Belmont, Massachusetts
1890 
June 12
Cloudy with low-hanging clouds and damp mist all this 
morning, heavy rain in afternoon. Cool ; wind N.E.
  To Belmont meeting Faxou by appointment at 9 a.m.
at the Cherry Stock farm and spending two pleasant hours 
in his company rambling through the old orchards and
cedar woods finally coming out on Prospect St where George
was waiting with the horse & buggy.
  The chief object of our trip was to find, if possible the
nest of a pair of Myiarchus crinitus which F[axou] saw in the
orchard just N. of the [trolling?] park on the 3rd. One of 
the birds, presumably the male[symbol], was calling in a maple
near this orchard when we reached it but we failed to
discover the nest although we spent an hour looking in 
every promising hole & crevice.
  During our walk we saw or heard many birds
including five House Wrens (all flying) & a Wood Thrush singing
in a maple swamp near Prospect St. The wrens were all in
old orchards. Faxou showed me one of their nests from
which the  female[symbol] flew when we tapped on the trunk.
Birds of all kinds were singing very [freely?] then with
furvour. We heard at least five Grass Finches, four Indigo 
Birds, and several Chewinks, Brown Thrushes, Orioles, Field
[?], & Chipping Sparrows etc. heard three yellow-billed
Cuckoos but no Black-bills although we found a nest of
them latter with the bird sitting. We did not disturb
her.
  This tramp through old moss-grown orchards, some of
the trees [?] <with> canopies of dark foliage, others
half-dead with <rotting> branches covered with moss carried
me back to the days of my boyhood when I used
to hunt for birds eggs in such places with friends now