Concord, Mass.
1910
June 25
(No 7)
[June 25, 1910]  A sound wholly new to all of us was heard
many times to-night between 9 and 10 o'clock. It seemed
to come from an isolated or island bed of pickerel weed
on the edge of the river directly across from the cabins.
It bore some resemblance to the single coo of the Yellow-
billed Cuckoo repeated eight or ten times but was unlike
it in quality having a singular wheezing or ashmatic [asthmatic]
tone. When we were near the place (20 to 30 yards) it
seemed rather loud but on retreating we found it did not
carry to a distance greater than 75 to 100 yards. Beyond 50 yards
it was so indistinct as to be unnoticeable. It puzzled us
completely at first but we finally noticed that every time it
was uttered several Bull Frogs answered it in quick succession
and that the tone was essentially the same as that of the
Bull Frogs "trumping". So we decided that it must be merely
the bellowing of a Bull Frog that had something wrong with
his voice. (I learned afterwards, however, on June 30 -
that Mr Smith O. Dexter heard it on subsequent evenings
at several places along the river between Ball's Hill & the
Big Lagoon & once he heard it answered by another similar
voice coming from a spot 50 yards or more away. These facts
seem to dispose of the theory that it is made by a Bull Frog.)