claims to have found a Wood Duck's nest with ten
eggs, last year, "in a hollow root" on the edge of
Pout Pond. The Wood Ducks, old or young, never associate
with his tame ducks. Last year there was only one brood
of young Wood Ducks in the swamp and but these young
in this brood. The musk rats destroy many eggs. They
will steal the eggs from under a sitting duck by
digging up from beneath. Eight eggs were taken thus
from one of his ducks and he found them all in 
a musk rat's burrow some broken and sucked, others whole
but showing marks of the rat's teeth. 
  This man assured us that fever and chills were now
prevalent over this whole swamp region. In nearly
every family someone was down with malaria every
week or two. He thinks the swamps will be drained
within a year or two. This will abate the malaria 
scourge and reclaim a vast tract of rich farming
lands but where shall we go to study Rails and 
Gallinules then?
[margin]Malaria[/margin]
  In the [?] there is good shooting in this
[margin] Shooting in Pout Pond
swamp. A son of Dr. Spaulding the Episcopal clergyman
of Cambridge keeps a boat in his barn and spends 
the early mornings paddling about in the swamp. 
Last year in Sept. and October he killed a number 
of Wood Ducks. Black Ducks seldom come there 
now but four alighted in the pond one morning 
this spring.