4/6/91 (5) 
After lunch wandered over the fields, seeing a 
fine old male Marsh Hawk, then retraced our steps and, passing 
the pine hill, visited tne large field to the south-west. 
Here vre found a flock of fully 100 Sparrows, containing 
about fifty Juncos, thirty Fox Sparrows, the remainder Song 
Sparrows. They were feeding among weeds and on seeing us 
flew into the birches just over the wall, the Fox Sparrows 
at once beginning to sing, the Juncos warbling the usual 
low accompaniment. We watched them for a long time and,when 
they returned to the field,crept up behind the wall and 
studied their manner of feeding under unusually favorable 
conditions, for we had many of them within a few yards of us. 
The row back to town, across the flooded meadow 
the first part of the way, afterwards in the channel of the 
river against a swift current, was marked by only one 
episode of unusual interest, viz. the sight of a pair of 
Muskrats copulating. They were in water several feet in 
depth but among the stems of a cluster of young maples on 
which the female obtained a foothold part of tne time, but 
much of the time she was swimming and nearly or quite 
submerged by the weight of the male. There were three periods 
of contact, each lasting several minutes. One or both 
animals uttered almost incessantly the low whining murmur, 
peculiar to their species. 
