairs of Hirundo bicolor
and one pair of Prog[?][?] purpuria held high
carnival.
  Early in the forenoon I went down to the 
boathouse and spent an hour sitting on its
sunny western wall. Red Wings singing in all
directions, a Meadow Lark whistling over by the
railroad station, the Pervers occasionally coming
to see that their nest on a rafter inside the 
boathouse still held its two rosy eggs. In the
water beneath, several species of fishes were
feeding or playing. I compared them to boats;
the red perch long, narrow, swift of movement,
resembled a steam launch; the bream, deep
broad and yet graceful, a roomy schooner; 
while a great clumsy horned pout rooting along
the bottom, recalled a mud-scow. The monitors
of course were the mud-turtles, of which there
were dozens in sight, all of the red banded
("soldier turtle") species. One came along
past me feeding. It would raise its head a-
bove the water, look warily about for a moment,
then sink and walk along the bottom exploring it