Lancaster, Mass.
1902.
May 20
(No 3)
  Bobolinks are quite as numerous here (I have seen
comparatively few at Concord) as they were last season
and, as on that occasion, at least three out of every
four of those which inhabit the fields near the house
and bordering the lane utter at the very beginning
of their songs (or rather just before beginning to sing) a note
which, at a distance, sounds exactly like the word queer,
but which nearer at hand is more like quee-ah. This is
so loud or, at least, penetrating that it can be heard
at distances at which all the other notes of the
song (which is in other respects quite normal) are inaudible.
Coming from different directions, far and near, over these
wide grassy fields it has a peculiar effect on the ear
of the listener. If I remember rightly I heard it
in other parts of Lancaster last season but most
frequently in this immediate neighborhood. It is, I
believe, peculiar to the birds of this region (since I have
never noted it at Concord which is only twenty miles
distant) and the fact that it is quite as generally
used this year as it was last is interesting evidence
that I am now hearing the same individuals (with,
no doubt, some of their offspring) that I listened to
last season.
Bobolinks.
Peculiar note characteristic of Lancaster birds
  Last year a Yellow Warbler built her nest in a
certain cluster of Spirea salicifolia on the borders of
the lane, laying four eggs all of which disappeared soon
after the set was completed. On examining these bushes
to-day I found in the same fork of the same stem
a freshly completed but empty nest of a Yellow Warbler.
I can scarcely doubt that it is the same individual that
nested here last season.
Yellow Warbler nests two years in same bush.
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