893
June 7
(No 3)
Saybrook, Connecticut
to the opinion that it was a Dove. Soon afterwards
we saw it again & I stalked it, getting within
40 yds. At this distance we made certain that it was
a female Wild Pigeon of unusual size. The long neck, wings 
& tail & every detail of color were made out most positively
but as it started the second time we both heard
distinctly the Dove-like whistle of the wings. Does the
Pigeon ever make this sound? Neither Clark nor I
could recall hearing it. Still it seemed inevitable that, a [delete]any[/delete]
Dove under any conditions of light (the sun was shining
& the light seemed normal) could have been mistaken
for a Pigeon at a distance of 40 yds or less. Another
bird which looked equally large passed within 100 yds, which
we were looking at the one on the dead tree. Its size, the swift,
glowering, flight & the long tail convinced us for the moment
that it was a Pigeon. But doubts crept into my mind
after the other bird whistled off. Altogether the matter was
left unsettled with Faxon & I favoring the Pigeon side of 
the argument & Clark that of the Dove. A mile further
on we heard a Carolina Dove coo.
[margin]Wild Pigeons?[/margin]
  After leaving this great clearing we passed through a
succession of woods, swamps, [delete] wood paths[/delete] and openings,
following old wood paths or the courses of brooks, occasionally
turning aside to visit some spring deep in a hollow
filled with ferns or encircled by thickets of the ever abundant
& beautiful Kalmin. Clark took a set of six fresh
eggs of Myiarchus crinitus from a nest which he had
marked before in an old Flicker's hole in a burnt
stub but we found no new nests of any kind. Eleven Hooded
Warblers were heard singing during the day. We reached
Clark's at sunset stopping by the way to take the Warbler's nest
found yesterday on the cedar hills. It proved to be a Prairie's.