Concord, Mass.
1901.
April 1
(No 2)
  On the edge of the opening at the northern extremity
of Birch Field I found the feathers of a Partridge that 
had evidently been killed and plucked by a Hawk scattered
about over the moss-carpeted ground. The bird was an 
old cock and I fear the one that for the past three
or four years has drummed on the stone-wall at the
foot of Woodcock Run. The feathers of the ruff were
very long and glossy black, the tail feathers reddish.
All the feathers had been pulled out showing that a Fox 
had not done the evil deed while the fact that the
bird had been seized in the open precluded any suspicion
that he had been murdered by an owl.
  At the farm I found a flock of about a dozen 
Robins and two bluebirds in the orchard. Gilbert saw
two Phoebes there this afternoon and I heard one this
afternoon behind the barn. I saw three Gray Squirrels,
one in the top of an elm.
  As I was sailing back from Davis's Hill I passed
a number of Redwings singing in the tops of the maples
on Holden's Meadow.
  At sunset I started for a walk. Just as I was
leaving the cabin I heard a Fox Sparrow sing across
the river and a moment later thirteen of these birds
came flying from the direction of the opposite shore
and plunged into the woods on the side of Ball's Hill.
  When I reached the pines in the spring beyond the
swamp I found the flock there. Several of the males
were singing gloriously and there was much tchup ing
on the part of all the members of the flock as they
flitted from place to place among the dense young pines
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