225
*
1897
Sept. 6
(No.2)
Lake Umbagog.
  At sunset Will rowed me over to Moose Point.
The Crocker party were already there and one of
them fired twice as we were passing. We afterwards
learned that he shot a couple of Carolina Rails
starting them from the long grass on the dry,
southern bank of the marsh.
[margin]*
Moose Pt.
at evening.[/margin]
  We kept on into the creek and took a station
among some stubs very near the spot where I
saw the Moose last year. The evening was calm,
warm & dry. A great bank of black clouds lay
along the western horizon but the sky elsewhere
was of an uniform pale blue becoming more & more dusky
towards the eastward as the light faded. The
dim expanse of flat, reed - grown marsh was alive
with sound, first the low chirping & bickering calls
of the Savanna Sparrows and the plaintive whistling
of Semipalmated Sandpipers, next the rasping
cries of Snipe & the shrill peet weeting of
Solitary Sandpipers, finally the hoarse haink calls
of Great Blue Herons & the plashing & sloshing
of Muskrats. Of the last - named no less than
six swam past us, following the course of the
creek & finally entering a large hollow stub.
[margin]Sounds.[/margin]
[margin]Muskrats[/margin]
   There were no Ducks at all or rather we 
saw none but Will heard one quacking in
the distance & another marked its unseen
course high over us through the darkness by the
silvery whistling of its wings. The Crocker party
told us that this was the first evening for
a week or more where less than fifteen or
twenty Ducks have come into the marsh.
[margin]Ducks.[/margin]