1891.
Dec. 3
Concord, Massachusetts.
Ball's Hill.
Concord. - Clear and very warm, quite like a September day,
with almost no wind. Yesterday was similar but with a
steady, rather cool W. to S.W. wind and lower temperature.
I spent both days working in the woods at Ball's Hill.
Yesterday Mr. Buttrick went down with me in the morning
and we walked through Benson's pine woods, flushing two if
not three Partridges on the edge of the glacial hollow, and
afterwards through the fine old oak & chestnut growth on
Holden's hill. I saw few birds except a flock of Crows across the river.
  This morning I went carefully over Benson's pine ridge
with the owner to whom I have made an offer for this
land. As we were standing in an opening on a knoll I
heard a Crow Blackbird cluck a number of times &
finally give the unmistakeable cr-craw note. The next moment
it started from the top of a white pine near us and
flew out of sight across the open country beyond Benson's
house. It looked like a fine old male, having a large,
deeply concave tail. 
[margin]A late 
Quiscalus[/margin]
  There were several Chickadees and two Brown Creepers
on Ball's Hill to-day and across the river a flock of
about twenty Crows the same, I think, which I observed
in the same field yesterday. There were very noisy & acted
like migrants.
  Benson's dog flushed a Partridge in my swamp and
I found fresh droppings of a Rabbit among hazel bushes
on the top of the hill. I did not know before that I
had one of the latter in these woods.
  As we were driving home this morning the horse
started a flock of eight or ten Tree Sparrows from the
road near Benson's and I saw a single one on the
hill late this afternoon.