CONCORD. 
1907 
May 8 
the ?/eather conditions were much more 
favorable for bird migration than they have been for a 
week past, I did not note a single arrival to-day. What 
is still more surprising, there seemed to be a dearth of 
all kinds of birds, even of those that have been here for 
weeks, amd most surprising of all, but few of the birds 
which I did see sang at all, even in the early morning. 
Even the Song Sparrows and Field Sparrows were almost silent. 
A Thrasher was singing in the late afternoon and two Robins 
gave a fine concert at evening. Robins, by the way, are 
almost as scarce here now as they were in Cambridge when 
I left there last week. Partridges are even scarcer, 
comparatively. I doubt if there are more than three or 
four on the whole place. The drumming station on the old 
wall in the Barrett Run is deserted this year for the 
first time since I have known it.) 
As twilight was gathering this evening I heard a 
Woodcock peeping in the direction of the Berry Pasture. 
Going there at once I found he was beyond my boundary 
wall in Mr. Howe's pasture. He sang a dozen times or 
more at short intervals while I was there. I watched him 
through the whole of one flight and most of another. On 
both occasions as he was making the series of short down¬ 
ward plunges at the height of his song, I saw him tilt 
first on one side, then on the other, with first one wing 
and then the other pointing straight upward, while its 
fellow pointed,directly earthward. In other words, he 
