1890
June 5
Cambridge & Waverley, Mass.
Cloudy all day with N.E. wind and heavy thunder shower just
after dark in the evening.
  At 9.30 A.M. met Faxon by appointment at Pont Pond
swamp to hunt for the Gallinule's nest Denton joining us
later with a large basket, spade etc.
  Faxon and I entered the swamp near the E. end at 10. A.M.
and at once began a most thorough search taking every
tussock, bed of cat tails and dense thicket of willows or
wild rose bushes in detail. At precisely 11.15 A.M. I found
the nest I found the nest in a place*[repeated words] where I was 
not really looking for it - an opening sprinkled thinly with 
willow herbs with no [flags?], tussocks or other dense growths near.
I was passing the edge of this scanty thicket when my
eye was suddenly arrested by what seemed to be a floating
mass of bleached cat-tails anchored among the stems of
the bushes and from its light "dead-grass" coloring very
conspicuous on the dark water. Moving a step or two forward
I saw the eggs, a great pile of them it seemed and indeed
there were no less than twelve. I at once shouted to Faxon
who came up from the other side and standing a few
feet apart with the nest between us we feasted our eyes
long and eagerly on this great prize, the first nest
of a Florida Gallinule ever taken in Massachusetts and
the only one that either of us had ever seen in situ.
It was a great shame not to get a photograph of the
nest and its contents, just as we found it, but as the
day was dark and misty I had left my Kodak at
home and dared not risk making sure of both eggs
and nest in a swamp where muskrats and crows are
ever on the watch for such tid bits. Accordingly I
packed the eggs carefully and took the nest out in