1890  
May 21
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Evening at Pont Pond
Clear and cool. Wind S.E. to S.W. at sunset when it became warmer.
  The raison d'etre for this entry is the fact that
I took the 6 P.M. train for Hill's Crossing and spent
just one hour at the Pont Pond swamp where I
found Torrey. He had been on the ground the
whole afternoon and had found a place near the
top of the hill on the western side of the swamp
from which one can command the entire length
of the broad ditch which [?definates] the cat-tail bog
from the flooded maple swamp. Sitting down here and
keeping very still for two of three hours he had had 
no less than five sights at a Florida Gallinule
which crossed the citch into the woods and back again, 
always at the same point. Sometimes it swam directly
across, at other times fed along by the way or climbed
on a little island where it sat for some time washing
and [?preening] itself. He saw it cluck like the Wayland
bird and also make several of the sounds which we
heard on the night of the 18th. 
  All this Torrey told me as we were walking 
down the track towards the hill. On reaching the 
hill we found the Gallinule out in the middle
of the ditch but he saw us and swam to cover
at once so I got but a fleeting glympse at 
his nodding head and neck and cocked up tail
with its white under coverts. We waited over half-
an-hour but he did not reappear. We heard him 
and at least one other at frequent intervals making
various calls in the cat-tails and later in the
evening we heard still another in the bog behind