1889
June 26
Ashby, Massachusetts.
  Cloudy with strong wind and light drizzling
rain at intervals through the day, the clouds break-
ing away somewhat late in the afternoon. Start-
ing at 10 o'clock we drove to Mt Watatic, a dis-
tance of about three miles from town, leaving
the horse at Woodard's, nearly one third of the
way up the mountain. Birds were singing well
during the entire distance from town, but we
heard nothing of any particular interest. We
started up the mountain in a drizzling rain, a[delete]nd[/delete]
dense fog obscuring all except the nearest objects
from our view, and, as we were not fam-
iliar with the place, interfering seriously with
our finding the way. We pushed steadily upward,
however, and, after crossing a wide intervale
of pasture land, entered a tract covered with
young spruces growing in thick copses [delete]and[/delete] with open-
ings between [delete]of trees[/delete]. Here we were delighted to find our
first northern birds, Black and Yellow Warblers num-
erous and singing in several directions; Yel-
low Rumped Warbler[delete]s[/delete] [delete] three [males] and one [female][/delete] a [male] and [delete]and[/delete] female[delete]s[/delete] apparently
with nest[delete]s[/delete] or young somewhere near, and Snow
Birds. As we ascended still further the
Black and Yellow Warblers became more num-
erous, and we occasionally heard the song
of a Yellow-Rumped Warbler. The fog thick-
ened, however, and the rain began to come
down more heavily, so we sought the shelter
of a large spreading spruce under which we
ate our lunch, not knowing in the least
how near we were to the top of the mountain,