Peterborough, New Hampshire
1899.                                                                                                                                                             
July & Aug.            
  As the summer advanced the local birds became less and
less numerously represented from week to week until the
country was mainly drained of them but their places were
not much good by the arrival of more northern breeding
species or individuals. Indeed the usual August inroads
of the latter were so slight & inconspicuous as to be almost
wanting. The only well-worked nocturnal flights occurred
on August 18th when, as I was camping on the crest of
Pack Monadnock, I heard a small number of Warblers
chirping overhead and on the following night between 8 and
12 P.M. when there was a continuous and rather heavy 
flight of Warblers as well as of those mysterious birds
which I hear in such numbers at Pine Point and which
are either Thrushes or Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, or both.
As I have already noted Night hawks were seen passing
southward at evening on several occasions both in August.
The departure of the Swallows was affected gradually and
inconspicuously the birds first removing from the farm
and collecting on the telegraph wires along the roadside
and then thinning out from day to day until all were gone.
[margin]Migration[/margin]
August 21           
  I made up a bed this evening on the piazza of a deserted house
on the crest of Park Monadnock Mountain and went to sleep at
about 11 P.M. An hour later I woke to find a snake
about five inches long coiled in my left cheek! I brushed him off
when he glided to the edge of the piazza & coiled. Sometime afterwards
I again awoke to find him in the old place. This was repeated 
still a third time when I caught & put him in a box &
sent him to Garmon. The night was cool & damp & he
doubtless sought my face because of its congenial warmth. The
piazza was raised on posts to a height of six feet above the ground.
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