Middlesex Co., Mass. [Middlesex County, Massachusetts]
1874.
Dec. 12 [December 12, 1874] Clear with sharp bracing air. Started
off at daylight with R. Deane [Ruthven Deane] for
a days tramp and put up our
horse at Mr. Bryant's in Lincoln.
Flushed 5 grouse and a bevy of 10 quail.
Shot worked well on the grouse as
usual and made a number of 
fine points but we both shot very
poorly. One grouse which we got
into the open we fired twelve shots
at before bringing him to bag.
The quail all lit on a little oak
knol [knoll] in a meadow but we
succeeded in flushing only three
of them again, though we afterwards
heard the remainder whistling
in the very spot which we
had beaten so carefully. I never
saw so many clear cases of
the withholding of scent as have
come under my observation this
fall, and I consider it a fixed rule
that the more a bevy is hunted
and its numbers thinned out, the
more closely do the survivors lie &
the more pertinaciously do they
retain their scent. Saw large
numbers of Aegiothus linaria among
the birches but only two grosbeaks all
day though we hunted over the
very same ground where they
were so numerous on the 5th inst. 
Saw also a single Curvirostra Am. [Curvirostra americana]
Bag W.B. [William Brewster] grouse 1. R.D. [Ruthven Deane] quail 1.
Reached home by 6 P.M.