1893. 
April 7                                     
Concord, Mass.
      Morning cloudy with chill N.E. wind. At noon
the wind changed to S. and it began snowing hard,
about four inches falling before night.
     A carpenter came from Cambridge to work on the
canoes and I spent the most of the forenoon with or
near him at the river landing. To my great surprise
the farm was simply alive with birds the entire
morning. Either there was a great flock of migrants
last night or, what seems more probable, they came
yesterday while I was at Cambridge. Most of them
were Sparrows, Fox, True & Song Sparrows and Juncos,
banded together in a flock and aiming upwards of
fifty individuals. They fed on the ground among 
the blackberry bushes and drifted back and forth
across the same, visiting the pines near the North
Bridge several times.
[margin]Heavy flight of Sparrows[margin]
     There were ten or a dozen Fox Sparrows in this flock.
When on the ground they worked busily and in
perfect silence kicking the leaves behind them by
a succession of vigorous backward flings of their feet.
When startled they would fly to the nearest bushes
or apple tree and sitting motionless utter the strong
lisping chirp which is so characteristic of the
species. This chirp can be at once distinguished 
from that of any other Sparrow except Pooecetes
which makes a closely similar but slightly fuller
sound. None of these Fox Sparrows sang when they
were in the open but once safely sheltered among the
pines they sent forth [delete]at[delete] burst after burst of their rich music
[margin]Fox Sparrows[margin]