66
Concord, Mass.
1898.
April 27
(No 2)
current bearing the male on her back. The second
coitus ceased just as they reached some bushes when
the pair separated, the female going ashore & the
male diving. I have never before actually seen
Muskrats perform the sexual act although I have
often watched males in pursuit of females. They
usually keep up their peculiar murmuring cry while
thus engaged but both of these arrivals were silent.
What could be more characteristic of such ultra-
aquatic creatures than this sexual union in mid-
stream! The offspring resulting from it should be
indeed bold swimmers and adroit divers conceived,
as the[y] were, in the midst of that rushing
flood.
  Early this morning an interesting little flock of
Warblers was collected in the oaks on the sheltered
side of Ball's Hill. There were six or seven
Yellow-rumps, a Yellow Palm Warbler, and a
Pine Warbler, all singing freely. A pair of
Kingfishers were rattling over the river and a
Blue Jay was screaming near at hand. Presently
I heard the barking note of a Cooper[']s Hawk
in a thicket of young pines into which the Jay
had just flown. I am morally certain that 
the Jay uttered this cry but I failed to
get another sight at him when I entered 
the pines. Probably the barking which I 
heard yesterday at the Glacial Hollow was also
made by a Jay. Why does the Jay mimic all
our Hawks and no other birds?
[margin]Blue Jay
mimics a
Cooper's 
Hawk[/margin]