Concord, Mass.
1899.
May 13
(No 3)
  One of the Lincoln's Finches spent the entire day near
the cabin. At about 8 A.M. it sang six or eight times in
a dense thicket. I recognized the song at once although I
had not then seen the bird. It began with five or six 
disconnected, stuttering notes and ended in a low, rich,
rippling trill almost exactly like a House Wren's. Although
not loud the song at once attracted my attention amid
the general din of bird voices that came from every 
side. Gilbert went into the thicket and tried to drive the
bird out but I got only a glimpse of it. Later, when
I returned from my walk, I found it directly in front
of the cabin. It acted very like a heron dodging in behind
the stem of a birch when I moved & coming out or peeping
around the trunk at me when I stood still. I watched
it for ten minutes or more at a distance of only about 12 feet.
When I squeaked it became excited and raised its crest &
flirted its tail. We saw it several times afterwards in the same place.
[margin]Song &
behavior of
Lincoln's 
Finch.[/margin]
  I found the second bird by the roadside in the hollow
just above Bensen's. It was exceedingly shy, flying on ahead
of us, crossing the road twice, once alighting on a stone
wall where I got a good view of it, finally disappearing
in a thicket.
  The third bird was feeding with or very near a White throated
Sparrow on the ground among some bushes on the bank
above the swamp near the wood shed (Blakemore's woods),
Something within the thicket started both birds almost
as soon as I discovered them. The Lincoln's Sparrow 
flew directly towards me & alighted in a birch scarce two
yards off where it sat very still for a while & then began
preening its feathers. When I moved at length it dashed
off as if greatly alarmed & plunged into the dense foliage
of an isolated pine in Bensen's pastures. I left it there.