1892
Aug. 26
Concord, Massachusetts.
[margin]To Ball's Hill.[/margin]
Mass.
Concord.- A North-easterly storm with heavy wind and
driving rain.

  To Ball's Hill at 2.30 P.M. in the "Stella Maris" canoe.
The paddle down was laborious and disagreeable for the
wind was dead ahead & very strong and the rain drove
against my face and half blinded me but I sailed all the way back.
  Six White-belled Swallows, two Barn Swallows and half-a-
dozen Swifts were skimming close over the water and sedge
at the swift reach below "the tent" and a still larger
flock, containing two Eave Swallows, five White-bellies, several
Barn Swallows and a number of Swifts, were collected about
the Beaver Dam rapid where they beat back & forth over
a comparatively small area of water & marsh. I was interested
and somewhat surprised to observe, on passing this place
on my return two hours later, that the composition of
this flock had changed materially. The Eave Swallows were
missing but there were now four Sand Martins, five Barn
Swallows, at least fifteen White-bellies, one Purple Martin
and but two Swifts. The upper flock remained the same.
[margin]Swallows &
Swifts[/margin]

  Near "the tent" I saw a young ♂[male] Sharp-shinned Hawk.
He was very tame & allowed me to paddle nearly beneath
him as he sat on a low branch over the river.
[margin]Accipiter fuscus[/margin]

  On Bensen's knoll, as I was walking past the smaller
hollow following the cart path, I started a Carolina Dove from
a small red cedar. She fluttered off [delete]very[/slowly] & clumsily like
a very young bird. On looking in the cedar I found a nest
built chiefly of dry straw & containing two eggs evidently far advanced in incubation.
[margin]A late Dove's√√[tick marks]
nest[/margin]