Concord, Mass.
1900.
June 30
  Brilliantly clear and pleasantly cool with strong
N.W. wind.
  I returned from Lancaster yesterday and
Walter Deane joined me at the cabin last evening.
We drove to the farm this morning and walked back
to Ball's hill through the woods. The strong cool wind
seemed to silence the birds and we saw & heard
but few a Blackburnian Warblers near Pulpit Rock being perhaps
the most interesting.
  On the northern edge of Davis's swamp we saw what
I at first took to be a half-grown Fox but a 
moment later decided must be a Raccoon. It started
within 20 yards of us and ran off through the swamp
sometimes moving at a slow gallop, sometimes at a quick
gliding trot. It looked black and gray and for
an instant showed plainly a black-ringed tail.
Raccoon
  As we were on the way to the West Bedford Station
in the afternoon we were shown a Quail's nest which
the young had only just left. It was admirably
concealed among some tall, dense weeds which were
growing along a stone wall and was within three feet
of the foot path which heads from the station down to
the meadows and which we have traversed repeatedly the
past month. The nest was made wholly of grass which
hid a deep hollow that the bird had apparently scratched
in the earth within a few inches of the wall. Save for
the fringe of weeds the field was open& under cultivation.
The male Quail has whistled for the past two or three weeks
in a pasture near Hobbs's camp fully 400 yards from
the nest but later in May we often heard him near
Another
Quail's nest
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