125
Concord, Mass.
1898.
June 9
Clear with light W. to N. winds. Very warm at noon.
  Spent the forenoon on the meadow shore opposite
Ball's Hill when I met by appointment Albert Wood,
the surveyor, and Mr. Arnold, a farmer. The object of
this meeting was to determine the boundaries of some
twenty acres of meadow which I have just bought
of Charles S. Smith of Lincoln.
  While we were tramping about two Carolina Rails
were singing and one of the Bitterns pumping at
frequent intervals. I also heard the first Chat 
that I have ever met with in Concord. It sang
two or three times very near me in oak scrub (sprout
oaks of two years growth) near the roadway that 
comes down to the meadow from the Nevins['] farm.
I think the birds, if established there, would be nesting
on the other side of the pasture where, along a
rail fence, stretches a thicket of green briar that would
do credit to Southern Connecticut or the Middle States.
Arnold says that he drove a cow into this thicket
last year & that she was absolutely unable to
force her way through it.
  The "Kicker" was singing this morning somewhere
out on the Great Meadow.