v 
y 
or more to the right running at full speed, with great 
elastic bounds, for the woods. No cur with a bunch of 
f±re-crackers at his tail could have fled more swiftly. 
His motions were exceedingly light and graceful. I never 
aaw a Fox really run before, A puff of east wind which 
struck me on the back just as the Fox disappeared in the 
hollow must have taken my scent to his keen nose. 
[Immediately after dinner I started for Ball’s 
Hill in my Rob Roy, sailing all the way down. Counted 
four forest fires, one big one just beyond Bedford. The 
woods are as dry as tinder for there has been no rain for 
pearly or quite a month. 
Planted my trees and shrubs at the hill and 
after the men had gone ate my supper sitting in the door 
of my house. Two Carolina Doves cooed for half an hour 
in the pines on the hill. There is no bird note to be 
Massachusetts 
heard in our Mass, woods for which I care so much. 
Started up river a little after sunset. A 
Bittern, the first I have heard, pumping in the Great 
Meadow. As I was passing the Holt a Snipe hummed once 
overhead very near me. There was a Great Blue Heron fly¬ 
over hawking 
ing about(metin the marsh hankAag and I saw three Night 
Herons flying high over Dakin’s Hill towards the West. 
The willow catkins are still in their full glory. 
The maple blossoms are falling fast and the surface of 
the river is covered with them.... 
& 
