1891 
May 12
Mass. 
West Tisbury, Martha's Vineyard. - Cloudy with strong, cold
N. W. wind which brought rain late in the afternoon. 
Evening very cold for the season.
  We had planned to start for the brush plains before 
day break but Faxon overslept and it was 4 o'clock 
and broad daylight when a Least Flycatcher, singing
persistently in front of the house, waked me. I roused 
Faxon at once and we were soon dressed and on our 
way in an open wagon drawn by a wretched-looking, but 
rather spirited and decidedly ugly, little horse belonging 
to Mr. Walden.
  On reaching Scott's, a farm on the south side of the 
road and the north edge of the brush plains a little 
more than a mile east of W. Tisbury on the 
Edgartwon road, we tied the horse to a post on 
the sheltered side of the barn and passing through 
a grove of pitch pines came out on the edge of 
the "plains" . It was now about 5 o'clock. We waited 
perhaps half-an-hour hoping to hear a Heath Hen
Call but either we reached the ground too late 
or the morning was too cold, for the birds were 
perfectly silent. A few Brown Thrashers, Towhees 
and Field Sparrows were singing in the low scrub 
and Meadow Larks in the neighboring fields, but 
the piercing north-west wind soon silenced them. 
  At about half-past five we started down a 
cart path which crosses the "plains" from Scott's 
to the Vineyard Haven road. We had gone scarce 
100 yds. from Scott's barn when a Heath Hen sprang 
some sixty yards ahead of us from a 
grassy place in the path directly between the