95
Concord, Mass.
1898
May 18
(No 2)
days of my boyhood on the old place in Cambridge
before the House Sparrows came. It would be
difficult to conceive any picture more charming
than that before our eyes to-day as we lay under
the apple trees with the birds & blossoms above
us and the grass, already tall & dense,
forming an emerald carpet beneath & around us.
From the fields beyond the orchard came the
merry noises of Bobolinks and in the oak &
pine woods behind wood birds of many kinds
were singing. Among them was a Golden-winged
Warbler whose song broke the spell and enticed us
into a long & fruitless pursuit for we failed to
get a near view of him.
 While in Lawrence's woods I looked carefully
and persistently for the Great Horned Owls. The
old birds could not be found but to my great
delight I at length discovered both the young
perched side by side on the branch of a big pine
nearly fifty feet above the ground, one standing
erect, the other crouched lengthwise on the limb like
a big Goatsucker. It is little short of a miracle 
that both should have escaped the dangers which
surrounded them. One looked much larger than the
other. Both still retained a good deal of down
through which the mature features were beginning
to show everywhere
 The Partridge's nest was also safe with its
thirteen eggs. One of them however, long on the ground