1886
July 30
Concord, Massachusetts.
  Clear and sultry. Thunder showers hovering about
but all passing by. Evening clear and still.
  Late in the forenoon paddled down river to 
Dakin's Hill in dozen of Swallows. Saw only a very
few, less than a dozen in all. A Warbling Vireo
singing in an undertone. Red-wings still ravaging
the Zisania which they hear nearly stripped of 
its "mice". Shot a young Cuckoo (erythropthalmus) but
it was only broken-winged and escaped into a 
tangle of cornel bushes.
  In the afternoon took a drive with Purdie,
to Fairyland, down by Walden, back by way
of Sandy Pond. Very few birds singing except
Towhees and Indigo Brides of which we heard
three or four call. At Walden saw a night-hawk
scaling about over a low cliff or rocky terran
where it probably had young. In Sandy Pond
woods heard two Wood Thrushes calling in
sharp, rattling tours whit-whit-whit-whit apparently
answering one another.
  While passing through these woods we 
also heard the note of a Purple Martin and 
looking up saw a flock of those birds passing
southward at least 500 ft above the trees.
They were flying in a compact flock like 
migrating Robins but not "bunched" like robins.
I counted them twice and made them
number 21 each time.
  Cicadas heard daily now.