CONCORD 
1906 
October 7 
9 
Hgirds appeared to be comparatively scarce yesterday 
and I saw still fewer to-day. The flight of Black-po^.ls 
is evidently nearly over. They have been exceptionally 
ab\indant this autumn. 
As I was standing in the door-yard at the farm 
about sunset, a White-breasted Nuthatch flev/ into the elm 
at the east end of the shed and immediately entered a hole 
in the under side of a dead branch which was used as a 
sleeping chamber by a Downy Woo checker early last spring. 
That the Nuthatch spent the night there on the present 
occasion I do not doubt. It entered the hole very quickly 
as if in the habit cf frequenting it.J 
While on my way back to Ball's Hill I had an 
interesting experience with a Fox. I was walking rapidly 
along the wooded road that leads from the brick school- 
house to Bensen's when I heard an outburst of loud, shrill 
squeaks very near at hand. They seemed to come from the 
pasture on my right but, although the ground beyond the 
wall that bordered the road was perfectly open grassy 
sward, I could see nothing there at first. Indeed, the 
outbiirst had been thrice repeated before I made out, 
through the thin screen of bushes that lined the wall, 
the form of a remarkably large and exceedingly gaunt Fox, 
crouching in the short cropped grass near a large boulder 
and scarce ten yards from me. The next instant he sprang 
high into the air and as he descended thrust his sharp 
II 
