Concord, Mass.
1914.
March 17
to
May 31.
(No 15)

A contractor on the Lexington-Concord branch of the Boston & Maine
R. R. who hunts Foxes with Hounds every autumn assured me last
year that he & his friends had reportedly started a Black or Silver Gray
Fox not far to the northward of us and had occasionally driven 
it into our woods. He has known of its presence in this region
for several years past. Without much doubt it was the same
that I saw. My second observation above referred to was by
ear alone - on the evening of May 19 [May 19, 1914] when as Gilbert [Robert Alexander Gilbert] & I
were sitting in the parlor at the farm house we heard the creature
begin "barking". When we opened the front door the hoarse, gasping,
throaty sounds seemed to come from very near at hand and apparently
from the run just across the field in front of the house. As I
listened to them they impressed me deeply by their weird, uncanny
quality. Some were subdued and husky, others rang out loud & startling
& had an agonized expression, suggesting intense fear or pain.
Yet they varied but little in other respects being closely alike in form.
They reminded me most of the choking sound of a steam exhaust
& were wholly unlike the barking of dogs of any breed.