1891
May 28
(No 3)
Mass. 
Cambridge to Carlisle. - a brilliant Red-wing sitting 
on an alder.
  Continuing on our way we saw a pair of Quail 
run across the road and into the bordering bushes. 
In a piece of oak woods I took a Blue Jay's 
nest with 4 eggs. It was in the ford  of a 
young oak only about 10 ft above the ground 
and caught my eye as we were driving past. 
The bird was sitting her long tail and crested
head showing conspicuously. She slipped off 
when I shook the tree ands and at over flew 
out of sight among the foliage without making 
a sound. 
  At Mr. Robbins' I was shown a Yellow rail which 
had been shot in the autumn a few years ago on 
Fifty Acre Meadow and the secondary quill of 
a Prairie Hen which had been seen repeatedly 
of late in a field near by. It is doubtless one 
of the birds which we liberated near Boston last 
Spring.
  Mr. Robbins went with us to Fifty Acre Meadow 
to look for the snipe. As I have already said 
we failed to find any traces of them but we 
saw many other birds; three or four quail in 
a clover field, swarms of Red-wings rising 
from the tall meadow grass; A bittern flushed 
by the dog from the bank of the brook; a [male] 
Marsh Hawk which scaled nearly over us, 
and one or two Swamp Sparrows. The meadow is 
suitable in places for Henslow's Sparrows 7 Short - 
billed Marsh Wrens but neither species was seen or