1892
Nov. 6
Concord, Massachusetts.
Mass.
Concord.  Cloudless and nearly perfectly calm all day.
Ther 26 degrees at sunrise. A beautiful day.
  Starting at 10.30 a.m. I walked to Bow Meadow
by way of Dutton's lane and back by the hemlocks
and the Estabrook road.
  The snow lay two inches deep in the woods all
the forenoon and most of the fields and pastures were
white until late in the day yet I heard a
Partridge drumming and Crickets chirping and saw 
a Butterfly (Vanessa antiopa) flying about among
some young oaks where it finally alighted on a
patch of spotless snow, spread its wings
out flat on the snow as if to cool them remaining
thus as long as I was in sight of the place. It
must have chosen this cold resting place for
there was plenty of bare ground not a yard
away.
[margin]Partridge drumming[/margin]
[margin]Butterfly alights on snow bank[/margin]
  Small birds were not numerous. Four Fox Sparrows
with a White-throat, then Fox Sparrows with Juncos,
two small flocks (four & six birds) of Chickadees, one
flock accompanied by a Kinglet & Downy Woodpecker,
two Hermit Thrushes, four Brown Creepers and
a few Crows & Jays were all I saw.
  One of the Jays mimiced the husky scream of a Red-tailed Hawk so
perfectly as to deceive me completely until I
approached the tree & saw the bird.
[margin]Blue Jay mimics Buteo borealis[/margin]
  On the northern border of the Damsdale I started
a bevy of fifteen Quail from a patch of weeds
near a brush-grown wall. Their tracks braided the
snow in every direction. Fox tracks numerous in the
meadows & wood paths.