Concord, Mass.
1893
Aug.19

  Clear most of the day with cool E. wind. Evening cloudy.
  To Ball's Hill at 9 A.M. paddling down in the open 
canoe and spending the day at the cabin.
  The wild rice beds at the head of Beaver Dam Rapid
were alive with Carolina Rails to-day. Scarce a minute
passed without one or more calling Kik or ki-ki in
sharp explosive tones and when I struck the water 
with the flat of my paddle half-a-dozen or more
responded at once. I ran the canoe into the
reeds and watched the open spaces for ten or fifteen
minutes but not a bird showed himself. All the
while some bird (probably a Rail and perhaps P. [Porzana]
carolina) concealed in a dense cluster of reeds within a
few yards of me kept uttering [delete]a singular[/delete] a succession
of singular cries, most of them low and crooning but
some sharp and grating like the scold of a Wren.
I did not recognize any of these sounds & think I
have never heard them before. Of course the Carolina Rails
must have been migrants from further north. I heard
one in the reeds along the Holt. 
[margin]Carolina Rails
in the beds of
wild rice.[/margin]
[margin]
A strange
Rail(?) cry.[/margin]
  Hawks are appearing on the meadows, as they always
do at this season. I saw to-day at least two Red-shoulders
and one Red-tail. The latter was soaring in circles 
over Davis Hill uttering the cry which resembles the
creaking of a rusty hinge.
[margin]Hawks[/margin]
  Several Warblers & a Thrush heard migrating to-night at
about nine o'clock.