6 December 1858 – 12 December 1858

To Boston. At Natural History Rooms. The egg of Turdus solitarius is light-bluish with pale- brown spots. This is apparently mine which I call her- mit thrush, though mine is [sic] redder and distincter brown spots. The egg of Turdus brunneus (called hermit thrush) is a clear blue. The rail’s egg (of Concord, which I have seen) is not the Virginia rail’s, which is smaller and nearly pure white, nor the clapper rail’s, which is larger. Is it the sora rail’s (of which there is no egg in this col- lection) ? My egg found in R. W. E.’s garden is not the white- throated sparrow’s egg. Dr. Bryant calls my seringo (7. e. the faint-noted bird) Savannah sparrow. He says Cooper’s hawk is just like the sharp-shinned, only a little larger commonly. He could not tell them apart. Neither he nor Brewer can identify eggs always. Could match some gulls’ eggs out of another basket full of a different species as well as out of the same basket.

At New Bedford. See a song sparrow and a pigeon woodpecker. Dr. Bryant tells of the latter picking holes in blinds, and also in his barn roof and sides in order to get into it; holes in the window sashes or casings as if a nail had been driven into them. Asked a sailor at the wharf how he distinguished a whaler. He said by the “davits,” large upright timbers with sheaves curving over the sides, thus: \ to hold up the boats (a merchantman ead has only a few and small at the stern); “7 “***- also by the place for the man to stand at masthead (crosstrees, I should say they were) and look out for whales, which you do not see on a merchant-ship; 2. e., the crosstrees of the latter are very slight, of the whaler somewhat like this: =o Dee. 11. P. M. — To Walden.