Cambridge, Mass.
1899.
Nov. 29
(No 4)
  In company with the Black Ducks in Fresh Pond
this morning was a [male] Mallard in fully adult
plumage. Through the glass I could easily make
out his shining green head and clear yellow bill
but to the naked eye his head looked black
for he was at no time nearer in than three or
four hundred yards. Although I watched him for 
a long time I noticed nothing of particular interest
connected with his carriage or behavior which, indeed,
seemed to me to be in every way essentially the
same as those of the Black Ducks by which he
was usually surrounded.
[margin]Mallard duck
in Fresh Pond [/margin]
  Besides the water fowl I saw at Fresh Pond a
few Crows and heard, at the hemlock grove, a
flock of white-winged Crossbills which were apparently
flying. On the 25th Mr. Faxon found seven Crossbills
of this species feeding in arbor vitae thus along the
driveway that leads to the grove.
[margin]White-winged
Crossbills.[/margin] 
  In the clayey bank that fronts the pond near the
extremity of the hemlock grove I noticed, this morning,
a Kingfisher's hole & Walter Deane tells me that
he saw a Kingfisher enter it repeatedly with food
for its young sometime last summer.
[margin]Kingfisher's 
nest at 
Fresh Pond[/margin]
188