1886
Nov. 10.
Ipswich, Massachusetts.
  Cloudy with heavy showers in P.M.; rather warm.
  To Ipswich alone, by 9 a.M. train. At the 
landing hired a man to take me down river. We
started under sail in a dory at 10 a.M. and ran
quickly down with the ebb tide. Nothing seen on the
way but a few Crows. AT the river's mouth we
spied a Loon outside and sailed after him but
he eluded us successfully and finally flew. He was
apparently a C. septentrionalis.
[margin]To Ipswich[/margin]
  Returning we landed at the usual place and I
beat the sand-hills with some care. Near the middle
of the belt of beach grass started four Ipswich Sparrows
and shot two, one of them flying. As I was wrapping
the second one a Short-eared Owl started from the
crest of a sand-hill within 40 yds. and made off
along the shore flying very like a Marsh Hawk and
evidently quite at ease in the daylight. I lost sight
of him near the top of the large hill to the S.E. but
supposed that he passed it. Afterwards, however, my
boatman flushed him a second time from a gully
on the east slope. I shot at him the first rise but
missed.
  I got a single Horned Lark from a flock passing
over the sand-hills and seeing several flocks pass
over towards the great pasture hill to the S.E. followed
them. Arriving at the summit found several 
small flocks of Horned Larks feeding on the green
turf and quietly shot five. While on this hill as
well as afterwards I saw many flocks of Horned
Larks flying over or past and also a very few
Snow Buntings but no Longspurs. As the Larks were