1891
May 21
(no 2)
Afternoon in Fresh Pond swamps.
Mass.
Cambridge. - other kind of Rail there also but the
place is very small and it seems unlikely. Certainly
we searched the meadow part so thoroughly that we
could scarcely have overlooked another Rail's nest.
  We next proceeded to the marsh north of Glacialis
seeing a Green Heron, on the way, flying across the
Glacialis into the Maple Swamps just as I used
to see them thirty years ago when, as a boy, I
was learning to swim in this pond. The place
and its surroundings have changed wonderfully little
since then and there are the same old birds,
not a single species, so far as I can remember, being 
missing, although the Night Heron are much
scarcer now than they were then.
  After Jeffries had taken the eggs (four) from a
Swamp Sparrows' nest which Francis & I found on
the 18th we returned to the railroad and following
it westward a little way turned off to the left
and entered the cat-tail swamp behind the brick yard.
I have heard many Rails in this swamp of late
but I dreaded attempting it to-day as last year
I found it impassible. The water is so much
lower this season, however, that we had no difficulty
whatever in going where we pleased even the broader
ditches and pools having a hard clay bottom and
water nowhere more than waist deep. We were 
richly rewarded for our pains, too, as Jeffries
found one and I two Virginia Rails' nests in
the course of about half-an-hour. One nest held
ten eggs on the point of hatching which we left,
another ten fresh eggs which Jeffries took, the