Cambridge, Mass.
1908.
Dec 20
  I received a call this morning from Samuel
Copeland Palmer whom I had never seen before but
who wrote me last October about a Mockingbird that
he had found near Fresh Pond. He is a young man
who came here from Pennsylvania a year ago last
September to take a two years' course in biology at
Harvard. During his stay in Cambridge he has taken almost
daily walks in search of birds, usually either to the
Cambridge Cemetery or to Fresh Pond and the neighboring
swamps. That he has made good use of the opportunities
afforded by these excursions is evident for he had
many interesting things to tell me. He seems to have
a deep interest in birds and to know them well.
Indeed he impressed me as being an exceptionally
intelligent and careful observer.
Samuel Copeland Palmer calls on me.
  The chief object of Mr. Palmer's call was to tell
me about a Bald Eagle which he had just seen in
Cambridge Cemetery and to get me to return there with him
in the hope of finding it again for he had left it
only half an hour before (about 9.30 A.M.) perched in
one of the old trees that grow along the edge of the
salt marsh at the south-eastern extremity of the higher
land. Thither it had flown from near the middle of
the cemetery where he saw it first in a large oak
closely surrounded by a small mob of clamoring Crows
and approached it within about 150 yards before it
took wing. He had a good view of it through his
glass and describes it as a plain brown bird
with a little white on the rump or upper tail
coverts.
Bald Eagle in Cambridge Cemetery.