1903
June 14
(No 8)
Lake Umbagog.
  this is scarcely to be wondered at in view of
the fact that the stubs have almost wholly
disappeared from this part of the Lake. Most of
those which used to stand along or near the river
banks have either rotted and fallen or been cut by 
the lumbermen because they impeded the drives but
those which fringed the shores & especially the 
coves well back from the course of the river were
cut, a few years ago, by the Upton people, for firewood.
  As I was returning to Lakeside in my canoe,
late yesterday afternoon, I surprised a mother Black
Duck with her brood of six young (which appeared to
be about a week old) swimming close to a bed
of half-submerged grass not far from Peaslee's Spring.
The young scattered at the first alarm and running on
the surface of the water, after the interesting manner
of all young wild ducks, quickly disappeared among the
grass. The mother rose with loud quacking and flying
rather heavily or, at least, slowly, circled around me just
out of gunshot, finally alighting some distance off & 
well to one side of my course. It was raining at the
time and there was a strong S.E. wind before which
I was scudding under reefed sail.
Black Duck with young
  As I approached the same place this evening, paddling
quietly over the calm surface, I heard the thin, feeble
peeping of the young which appeared to be well scattered among
the flooded grass. Peep-peep-peep-peep-peep-peep they
called to one another (or to their parent) almost exactly
like young tame Ducks. Presently the mother rose at
some distance off, close to the edge of the woods. Somewhat
Black Duck with young