78 UPTON, MAINE 1874 August 22 - north wind. Took the steamboat up the lake with S. and passed one of the pleasantest days that I ever remember in and about Leonards pond. We had most excellent shooting, bagging 8 ducks 7 of which were killed singly on the wing. Of these I killed 6, 3 black and 3 mergansers. I also shot a very fine loon in the pond, hitting him first with my rifle at about 100 yds. dis- tance and killing him instantly by a snap shot as he rose with- in twenty yds. The first bullet I found passed through his throat severing the tongue at its base, the last through the back of the head. As he lay dead on the surface of the water among the green lily pads he presented a most beautiful appear- ance, frosted over as he was with minute air bubbles and we paddled around him several times before picking him up. S. and myself each made a most wonderful cross shot on two mergansers, killing both birds dead at over 85 yds. I used my Jones Br. loader and was much pleased with its shooting. I also shot a Buteo Penn. at a great height hitting him in the lungs, but loos- ing sight of him as he scaled down. I could not find him. One of the black ducks was wounded in the wing and made up the bank into the woods at a most surprising rate of speed: he went in about 50 yds and I should certainly have lost him in the thick brush had I been without Shot who found and pointed him as he lay crouched among the leaves. Saw both species of grackles and but few other small birds. Coming down the lake in the steam- boat I saw several Phaleropus hyperboreus and had my first good chance to observe their habits. Their flight wax very like that