107
Concord, Mass.
1898.
May 21                      
  Clear and rather cool with strong E. wind.
  Spent the day at work near the cabin. Just after
breakfast went to the Blakeman ridge to get the ladies'
slippers found last evening. Heard a Solitary Vireo singing
on the back side of Ball's Hill.
  C. E. Faxon and B. M. Watson arrived by the 6.35 train.
After supper we walked to the Mason field where a
Whippoorwill was singing. Two Carolina Rails were calling er-e
on the Great Meadow.
  On the evening of May 18th I heard soon after dark
what I felt nearly here over one old friend the "Kicker" (Porsana (?)
jamaicensis?) had on the two following nights the same bird was
singing in the same place - the lower end of Great Meadow
but opposite Benson's landing. On all these occasions the wind
and the clamor of the Toads & Frogs made it difficult to get
the full song and as I missed the terminal "crow" I thought
it possible that the notes were uttered by the Virginia Rail
although I have now heard this bird give more than two "kiks"
whereas this call had at least five or six. But to-night at
about 11 P.M. the whole song came distinctly to my ears
as I lay in bed and I heard a dozen times or more 
the ki-ki-kiki, ki-keer of a mysterious, nocturnal
songster which was so abundant in Middlesex County in
in the spring of 1889 and which I heard the following
summer at Falmouth and here at the cabin in
June 1892. Evidently he has again taken up his residence
in the Great Meadow. Thus far I have not ever heard 
him until night has fairly closed in.