1892
July 24
Concord, Massachusetts.
Mass.
Concord.- The hot wave continues to brood over the land
but there was a fine S.W. breeze to-day and in the
afternoon a dense, high-floating haze which to some extent
intercepted the fierce glare of the sun.
[margin]River trip to N. Billerica[/margin]
  At daybreak the Whippoorwills were both singing and
when we arose a little after sunrise the Hermit Thrushes
and one Veery with several Red-eyed Vireos were at their
matins on the ridge opposite our camp. In the groves
or thickets along the river we heard at this time
Song & Swamp Sparrows, one Yellow-throated and one
Solitary Vireo, a Black-billed Cuckoo, King birds and
Crows. Later a Quail began whistling in the fields.
A Cooper's Hawk also passed close by us as we were eating breakfast.
[margin]Birds singing
at daybreak[/margin]
  At 9 A.M. when the sun was very hot and the breeze
not as yet fairly started a Humming bird Moth ([delete]Macroglossa[/delete] Sesia pelasgus)
appeared in a bed of pickerel weed in front of our camp
and visited flower after flower precisely in the manner
of its avian namesake, displaying first its creamy white
throat and then the dull-green thorax and chestnut-
banded hind body as it turned towards or from us.
[margin]Hummingbird Moth[/margin]

  At 9.30 we struck camp and sailed down river past
the old stone piers to with[?: should be within?] two miles of the dam at
N. Billerica. Some distance below these piers I heard
two more Hermit Thrushes, singing in mixed pine &
oak woods on the north bank.
[margin]Hermit Thrushes[/margin]

  The return to Concord was an uneventful struggle with
the double bladed paddles against the strong head wind.
We lunched on a pretty wooded knoll a mile below
Carlisle Bridge. At Davis's Hill we landed again & put
out the fire which was spreading fast.