Lancaster, Mass.
1912.
July 6
[July 6, 1912]

  Clear & intensely hot with light S.W. [southwest] wind.

Black Squirrel

  I went to Lancaster by an afternoon train to-day to
spend Sunday with John E. Thayer. We had just come down
from our rooms, about 7 P.M., fully dressed for dinner when he
called my attention to an animal moving on the lawn below
the house & about 200 yards away. Through an opera glass we
could see that it was a Squirrel about the size of a three
quarters grown young Gray but apparently wholly black.
Thayer got out a small gauge (44) double barrel gun and two
shells - which, unfortunately, were loaded with dust shot - and
we started down the slope he leading with the gun and
running most of the way. As we neared the Squirrel we saw
that it was beyond question as black all over as any Crow.
When we were within fifty yards it ran up the trunk of
a young elm. Advancing to within twenty yards Thayer fired
and knocked the squirrel off the trunk but on striking the