1891
April 2
(No 2)
Mass.
Ipswich. - been eating a small horse-shoe crab.
  We beat over most of the sand-hills by the
river's mouth without seeing a bird of any kind
but at length, near the further end of the long
strip of beach grass bordering the beach, I started 
three Short-eared Owls. They rose within a few
yards of one another and all at once taking
me very much by surprise, but I brought down
one of them broken-winged with a charge of No. 10
from my left band. One of the two survivors flew
some distance and alighted on the further side 
of the sand-hills where he at once attracted the
attention of several Crows who began to dive down
at him quickly forcing him to take wing again
where he mounted to a height of at least
500 feet and soaring in circles, precisely like a
Buteo, drifted off before the wind out of sight. 
The third bird went only about 100 yds. and
alighted on the side of a sand-hill where I
suprised*[surprised] him easily enough by making a circuit
and shot him as he rose within a few yards 
of me. Like the first bird he fell wing-broken.
We took both specimens and placing them side
by side on a sand-hill photographed them.
I hoped to save them alive at first but both
showed unmistakeable signs of internal injury
and I finally killed them. While performing
this painful duty I heard Horned Larks
piping but failed to see them although the*[they]
evidently passed very near me. A Meadow
Lark was singing in the distance and a 
[margin]Short eared
Owls[/margin]


[margin]Otocoris[/margin]