Concord, Massecushetts.
1894
Oct 11 to
Nov. 21
(No 12)
Resume of Field Observations
  Another very curious experience connected with an Owl                
befell me November 13th. I had spent the day at Ball's                      
Hill, as usual, and was pushing off in the canoe to                            
return to Concord when I noticed a great number of
feathers floating [delete]slowly down stream with the current[/delete] on the river.
One of my men who had been at work on the shore
said that he noticed them passing for half-an-hour
or more. During this time there had not been a breath 
of wind and they had merely drifted slowly with
the current. As I looked I could see them as far as
the eye could reach both up and down stream not 
scattered about but forming a nearly straight [delete]line[/delete]
rather narrow line.
[margin]Nyctale
acadica[/margin]
  Paddling out I picked up a number of them and 
found that they [deleted]had[deleted] belonged to a Saw-whet Owl. They
had come from every part of the bird including the
wings and tail. Many of the body feathers were in
bunches - a dozen or so together.
  This trail of feathers was as easily followed as the
paper 'scent' used in the game of hare & hounds but
it stopped abruptly at the foot of the Beaver Dam
Rapid. There was a large musk rat house on the bank
at this place & at first I suspected that the little Owl
had been plucked there but upon examining the mound
carefully I failed to find so much as a single feather.
I then decided that the plucking operation must have
ceased some time before I started and that the last
feathers which I came to had floated down from
some distance above the spot where I found them.
Accordingly I kept on up stream scanning both banks