Spent the whole forenoon in the woods with Faxon (C.E.) 
and Watson. We first encircled and ascended Ball's Hill and 
then went to Lawrence's woods by the river paths, retracing 
our way to the Mason field and finishing with Mrs. Barrett's 
woods. At the Barrett spring Herbert Holden joined us. 
The weather was simply perfect and, as Faxon remarked, 
the day appeared to makr the culmination or high-tide mark of 
May, with the apple orchards still in full bloom, the oaks 
pink, salmon, orange and ash-gray with unfolding leaves, and 
the ladies' slippers coming into full bloom in the sunnier 
places where they grow. 
Birds were abundant everywhere but the end of the 
migration appeared to be nearly reached, for the only unmis¬ 
takable northern-breeding species met with during the fore¬ 
noon was the Northern Water Thrush and Swainson's Thrush. 
Of the former we saw two, of the latter two were heard 
singing rather freely (not quite in full voice) in Prescott's 
Pines. In Lawrence's woods we heard a Blackburnian Warbler 
(which I think will probably breed there) and saw once more 
the two young Great Horned Owls -— one in the same pine (but 
not on the same branch) as on the 18th, the other rather low 
down in the next tree. They still looked quite downy. The 
head and a strip of skin from the back of a Skunk hung from 
a twig near by (a few feet only above the ground) and the 
whole neighborhood smelt skunk-y. . . . 
