Concord, Massachusetts.
1899.
Oct.12-31
(c) 
next two weeks. Although a dozen or more White-throated
Sparrows were present in the gardens at Cambridge on the
4th & 5th I met with only a single bird (on the 29th)
during my stay in Concord.
  The scarcity of waders and water fowl just
mentioned was apparently due largely if not wholly to
the dryness of the season. There were few spots on 
the Great Meadows where Sandpipers, Snipe or Yellow-legs
could have obtained food and I have always noticed 
that when the river is as low as it was this
autumn the Ducks, Grebes & Coots do not visit it
in any numbers although one would suppose that
the contrary would be the case.
[margin]Scarcity of
waders &
water-fowls
Its probable cause[/margin]
  Muskrats were fully up to their normal numbers
although few of them built houses, possibly because of the
low stage of the water.
[margin]Muskrats[/margin]
  The remarkably heavy crop of chestnuts, acorns
and chicory nuts was accompanied, as is invariably the
case, by a marked increase in the number of
Red Squirrels and Chipmunks but Gray Squirrels were
less numerous than last year.
[margin]Heavy crop
of nuts &
abundance of 
Squirrels.[/margin] 
  At about 7 A.M. on the 25th Hansen, a Swede who
has been working for me this year, saw a Deer in Holden's
meadow.  It was standing on the dry ridge not far from the
entrance to the path which leads to the cabin. When he started
towards it it ran to the edge of the river, hesitated a moment
as if about to take to the water and then, whirling around,
bounded back across the meadow and disappeared in the
brush at the E. end of Ball's Hill. Hansen said it had a fine 
set of horns. Judging by its tracks which I found afterwards
on Ball's & Pine Hills it must have been a three-year old.
[margin]A deer
seen at
Ball's Hill [/margin]
164