Concord, Mass.
1914.
March 17
to May 31.
(No 17)

those we used to get in Cambridge. He called them "Fairy Shrimp"
and says that the scientific name is Branchippus [Branchipus]. Emerson [Edward Emerson] knows
them as "Mermaids" and with Ned Bartlett was wont, in his
youth, to find them in a little pond near Fairyland. He
thinks that the Concord ones are never brilliantly colored
but Dexter opines that they are so in early spring. I am
inclined to suspect that those we saw near Ball's Hill must
belong to a different species from those inhabiting the Cambridge
pool in times long past. The former were not only much duller
colored but also more lively & wary, dashing off like tiny
Pickerel, when closely approached. We caught a few & took
them to the Farm in a glass jar but they all died
during the following night.