Thoreau writes in his journal:
C. [William Ellery Channing] finds an egg to-day, somewhat like a song sparrow’s, but a little longer and slenderer, or with less difference between the ends in form, and more finely and regularly spotted all over with pale brown. It was in a pensile nest of grape-vine bark, on the low branch of a maple. Probably a cowbird’s; fresh-laid . . .