1892.
July 29
(No 2)
Concord, Massachusetts.
Mass.
Concord.- whither I concluded it had been taken
by the parent when the young hatched.
[margin]Dove's nest√[tick mark][/margin]
  My last visit to this nest was at about 5 o'clock
on the afternoon of July 27th. The young were then
sitting crouched in their usual motionless fashion on
the platform of sticks, which they almost completely covered
for one bird was fully grown and feathered and the
other nearly so, the difference in size between the two
being much less than it was a week ago. As there
were no signs to-day of anything wrong having occurred
at or near the nest I infer that these young left
it in peace & safety either sometime yesterday or this
morning. I did not see either of the parent birds on
the 27th and to-day I could find only one Dove
on my entire premises, an old male which I saw
flying into the woods on Davis's Hill, where, probably,
the young were in hiding.
  I found this nest July 4th when it contained the
complement of two eggs. These (at a distance of 15 ft.)
looked slightly incubated. One was nearly a third
larger than the other. The larger egg hatched on
the 15th, the smaller on the following day. It
follows that the period of incubation with this
species is at least 11 days and that the young
remain in the nest only 13 or 14 days.

  The Musk rats have been absent from my boat house
most of the time during the past week perhaps
because of the heat. This morning, however, I found
one of them crouching under a canoe and in Mr F's[Forbush's]
presence stroked its back & played with its keeled tail.
[margin]Musk rats in
boat house.[/margin]