(Continued)
1890
Dec.12
Lexington, Massachusetts
have killed him with [delete]my[/delete] heavy shot but my
charge of no 8 only cut out a few feathers &
he kept on.
  After eating a hasty lunch and getting 
thoroughly chilled by the brief period of inaction
I crossed the swamp and climbed the hill
to the west starting two very wild Partridges
near its base. They flew on ahead and I
expected to find them in the big woods beyond
the crest of the ridge but failed to do so.
In these woods I saw two Golden-crested
Kinglets in one place and in another, among
white pines, a little flock of Chickadees perhaps
half-a-dozen in all. These were literall the
only small birds that I met with during
my tramp but while driving homeward late
in the afternoon I saw a number of Crows
and a flock of about seven or eight Tree
Sparrows.
  I walked back to Bryant's through "Lexington
Lane". The woods had a dreary look in the 
pale afternoon sun-light, the ground covered
with a thin layer of icy-crusted snow, the wind
whistling and roaring through the tree tops sending
down dead twigs by scores, the only really warm
bright color being that of the occasional clusters of 
barberries along the gray stone walls or
those of the black alder on the swamp edges.
In the great birch swamp I saw countless
tracks of the coney rabbit which must
be very numerous there. I also saw one