1893
June 14
Saybrook Ferry, Conn.
  Clear with fog in the morning & at evening.
  Breakfasted at 6 A.M. and soon afterwards
started for the marsh, Faxon on foot, I by boat.
Soon after passing the railroad bridge I heard a
bird song wholly new to me. It consisted of a
series of six to eight whistles, the first two mellow
and full resembling those of the Purple Martin, the
other more piping and higher in pitch and delivered so
rapidly as to form almost a trill suggesting that of a
Field or Swamp Sparrow (pheu-pheu-phe-phe-phe-phe-phe).
To my infinite astonishment, the author of this song
proved to be a Bobolink in earthy dull plumage with
very brownish head apparently an immature bird. He
evidently could sing in no other way for we afterwards
heard him a great many times. He sang on wing as
well as forehead, always near the same place. Nothing
in either the form or quality of his song bore the remoted
resemblance to that of the ordinary Bobolink. There were
at least six other males, all of which sang in the
usual way, scattered along the river bank & evidently
breeding in the salt marsh grass. On the east bank
of the river, I afterwards saw a pair the male of which
regularly began with whistles (pheu, pheu) exactly
like the other bird but finished with the usual song.
[margin]Bobolink
with a 
strange song[/margin]
  Marsh Wrens were numerous in the cat tails along
the creeks & ditches in this marsh & I found &
took a set of six eggs which had been incubated
a few days.
[margin]Marsh Wrens[/margin]