Sons CY Waa’ epee ates we ea eas Ht p Tale eenea se bai Meeks rihweins n Eee reve steer ite ere verges Se ee © eee CORNELL LAB of ORNITHOLOGY LIBRARY AT SAPSUCKER WOODS Illustration of Snowy Owl by Louis Agassiz Fuertes Cornell University The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924090273875 Us Aatad Memoirs of the Muttall Ornithological Club. No. IV. THE BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION OF MASSACHUSETTS. By WILLIAM BREWSTER. WITH FOUR PLATES AND THREE MAPS. CAMBRIDGE, MASS. PUBLISHED BY THE CLUB, JULY, 1906, PREFACE. THE present Memoir was undertaken upwards of ten years ago at the request of the Nuttall Ornithological Club. For reasons which need not be mentioned here, its progress has been vexatiously slow, and — what is still more unfortunate — its completion at,the present time has been made possible only by the sacrifice of certain historical features contemplated in its original plan. Nevertheless, it is hoped that the paper will prove of use to the members of the Club, as well as to other persons especially interested in the ornithology of the Cambridge Region. No attempt has been made to give full life histories of the birds. On the contrary, I have abstained from saying anything about their habits, songs, etc., save in cases where some mention of these and kin- dred matters has seemed essential to a clearer understanding of the reasons governing the local occurrence or distribution of certain of the species, or desir- able for the purpose of rendering commonplace or otherwise tedious details more attractive. What I have had chiefly in mind has been to state as defi- nitely as possible the times and seasons when each species has been noted, the numbers in which it has occurred, at long past as well as in very recent times, and the precise character and, in some instances also, situation of its favorite local haunts. In addition to my own record books, covering upwards of forty years of more or less continuous observation, those of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, which extend as far back as 1873, have been freely consulted. Several of the members of the Club, as well as a few of my other ornithological friends, have also placed their personal field notes quite at my disposal. Among those to whom I am indebted for assistance of this and other kinds may be mentioned Mr. G. M. Allen, Mr. Outram Bangs, Mr. C. F. Batchelder, Mr. Harold Bow- ditch, Dr. A. P. Chadbourne, Mr. Walter Deane, Mr. Richard S. Eustis, Mr. Walter Faxon, Mr. William P. Hadley, Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., Mr. Henry W. Henshaw, Mr. Ralph Hoffmann, Mr. W. A. Jeffries, Mr. F. H. Kennard, Mr. Charles R. Lamb, Mr. Oliver Ames Lothrop, Mr. C. J. Maynard, Mr. F. B. McKechnie, Miss Bertha T. Parker, Mr. H. M. Spelman, Dr. C. W. Townsend, Mr. Howard M. Turner, Dr. Walter Woodman, and others whose names appear in the following pages. & 3 if ‘. j 4 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. I am under especial obligations to Mr. C. F. Batchelder, who has given very much time and thought to the revision of the manuscript and proof, and to Mr. Walter Faxon and Mr. Samuel Henshaw, who have aided me most gener- ously with suggestions and advice. To Mr. Walter Deane my indebtedness is greater than I can well express. From the first his interest in every detail of the work has been sincere and unflagging, and his assistance and advice have been simply invaluable. The dates of arrival, departure, etc., which appear in the preliminary paragraphs, immediately under the headings of most of the species, have been compiled and arranged almost wholly by him. Their use is as follows : — Summer residents. The average dates of arrival and departure are inserted between the earliest spring and the latest autumn records. In the case: of birds which occasionally spend the winter (as the Catbird) the word ‘ winter’ is added after the average dates, and early and late dates are given only when there is no doubt that they relate to individual birds which had just arrived from the South or were about to return to it. Transient visitors, The average spring dates of arrival and departure are inserted between the earliest and the latest spring records. The same plan is used with the autumn dates. In the case of birds which occasionally pass the summer (as the Solitary Vireo) the word ‘summer’ is added after the average spring dates. In the same way, if a bird occasionally passes the winter (as the Rusty Blackbird), the word ‘winter’ is added after the average autumn dates. In all these cases early and late spring and autumn dates are used only when they certainly relate to migrating birds. Winter residents. The average dates of arrival and departure are inserted between the earliest autumn and the latest spring records. In the case of birds which occasionally pass the summer (as the Brown Creeper) the word ‘sum- mer’ is added after the average spring dates. In such cases late spring and early autumn dates are used only when they certainly relate to migrating birds. In some cases no records of dates much earlier or later than the average dates are available. Average dates are occasionally omitted when there are not enough records to warrant stating them. Additional dates are sometimes inserted when they are of especial interest. In a few instances the lack of a really early or a late date is supplied by one from a locality outside, but at no great distance from, the limits prescribed in this Memoir; in such cases, how- ever, the localities to which the dates relate are invariably mentioned. All dates are omitted in the brief preliminary paragraphs relating to species perma- nently resident or of but infrequent or irregular occurrence. The ‘nesting dates’ immediately under the dates of ‘arrival, departure,’ etc., are intended to cover the period during which fi// sets of fresh eggs of the first BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 5 laying may be looked for in the Cambridge Region. These dates do not include, in all cases, the very earliest dates at which eggs have been found, nor has any attention been given to dates which may be assumed to relate to sets not of the first laying. In compiling the nesting dates I have frequently consulted notes relating to extralimital localities, but little or no consideration has been given to records which concern localities lying to the southward of Cambridge or distant from it more than twenty or thirty miles in any other direction. In the use of scientific names I have followed rigidly those adopted by the American Ornithologists’ Union’s Committee on Nomenclature, up to and includ- ing the Thirteenth Supplement to the A. O. U. Check-List, which was published in the Auk for July, 1904. In one case, however, that of the Arctic Horned Owl, I have used a name not yet passed upon by the Committee. While I do not think that a faunal paper, such as the present one, is an appropriate place for discussions of technical points of nomenclature, yet in the single instance above noted the circumstances seem to warrant the remarks which I have made on this intricate and peculiar case. All the A. O. U. English names also are used, and to them I have frequently added names in current local use (past or present) in or about Cambridge. I have included in their appropriate systematic order (1) birds which are known to have inhabited or visited the Cambridge Region in former times, but which no longer do so; (2) birds which have repeatedly occurred very near but not actually within its boundaries; (3) birds which have been introduced by the direct agency of man; (4) birds which have been reported only on what appears to be insufficient or inconclusive evidence. In all these cases the fact that the particular species or subspecies is not considered entitled to a present place in the natural fauna of the Region, is made sufficiently clear by omitting the usual number before the name, as well as by enclosing the name and the accompany- ing text in brackets. My early training and experience have led me to believe that — with certain exceptions about to be specified — the occurrence of birds in localities or regions lying outside their known habitats should not be regarded as definitely estab- lished until actual specimens have been taken and afterwards determined by competent authorities. No doubt it is becoming more and more difficult to live up to this rule because of the ever increasing and, in the main, wholesome, popular feeling against the killing of birds for whatever purpose. Nevertheless I cannot admit that mere observation of living birds met with in localities where they do not properly belong, or where they have not been ascertained to occa- sionally appear, should often be considered as establishing anything more than possible or probable instances of occurrence — according to the weight and char- acter of the evidence. 6 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Exceptions to the rule may and indeed s/ou/d be made in the cases of spe- cies which, like the Turkey Vulture, the Swallow-tailed Kite, and the Cardinal, are easily recognized at a distance and which are reported by persons known to have had previous familiarity with the birds in life. Sight identifications of spe- cies somewhat less distinctly characterized than those just mentioned, if made under favorable conditions by observers of long field experience and tried relia- bility, may also sometimes be accepted with entire confidence. But on no authority, however good, should a mere field observation of any bird that is really difficult to identify, be taken as establishing an important primal record. These principles, which, in my opinion, should govern the makers as well as compilers of all local records, were formerly endorsed, and also followed in the main, by most ornithologists. Of late they have been frequently disregarded, especially by the younger generations of bird lovers and students. I have endeavored to apply them consistently and firmly — yet at the same time toler- antly — in dealing with the records considered in the present paper. If some of my rulings appear arbitrary, it must be remembered that it is not always possible to explain the reasons which cause one to look askance at the testimony of cer- tain observers while accepting that of others with entire confidence. It goes without saying that personal considerations whether of friendship or the reverse — should never be allowed to influence the judgment of any writer on scientific subjects, but his personal knowledge of men and their methods not only does but sould exert such influence. Moreover there is often internal evidence in printed testimony — perhaps no more tangible than that to be gained by what is called ‘reading between the lines ’ — that leads one irresistibly, and, as a rule, quite safely, to adopt conclusions which cannot always be logically justified or consistently explained. INTRODUCTION. Tue birds of the Cambridge Region have been studied longer and more continuously, as well as perhaps more carefully, than those of any other locality of similar extent in all America. As far back as 1832 they were intimately known to Nuttall, and during the following eight or ten years they became equally so to Samuel Cabot and his brother, J. Elliot Cabot. Henry Bryant is also said to have been rather deeply interested in them about this time and to have collected them in considerable numbers.1. Between 1842 and 1860 they received more or less attention from James Russell Lowell, Thomas M. Brewer, Wilson Flagg, and various successive members of the Harvard Natural History Society, while from 1861 or 1862 to the present day they have been constantly under the observation of an ever increasing number of ornithol- ogists. Thus we have knowledge of them extending back over a practically unbroken period of more than seventy years. This, although by no means com- plete at all points, is sufficient to enable us to trace some of the more important and interesting changes in the local distribution and abundance of many of the species — especially the larger ones — which have taken place during the period just indicated. Some of these changes have evidently resulted from the increase of human population and the various modifications in the physical character of the region wrought by the hand of man; others have apparently been due to the introduction and subsequent increase of the pernicious House Sparrows; still others have been brought about by influences not as yet fully understood. The published notes and records, although by no means unimportant, are compara- tively meager and rather widely scattered, for no book or paper dealing exclu- sively as well as extensively with the avifauna of the region has hitherto appeared. The manuscript matter, however, is exceptionally rich and valuable, 1 Henry Bryant was a classmate of J. Elliot Cabot’s at Harvard College and was graduated with him in 1840. Cabot, in his autobiography (J. Elliot Cabot [Autobiographical sketch], 1904) refers to Bryant in terms which indicate that the latter, during his college days, devoted much of his time to collecting birds in the immediate neighborhood of Cambridge. 8 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. for the field to which it relates has been exhaustively studied, especially during the past twenty-five years, by many good observers. The nearest approach to a list of the birds found about Cambridge is afforded, I believe, by the annotations which I furnished for Mr. Chapman’s ‘Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America.’1_ The region to which these notes relate was not defined by Mr. Chapman, nor can I now remember its pre- cise boundaries ; but it certainly included the seacoast in the neighborhood of Revere Beach and also, I think, localities as far inland as Wellesley and Weston, with Newton and perhaps one or two other towns lying on the south side of Charles River. Hence it covered an area considerably more extensive than that of the Cambridge Region treated in the present paper. I also take this oppor- tunity to say that the migration dates given, on my authority, by Mr. Chapman, were intended to indicate the wswa/ periods of occurrence, all exceptionally early or late dates being excluded. It is to be regretted that this was not explained in the ‘ Handbook,’ for I am told that the significance of the dates in question has been very generally misunderstood by the readers of Mr. Chapman’s excellent book. Writers on local ornithology usually restrict their chosen fields to districts included within established political boundaries, such as those of towns, counties, or states; to symmetrical areas enclosed by purely arbitrary lines, as Mr. Chap- man did in his ‘Birds found within Fifty Miles of New York City’; or to natural geographical areas, as islands, river valleys and the like. In dealing with the Cambridge Region in the present Memoir I have adopted a plan not dissimilar to the first of those just mentioned, although I have not hesitated to disregard political boundaries wherever natural or arbitrary ones were better suited to my general purpose. This in effect has been to treat of that territory (and no other) over which ornithologists and collectors, living in or very near Cambridge, have been accustomed to roam during excursions not exceeding a day in dura- tion, and made directly from their own homes. It must be confessed that this arrangement was originally dictated quite as much by sentiment as by practical or scientific considerations ; — nevertheless it has proved not unsatisfactory on the whole, despite the fact that it has led to some perplexities, and perhaps inconsistencies also. There has been no question as to the propriety of includ- ing the entire cities or towns of Cambridge, Watertown, Belmont (with its pretty little outlying village of Waverley), Arlington, Lexington, and practically the whole of Waltham. Weston and Lincoln have been excluded, partly because they are comparatively seldom visited by Cambridge ornithologists, and also because they have faunal affinities perceptibly, if but slightly, closer with the 1¥F, M. Chapman, Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America, 1895. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 9 Concord River Valley than with the region to the eastward. For similar reasons it has seemed undesirable to take in more than the extreme western borders of Medford and the southern portions of Winchester, while the greater part of Somerville has been disregarded because it is too thickly settled to pos- sess any ornithological interest. The total area included is definitely bounded on the south by Charles River, on the southwest and west by Stony Brook and its principal tributary, Hobbs Brook. Beyond Hobbs Brook Reservoir the line follows the western border of Lexington northward, and the northern borders of that town and of Arlington southeastward and eastward to the Upper Mystic Pond. After curving around the northern end of this pond, where it takes in a small part of Winchester, the line runs nearly straight in a generally southeast- erly direction through the western portions of Medford and Somerville to Craigie Bridge, its starting point on Charles River. No land bird not definitely known nor credibly believed to have been found within the boundaries just named, has been given a numbered place in the list. With the waders and water-fowl, however, the ruling has been somewhat less strict. They are notoriously addicted to flying back and forth over their entire feeding grounds, especially just before alighting, and for this reason both sides of Charles River and the Back Bay Basin, with the bordering marshes, are con- sidered, in relation to these birds, as coming within the legitimate scope of the present paper. Of the physical characteristics of the Cambridge Region it may be well to say a few general, preliminary words in this connection. The region comprises roughly about fifty square miles. Its extreme eastern portions, situated between the Charles and Mystic Rivers in Cambridge and Somerville, and in the eastern parts of Belmont and Arlington, are for the most part nearly level and but slightly elevated above tide-water. This low-lying plain, most of which is now densely populated, is enclosed on every side by hills, and crossed from north to south by a chain of fresh-water ponds of which the most noteworthy are the Upper and the Lower Mystic, Spy, Little, Pout, Fresh, and Bird’s Ponds. To the westward the land rises rather gradually in the neighborhood of Mount Auburn and Fresh Pond, but very abruptly between the town centers of Arling- ton and Belmont where the plain is terminated by a wall-like ridge elevated in places to above three hundred feet and stretching northeast and southwest for a distance of two or three miles. Beyond this the country is thinly settled, extensively wooded, and everywhere broken and hilly. The principal elevations are Prospect Hill, Waltham (482 ft.), Bear Hill, Waltham (360 ft.), Arlington Heights, Arlington (380 ft.), Loring Hill, Lexington (360 ft.), and Wellington Hill, Belmont (310 ft.). Although well watered by brooks (most of which flow into either the Charles or the Mystic), the western portions of the Cambridge Io MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Region contain only one natural pond of any size, viz., Sherman’s, Hardy’s or Mead’s Pond, as it is variously called, situated in the northern part of Wal- tham. On the extreme western border of this town there is, however, a large artificial reservoir which the City of Cambridge made a few years ago by dam- ming Hobbs Brook. Although most of Cambridge is now thickly covered with houses, it pos- sesses many more trees than it did forty or fifty years ago when the districts lying to the west and north of Harvard Square, in the direction of Mount Auburn, Fresh Pond, and Arlington, were largely occupied by grassy fields and pastures or by vacant lots awaiting sale for building purposes. As this open land was cut up into streets and house lots, trees and shrubbery were planted in somewhat unwise profusion, with the result that this portion of the city has come to be buried in foliage in summer. A corresponding change is taking place in Watertown where, however, there is, at present, more open ground than formerly, for the planted shade trees have not as yet made good the loss of woods and orchards that have been cut away. The western portions of Arling- ton and Belmont, the northern part of Waltham and nearly the whole of Lexing- ton, exclusive of its town center and that of East Lexington, have changed but little in my time. The land here is still very generally in the hands of the farmers, and the landscape, although devoid of striking or unusual features, is very pleasing by reason of its simple, rural beauty. On every hand untrimmed woods and thickets, neglected pastures sprinkled with cedars and barberry bushes, and natural grassy meadows traversed by brooks of’ undefiled water, border close on the cultivated fields and orchards. Many of the houses, as well as barns and other farm buildings, are of ancient and picturesque styles of architecture, the walls and fences are gray with age or with lichens, and the sides of the lanes,— with those of some of the less frequented public roads,— having been left largely to Nature’s wise ordering, are fringed with a profusion of luxuriant native trees and shrubs of various kinds or buried deep in graceful ferns. In short, most of the changes which man has wrought in the original character and contour of the country have been long since either obliterated or rendered positively pleasing by the softening and refining effects of time, while — largely through the same beneficent influences — the artificial objects in the landscape, with comparatively few exceptions, have become almost perfectly harmonized with their natural surroundings. But even this remote corner of the Cambridge Region is not likely to remain unspoiled for many years longer. Lines of trolley cars have already penetrated it from two directions, land spec- ulators are regarding it with hungry eyes, and the day cannot be far distant when it must share the fate that has already befallen so much of the once equally attractive country to the eastward. N. 0. C., Memotr IV. Pirate II. | TON ERAN ay Ss WY Wellington. Hill x, HY A_M Ly . Prosp ect Hill J) st wh Hin as ay ie Ky ® Za ie Nes hae dit D A R CY le. “t j a va "lor SFr S Of ; 3 oF a , wD Bet WIN 7 ty ae | LET = y » Zp 4 LUT Ac, UE US ‘ IN Z be a. w — iG i YA Nae a wi Cw ro CAMBRI ook, C44 ) tS ee i s Vis RESERVOIR YJ Y y 1 Y &, Rs Y y j 7 ; a ERY) i G 1 \ BOSTON THE CAMBRIDGE REGION y, 7 = Ws scale of Miles 1 906 Compiled by ° 1 2 3 Limits of the Cambridge Region shown thus ++++++ Charles D. Elliot C.F BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. II THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. The precise locations of most of the woods, swamps, marshes and ponds which I have had occasion to mention are shown by the maps accompanying this Memoir. Certain of these places have become so changed of late that they may be regarded — at least from the standpoint of the nature lover — as having practically ceased to exist. Their former characteristics and surroundings, as well as the present characteristics of a few other localities as yet essentially unchanged but of especial interest to the ornithologist, may be described as fol- lows. OLD CAMBRIDGE AND CAMBRIDGEPORT. Our Garden. From the time of my earliest recollection to the year 1873 our home place in Cambridge comprised about six acres of smooth, gently sloping land lying at the point of intersection of Brattle and Sparks Streets, Cambridge. It was bordered along both streets by rows of tall elms growing just within the enclos- ing fences, while a dozen German lindens of the largest size, and probably more than a century old at the date of my birth, were grouped about the front of the house, which had been built before the Revolutionary War. The rear of the house was embowered in purple and white lilacs, behind which was an old-fashioned flower garden. Still further back were orchards of apple, pear and peach trees, besides rows of raspberry, blackberry, currant and gooseberry bushes. The unshaded portions of the grounds were devoted chiefly to mowing fields, although a generous space was always set aside for the vegetable garden ; there was also a small pasture for the cows and horses. Several of the neighboring estates were similar in character and of equal extent, while most of those scattered along the northerly side of Brattle Street, in the direction of Mount Auburn, backed on a wide expanse of open, farming country which stretched west and north to Fresh Pond and the Con- cord Turnpike and was intersected by the deeply rutted cart path known as Vassall Lane. 12 oe MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. During the period just indicated the following birds occurred more or less regularly in summer in the grounds about our house. . Green Heron. Black-crowned Night Heron. Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Black-billed Cuckoo. Northern Flicker. Chimney Swift. Ruby-throated Hummingbird. . Kingbird. Wood Pewee. Least Flycatcher. . Blue Jay. . Bobolink. . Cowbird. . Baltimore Oriole. . Bronzed Grackle. Purple Finch. American Goldfinch. . Chipping Sparrow. . Song Sparrow. Indigo Bunting. . Barn Swallow. Frequently seen by day, flying over the place. Seen flying overhead almost every evening from May to October. Usually one pair, never more. Always a single pair. Seen frequently ; occasionally a pair nested in the orchard. Dozens of birds frequented the place, and there were usually from one to three nests in the chimneys of the old house. One or two birds visited the flower garden daily, but no nest was ever found on the place. Always one pair, never more. One or two pairs. From two to four pairs. Of irregular occurrence; a pair nested in our lindens in 1878. Usually one pair, never more ; they nested for the last time in 1873. Eggs found in other birds’ nests every year. Four or five pairs. Birds from breeding colonies in other parts of Cambridge yisited the place almost daily. Usually two or three pairs nesting. From one to three pairs nesting. Five or six pairs nesting, Three or four pairs nesting. Always one pair, never more. The members of a large colony which nested at the head of Sparks Street were accustomed to visit the place almost daily. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 13 22. Tree Swallow. From three or four to twelve or thirteen pairs nested regularly in the grounds about the house. 23. Cedar Waxwing. Two or three pairs nesting. 24. Red-eyed Vireo. One or two pairs nesting. 25. Warbling Vireo. Always a pair and nest. 26. Yellow-throated Vireo. One or two breeding pairs. 27. Yellow Warbler. Three or four pairs nesting. 28. Catbird. Usually a pair, never more. 29. House Wren. From one to five pairs nesting. 30. American Robin. Five to eight pairs nesting. 31. Bluebird. From one to three pairs nesting. Between the years 1873 and 1887 four of our six acres were cut up into house lots and rather closely built upon. Of the ground remaining, that in front and to the eastward of the present house — which stands on the founda- tions of the old house — has changed but little in appearance since the earlier time, most of it being still kept as a lawn, shaded, in places, by large trees. The group of lindens has lost only one of its original members, but most of the old elms have been replaced by younger trees. At the rear of the house all the ancient lilacs, as well as four large apple trees, are still standing. The ground formerly occupied by the pear orchard, about half an acre in extent, was thickly planted in 1886 with native forest trees. Shrubs of many different kinds, besides hundreds of ferns and innumerable perennial flowering plants taken from the woods, have also been set out at various subsequent times, not only under the trees but also in every available nook and corner, the only space left open being that which has always been devoted to the flower garden. In the selection of the herbaceous as well as woody-stemmed plants preference has been given to those which are especially attractive to the birds. Of the fruit- bearing trees and shrubs the mulberry, the rum cherry, the cultivated cherry, the shad bush and the Parkman’s apple have proved most desirable for this purpose. The birds have also been furnished with an abundant supply of water by the construction of two shallow ponds, which contain fish of several kinds, besides a profusion of aquatic plants. In short the design has been to create a bit of woodland sufficiently natural and varied to furnish a congenial haunt for squirrels as well as birds. The cats had to be reckoned with, of course, for they literally swarm in the neighborhood. After making a number of unsuccessful experiments I finally contrived a fence over which they cannot possibly clamber. It is of wire netting surmounted by a heavy twine fish seine which is fastened at the 14 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. bottom to the wire and looped at the top to the ends of long, flexible garden stakes. When the cat gets a little above the wire her weight causes the tips of the stakes to bend over towards her and she presently finds herself hanging back downward beneath a strip of loose, swaying fabric which affords her no means of further upward progress. If the seine be tarred and kept under cover during the winter it will last a dozen or more years. Despite its limited area and the fact that it lies near the heart of a large city, our artificial forest is frequented at one or another season by a considerable number and variety of birds. It is true that none of the species characteristic of retired woodlands — excepting possibly the Solitary Vireo — have bred in it as yet, but very many of them visit it during migration, as is shown by one of the following lists which include all the species that have been noted at every season during the past five years. Birds noted in Our Garden, 1900-1904. Summer (including Permanent) Residents. 1. Screech Owl. Occasionally noted in the breeding season, but not known to have nested actually within the grounds. 2. Yellow-billed Cuckoo. One pair every season ; nest found in 1904. 3. Black-billed Cuckoo. Regularly one pair nesting in or near the garden. 4. Northern Flicker. Usually one pair, never more ; nest in 1903. 5. Chimney Swift. One or two pairs flying overhead daily “through June, July and August. 6. Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Seen occasionally in June, but no nests found. 7. Least Flycatcher. One or two pairs nesting near but not within the grounds, 8. American Crow. One or two pairs nesting in the neighbor- hood and seen daily. g. Baltimore Oriole. One or two pairs nesting. 10. Bronzed Grackle. Several birds frequenting the place, but not nesting there. 11. Purple Finch. Seen for the last time in the breeding sea- son in 1900. 12. House Sparrow. From one or two to five or six pairs. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. Ny = Il. PWN A Oo ees BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 15 American Goldfinch. Chipping Sparrow. Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Cedar Waxwing. Red-eyed Vireo. Warbling Vireo. Yellow-throated Vireo. Blue-headed Vireo. Yellow Warbler. American Redstart. Catbird. American Robin. . Herring Gull. Hairy Woodpecker. Downy Woodpecker. Blue Jay. Pine Grosbeak. Tree Sparrow. Northern Shrike. Brown Creeper. White-breasted Nuthatch. . Chickadee. Golden-crowned Kinglet. One or two pairs seen daily ; no nests found. One or two pairs nesting. Regularly one pair nesting in or near the garden. Of irregular occurrence. One pair nesting. One pair, probably nesting in the neighbor- hood. One pair nesting in or near the grounds. A male in 1903 and 1904, perhaps nesting. One or two pairs nesting. One or two pairs nesting. One pair nesting. From one to three pairs nesting every sea- son in the grounds. Winter Residents. Seen flying over to Fresh Pond. Single birds occasionally, once a pair seen together. From one to three birds almost daily. One or two noted almost daily. Seen only in the winter of 1903-1904. One or two birds seen occasionally. Noted only during the winter of 1900-1901 ; then rather frequently. Single birds seen rather frequently. Usually a single pair. From one or two to eight or ten birds seen almost daily. Seen infrequently and sparingly. Permanent Residents. Screech Owl. Northern Flicker. American Crow. House Sparrow. Seen or heard occasionally at all seasons. Seen almost daily throughout the year. Seen almost daily throughout the year. Always common, at times very abundant. 16 10. Il. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. . Canada Goose. Black-crowned Night Heron. . Bartramian Sandpiper. American Sparrow Hawk. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Whip-poor-will. Nighthawk. . Kingbird. Crested Flycatcher. Wood Pewee. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. Bobolink. Cowbird. American Crossbill. White-throated Sparrow. Slate-colored Junco. Migratory Visitors. Flocks seen migrating on November 19 and 22, 1901, and March 24, 1903. The call notes of birds on wing heard at night on September 25, 1901, and September 2, 1902. Two records of birds passing overhead in August, 1904. Records of birds seen on wing in March, April, May and July. A bird seen in October, 1901, and another in April, 1904. A female found perched on the branch of an apple tree on May 22, 1900. I have a few records for earlier years. Two records for the first week of June, three for late August. Of rather infrequent occurrence in May, July and August. One bird noted on June 16, 1902. A single bird seen on May 15 and 16, 1900. : One record for May, one for June 4, one for July, two for August. Only one instance of occurrence, that of a bird found dead in the garden on June 4, 1902. One record for May, one for July, one for September, and very many for August, all of birds flying overhead. Noted but once — on April 4, 1900. Two records for April, one for May, five for November. Common in May, abundant in September and October, occasionally present in April and November. A few records for April, September, Octo- ber and November. A single bird seen on December 30, 1904. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 2. 26. 27 28. 29. _ 30. 31. 32. 33- 34- 35. 36. 37- 38. 39- 40. 4l. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. Song Sparrow. Lincoln’s Sparrow. Swamp Sparrow. Fox Sparrow. Towhee. Indigo Bunting. Scarlet Tanager. Barn Swallow. Tree Swallow. Black and White Warbler. Nashville Warbler. Orange-crowned Warbler. Northern Parula Warbler. Black-throated Blue Warbler. Myrtle Warbler. Magnolia Warbler. Chestnut-sided Warbler. Bay-breasted Warbler. Black-poll Warbler. Blackburnian Warbler. Black-throated Green Warbler. Yellow Palm Warbler. Oven-bird. Water-thrush. Mourning Warbler. 17 Seven records for March, five for April, and one for June 25, 1900. Four instances of occurrence in May. Nine records, all for May. Of rather common occurrence in March and April; also seen occasionally in October and November. Noted five times in May and twice in August. Six records, all for May. Seen twice in August. Eleven records for May, one for July, four for August. Only one record, that of a bird seen on July 27, 1903. Of sparing but regular occurrence in May, common in July and August. Two records for May, one for August. Several records for November. Noted only in May, at times rather com- monly. Ten records for May, one for October, and one for November 3 (a late date). Only six records, one for April, four for May, one for November. Eleven records, all for May. Six records, all for May. A single male noted in May, 1900. May, early June, September and October ; common. A male seen on May 14, 1900. Two records, both for May. A single bird seen on May 10, 1900. Of regular and common occurrence in May ; also seen occasionally in August. Noted regularly and commonly in May and August; also seen occasionally in July, September and early October. Only one record, that of a young male taken on September 27,1901. I have 18 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55- MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Northern Yellow-throat. Wilson’s Warbler. Canadian Warbler. Brown Thrasher. House Wren. Red-breasted Nuthatch. Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Wood Thrush. Wilson’s Thrush. Gray-cheeked Thrush. Bicknell’s Thrush. Olive-backed Thrush. Hermit Thrush. Bluebird. . Marsh Hawk. . Sharp-shinned Hawk. . Belted Kingfisher. European Siskin. . Cardinal. two earlier records, one of a male killed on May 21, 1866, the other of a male shot on June 3, 1877. Seen frequently in May and August; one record for June 3, another for Sep- tember 29. Three records, all for May. Fifteen records, all for May. Five records for May, one for October. A wandering (if not migrating) bird noted on June 27, 1901. Of occasional occurrence in March, April and December. Two records for April, two for May, one for September. Two records, both for the month of May. Of rather frequent occurrence in May ; noted once in August. Of regular occurrence in May; also seen occasionally in September and Octo- ber. Noted occasionally in May. Many records for May ; noted once in Sep- tember and twice in October. Records for April, May, October, Novem- ber, December, January and February. Seen or heard occasionally in March, April, August and October. Casual Visitors. One record by Mr. Walter Deane of a bird seen flying overhead on May 11, 1900. A female seen on January 9, 1901. But one record, that of a bird seen flying on May 24, 1900. A male seen on August 11, 1 3, and 17, 1904. A female seen on December 26, 1902. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 19 The Fields along Vassall Lane. Some of the pleasantest recollections of my boyhood relate to the country traversed by Vassall Lane, and extending east and west from the site of the old Cambridge reservoir at the junction of Reservoir and Highland Streets (where Mr. Alvin F Sortwell’s house now stands) to Fresh Pond, and north and south from Concord Avenue nearly to Brattle Street. Throughout this area, now so thickly settled, there was not then a building of any kind. Most of the land was occupied by broad, smooth mowing fields; hubbly and, in places, boggy, pastures; and fine old apple orchards, many acres in extent. There were also one or two bushy swamps, several groves of large oaks, a conspicuous cluster of tall white pines, a few isolated shell-bark hickories of the finest proportions, and a number of scraggy wild apple trees. Here the dandelions and buttercups were larger and yellower, the daisies whiter and more numerous, the jingling melody of the Bobolinks blither and merrier, the early spring shouting of the Flicker louder and more joyous, and the long-drawn whistle of the Meadowlark sweeter and more plaintive, than they ever have been or ever can be elsewhere, at least in my experience. It was here that I spent most of my school holidays in the early ’60s, collecting birds in company with Daniel C. French, now an eminent sculptor, or with Ruthven Deane, the well-known ornithologist. In early spring we pursued the shy Redwings from tree to tree or beat the wet hollows for Wilson’s Snipe, often flushing the latter birds by scores, but only very rarely and by the merest chance bringing one to bag. The migrating Warblers, Vireos, Sparrows, Flycatchers, etc., which frequented the orchards and scattered groves or thickets later in the season, proved easier of capture and supplied us with many a specimen whose novel beauty or imagined rarity thrilled our youthful senses with wonder and delight. In June there was the birds-nesting, dear to all boyish hearts and fascinating to every one who has ever indulged in it, by reason of its alternating successes and disappointments, and because of the insight which it gives into some of the innermost secrets of bird life. On one memorable occasion we found the nest of a White-breasted Nuthatch in an orchard near Gray’s Woods; and, on others, eggs attributed with the rash confidence of extreme youth to all manner of impossible parentage. Best of all were the mellow October days when the squirrels were busy gathering their winter stores from the oaks and hickories, and when in the close- cropped and still verdant pastures, flecked with cloud shadows and spangled with 20 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. the golden blossoms of the fall dandelion, we were sure of finding flocks of .Meadowlarks and scattered companies of Flickers. The pursuit of these birds, ever wary from the persecution to which they were then almost constantly sub- jected, furnished for us, as it has for so many other youthful gunners, an infinite amount of wholesome pleasure and excitement. Nor was it attended by any serious diminution in the numbers of the birds, for our most carefully planned attempts to outwit them resulted much oftener in failure than success. Gray's Woods. On the eastern side of the Fresh Pond Parkway, about midway between Brattle Street and Fresh Pond, stand a number of fine old oaks and hickories. These trees, with perhaps twice as many others of equal size, which have long since disappeared, among which were a dozen or more white pines, were formerly enclosed on three sides by a high board fence. Just beyond this on the north lay a small artificial pond, and to the eastward of the pond a swamp of about an acre in extent, grown up to tall red maples. Both groups of trees with their immediate surroundings constituted what was known as Gray’s Woods. The place used to attract a good many birds, including a few of the larger kinds, such as Crows, Red-shouldered Hawks and Night Herons. It fairly swarmed with red squirrels and chipmunks, and it was the only locality within the limits of Cambridge where the gray squirrel was found regularly during my boyhood. Norton's Woods. My old-time friend and present near neighbor, Dr. Walter Woodman, took an active interest in Cambridge birds during his boyhood, although he collected, I believe, only their nests and eggs. His favorite hunting ground was Norton’s Woods, near Harvard College, Cambridge, and he still possesses a briefly annotated manuscript list of all the species which he noted there in summer between 1866 and 1874. This paper is of so much local interest that I am glad to avail myself of his kind permission to publish it in this con- nection which I do verbatim and in full :— BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 21 BIRDS FOUND BREEDING FROM 1866 TO 1874 IN NORTON’S WOODS (SO-CALLED), CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS. The grove in which these notes were made is only about three miles, from the State House in Boston and on all sides, for more thana mile, is surrounded by thickly planted houses. This fact gives my list its only interest. TURDIDA. T. migratorius. Robin. Very common, nesting high and low. T. fuscescens. Wilson’s Thrush. One or two pairs breed every summer. Once found the nest on the horizontal branch of a very large oak, height between fifteen and twenty feet. Cause, in all probability, disturbance of other nests, for this one was found late. Have twice found the nest in bushes at a height of about six feet. S. aurocapillus. Golden-crowned Thrush. Never found a nest, but it occasionally passes the summer here. M. carolinensis. Catbird. One pair; usually nests in lilac bushes buta few feet from the avenue leading to the house, notwithstanding that it is frequently disturbed. PARID&. P. atricapillus. Black-capped Titmouse. One or two pairs every summer. Have found its nest at a greater height than that of any other bird with the exception of the Crow, Blackbird and Robin. TROGLODYTIDE. T. aédon. House Wren. Builds in the gardens all about the woods, but loves to romp in this common playground. SYLVICOLIDE. D. pina. Pine-creeping Warbler. Have never found its nest, but it sometimes passes the summer here. D. estiva. Summer Yellowbird. I generally find three to five nests. S. ruticilla. Redstart. Common. I generally find three or four nests. They are placed at varying heights ; sometimes four feet from the ground, sometimes twenty. Nests in oak saplings, oaks, birches, apple trees and bushes. VIREONIDE. V. olivaceus. Red-eyed Vireo. Common. V. gilvus. Warbling Vireo. Usually one or two pairs, nesting in poplars beside the avenue before mentioned or in maples. V. flavifrons. Yellow-throated Vireo. Not common. It breeds every summer, but I have not found its nest. FRINGILLIDA. C. purpureus. Purple Finch. Have not often found its nest, as it has pine trees only to breed in here, in which it is hard to discover them, as the nest is usually in the top, but I see the bird frequently. 22 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. C. tristis. Goldfinch. Strange to say, I have never found its nest, but I am sure that it breeds. S. soctalis. Chipping Sparrow. Very common. M. melodia. Song Sparrow. Common. M. palustris. Swamp Sparrow. I perhaps found it once, but as the nest was taken before 7 saw the bird, I consider it doubtful. G. ludoviciana. Rose-breasted Grosbeak. At least one pair breeds every summer. Have found the nest oftenest in birches, but also in oaks (at a height of thirty feet) and in apple trees. C. cyanea. Indigo-bird. Have found but two nests and these I found in the last two years, although I have seen the bird every year and have looked very carefully for its nest. ICTERID. M. pecoris. Cowbird. I do not often see the bird, but its presence is made known by its eggs. A. pheniceus. Red-winged Blackbird. None breed now, though eight years ago there were quite a number of them. The last nest I found-was in 1870. I. baltimore. Baltimore Oriole. Very common in the woods, though most of them do not breed in them, but in the neighboring gardens and streets. I find some nests every year. Q. versicolor. ,Purple Grackle. The commonest bird, though not as plenty, I think, as they were two or three years ago, when they used to breed in all the pines of which there are a great number, but now, owing to the constant robbing of their nests, they breed only in the pines that grow close to the house. This is the only place in Cambridge where they breed in such large numbers. CoRVID. C. americanus. One or two pairs breed every year. TYRANNID&. Contopus virens. Wood Pewee. Two or three pairs every year. TROCHILIDE. T. colubris. Ruby-throated Hummingbird. I have not found the nest, but the bird is constantly darting to and fro and probably breeds. CUCULID&. C. americanus. Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Have found but one nest, though the bird is to be seen every year. C. erythrophthalmus. Bilack-billed Cuckoo. More common than C. americanus, though for the last two years I have had greater difficulty in finding a nest than in former years. This grove seems, however, to be the grand hymeneal temple for all the birds of the species in the neighborhood, for they are very plenty in the courting season. PIcIDA. . P. pubescens. Downy Woodpecker. Not common, though there is at least one pair every summer. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 23 C. auratus. Golden-winged Woodpecker. Constantly heard in the woods, but I doubt if more than one pair finds a good nesting place. Some years ago two or three pairs used to breed every summer. SCOLOPACIDE. Philohela minor. Woodcock. Have known it to pass the summer twice. At the time to which Dr. Woodman’s notes relate, Norton’s Woods cov- ered considerably more than twice their present area. If I remember rightly, they were then surrounded on three sides by a fence which, although offering no obstacle to the small boy of birds-nesting proclivities, served fairly well to keep out the general public. Once within this enclosure one might roam at will through woods and openings which, if not of great extent, were charmingly primitive and secluded. The ground under the trees, most of which were white pines, oaks and maples, was choked with undergrowth in places, and everywhere carpeted with pine needles or beds of fallen leaves. Two sluggish little brooks wound through the heart of the woods. One of them after emerging into the sunlight again, discharged its brown, leaf-stained waters into a swamp filled with blueberry and other bushes in which the Red-winged Blackbirds built their nests. In view of these conditions it is not to be wondered at that such birds as the Woodcock, Oven-bird and Pine Warbler continued to frequent the place in sum- mer long after it had become hemmed in on every side by houses and other buildings. The Blackbird swamp, situated in the angle between Kirkland Street and Beacon Street, was drained and occupied by the Shady Hill Nurseries about 1884. Soon after this the neighboring woods were seriously cut into on their southern side to make way for streets and houses, while some two or more acres on their western borders were also cleared to form a ball-ground in the rear of the Harvard Divinity School. As these changes are likely to be soon followed by others of still greater magnitude, it may be well to put on permanent record the following notes which I find in my journal under date of June 26, 1901 : — « Although the Norton estate has been greatly reduced in area during the past thirty years, certain limited portions of it remain nearly unchanged. Espe- cially true is this of the immediate surroundings of the old mansion house, which stands on the crest of a hill of moderate elevation, in the midst of a group of fine elms whose branches droop low over the roof. The winding driveway that approaches the house from the west is shaded by large white pines, birches and red maples, while on either side of it lie gently sloping, grassy fields sprin- 24 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. kled with apple trees, thickets of lilacs, and clusters of wild roses. The roses were in full bloom this morning and cows were grazing under the trees. Alto- gether this portion of the place formed a singularly restful and pastoral bit of landscape, for one situated so near the heart of a large city. “To the southward the hill slopes down to the now dry but still well-marked channel of the brook that used to flow into the Blackbird swamp. Its banks are fringed with oaks (chiefly Quercus bicolor), elms, red maples, willows, both kinds of hornbeam, gray birches, rum cherries, a few Norway spruces and some Aus- trian pines. The ground beneath these trees is free from undergrowth, and in most places carpeted with grass turf. Some of the oaks and maples are of large size and evidently very old. The spruces and pines must have been planted here, but all the other species are apparently indigenous. « At the base of the western slope lies all that is left of Norton’s Woods — a mere fragment covering, at the most, barely two acres yet essentially a still primitive bit of wilderness. The trees are chiefly white pines of fair size but not in flourishing condition, their foliage, like that of most of our Cambridge white pines, being scanty and rusty looking. Among or near them are a num- ber of oaks — white, swamp white, black, and scarlet —all of the forest-grown type (z. ¢., with long trunks branching high above the earth) and not a few of really fine proportions. There are also tupelos (most of them small, but several sixty or seventy feet in height with trunks three or four feet in girth), red maples, rum cherries, elms and a few clusters of gray birches. The only trees which appear to have been introduced here are a horse chestnut and some Nor- way spruces. “Under the larger trees young oaks, maples, elms, wild cherries and a few hawthorns, form a thin but untrimmed and perfectly natural undergrowth, over- run in places with greenbrier. Much of the ground is also densely covered with poison ivy, woodbine and blackberry vines, but beneath some of the pines it is carpeted only with pine needles. I could find none of the plants which usually grow in natural woodland, such, for instance, as the ground pines, pipsissewa, sarsaparilla, partridge berry, etc. Indeed I have named all the species that I noticed. ‘The place has been long since open to the public, and while I was there this morning people were continually passing and repassing along the broad and numerous footpaths which cross each other at intervals of every few yards and divide the thickets into many separate copses. The absence of the shyer wood plants, as well as the languishing condition of the pines, is probably due largely to this constant trampling of feet which has worn away most of the leaf mould and made the surface of the ground almost as hard as that of a city sidewalk.” Woods : — 1. Flicker. 2. Chimney Swift. 3. Wood Pewee. 4. Crow. 5. Baltimore Oriole. 6. Bronzed Grackle. 7. House Sparrow. 8. Chipping Sparrow. 9. Rose-breasted Grosbeak. 10. Cedarbird. 11. Red-eyed Vireo. 12. Warbling Vireo. 13. Yellow-throated Vireo. 14. Yellow Warbler. 15. Redstart. 16. White-breasted Nuthatch. 17. Chickadee. 18. Robin. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 25 On the occasion just mentioned I noted the following birds in Norton’s One. Several flying high over the woods. One singing in the pines over the drive- way. Two birds. A single male. A dozen or more. About half a dozen seen. A pair accompanied by their brood of young. One. One or two heard. One singing. One singing. One singing. One singing. One (a nest with eggs was found earlier in the season). One (I afterwards learned that a pair of these Nuthatches hatched and reared their brood this season in a hollow maple in Norton’s Woods). One. Eight or ten, all old birds. Cambridgeport. Concerning the birds which continued to breed nearly or quite up to 1870 in the lower portions of Cambridgeport, and especially in the immediate neigh- borhood of Brookline Street, my friend Mr. Henry W. Henshaw has been kind enough to furnish me the following interesting account : — HiLo, Hawai, May 17, Igot. You ask about the summer birds of Cambridgeport in the late sixties. That is to hark back a long time and to conditions very unlike those of the present. The city of today is 26 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. much more populous and far busier than it was then, and the gardens are fewer in number and more circumscribed in area. These new conditions and the all-pervading House Sparrow have produced a marked change in the bird life of the town. I doubt if within the entire city limits of today can be found an Indigo-bird, and yet a pair used to nest every summer close to my old home on Brookline Street. In fact these Indigo-birds, which were made known to me by my mother when I was but a lad, were the first impelling cause that later led to an absorbing interest in all bird life. I well remember the excitement caused by the arrival of these birds late in spring; and the cheery song of the male, as he sang his lay from the top of a tall juniper, is the first bird song I ever attentively listened to. I need scarcely remark that the Robin was a numerous and a welcome visitor to the lawns and garden plots of our neighborhood ; and the indignation excited in our household by a neighbor is still fresh in mind, his crime being the shooting of a number of Robins and Ori- oles because they were freely sampling his ripening cherries. The Oriole, resplendent with Lord Baltimore’s colors, was fully as numerous as the Robin, and the wide-spreading elms of the town offered this bird an abundance of safe and inviting nesting places. Some tall sycamores in our neighborhood were also favorite nesting sites for this beautiful species, whose loud cheery notes even now after these many years still ring in my ears, and for the moment banish the whisper of the palms and the rustle of the banana leaves. But perhaps our most highly prized avian friend was the little House Wren. Though a common scold and a prying busybody, his confiding disposition and his habit of nesting in the out-buildings endear him to all bird lovers. Every year a pair nested in a box in our garden, especially provided for them. I used to hear the notes of the House Wren here and there over much of the town, so that it must have been rather numerous in those days. In my time, at least, the prince of the Swallow tribe, the Purple Martin, was absent from Cambridgeport, but I am confident that I was told by my mother that it was not always so, and that not many years prior to the sixties there were regularly established colonies within Cambridgeport limits. If the Martin was absent, the Swallow tribe was well represented by both the White- bellied and the Barn Swallow. One or more pairs of the former, according to the accommo- dations provided, used to nest in boxes in our garden, and a greater or less number of either species were always to be seen in summer skimming over the Charles River Marshes, from Whittemore’s Point upstream towards Mount Auburn. In the early fall thousands of both species flocked to these marshes and alighted in long lines on the telegraph line that followed the course of the then disused railroad. These same marshes, every foot of which was familiar to me, were frequented abundantly by the Savanna Sparrow, which nested among the marsh grass, and whose simple trilling song I here heard for the first time. A still rarer bird also nested here, the Sharp-tailed Finch, and T recall with pleasure the unfeigned delight of our mutual friend, Dr. Thomas M. Brewer, when I showed him a clutch of eggs obtained by me on Whittemore’s Point, possibly the first set ever found in Massachusetts. Of course the Bluebird was distributed here and there all over the town, the presence of a pair indicating with unfailing certainty the residence of a bird lover. In those days “ Barkis was always willin’,”” One had only to put up a suitable Bluebird box, and the invitation was promptly accepted. One of my boxes in an old greening apple tree was the favorite resort of a pair of these birds. This particular pair commonly reared two broods, as I fancy do most BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 27 pairs, and was the occasion of much jealousy and heart burning on the part of the Wrens whose box they coveted for the second nesting. I do not think that the Cedarbird was a common resident of Cambridgeport, but there was a row of cedars outside our garden fence, in which they occasionally nested, as they did also every year in Pine Grove at the end of Brookline Street. Though practically silent, their trim forms and exceedingly beautiful though quaker-like dress entitle the Cedarbirds to a high place among the bird aristocracy, and render them a favorite in any neighborhood. In these same cedar trees, too, a pair of Purple Finches occasionally nested, and the beau- tiful song of this species was by no means uncommonly heard elsewhere in the town. Pine Grove, however, was the favorite resort of this Finch, and there was a pasture thick with tall, bushy savins in which could be found, any summer, six or eight nests of this bird. I grieve to add that only too often they were raided by thoughtless boys, who frequently destroyed the eggs out of pure wantonness. This location must have possessed some peculiar and powerful attraction to the Finches, for, notwithstanding their ill treatment, they continued to nest here for years, often building new nests in place of those destroyed. Nor in my enumeration must I forget the familiar ‘ Chippy’ as one of the commonest Cambridgeport birds. Their hair-lined nests were frequently to be seen in cedar trees or, in default of these, in any thick and well-screened bush, or even in an apple tree. Though not a common bird, as I remember, the Red-eyed Vireo was by no means unknown to the Cambridgeport streets. I cannot now recall the presence of his cousin, the Warbling Vireo, though doubtless a pair was to be found, here and there, making the neighborhood the richer by the sweet, warbling song. I believe, however, that this Vireo was much more com- mon in Old Cambridge. In the early spring it was no uncommon sight to see a Song Sparrow or two in the gardens along Brookline Street, and no doubt occasionally a pair ventured to build in the shrubbery, though the risk from marauding cats must have been very great. Pine Grove, however, was a favorite resort for the species, and here I early became acquainted with their housekeeping secrets. They used to build among the straggling blueberry and huckleberry bushes, which still bore fruit, maintaining a rather precarious existence in this little piece of pine woodland. I never heard nor saw the Pine-creeping Warbler within the busy parts of the town, but the little island of pines I have so often mentioned as ‘ Pine Grove,’ an heirloom from early Colonial times, was still resorted to by a few pairs, perhaps the descendants of birds that nested here in Indian days. It was here that, lying on a bank among the pines that overlooked the sluggish Charles, I first became acquainted with the Pine Warbler’s sweet trilling song ; and many a pleasant hour I spent as a boy hunting, and hunting in vain, for its nest. The above are all the birds that 1 remember as summering near my old home, and I fancy that but few of them are still to be found amid the increasing hum of an ever growing city. When Alvin Clark built his observatory he cut down part of Pine Grove, much to our childish grief, and greatly to our relief when we found that his house and observatory were not to occupy the whole grove. The trees were mostly pitch pines with a few oaks and a num- ber of hickories. The ‘cedar’ pasture was thick with what I suppose to have been Juniperus virginiana. It must first have been enclosed when I was a small boy since, when I first knew it, I was able to jump over most of the shrubby trees without regard to the tapering tops. As they grew, they furnished sites for the nests of the Purple Finches and the Chippies, especially the former. 28 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. We used to call the little island of high ground covered with pitch pines, now known as Captains Island, the Magazine, because the powder house, where the State (I think, and cer- tainly Dupont) stored powder, was located there. They used to cart Dupont's powder by my house on the way to Boston, and one day a cask leaked, and one of our neighbors saw a trail of powder on the street, leading to the cart. She reported the matter, and thereafter Dupont kept his powder on a hulk in the harbor. Was not Magazine Street named from this storage place ? The Magazine woods were always inhabited by at least a pair of Pine Creepers, probably more. Pine Grove also had a pair or two, and they were found in both places during the migration. Both localitics were favorites with the Song Sparrow, as you would naturally expect, and now I remember that there used to be a pair of Flickers in Pine Grove. I do not recall that we ever found or even looked for their nest. I must have been very small at this time, and later the Flickers no doubt deserted woods so much frequented. Henry W. HENSHAW. During the four years (1865-1869) when I was at the Cambridge High School on Fayette Street my daily walks to and from the school led, beyond Harvard Square, through Harvard Street or Broadway — or, more rarely, through Main Street (now Massachusetts Avenue). As term time included the months of May and June, I had abundant opportunities for noting the summer, as well as migratory and winter, birds which frequented Dana Hill and the neighboring districts to the east and west. Of the species which occurred during migration it is not necessary to speak in this connection. Those seen regularly and commonly in winter were the Downy Woodpecker, Flicker, Gold- finch, Tree Sparrow, Junco, Brown Creeper, Chickadee and Golden-crowned Kinglet. The White-breasted Nuthatch was also observed occasionally, and the Lesser Redpoll in large flocks during some seasons. Crows were frequently seen flying overhead, but never, I think, in the trees or on the ground. In summer the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Black-billed Cuckoo, Flicker, Chim- ney Swift, Kingbird, Wood Pewee, Least Flycatcher, Cowbird, Baltimore Ori- ole, Purple Finch, Goldfinch, Chipping Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Indigo-bird, Barn Swallow, Tree Swallow, Cedarbird, Red-eyed Vireo, Warbling Vireo, Yel- low-throated Vireo, Yellow Warbler, House Wren, Robin and Bluebird were all common and very generally distributed, while the Eave Swallow and Catbird occurred sparingly and the Hummingbird rather rarely. I do not remember ever seeing the Redstart or Rose-breasted Grosbeak, save during migration, or the Blue Jay at any season. It is interesting to compare with the above list one which Mr. Walter Deane and I made on June 26, 1901, after spending several of the earlier hours of the day in the same district, rambling slowly through most of its streets, watching and listening for birds. On this occasion the following species were noted : — BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 29 Chimney Swift. Heard twittering over Prescott Street, at the corner of Dana and Harvard Streets, and over Harvard Street east of Inman Strect. Baltimore Oriole. No birds seen or heard, but a fresh-looking nest noted in an elm near the corner of Harvard and Hancock Streets. Warbling Vireo. A male heard singing at the corner of Dana and Har- vard Streets, another at the corner of Inman and Harvard Streets, and a third at the corner of Fayette and Cambridge Streets. Yellow Warbler. Two birds seen on Prescott Street, two males heard singing near the corner of Dana and Harvard Streets, a third heard on Han- cock Street, a fourth at the corner of Fayette and Cambridge Streets, and a fifth at the corner of Baldwin and Cambridge Streets. Redstart. A male singing on Prescott Street, another on Maple Street, a third at the corner of Harvard and Hancock Streets. Robin. Eight birds in fully mature plumage seen on Dana, Harvard, Maple and Hancock Streets, and on Broadway. Although it would be idle to claim that all the species which frequented the Dana Hill district in the early summer of 1901 are named in this list, it prob- ably includes most of them. We found House Sparrows abundant everywhere, of course, while east of Inman Street they were so numerous that the din of their shrill voices was at times almost deafening. Back Bay Basin. Within the memory of persons still living Boston was confined to what was essentially a hilly island. Indeed its only original connection with the mainland was that afforded by Dorchester Neck, a narrow strip of land, so low as to be sometimes flooded by exceptionally high tides. To the north and west, in the direction of Cambridge and Brookline, stretched the Back Bay, a broad and beau- tiful sheet of water, shallow for the most part, and bordered in places by salt marshes. Here the Boston sportsmen of fifty or sixty years ago enjoyed excellent shooting, for the Bay was then frequented by a great number and variety of water- fowl and waders. Not long afterward the city began to overspread its natural limits and to extend westward, converting water into land. By 1870 nearly all those portions of the Bay lying towards Brookline and Roxbury had been filled. Its only remaining portion, that separating Boston from Cambridge, into which Charles River empties just below Brookline Bridge, has been since considerably reduced in area by filling, and its once gracefully curving shore lines have been 30 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. replaced by straight and unsightly sea walls. Nevertheless, it still forms a not unattractive body of water, upwards of two miles in length and a quarter of a mile or more in breadth. This has come to be called the Back Bay Basin, a name which appears rather frequently in the present paper, especially in the text relating to water-fowl. Certain of these birds continue to resort to the Basin in by no means inconsiderable numbers. Indeed the Herring Gulls and Whistlers are more abundant and very much more familiar there now than they were thirty or forty years ago. At that time they were constantly disturbed by gunners, who not only pursued them in boats but were permitted to shoot at them from the bridges used-for public traffic. I have repeatedly seen an unsuspecting Gull, flying low over West Boston Bridge,! brought dead or wounded to the pavement by a well-directed shot fired from the very midst of crowded teams and street cars. Horses were often frightened, and occasionally even injured, by this reckless practice. It was rather out of consideration for them than for the birds, if I remember rightly, that all shooting on the Basin, as well as on the bridges that crossed it, was finally stopped; but the birds, of course, were especially benefitted by the change. Without doubt their present abundance is due chiefly, if not wholly, to the complete immunity from moles- tation which they continue to enjoy. The Whistlers are somewhat less numer- ous now than they were eight or ten years ago, probably because of the fact that many of the flats where they were accustomed to dive for food at high water, have been recently removed by dredging. CHARLES RIVER MARSHES. Dear marshes! vain to him the gift of sight Who cannot in their various incomes share, From every season drawn, of shade and light, Who sees in them but levels brown and bare; Each change of storm or sunshine scatters free On them its largess of variety, For Nature with cheap means still works her wonders rare. 1 The old wooden bridge was begun on April 8, 1793, and finished on November 23 of the same year. It has been replaced by a steel structure, resting on granite piers, which is now almost com- pleted. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 31 In Spring they lie one broad expanse of green, O’er which the light winds run with glimmering feet: Here, yellower stripes track out the creek unseen, There, darker growths o’er hidden ditches meet; And purpler stains show where the blossoms crowd, As if the silent shadow of a cloud Hung there becalmed, with the next breath to fleet. In Summer ’tis a blithesome sight to see, As, step by step, with measured swing, they pass, The wide-ranked mowers wading to the knee, Their sharp scythes panting through the wiry grass; Another change subdues them in the Fall, But saddens not; they still show merrier tints, Though sober russet seems to cover all; But crowned in turn by vying seasons three, Their winter halo hath a fuller ring; This glory seems to rest immovably,— The others were too fleet and vanishing ; When the hid tide is at its highest flow, O’er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything. LowWELL.— An Indian-summer Reverie. The tidal reaches of Charles River above the Basin have changed strik- ingly in general aspect within my personal recollection. I can remember when they were bordered on both sides, nearly all the way from Cambridgeport to the Watertown Arsenal, by salt or brackish marshes. These must have been practically continuous, originally, for most of the hard, dry ground that comes to the water’s edge is evidently filled land. Very little of it had been built upon prior to 1870, excepting in the neighborhood of Harvard Square and of the several bridges, where there were a few houses and a number of coal and lumber wharves. In Cambridgeport the marshes stretched uninterruptedly along the northern shore of the river —or rather of its expansion, the Back Bay — from West Boston Bridge to Brookline Bridge and beyond. Between these bridges they were more than a mile in length and from one to several hundred yards in width. Save for the presence of a railroad embankment, which crossed them from east to west, they showed here no obvious defacement 32 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. or alteration by the hand of man, before 1875. Since then they have been almost completely obliterated, and the space which they, as well as a considerable portion of the neighboring bay, formerly covered, is now occupied by the gravel- filled expanse, with its bordering parkway and sea-wall, which one crosses on approaching Harvard Bridge from Cambridge by way of Massachusetts Avenue. Equally primitive and even more extensive were the Brighton Marshes beloved by Longfellow and Lowell, by whom they have been immortalized in verse and prose. To these eminent poets, as well as to a few other equally sympathetic if less eloquent lovers of nature, they were beautiful and attractive at all seasons ; but from the standpoint of more practical men, such as those who have since so nearly compassed their destruction, they were but waste lands, unsightly to the eye and more or less prejudicial to the health of human- kind. The river flowed directly through them, restricting, however, to the Brigh- ton side, the broader and fairer portions which have been lately converted into Soldier’s Field and the neighboring parkway and speedway. These were origi- nally clothed, for the most part, with the short, fine, dark green grass peculiar to salt marshes; but tall sedges, seashore goldenrod, and other maritime plants marked the courses of winding, natural creeks, and straight, artificial ditches, which were alternately filled and emptied by the ceaseless tides. There were also many shallow pools bordered by bare, muddy ground, the favorite resorts of various kinds of waders. In July and August, when the haymakers were at work, building up the great stacks which added so much to the picturesqueness of the landscape later in the year, the Brighton or ‘ Longfellow Marshes,’ as they have come to be called, literally swarmed at times — especially just before easterly storms— with Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers. They also at- tracted Ring-necked Plover and Pectoral Sandpipers in fair numbers, besides a few Upland Plover, and Yellow-legs of both species. During exceptionally dry autumns they were often frequented by Wilson’s Snipe and Carolina Rails. Herons of several kinds visited them at one or another season, attracted, no doubt, by the multitudes of small, sluggish fishes, locally known as ‘Cobblers,’ which inhabited all the creeks and ditches. The Bittern and Great Blue Heron occurred only sparingly, during migration, but from May to October the Green Herons came frequently by day, and the Night Herons very numerously at evening, from their roosts in the Fresh Pond Swamps. The Night Herons attracted especial attention, as they crossed the intervening belt of elevated and rather thickly settled country in the gathering twilight, by their loud calls and impressive flight. The Cambridgeport Marshes were visited by most of the birds just men- tioned, as well as by three forms of the Sharp-tailed Finch, the Acadian and Nelson’s, which occurred only during migration (the Acadian being sometimes BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 33 very numerous in autumn), and the typical form, cawdacutus, which bred spar- ingly, up to 1871 or a little later, on Whittemore Point, a marshy promontory that jutted out into the bay just to the westward of the present location of Harvard Bridge. Practically all the marshes along the river, from Cambridgeport to Water- town, were frequented throughout the summer by Savanna Sparrows and Spotted Sandpipers ; in July and August by hordes of migrating Bobolinks and myriads of graceful Swallows ; in autumn by undulating flights of Titlarks ; in winter by flocks of restless Snow Buntings whirling over the fields of drifting ice, and by sable Crows which came to feed on the mud flats exposed at low tide. Occasionally at the latter season— but only at wide and infrequent intervals — they received a visit from that prince of Arctic wanderers — the great Snowy Owl. The work of reclaiming — or, as some of us prefer to characterize it, of destroying — the Charles River Marshes has progressed rapidly and relentlessly of late. Although not as yet nearing completion, it has already resulted in the total obliteration or very serious disfigurement of most of these once primitive and beautiful salt meadows. Indeed, the only one of any size remaining essen- tially unspoiled is that which borders the Cambridge Cemetery on two sides and stretches still further westward along the north bank of the river. The transformation wrought in the surface conditions of the marshes, has been accompanied, of course, by equally profound changes in their bird life. Of the birds which used to inhabit or visit them, only a very few continue to do so, at least.regularly or numerously. The Herons have nearly or quite disappeared within the past three years ; the Sandpipers and Plover come but infrequently, and in ever diminishing numbers; the Swallows and Bobolinks only by tens where formerly there were hundreds. The loss of these and other marsh- frequenting birds has been compensated for in large measure, however, by the increased number of water-fowl to which I have just called attention. Tue Mounr AuBuRN REGION. Mount Auburn — or Sweet Auburn, as it was formerly called — was one of Nuttall’s favorite haunts. Its abrupt heights and deep hollows were covered in his time by heavy and perhaps primeval forest, frequented by sportsmen in pur- suit of game and by troops of children looking for nuts or for the shy hepaticas which bloomed in early spring on some of the sunnier slopes. Most of the trees and all the brushwood had been cut away, and the place otherwise adapted to the 34 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. uses of a cemetery, before 1860. At that time, however, and indeed for upwards of twenty years later, the country to the westward, as far as the Watertown Arsenal and beyond, was essentially primitive in character and but sparsely popu- lated, chiefly by farmers of the good old New England type, born on the land which their ancestors had tilled for generations or even from the date of its first settlement. Only the more level and fertile tracts were then under cultivation, and most of the hills, ridges and swampy hollows, as well as occasional stretches of flat but sandy or gravelly land, were heavily wooded. There were also isolated groups of forest trees and very many thickets of limited extent, besides a num- ber of fine old apple orchards. Throughout the more open country the lichen- encrusted walls and fences, that separated the cultivated fields from adjoining mowing, pasture, or brush lands, were very generally bordered and half concealed by rows of stately red cedars or natural hedges of barberry or privet. The woods varied greatly in character and extent. Some of them were nearly or quite free from undergrowth and composed almost wholly of large deciduous trees, such as oaks, maples, hickories and chestnuts, or of tall, slender pitch pines standing so near together that only an occasional shaft of sunlight penetrated through their interlacing tops and upper branches, to flicker for an instant on the smooth carpet of light brown needles that covered the ground beneath. In others of younger growth sturdy bushes of various kinds struggled for light and room with the still more crowded and vigorous oak, maple, and birch saplings by which they had been already overtopped. In still others the trees were irregularly or sparsely distributed, leaving sunny openings of various shapes and sizes, bounded by walls of foliage too dense for the eye to penetrate. This was especially the case where neglected, barren land had been allowed to grow up to red cedars or pitch pines. Both these trees were abundant nearly everywhere and, indeed, eminently char- acteristic of the region. It contained comparatively few white pines and, if I remember rightly, no hemlocks. Of the larger and more conspicuous shrubs the barberry, privet, buckthorn and high blueberry were perhaps the commonest and most generally distributed species. As may be gathered from the foregoing description, the region beyond Mount Auburn was rich in picturesque beauty and attractiveness at the time of which Iam now writing. Much of it was then so little frequented by man that one might wander for hours through the deep, silent woods, in the broad, smiling fields, or beneath the grateful shade of the low-branching orchards, without meet- ing anyone save, perchance, a farmer owner of the land or some bird lover or sportsman. There was, moreover, an all-pervading atmosphere of serenity, and of remoteness from all worldly noise and bustle, very restful to the senses and dis- turbed by few sounds of human origin more obtrusive than the distant whistle of a locomotive, the report of a gun, or the gruff voice of a ploughman chiding his slow-moving horses. Of the more natural and harmonious sounds, proceed- BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 35 ing from various wild creatures such as inhabit most retired New England woods and fields, there was, however, no lack, for the region teemed with animal life. As a winter resort for birds it was unequalled by any locality that I have ever known in eastern Massachusetts. During the colder months the woods or thickets invariably harbored numbers of Downy Woodpeckers, Flickers, Blue Jays, Crows, Goldfinches, Tree Sparrows, Juncos, Creepers, Nuthatches, Chick- adees and Kinglets, besides a few Quail, Ruffed Grouse, Red-tailed Hawks, Red-shouldered Hawks and Screech Owls. Pine Grosbeaks, Purple Finches, Redpolls, Pine Siskins, and Crossbills of both species occurred less regularly, but often very numerously. Most abundant and conspicuous of all the birds found in winter were the Robins and Cedarbirds. They usually appeared late in January and were constantly present through February, often congregating by hundreds in the cedar groves or about a large bed of asparagus where the stalks, laden with bright red berries which these and a few other birds greedily devoured, were always left standing until April or May. In spring and autumn the Mount Auburn Region attracted a large number and variety of Warblers and other small woodland or orchard birds, most of which were on their way to or from more northern breeding grounds. Indeed, at these seasons it was almost as good a collecting ground as the Maple Swamp. Its summer fauna, also rich and varied, included one species of especial interest, viz., the Olive-sided Flycatcher, which Nuttall found breeding near Mount Auburn before 1832, and which continued to nest in the same locality from 1867 to 1879. Among the commoner and more characteristic summer birds were the Pine Warbler, which inhabited all the pitch pine woods, the Purple Finch, which bred abundantly in some of the cedar groves, and the Bluebird, the House Wren and the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, which were plentifully distributed throughout the apple orchards. The nature lover who has occasion at the present time to traverse the coun- try just beyond Mount Auburn will find but little of beauty or interest there. Knolls and ridges have been levelled, swamps and meadows drained or filled, and woods, groves, thickets and orchards swept away, to make place for settlements of houses or. for open, closely cultivated truck farms. The few remaining trees are infested by gypsy and brown-tailed moths, most of the native birds have disappeared, and throughout the length and breadth of the land the ear is wearied by the ceaseless din of swarming House Sparrows. Indeed, the entire region, once so secluded and attractive, has become irretrievably mutilated and hopelessly vulgarized. So complete has been the transformation, that it is only by appealing to the imagination, or to the memory of happy days gone, alas, never to return, that one can hope to reconstruct even the more prominent fea- tures of the landscape as it was twenty or thirty years ago. 36 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Fresu Ponp. Time was —and that not so very long ago— when Fresh Pond had per- fectly natural shores, well wooded in places and indented by no less than five large reedy coves, or ‘nooks,’ as we used to call them. It was then a remark- ably pretty sheet of water, somewhat disfigured, it is true, by the huge icehouses clustered about Cambridge and Black’s Nooks and at the southwestern end of the pond. These buildings—with certain others —were demolished in 1890 and 1891, soon after the immediate surroundings of the pond were taken fora public park. Its shores might have been adapted to this purpose without much injury to their great natural beauty, but the work, unfortunately, was entrusted to persons who possessed neither sound judgment nor good taste in respect to such matters —as the results abundantly show. The removal or serious dis- figurement of most of the hills and ridges which encircled the pond, the filling of three of its larger coves, and the total obliteration of all its original shore lines, were among the worst pieces of needless vandalism committed at this time. Another grave blunder was the running of the park driveway close to the water’s edge about the entire pond. Had this driveway been brought to the margin of the water at a few places only and elsewhere kept well back from it, traversing, wherever possible, the lower slopes of the bordering hills and occasionally passing over or even behind their projecting spurs, the shores of the pond would have been but slightly marred and the road itself made infinitely more attractive and picturesque than it is at present, as any competent land- scape architect would have seen at a glance. I can remember when the water-fowl which frequented Fresh Pond came to it chiefly in the early morning, during their southward migrations in autumn, and when they were usually killed or dispersed by the local gunners not long after their first appearance. The species which alighted oftenest may be named in the order of their relative abundance, as follows: The Ruddy Duck (invari- ably called ‘Dumb-bird’), the Hooded Merganser, the Buffle-head, the Lesser Scaup, the Coot (fzlica, locally known as ‘Meadow-hen’) and the Pied-billed Grebe or ‘ Dipper.’ Canada Geese, Wood Ducks, Teal of both kinds, Whistlers, Old-squaws, Surf Scoters, White-winged Scoters, Goosanders and Loons also alighted more or less frequently. Black Ducks were seen regularly in autumn, and during frosty October mornings often in large numbers, but most of them passed high over the pond and very few ventured to settle there, although they were often surprised and killed in the neighboring marshes and smaller ponds. For four or five years (from 1867 to 1871) Ruthven Deane and I followed the morning shooting at Fresh Pond rather closely. It began early in Septem- BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 37 ber, when the first Teal, Wood Ducks and Mud-hens (Fwé/ica) arrived from the North, and was at its best during the month of October, when there were always numbers of Ruddy Ducks and a variety of other water-fowl. I remember many of the experiences of those years as vividly as if they had happened only yesterday. It was necessary to be early on the ground,— or rather water,— and, as we lived nearly a mile from the pond, we were accustomed to start an hour or more before daybreak and to make our way, as best we could in the darkness, to the place where our boats were kept. Sometimes we followed Vassall Lane, stumbling over its deep ruts and other inequalities of surface, but when there was a moon we often struck directly across the open fields, skirting the marshy spots and pas- sing the dimly outlined forms of recumbent cows sleeping under the wild apple trees. There were few sounds save the drowsy creaking of crickets in the dew- laden grass, the faint lisping notes of migrating Warblers or Sparrows coming from the starry heavens above us, or the distant barking of alert watch dogs. On reaching the boats we had first to sponge out whatever water had leaked or rained into them, or perhaps to scrape off the hoar frost that had incrusted the seats overnight; then, after making sure that the guns were loaded and every- thing in its proper place, we pushed off and rowed briskly across the pond. As we entered the deep shadow of the trees that fringed its western shores we were likely to be greeted by a gruff but friendly salutation warning us that the partic- ular point or beach for which we had been steering was already occupied by one or another of the young farmers living in the neighborhood. Several of these, including Jacob and Frederick Hittinger, Charles E. Chenery, Howard Richard- son and the Barker brothers, were keen and persistent gunners who seldom missed a morning at the pond whenever there was any prospect of a flight of Ducks. The first comers had the choice of positions, while by common consent and for obvious reasons each man, after reaching his station, kept close in under the land until the first Ducks appeared and alighted, usually sitting motionless in his boat, his sculling oar in place and his gun within easy reach. During this period of waiting, which often lasted for half an hour or more, our fingers fre- quently became benumbed with cold, our feet like clods of ice, and our bodies chilled to the bone despite the thick clothing that we wore. But these minor discomforts were seldom heeded, for we were all filled with eager anticipation, and those of us who took an interest in nature were also constantly diverted and not infrequently thrilled by the sights and sounds that heralded and accom- panied the on-coming of the dawn. For a time the pond remained shrouded in gloom so deep that one could scarce trace the circles left by the rising fish or the silvery furrows that the muskrats were forever ploughing from point to point across the shallow coves. Every now and then the wailing of a Screech Owl came from some grove or 38 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. orchard in our rear, or the hoarse gvawk of a Night Heron out of the darkness directly overhead. Invisible and for the most part nameless creatures, moving among the half-submerged reeds close to the boat, or in the grass or leaves on shore, were making all manner of mysterious and often uncanny rustling, whispering, murmuring, grating, gurgling and plashing sounds. With the first unmistakable signs of daybreak the crowing of cocks might be heard in every direction in the distance. Shortly afterwards Song and Swamp Sparrows began stirring and chirping, or even singing a little, in their grassy or leafy covers near the water’s edge; Rails called among the reeds; Wilson’s Snipe darted past, uttering their rasping scazpfes; while the harsh rattle of Kingfishers and the musical peet-weet-weet of Spotted Sandpipers came at frequent intervals from various places along the shore. All the while the warm flush in the east had been deepening and spreading until, in this direction, the entire heavens, from the horizon to the zenith, were aglow with rose and crimson, and the calm sur- face of the pond shining with reflected light. Elsewhere the sky had as yet changed but little, and the water, as well as land, remained shrouded in gloom nearly or quite impenetrable to human eyes. It was about this time, if at all, that the Ducks began to appear, some- times singly or in pairs, frequently in bunches of from six or eight to ten or a dozen birds, occasionally in flocks containing as many as forty or fifty individ- uals each. Most of them were migrating birds which came, not from the neigh- boring ponds and marshes, but directly from the North. They were usually seen at first high in air, a clustering throng of dark specks distinctly visible as they crossed the glowing east ; next, circling at lower elevations, alternately dis- appearing and re-appearing, as they entered and emerged from the wreaths of rose-tinted mist or the black shadows cast by the wooded portions of the shores. If, after thoroughly reconnoitering the pond, they discovered nothing to alarm them, they would alight well out towards the middle, sending up jets of flashing spray as their heavy bodies struck the smooth surface. As soon as they had fairly settled, the gunner who happened to be nearest them started out, crouch- ing low in his boat and propelling it by a single oar, worked vigorously but noiselessly in a leathered notch or hole cut at the stern. Occasionally two or even three boats would appear at once from different points, converging as they advanced, each man straining every nerve to outdo his competitors and obtain the first shot. Some of these impromptu races were intensely exciting, not only to those who took part in them but also to the more distant and disinter- ested spectators. They seldom engendered any feeling other than that of friendly rivalry, for, with one or two exceptions which shall be nameless, the Fresh Pond gunners of those days were kindly, generous-hearted fellows who, moreover, were bound by unwritten but very generally followed rules and tradi- BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 39 tions which effectually prevented them from taking any really unfair or discour- teous advantage of one another. If, as was occasionally the case, the birds proved to be Black Ducks or other equally wary water-fowl, they were sure to take wing long before the nearest boat was within gun-range ; but if Ruddy Ducks, Scaups, Old-squaws or Scoters, there was ordinarily little difficulty in approaching them closely. The Ruddy Ducks were especially tame. Until shot at, they seldom dove and frequently did not fly, but on the near approach of a boat they always began swimming in the opposite direction, using their broad and powerful feet so effectively that it was not easy to overtake them, and spreading out over so wide a space that it was difficult to get more than two together or in line, although as many as three or four were occasionally killed at one shot. I have known a large flock to continue thus swimming after both barrels of a gun had been discharged into their midst, but those which had received no injury usually rose at the report and flew to some distant part of the pond. They seemed to profit little by experience, for it was often as easy to approach them a second or third time as on the first occasion. After they had been fired at repeatedly, however, they would scatter, and, when hard pressed, take to diving, at which they were almost as adroit as Grebes, disappearing with marvelous quickness and exposing only their heads on returning to the surface to breathe. If the water happened to be rough, a few sometimes escaped in this way. After a flock had been once broken up, its surviving members were never known to leave the pond until the following night, however much they might be persecuted. When, as occasionally happened, two or three good-sized flocks appeared the same morning and were successively dispersed, there was plenty of sport for every one, and the reports of the heavily charged guns, coming in quick succession from different parts of the pond, were heard at places as far distant as Harvard Square. Indeed the firing was so rapid and incessant at times as to suggest that of a brisk skirmish, but, as six or eight shots were often required to kill a single bird, the total bag was not so great as the noise indicated. In fact, it was exceptional for more than fifteen or twenty Ducks to be killed in a single morning, although I have known the number to reach forty or fifty. By no means all the flocks which appeared over the pond alighted there, and many of the birds that did alight, including some of the Ruddy Ducks, were too shy to be approached. On an average probably over half of the Ducks that actually settled in the pond were killed, and of this half the Dumb-birds represented considerably more than fifty per cent. _ Most of the sportsmen who followed the early morning shooting were obliged, for one or another reason, to return to their homes before eight o'clock. The scattered birds which they left, with perhaps others that had come in later, 40 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. finding themselves no longer disturbed, and in urgent need of food, often approached the shores or entered the coves to feed among the lily pads or by diving where the water was shallow. Some of them chose times when they could do this without molestation, and others were too wary and cunning to expose themselves to any serious risks; but some one with a gun was nearly sure to be on the watch, and every now and then a bird was successfully stalked and shot. Stand shooting with decoys had ceased to be practised regularly by any one. Ruthven Deane and I tried it a few times in the autumn of 1867, but without much success, for the birds were almost invariably shot at or otherwise frightened away before we could get them within reach. At Smith’s Pond, however, a considerable number of Black Ducks and other ‘surface-feeding’ water-fowl were taken, during this period, by a man named Frost who shot for the market over live decoys. Small flocks of Dumb-birds occasionally alighted in this pond, and I killed a Ring-necked Duck there in November, 1867. With the shooting at Spy and the Mystic Ponds I had no personal experi- ence, but it was reported to be quite as good as that at Fresh Pond, and to be conducted on the same general principles, that is chiefly by means of boats in which the gunners sculled out to the birds soon after the latter had alighted. All these ponds were more or less regularly and frequently visited in autumn by Pied-billed Grebes, Loons, Goosanders, Hooded Mergansers, Black Ducks, Green- winged and Blue-winged Teal, Wood Ducks, Lesser Scaup Ducks, Golden-eyes, Buffle-heads, Scoters of all three species, Ruddy Ducks, Canada Geese and Mud- hens. There were, of course, a few other kinds of water-fowl which occurred rarely or casually. Of those just named the Ruddy Ducks were everywhere shot in much greater numbers than any of the others, although during some seasons a good many Blue-winged Teal, Lesser Scaups, Buffle-heads and Old- squaws were killed. There were local traditions among the older gunners at both Fresh and Spy Ponds of the occasional appearance, in earlier times and usually during heavy northeasterly storms, of immense flocks of Scoters which, like the Dumb-birds, refused to depart after having been once scattered, and were consequently slaughtered in great numbers. Without question some of these stories were well founded, but no such visitations have ever come under my personal observation, although a few Scoters were scen in Fresh Pond nearly every autumn when I was in the habit of shooting there. As a natural result of the constant and ever increasing persecution just described, most of the water-fowl had deserted Fresh Pond when it was taken for a city park in 1884. Since then its shores have been regularly patrolled by policemen who have kept the gunners away. The birds were not slow to note the change and to act upon it. Despite the fact that practically all their former feeding grounds had ceased to exist, they soon began returning to the pond, and BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 41 their numbers steadily increased until by the close of the past century it was not unusual for two or three hundred Ducks, and twice or thrice as many Gulls, to be assembled there at one time. The presence of so many large and con- spicuous birds in a city park attracted general attention, of course. Unfortu- nately it also gave rise to fears that, as the pond was used as a reservoir, its waters were in danger of pollution. Soon afterwards all the birds, but espe- cially the Gulls —although, as every ornithologist knows, most cleanly birds and of great value as scavengers — were voted a nuisance, and the park police- men were ordered to frighten them away from the pond by the use of guns loaded, as a rule (but not invariably, as I have reason to know), with blank cartridges. This practice — begun eight or ten years ago — has not been kept up very systematically, however, and whenever it is discontinued for any length of time the birds become numerous again. Most of the Ducks which frequent the pond at the present day are Black Ducks, represented by both the red-legged and green-legged races. The former occurs only in autumn, winter and early spring, but the green-legged bird breeds in the neighboring swamps and often alights in the pond in midsummer. Be- sides the Black Ducks, there have been seen within recent years Canada Geese, Mallards, Green-winged Teal, Pintails, Lesser Scaups, Whistlers, Ruddy Ducks and two species of Mergansers. The Canvas-back has also been noted once, and the Redhead on several occasions. Coots (/wz/ica) occur rather commonly, and Pied-billed Grebes not infrequently, while Loons have been occasionally seen of late. Nearly all of these birds appear only in autumn, when many of them spend weeks at a time in the pond. The diving species remain there night and day during their stay, but the surface-feeding kinds such as the Black Duck, Mallard and Teal, obtain most of their food along the seacoast, to which they resort at night, returning to the pond in the early morning. Nearly all the Gulls are Herring Gulls, but among them one may often see a few Black-backs, and rarely an Iceland or a Glaucous Gull. Like the surface- feeding Ducks, the Gulls obtain most of their food in salt water, although during their visits to the pond they pick up and devour many a dead or dying fish which would otherwise be left to pollute the water. These visits are made chiefly during the forenoon, and the birds appear most numerously when the weather is calm and mild. 42 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Tue FresH Ponp Swamps oR FRESH Ponp MARSHES. These terms have been applied indifferently or synonymously since the time of Nuttall to a wide expanse of flat, low country lying chiefly within the present limits of Cambridge, to the northward of Fresh Pond, but also extend- ing somewhat into Arlington and Belmont. When I first came to know this region, forty years or more ago, it was beautifully diversified by wooded or bushy swamps alternating with open, grassy marshes. There were also (near its cen- ter) two isolated —and hence very conspicuous — round-topped hills. Alewife Brook was then directly connected with Fresh Pond, and its principal tributary, Little River, with Spy Pond. There were lesser channels, of sluggishly flowing water, and innumerable shallow pools and small ponds fringed by reeds or bushes and varying from a few yards to an acre or more in extent. Many of these still remain, but nearly all the woods and both the isolated hills have long since disappeared, while hundreds of houses and other buildings have sprung up on every hand close about the outskirts of the swamps. Certain of the larger marshes, such as those immediately to the north and west of the Glacialis, have not as yet been materially reduced in area, but, owing partly to their present imperfect drainage, and also as the result of fires,’ by which they were devas- tated about twenty years ago, they are now almost constantly submerged and grown up very extensively to cattail flags. In the earlier days Alewife Brook and Little River, with their numerous tributary brooks and rivulets, being free from the various obstructions which have since been permitted to choke their channels, performed their natural func- tions so effectively that by the middle or end of summer we frequently walked dry-shod over the extensive and now invariably flooded marshes which lie between the Glacialis and Little River, and the meadow grass which covered them was regularly cut and drawn off in hay wagons. The water in the brooks, and even in pools and ditches which had no visible outlets, although warm and muddy at times, was by no means unpalatable, and we drank it without hesita- tion when nothing better could be had, for the entire region was then uncon- taminated by sewage or other dangerous pollution, as well as wholly free from malaria by which it has been of late so grievously afflicted. To J. Elliot Cabot, however, the Fresh Pond Swamps seemed, at a time (1869) not long after that when I first began to frequent them, a “ dreary waste \These fires bumed for weeks, eating deep into the peaty soil, uprooting trees and bushes, and utterly destroying the meadow grasses. During the following year the devastated tract was nearly barren of vegetation, but by degrees it became covered with flags. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 43 of brickfields, shanties, and ice-ponds.” But he was fortunate enough to have known them intimately at a still earlier period when they constituted “a wilder- ness, encompassed to be sure on all sides by civilization, yet of indefinite extent, full of mystery, of possibilities, and invaded only by the Concord turnpike,! —a lonely road with a double row of pollard willows causewayed above the bog.” Alewife Brook, he tells us, was then a “ steady, tranquil stream —.... curtained with stooping alders and willows — of devious course, allowing the silent paddler, cautiously peeping round the point, to surprise the black-duck or wood-duck with upstretched neck for an instant before, spurning the surface, she rushed into the air. An enchanted stream, not the dull ditch that now meets the passer-by, but broad and deep, leading to Menotomy Pond, to Mystic River, to the ends of the world! For had not ‘the old Captain’ passed down this way in his sail- boat to the Harbor, to Cape Cod? So, at least, it was said, and we believed it. Though how he passed the bridge at the Fresh Pond outlet? No doubt his masts unshipped, or perhaps at that day Concord turnpike was not. At this outlet, where the brook left the pond, all attractions centred. What it was then is easier imagined without seeing it now. Not merely are all the objects changed, but there is not room enough on the ground for what it then con- tained. Where now is a meagre bit of mangy pasture and a row of icehouses, a vast army of reeds and bulrushes and wild rice encompassed the shore, ten- anted throughout the year by muskrats (for the water was deep at the edge), and at the right times by throngs of feathered visitors.” ? This was before the days when Fresh Pond had begun to be drawn upon for our city water-supply,? and Alewife Brook still received its entire overflow, as did Little River that of Menotomy (now Spy) Pond. Without doubt both streams then ran nearly or quite brimful at most seasons. Dr. Samuel Cabot told me, shortly before his death, that his brother’s statement to the effect that they were once navigable by small boats was literally correct, and that he himself had often paddled through them from Fresh Pond into Menotomy (now Spy) Pond without once getting out of his canoe. It is evident from what Mr. J. Elliot Cabot says in the passage just quoted, as well as from early maps, that the greater part of the flat and for the most part grassy tract of park land which now borders Concord Avenue on its southern side, between the Watertown Branch of the Fitchburg Railroad and the old Tudor estate, was formerly a cove of Fresh Pond,-or rather, the extreme northern end of Cambridge Nook. Mr. Jacob Hittinger tells me that it was filled 1 According to the Cambridge Directory and Almanac for 1850 the Concord Turnpike was “incorporated” in 1803. It is now called Concord Avenue. 2J. E. Cabot, Sedge-birds, Atlantic Monthly, X XIII, 1869, 384. 3The first pumping station was begun in 1855 and finished in 1856. 44 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. with earth taken from the meadow on the opposite side of the road when the ice- pond known as the Glacialis was dug by the Tudors about 1850. It was not brought to its present smooth and level grade, however, until the Cambridge Water Board took it in hand in 1884. Up to this time it remained, as Mr. Cabot described it in 1869, a “bit of mangy pasture’? where cows and goats were tethered. The made land, easily distinguishable by its rough, hillocky surface and sufficiently elevated to be reasonably dry at all seasons, was separated from the still higher and firmer ground at the eastern extremity of the Tudor estate by a rather wide belt of wet and perfectly primitive marsh. This, evidently, had once formed the western shores of the cove, and there were similar rem- nants of a narrower strip of marshy land which had formerly intervened between its northern shores and the Concord. Turnpike. When the turnpike was built it crossed Alewife Brook only a few yards below the outlet of the pond by means of a wooden bridge. The filling of the cove resulted, of course, in the removal of the outlet to the new shore line, about two hundred yards to the southward of the road. For more than twenty years after this, however, the brook continued to flow directly out of the pond, traversing the made land by an open but narrow ditch, and passing under Concord Avenue through a stone culvert. Just beyond this culvert the original channel,! broad, sinuous and overhung by large trees, skirted the western edge of the Maple Swamp, but the brook filled it only at high stages of water, being ordinarily confined to a straight, artificial trench which ran parallel to, and about forty yards from, the eastern shore of the Glacialis. To the northward of the Fitchburg Railroad embankment its course had also been narrowed and straight- ened to the point where it united with Little River. Although no longer the primitive and generous stream so charmingly described by Mr. Cabot, it still pos- sessed a few reaches of great attractiveness, and carried, at least in early spring, a considerable volume of sweet, undefiled water. Through it the migratory fish from which it takes its name still passed and repassed on their way to and from the sea. In April and May, when they were running up the brook, very many of them were caught by the Irish (who had then only recently settled in the neighborhood) with dip nets or in rude weirs, and I have seen two or three hun- dred taken at a single cast of a small seine. They spawned in Fresh Pond, where their fry literally swarmed in autumn, attracting numbers of fish-eating birds and supplying abundant food for the numerous pickerel and other preda- tory fishes. Whenever there was a course of exceptionally high tides the normally sluggish but steady flow of the brook towards the sea was replaced by a rather ' This channel may still be traced distinctly in several places. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 45 strong current in the opposite direction which brought salt water from the Mys- tic River, sometimes in quantities sufficient to give the waters of the pond a decidedly brackish taste. It was for this reason, I believe, that a flood-gate was placed at the outlet about 1870. Three or four years later the brook was filled in all the way from the pond to Concord Avenue, just below which it received, for a time, the discharge of a city sewer. Its channel further to the northward, also, was narrowed and straightened in many places. Thus by degrees, and wholly through the intervention of man, has Alewife Brook become changed from the broad, fair stream which the Cabots knew and loved so well to the insignificant and hideous ditch, reeking with nameless filth, which now befouls the greater part of the swampy region through which it flows. As a matter of course all these modifications in the surface conditions of the Fresh Pond Swamps and Marshes, have been accompanied or closely fol- lowed by equally marked changes in their characteristic bird life. This, how- ever, is scarcely less rich and varied now than it was in the days of my youth. It is true that a few birds once more or less common, as the Wood Duck, the Night Heron, the Woodcock, and the Short-billed Marsh Wren, have nearly or quite disappeared ; but to offset their loss the Black Duck and the Bittern, which formerly occurred only during migration, are now regularly established summer residents. There has also been a decided and indeed very considerable local increase in the numbers of the Least Bitterns, Virginia and Carolina Rails, Florida Gallinules, and Long-billed Marsh Wrens, — species which are known to have inhabited the Fresh Pond Swamps for forty years or more. Most of these changes — with others that might be mentioned — have evidently resulted chiefly if not wholly from the recent increase and dispersion of the cattail flags, which furnish food and shelter —as well as congenial nesting places — for very many swamp-loving birds. The Pine Swamp and Pout Pond. At the southwestern extremity of the low, wet region just described, reach- ing almost to Fresh Pond (at the head of Black’s Nook) but separated from it on the south by a high, wooded ridge, and also bounded on the east and west, as well as partially on the north, by equally elevated but more open ground — lay the Pine Swamp. Up to 1875, or a little later, it remained an essentially primi- tive and strikingly beautiful bit of wilderness. Nearly half the swamp was shaded by enormous white pines some of which had certainly stood for more than a century, if not, as we liked to believe, since before the settlement of Cambridge. There were also numbers of fine old oaks, beeches and yellow 46 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. birches, growing along the lower slopes of the neighboring ridge. The ground beneath the larger trees was nearly or quite free from undergrowth, but else- where it was very generally obstructed by tangled thickets overtopped by vigor- ous young red maples and gray birches. Pout Pond, then filled with sweet if somewhat muddy water, lay hidden in the innermost recesses of the swamp. Giant pines crowded close upon its eastern shores and dense second-growth woods hemmed it in on the remaining three sides. So perfectly was it sheltered by these trees, that when all of them were covered by foliage only the heaviest winds availed to ruffle its ordinarily calm and shining surface. During the period to which I am now referring the Pine Swamp continued to afford a congenial and reasonably secure retreat for most of the larger species - of birds —as well as very many of the smaller ones— which then inhabited or visited the Cambridge Region. It was frequented in autumn and winter by Hawks and Owls, in spring and summer by Night Herons and Green Herons, at all times of the year by Ruffed Grouse. Its secluded little pond was often visited by Wood Ducks and occasionally by Black Ducks and Blue-winged Teal. The Great Horned Owl has bred there at least once, and the Wood Duck repeatedly, within my recollection. The destruction of the Pine Swamp and its immediate surroundings was accomplished between 1876 and 1884. During January and February of the former year, most of the larger trees were felled, but portions of the second- growth remained untouched for some time later. After the hills and ridges to the southward had been levelled ——a work that consumed several years — the ground they had occupied was taken for a large slaughtering establishment. Besides disfiguring the locality by its unsightly buildings, it was permitted for a number of years to discharge its drainage directly into the neighboring swamps. Those immediately about Pout Pond have suffered especially from this outrage ; but, although they have become not more unlovely to the eye than revolting to the sense of smell, they have been by no means deserted by the birds. The Hawks, Owls and Grouse have disappeared of course, and the Night Herons and Wood Ducks are now comparatively seldom seen; but the fetid pools which surround the pond, or the beds of rank herbaceous vegetation, by which they are bordered, are resorted to at one or another season by several species of Ducks, Bitterns of both kinds, Green Herons, Virginia and Carolina Rails, Florida Gallinules, Coots, Wilson’s Snipe, Redwings, Swamp Sparrows, Mary- land Yellow-throats and Marsh Wrens. The Black Duck and Florida Gallinule have even been found breeding there of late, and for ten or fifteen years past a few Redwings, Swamp Sparrows and Marsh Wrens, with an occasional Yellow- throat, have made the place a w2mder, as well as summer, home. ‘oo61 ‘fc aun{ ‘ADdIUAWYD ‘ANVMS AIdVW AHL NI 100d adaqni10gs Vv eet po ae ay ‘WLaLWTa “Al GIOWSH “OO N BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 47 The Maple Swamp. Of the Maple Swamp we may still speak in the present tense, for it has changed but little, either in character or extent, within the period covered by my recollection. The name originated, I believe, with the Cambridge collectors of thirty years or more ago. It is usually applied to the whole of the swampy tract (embracing nearly fifty acres) which extends from Concord Avenue to the main line of the Fitchburg Railroad between the Watertown Branch Railroad and Alewife Brook. Much of this, however, is comparatively open, and either divided up into a number of small, grassy meadows, dotted with clusters of willows and separated from one another by screens of bushes, or thickly set, over considerable areas, with alders, viburnums, elders, and sapling maples, over- run by clematis and thorny with patches of briers. There are also a few small, shallow ponds, filled with white and yellow water lilies and fringed by pickerel weed, besides very many half-obliterated ditches, evidently of ancient origin. The maple woods occupy the central portions of the swamp and stretch almost uninterruptedly from its eastern to its western confines, covering two large islands lying near together and some low, wet land bordering Alewife Brook. Although chiefly composed of red maples, they also contain many swamp white oaks and tupelos as well as a few wild apples, rum cherries and gray birches. Most of the trees are forty or fifty feet in height and apparently at least half a century old.! The islands are nearly flat and but slightly elevated above the surround- ing surface, yet they are never flooded and their rich soil, although moist at every season, is nowhere soft or boggy. It sustains, in addition to the taller trees, a dense growth of underbrush through which well-trodden foot-paths lead in every direction. The thickets which they penetrate are glorified in spring by the snowy blossoms of the shad-bush, filled in summer with the almost oppres- sive perfume of the clethra and white azalea, glowing in autumn and winter with the scarlet berries of the black alder. They also abound in viburnums, andro- medas and high-blueberry bushes. The wetter portions of the woods are com- paratively open underneath, especially near Alewife Brook where there are wide spaces practically barren of lower vegetation save in late summer and early autumn when they are concealed beneath a profusion of rank herbaceous plants. Of these the most flourishing and conspicuous is the touch-me-not (/mpatiens biflora) which forms extensive beds in many places. The deadly nightshade also 1Since the above passage was written, very many of the larger trees in the Maple Swamp have been cut down. 48 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. grows here abundantly and the turtle head (Chelone glabra) very commonly. Our local observers of the present younger generations do not appear to visit the Maple Swamp very frequently, but from 1871 to 1885 it was regarded as the best collecting ground to be found anywhere in the immediate neighborhood of Cambridge. During this period it attracted — especially in early autumn — a great number and variety of the smaller migratory birds, among which was the Connecticut Warbler, then but little known. It was also a favorite roosting place of the Night Heron, and the Green Heron continues to nest there. The Brickyard Swamp. As one approaches Fresh Pond from Cambridge by way of Concord Avenue, he will notice, on the right hand side of this road, in the rear of a row of squalid tenement houses, a wide open space stretching northward along the Watertown Branch Railroad to the main line of the Fitchburg Railroad. A considerable part of this has been roughly graded for streets and house-lots, the remaining portion (to the northward) being occupied by an immense clay-pit. The entire area was formerly known as the Brickyard Swamp. When I first became acquainted with this swamp in 1860 or 1861, it covered upwards of fifty acres. Along its northern and eastern edges stretched the brickyards, two or three in number,! from which it took its name. They had then only begun the stupendous work of excavation, now all but completed. When the steam-shovels were scooping up the surface soil to get at the deep bed of pure clay which lay just beneath, they removed many large stumps of white pines which still showed the marks of axes, wielded, no doubt, in early Colonial days when the place formed the extreme eastern end of what was known as the Great Swamp. The only trees that had been left standing down to my time, however, were some oaks, maples and gray birches which covered a tract of slightly elevated ground, less than an acre in extent, where we used to start Woodcock in summer. Elsewhere the swamp was perfectly level and subject to inundation in early spring. It contained a bewildering number of small, shallow ponds and deep, wide ditches, which made it seemingly diffi- cult of access, but there were obscure and miry foot-paths, familiarly known to sportsmen and nest-hunting boys, by which it could be traversed in every direc- tion with comparative ease and safety. Some of the ponds were irregular in shape and apparently of natural origin, but by far the greater number occupied 1 According to the Cambridge Directory and Almanac for 1850 there was then but one brickyard in this part of Cambridge — that of “Hubbel and Co., Fresh Pond railroad.” BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 49 long, narrow and perfectly rectangular pits, dug, as Tam assured by my vener- able neighbor, Mr. Royal Stimpson, about the middle of the last century to obtain the rich meadow peat which was spread over certain of the farm lands along Vassall Lane. Before I came to know these pools, however, nature had done much to obliterate the traces of their artificial character, for most of them had become choked with aquatic vegetation and bordered by tall reeds, cattail flags, sweet gale, briers (Rosa xitida), button-bushes, alders, viburnums and other moisture-loving plants. They were visited at one or another season by Pied-billed Grebes, Black Ducks, Green-winged and Blue-winged Teal, Wood Ducks, Bitterns, Least Bitterns, Green Herons, Night Herons, Rails, Gallinules and Mud-hens. Interspersed among them, and also surrounded by bushes, were grassy openings where Wilson’s Snipe occurred numerously at times, and where Carolina Rails and Swamp Sparrows nested. Virginia Rails bred throughout the thickets, which were also tenanted in summer by very many Red-winged Blackbirds, Song Sparrows, Yellow Warblers and Maryland Yel- low-throats. At the eastern edge of the swamp a few pairs of Long-billed Marsh Wrens had established a colony as early as 1868. Muskrat Pond. Muskrat Pond lay on the opposite side of Concord Avenue, near the foot of Vassall Lane and less than one hundred yards from the eastern end of Cam- bridge Nook. It was a pretty little pool, not unlike some of those in the Brick- yard Swamp, but larger than any of them and very much deeper. As its name indicates, it abounded in muskrats, who built their conical houses all about its quaking, treacherous margin. It also attracted a few water-fowl, especially Teal and Mud-hens. Here it was that I shot my first Duck —a Pintail — in 1863 or 1864, and here Ruthven Deane and I found several Florida Gallinules — two of which we killed —in the autumn of 1868. There was a wide stretch of boggy meadow just to the eastward, where Snipe and Yellow-legs alighted at times, and where Carolina Rails were accustomed to breed. Both pond and meadow have long since disappeared, and in their place yawns a deep and un- sightly clay-pit. The Glactalis or Artificial. The little sheet of water formerly known as the Glacialis, but now oftener called the Artificial (the word pond is seldom or never used with either term), lies just across Alewife Brook from the Maple Swamp. Concord Avenue passes 50 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. within a few rods of it on the south, and its northern extremity reaches almost to the main line of the Fitchburg Railroad. It covers a total area of some six or seven acres and is nowhere more than five or six feet in depth. The Tudor Ice Company dug it about 1850. For years afterwards, and indeed up to within my own recollection, it remained nearly rectangular in shape, with straight grassy banks. But the shore lines have since become indented with little coves, — formed by the wash of the water or by the undermining of successive genera- tions of muskrats,— and some of the shallower portions of the pond, especially at its northern extremity, have grown up to cattail flags. Although, as its project- ors foresaw would be the case, the Glacialis freezes over nearly a month earlier than Fresh Pond, its numerous bottom springs prevent the ice from ever attain- ing sufficient thickness to be of much commercial value. For this reason the money expended on its construction and on that of the large icehouses which stood for many years near its northern end, has yielded no returns to the orig- inal investors. Their enterprise, nevertheless, has not been without benefit to others. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Cambridge boys (among whom may be numbered the present writer and most of the friends of his youth) first learned to swim in the shallow tepid waters of the Glacialis, and it has long afforded a safe and convenient resort for skaters of both sexes and all ages. It is visited— although less frequently now than formerly — by various kinds of water-fowl, especially Pied-billed Grebes, Teal and Coots (Fudica). Long- billed Marsh Wrens and two species of Bitterns breed in its beds of cattail flags, while Virginia and Carolina Rails, Red-winged Blackbirds and Swamp Sparrows are found commonly throughout the summer in the marshes which border it on the west and north. Beech Island or Block [sland. This was a ‘marsh island,’ two or three acres in extent, lying to the north of the Pine Swamp near the south bank of Little River. Most of it was high ground, and its center was occupied by a long, narrow ridge evidently of glacial origin. As the ‘island’ was everywhere heavily wooded, and in places elevated fifty feet or more above the surrounding marshes, it formed a prominent and very pleasing feature of the otherwise flat and somewhat monotonous landscape. The woods, which harbored Ruffed Grouse and Quail in autumn and squirrels (including a few ‘ grays’) at nearly every season, were made up wholly of decid- uous trees and very largely of fine, spreading beeches that must have been upwards of one hundred years old. The entire ridge was taken for filling | material when the road-bed of the Massachusetts Central Railroad was built across the Fresh Pond Swamps, in 1877, if I remember rightly. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 51 Great Megapow, East LEXINGTON. In 1872 the town of Arlington made a reservoir at East Lexington by throwing a dam across Vine Brook at the point where it issues from Great Meadow. As the rich, surface soil of the meadow was left undisturbed, and as the water was nowhere raised to a depth exceeding five or six feet, the pond thus formed soon became choked with aquatic vegetation, while over con- siderably more than one half of its total area (about twenty-five or thirty acres) button-bushes and sweet gale sprang up in dense thickets, separated in many places, however, by pools or channels of open water. There were also floating islands, tufted with sedges or with cattail flags, and, along the course of the brook above, wide stretches of grassy meadow. AQ railroad passed close to the pond on the south, but the slopes of the hills which bordered it on the north and west were everywhere thickly wooded. In view of these conditions it is not to be wondered at that Great Meadow attracted at one or another season very many such birds as Snipe, Sandpipers, Rails, Herons, Bitterns, Coots, Gallinules, Grebes and Ducks of various kinds. The Pied-billed Grebes maintained a breeding colony there for at least ten suc- cessive seasons, and the Black Duck has been known to nest in the immediate neighborhood. I write of these matters in the past tense, because the reservoir was discontinued in 1900 and the pond was drained in 1902. Rock Meapow. This fine, large meadow, upwards of one hundred acres in extent, has changed but little, either in character or surroundings, within the past thirty or forty years. It lies partly in Belmont and Waltham, but chiefly in the south- eastern corner of Lexington, near the source of Beaver Brook. Although for the most part open and grassy, it contains many swampy thickets, several tracts of low-lying maple woods and a few wooded ridges and ‘marsh islands.’ The Concord Turnpike crosses it from east to west on an ancient causeway bordered by pollarded willows. Through the long and alluring vista formed by the trunks and overarching branches of these fine old trees one may walk or drive in cool and unbroken shade during the hottest June day, listening to the songs of Bob- ,olinks, Red-winged Blackbirds, Swamp Sparrows, Yellow Warblers, Maryland Yellow-throats, Catbirds and other marsh- or thicket-loving birds. Among the 52 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. more interesting species which have been found breeding here within compara- tively recent years are the Black Duck, the Bittern, the Marsh Hawk, the White- eyed Vireo and the Short-billed Marsh Wren. At the height of the migration in May the willows along the causeway attract a large number and variety of northern-bound Warblers of which the Black-poll, Black and Yellow, Yellow- rump, Canadian and Wilson’s Blackcap, with the Northern Water-thrush, occur most regularly and frequently. As the meadow is also bordered on every side by sparsely populated country, abounding in woods, thickets, cedar pastures and grassy fields, it offers to the bird lover one of the most attractive and interest- ing resorts to be found anywhere, at the present time, within easy reach of Cambridge. BEAVER Brook RESERVATION AND WAVERLEY OAKS. If one follows the course of Beaver Brook from the lower end of Rock Meadow to the railroad just beyond the village of Waverley, he will pass two small ponds separated by an ancient dam which within my recollection was sur- mounted by an old grist mill. From the lower pond the brook escapes over another dam, and after plunging down a nearly vertical ledge, in a succession of falls, well worth seeing when the water is high, it winds through a deep, wooded ravine before crossing the road on its way to the Waverley Oaks. The oaks, the ravine, the waterfall and the two ponds are all included in what is now known as the Beaver Brook Reservation. This small but exceedingly attractive public park was planned and developed by the late Charles Eliot. It forms a fitting monument to his genius as a landscape architect. His rare good taste and wise forbearance in dealing with naturally beautiful scenery are especially shown by his treatment of the western shores of the ponds and the wooded gorge below the waterfall, where practically nothing has been disturbed. Even the severe trimming of the Waverley Oaks, which caused some adverse criticism at the time, has been justified by the subsequent improvement, in respect to vigor and symmetry, in these noble old trees. It has been difficult for some of us to comprehend, however, why Mr. Eliot should have considered it desirable to remove the picturesque, rocky island which formerly adorned the upper mill- pond. The Beaver Brook Reservation has always been a favorite haunt for birds. Its woods and thickets continue to be visited by a number of interesting species, BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 53 including the Golden-winged and Nashville Warblers ; but the Wood Ducks that used to breed in the Waverley Oaks, the Woodcock that formerly haunted the course of the brook so numerously in spring and summer, the White-eyed Vireos which I have found nesting near the shores of the upper pond, and the Olive- sided Flycatchers whose clear, wild notes once mingled with the sound of the waterfall, have all, I fear, departed never to return. THE WREN ORCHARD. This name originated, I believe, in the fertile brain of my friend, Mr. Frank Bolles, who during the latter years of his brief life, when he was devoting himself especially to nature studies and charming us all with his force- ful, sympathetic, and altogether delightful essays relating thereto, was much given to frequenting the old orchard and its immediate surroundings. It is wholly composed of venerable apple trees which cover two or three acres of sloping ground lying just to the southeastward of Arlington Heights and about midway between Prospect Street, Belmont, and Spring Street, Arlington. When I visited it last, two or three summers ago, it had not changed greatly in general character or appearance since I first saw it in 1867. Even at that now remote time most of the trees were far advanced in decay. Owing partly to this fact, and partly also to its remoteness from frequented highways and its proximity to extensive woods, the Wren Orchard has long furnished congenial breeding places for such hole-nesting species as the Screech Owl, the Downy Woodpecker, the Flicker, the House Wren, the Chickadee and the Bluebird, while I have known the locally rare Crested Flycatcher to be found there in summer. 54 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. STATUS OF OCCURRENCE. In the following lists the birds of the Cambridge Region have been grouped in classes to show, as nearly as possible, the character or status of their occur- rence at the present time. These classes include : — Permanent residents. Occasional or accidental visitors. Summer residents. Introduced species. Winter residents. Extinct species. Spring and autumn migrants. Expunged or doubtful species Autumn migrants. s. r. equals summer resident; w. r., winter resident; s. m., spring migrant. Any of these signs following a name indicates that the bird in question has also more or less claim to be included in the class thus referred to, as well as in that in which it is named. Permanent Residents. Bob-white. American Crow. Ruffed Grouse. Meadowlark. Red-shouldered Hawk. Purple Finch. American Sparrow Hawk. American Crossbill. American Long-eared Owl. American Goldfinch. Barred Owl. Cedar Waxwing. Screech Owl. White-breasted Nuthatch. Downy Woodpecker. Chickadee. Northern Flicker. American Robin. Blue Jay. } This includes species which, although not always continuously present throughout the year, may occur at any season. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 55 Summer Residents. Black Duck. American Bittern. Least Bittern. Green Heron. Virginia Rail. Sora. Florida Gallinule. American Woodcock. Spotted Sandpiper. Cooper’s Hawk, w. r. Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Black-billed Cuckoo. Belted Kingfisher, w. r. Whip-poor-will. Chimney Swift. Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Kingbird. Crested Flycatcher. Phcebe. Wood Pewee. Least Flycatcher. Bobolink. Cowbird, w. r. Red-winged Blackbird, w. r. Orchard Oriole. Baltimore Oriole. Purple Grackle. Bronzed Grackle, w. r. Vesper Sparrow. Grasshopper Sparrow. Henslow’s Sparrow. Sharp-tailed Sparrow (formerly). Chipping Sparrow. Field Sparrow, w. r. Song Sparrow, w. r. Swamp Sparrow, w. r. Towhee, possibly w. r. Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Indigo Bunting. Scarlet Tanager. Purple Martin. Cliff Swallow. Barn Swallow. Tree Swallow. Bank Swallow. Red-eyed Vireo. Warbling Vireo. Yellow-throated Vireo. White-eyed Vireo. Black and White Warbler. Golden-winged Warbler. Nashville Warbler. Yellow Warbler. Chestnut-sided Warbler. Black-throated Green Warbler. Pine Warbler, w. r. Prairie Warbler. Oven-bird, w. r. Northern Yellow-throat, w. r. Yellow-breasted Chat. American Redstart. Catbird, w. r. Brown Thrasher, w. r. House Wren. Short-billed Marsh Wren. Long-billed Marsh Wren, w. r. Wood Thrush. Wilson’s Thrush. Bluebird, w. r. 56 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Winter Residents. Great Black-backed Gull. Herring Gull. Red-legged Black Duck. American Golden-eye. Red-tailed Hawk, possibly s. r: Saw-whet Owl. Hairy Woodpecker, possibly s. r. Horned Lark. Pine Grosbeak. White-winged Crossbill. Redpoll. Greater Redpoll. Pine Siskin, s. r. Snowflake. Tree Sparrow. Slate-colored Junco. Northern Shrike. Brown Creeper, s. r. Red-breasted Nuthatch, s. r. Golden-crowned Kinglet. Spring and Autumn Migrants. Horned Grebe. Pied-billed Grebe, s. r. Loon. Green-winged Teal. Blue-winged Teal. Wood Duck, s. r. Lesser Scaup Duck. Ruddy Duck. Canada Goose. Great Blue Heron, w. r. Black-crowned Night Heron, s. r.andw. r. American Coot. Wilson’s Snipe. Least Sandpiper. Greater Yellow-legs. Solitary Sandpiper. Bartramian Sandpiper. Marsh Hawk, s. r. Sharp-shinned Hawk, s. r. and w. r. Broad-winged Hawk, s. r. American Rough-legged Hawk. Pigeon Hawk, w. r. American Osprey. Short-eared Owl, w. r. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, w. r. Nighthawk, s. r. Olive-sided Flycatcher, s. r. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. Alder Flycatcher, s. r. Rusty Blackbird, w. r. Savanna Sparrow, s. r. White-crowned Sparrow. White-throated Sparrow, w. r. Lincoln’s Sparrow. Fox Sparrow, w. r. Blue-headed Vireo, s. r. Northern Parula Warbler. Cape May Warbler. Black-throated Blue Warbler. Myrtle Warbler, w. r. Magnolia Warbler. Bay-breasted Warbler. Black-poll Warbler. Blackburnian Warbler, s. r. Yellow Palm Warbler. Water-thrush. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. Mourning Warbler. Wilson’s Warbler. Canadian Warbler, s. r. American Pipit. Winter Wren, w. r. Hooded Merganser. Mallard. Buffle-head. Old-squaw. American Scoter. White-winged Scoter. Pectoral Sandpiper. Semipalmated Sandpiper. Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Gray-cheeked Thrush. Bicknell’s Thrush. Olive-backed Thrush. Hermit Thrush, s. r. and w. r. * Autumn Migrants. Yellow-legs, s. m. Semipalmated Plover, s. m. Nelson’s Sparrow. 57 Acadian Sharp-tailed Sparrow, s. m. Orange-crowned Warbler. Palm Warbler. Connecticut Warbler. Occastonal or Accidental Visttors. Holbeell’s Grebe. Red-throated Loon. Briinnich’s Murre. Dovekie. Glaucous Gull. Iceland Gull. Bonaparte’s Gull. Common Tern. Leach’s Petrel. Double-crested Cormorant. American Merganser. Red-breasted Merganser. Baldpate. Shoveller. Pintail. Redhead. Canvas-back. Ring-necked Duck. King Eider. Surf Scoter. Whistling Swan. Glossy Ibis. Little Blue Heron. Yellow-crowned Night Heron. Yellow Rail. Red Phalarope. Northern Phalarope. Purple Sandpiper. Red-backed Sandpiper. Sanderling. Hudsonian Godwit. Killdeer, s. r. Passenger Pigeon. Mourning Dove. Turkey Vulture. American Goshawk. 58 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Golden Eagle. Bald Eagle. Duck Hawk. Great Gray Owl. Richardson’s Owl. Great Horned Owl. Arctic Horned Owl. Snowy Owl. American Hawk Owl. Arctic Three-toed Woodpecker. Red-headed Woodpecker, s. r. Prairie Horned Lark. Canada Jay. Fish Crow. Yellow-headed Blackbird. Hoary Redpoll. Holbdll’s Redpoll. Lapland Longspur. Ipswich Sparrow. Brewer’s Sparrow. Shufeldt’s Junco. Cardinal. Dickcissel. Summer Tanager. Migrant Shrike. Philadelphia Vireo. Worm-eating Warbler. Tennessee Warbler. Audubon’s Warbler. Mockingbird, s. r. Carolina Wren. Hudsonian Chickadee. L[ntroduced Species. Prairie Hen. Ring-necked Pheasant. Skylark. Heath Hen. House Sparrow. European Siskin. European Goldfinch. Extinct Species. Wild Turkey. Expunged or Doubtful Species. Labrador Duck. Lesser Snow Goose. Greater Snow Goose. Whooping Crane. Little Brown Crane. Sandhill Crane. Black Rail. Cooper’s Henhawk. Red-naped Sapsucker. Linné’s Hummingbird. Northern Raven. Boat-tailed Grackle. Evening Grosbeak. Brewster’s Linnet. Painted Bunting. Rough-winged Swallow. Bohemian Waxwing. Blue-winged Warbler. Hooded Warbler. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 59 As might be expected, the common summer birds of the Cambridge Region, almost without exception, belong to species which breed more or less generally throughout the Transition Life Zone. Of the rarer summer birds the Acadian Owl, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Alder Flycatcher, Pine Linnet, Solitary Vireo, Blackburnian Warbler, Canadian Warbler, Brown Creeper, Red-bellied Nuthatch, and Hermit Thrush, belong more properly to the Canadian and Lower Canadian Zones, and the Least Bittern, Florida Gallinule, Orchard Oriole, Cardinal Gros- beak, Black-throated Bunting, Yellow-breasted Chat, Mockingbird, and Carolina Wren, to the Upper Austral Zone. Most of the birds included in the latter class appear to confine their visits to the eastern portions of the region, where the country is low and bordering on tide-water, while of the Canadian or Lower Canadian forms the Alder Flycatcher, Blackburnian Warbler, Canadian Warbler, Red-bellied Nuthatch and Hermit Thrush have been found in summer only in the hilly central or western portions. The Olive-sided Flycatcher and Pine Linnet, however, are known to have bred within the present limits of the City of Cambridge, and the Solitary Vireo and Brown Creeper have been seen there in early summer. It is a well-established fact that a large proportion of the smaller migratory birds, which pass and repass through eastern Massachusetts on their way to and from more northern breeding stations, follow lines of flight which border closely on the seacoast. Lying, as it does, very near the coast, the Cambridge Region (especially throughout its more eastern portions) is much better supplied with bird life in spring and autumn than are localities further inland. In May, when the heaviest flights are passing northward, and in late August and early Septem- ber, when the return movement is at its height, our woods and thickets are ten- anted, often for days in succession, by a fairly bewildering number and variety of Warblers, Sparrows and other small ‘ birds of passage,’ as they used to be called. Of these transient visitors the Lincoln’s Sparrow, Orange-crowned Warbler and Connecticut Warbler are especially interesting for the reason that they have been found more numerously and regularly in and about Cambridge than else- where in eastern Massachusetts. In winter, also, our region is especially favored by the smaller birds. Besides the species regularly found at that season throughout most of the State, such as the Quail, Ruffed Grouse, Red-shouldered Hawk, Screech Owl, Hairy Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Crow, Goldfinch, Snow Bunting, Tree Sparrow, Junco, Brown Creeper, White-breasted Nuthatch, Chickadee and Golden-crowned Kinglet, we are nearly sure to note those irregular visitors, the Pine Grosbeak, the two kinds of Crossbills, and the several forms of Redpolls, whenever they invade any part of eastern Massachusetts. Of the species which winter chiefly near the coast or only in places where food is particularly abundant, 60 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. as the Flicker, Meadowlark, Purple Finch, Song Sparrow, Cedarbird and Robin, the Cambridge Region attracts decidedly more than an average share, at least as compared with localities of similar character and extent lying further inland in the same latitude. Within recent years, moreover, the Red-winged Blackbird, White-throated Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, and Long-billed Marsh Wren — spe- cies which apparently leave most other parts of southern New England before the advent of cold weather —have been found repeatedly in midwinter in or near the Fresh Pond Swamps. There are occasional winters, however, when the Cambridge Region —as well as eastern Massachusetts generally —is practically barren of bird life. According to my personal experience this is quite as likely to happen during unusually mild as exceptionally severe seasons. The weather, indeed, has appar- ently little to do with the matter, the condition of the food supply being obvi- ously the chief if not sole determining factor. Whenever our cedar woods and groves are well supplied with berries they are sure to be frequented —at least soon after the close of January —by great numbers of Cedarbirds and Robins. Pine Grosbeaks and Purple Finches are also very fond of these berries, and I have known Quail to subsist on them for weeks at a time when the ground has been deeply covered with snow. The crop of weed seeds was once of great importance to most of our native fringilline birds, but in the neighborhood of towns and cities, as well as about many of the outlying farms, it is now garnered by the House Sparrows before the northern-breeding Finches, such as the Snow Bunting, Tree Sparrow and Junco, arrive. It is chiefly for this reason, I believe, that these birds winter with us less numerously than formerly, and for the same reason, no doubt, the Cambridge Region is becoming less and less attractive to the hordes of Tree Sparrows, Juncos, Song Sparrows, and Fox Sparrows which traverse it on their way northward in early spring and during the return journey in late autumn, Owing partly, without doubt, to its proximity to the seacoast, but perhaps even more largely to its generous supply of ponds, rivers, and marshes, the east- ern extremity of the Cambridge Region attracts a considerable number and vari- ety of wading and swimming birds. Most of them belong to species which have either little or no liking for the sea— such as the Pied-billed Grebe, Goosander, the Hooded Merganser, the surface-feeding Ducks (exclusive of the Black Duck), the Ruddy Duck, Mud-hen, Wilson’s Snipe, and Solitary Sandpiper, — or which are more or less equally at home in or about both salt and fresh water ——as the Horned Grebe, Loon, Black Duck, Lesser Scaup, Whistler, Buffle-head, Old- squaw, the three species of Scoters, the Spotted Sandpiper, and several of the northern-breeding Sandpipers and Plover. Of the sea birds and waders which are exclusively maritime by choice, and seldom seen inland at any season, our BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 61 list furnishes only a very few really good examples, among which may be named the Briinnich’s Murre, Little Auk, Leach’s Petrel, and Purple Sandpiper. No one of these species visits us regularly or frequently, although all of them are reasonably common along the neighboring seacoast. The list also includes two passerine birds which are very strictly confined to localities bordering on the coast, viz., the Ipswich Sparrow, which has been taken once in the Fresh Pond Marshes, and the Sharp-tailed Finch, which used to breed in the Cambridgeport Marshes. FAUNAL CHANGES. Some of the principal changes which have taken place in the fauna of the Cambridge Region during the past thirty or forty years relate to (1) Birds whose local increase may be attributed to changes in local conditions ; — as the Bittern, Green Heron, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Redstart and Long-billed Marsh Wren. (2) Birds whose local increase is evidently due to recent local protec- tion; as the Herring Gull, Black Duck, Whistler and Crow. (3) Birds whose local decrease is apparently due chiefly, if not wholly, to changes in local conditions ;—-as the Chimney Swift, Bobolink, Meadowlark, Barn Swallow, Bank Swallow and Pine Warbler. (4) Birds whose local decrease is probably due chiefly to persecution by the House Sparrows ;— as the Least Flycatcher, Purple Finch, Song Sparrow, Indigo-bird, Tree Swallow, House Wren and Blue- bird. (5) Birds whose decrease, and, in a few instances, total disappearance, has been not only local but general throughout New England, and evidently due chiefly or wholly to systematic persecution on the part of man;—as the Hooded Merganser, Green-winged Teal, Blue-winged Teal, Wood Duck, Wood- cock, Lesser Yellow-legs, Upland Plover, Quail, Ruffed Grouse, Wild Turkey, Wild Pigeon, Red-tatled Hawk and Great Horned Owl. For convenience of further consideration certain of the birds which have occurred in summer, either within or very near the Cambridge Region, may be grouped as follows :— (1) Breeding regularly, but only sparingly and locally: Least Bittern, Florida Gallinule, Alder Flycatcher, Solitary Vireo, Blackburnian Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat, Canadian Warbler, Brown Creeper, Hermit Thrush. (2) Breeding irregularly and rarely : Saw-whet Owl, Pine Linnet, Cardinal, Mockingbird, Carolina Wren, Red-bellied Nuthatch. 62 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. (3) Breeding rather commonly, but apparently only very locally, for one or more seasons which have been followed by periods of total absence: Olive- sided Flycatcher, Orchard Oriole, Black-throated Bunting. It is by no means certain that all the birds included in the first of these three classes have been long established as summer residents, or that they will continue to be so. Indeed there are reasons for believing that one or two of them did not occur at all in summer thirty or forty years ago. No one of them is generally distributed, and most of them occupy stations of limited extent more or less remote from the favorite breeding ranges of their respective species. Most of the birds placed in the second class appear to be of highly irregular occurrence, although two of them — the Mockingbird and Cardinal — have been noted rather frequently during the past few years. With respect to birds such as those named in the third class, as well as to some of those included in the first and second classes, an interesting question arises, viz., why, after having bred rather commonly or even numer- ously in the Cambridge Region, during one or more periods of apparently brief duration, —as the Orchard Oriole and Black-throated Bunting are known to have done, — or not uncommonly for a number of successive years, —as is illustrated by the case of the Olive-sided Flycatcher, — should they have nearly or quite deserted this region? So far as we know, they were not subjected to any general or very serious molestation while with us, nor were their haunts materially changed until after they had departed. What, then, could have led to their withdrawal? I can answer this question only by suggesting a theory which is based largely on established facts, but partly, as I am free to admit, on pure assumptions. Many if not most birds show a marked preference for breeding in certain regions, throughout which they are more or less evenly and generally distributed, but within which their numbers do not seem to increase beyond fixed maximum limits no matter how carefully the birds may be protected or how successful they may be in rearing young. It has been assumed that these limits are deter- mined by the food supply. This no doubt is an important factor at certain sea- sons and in certain localities, with birds which subsist largely on seeds and fruit, for food of this kind is seldom inexhaustible. But that insect-eating birds often exhaust the supply of insects, especially in summer and in regions largely under cultivation, I find it difficult to believe. I have observed —as, indeed, who has not !— that few birds — excepting those which, like the Swallows, Terns, Herons and Gulls, are accustomed to nest in colonies — tolerate very near neighbors of their own species during the season of reproduction. At its beginning each pair takes possession of a definite tract of woodland, orchard, swamp or meadow, which the male is ever on the alert to defend against trespassers of his own kind BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 63 and sex, although he often seems quite willing to share his domain with birds of other and perhaps closely related species. The extent of the area thus monopo- lized varies exceedingly with birds of different species. An apple orchard which affords sufficient room for —let us say—two pairs of Yellow Warblers, two pairs of Orioles, three or four pairs of Chippies and four or five pairs of Robins, seldom or never harbors more than a single pair of Kingbirds or Crested Fly- catchers. I know a tract of woods which has been regularly frequented for many years by a pair of Great Horned Owls and a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers. They usually rear their broods, but the number of breeding birds remains always the same, Apparently there is not room for more than a pair of each kind, although the woods exceed one hundred acres in extent. What becomes of the young? As I do not often find them in neighboring woods, I have little doubt that they remove to considerable distances to breed — perhaps sometimes as far as twenty or thirty miles. Such birds as the Golden Eagle and Duck Hawk require even more ‘elbow room’ when breeding. As a rule the species which roam over the most ground in the course of their daily wanderings claim and maintain the broadest preserves, while those of sedentary habits often content themselves with very modest freeholds. Whatever the extent of the domain, the birds who occupy it as a summer home evidently regard it as exclusively their own. The readiness and celerity with which trespassing birds are accustomed to retire when attacked or even merely threatened by the established tenants, has seemed to me to indicate that the claims of the latter to temporary ownership are recognized and respected by all right-minded birds. It is probable, also, that with birds, as with human beings, the simple fact of possession counts nine points in the law. In my opinion the desire for exclusive possession so conspicuously shown by the male, and often by him alone, is usually the direct result of sexual jealousy. This, as is natural, makes him intolerant, during the breeding season, of the near presence of rival males. If his concern were chiefly in respect to the food supply, it would be equally manifested at every season and towards all birds who subsist on the same food that he and his mate require — which is certainly not the case. What I have just said has made it plain, I trust, that, from the view point of the birds, a locality or region may be fully populated by them, when to us it seems but sparsely tenanted. Whenever it becomes overpopulated, the sur- plus birds (usually the younger or weaker ones, no doubt) are evidently driven from their natal haunts and forced to seek freeholds elsewhere. In other words there is an overflow to regions or localities more or less distant. As the waters of a pond or river return to their natural bed or channel when, after a period of flood, their volume is reduced within normal limits, so, it may be 64 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. assumed, do exiled birds return to their favorite summer ranges when a period of congestion there is succeeded by one of temporary scarcity. In February, 1895, immense numbers of northern-breeding Bluebirds perished from cold and starvation while at their winter homes in the South. It is probable that the loss represented fully eighty per cent of the total numbers of the species. When the survivors came north the next spring they did not spread out evenly over all the region usually inhabited by Bluebirds; on the contrary they occupied only what were evidently in their eyes its choicest portions. In some areas they were as numerous as ever that first season; in others only a few were seen; in still others of great extent they were wholly absent. The rapidity with which they increased at the stations chosen, and from them repopulated their former haunts, was simply astonishing. Indeed by the end of the next six or seven years they were as numerous and generally distributed as ever. It is probable that Bluebirds, as well as Robins, usually maintain their numbers at near the maximum limits, for they are exceptionally prolific and hardy birds. I have said that exiled birds return to their favorite summer haunts when- ever the congestion there is ended. It is probable, however, that this rule is not without exceptions. Indeed there are good reasons for believing that when the exiles form new colonies in localities or regions which prove well suited to their tastes, they sometimes occupy them permanently. From such outlying stations there are also, no doubt, occasional overflows into neighboring and perhaps less congenial territory. Thus the scattered pairs of Yellow-breasted Chats which, from time to time, have been found breeding in the Cambridge Region, have probably come from the long established and formerly flourishing but iso- lated colonies in Lynn and Swampscott. At the time when the Black-throated Buntings invaded eastern Massachu- setts in numbers, they bred regularly and abundantly in the Middle States, from which, doubtless, they spread northward, but throughout which they have since practically disappeared, although they are still numerous enough in certain parts of the Mississippi Valley. I believe that they were originally confined to the treeless portions of this valley and that they did not extend their range eastward until the heavy forests of the Ohio Valley and the Middle States were largely replaced by fields of grass or grain. If this were so, they have simply returned to their normal habitat, no doubt because their numbers are not at present sufficient to enable them to occupy the Atlantic Coast region also. It is not probable that we shall again see them commonly in New England until they have repopulated the Middle States, which, of course, they may never do. In other words there is not likely to be a sudden and direct overflow from the Mississippi Valley to a region so distant from it as New England. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 65 INTRODUCTION OF THE HOUSE SPARROW. In 1858 Mr. Joseph Peace Hazard imported a number of House Sparrows from Liverpool, England, for the purpose of liberating them at Peace Dale, Rhode Island. They were landed at Boston where, it is said, some of them accidentally escaped! Of these fugitives nothing was afterwards heard, and it is probable that all of them perished. The House Sparrow was again intro- duced into Boston — this time deliberately but once more without apparent suc- cess — in 1868, when two hundred birds were purchased in Germany by the city government. “Unfortunately all died on their passage except about a score. These were set at liberty in June, but, weakened by their sea-voyage, several of them were found dead in the deer-park, and the rest disappeared. The fol- lowing summer more were imported, but all died except ten. These were wel- cared for, and only released when in excellent condition. For some months nothing was seen of these birds, and the experiment was supposed to be a fail- ure, when it was ascertained that they had betaken themselves to the vicinity of stables in the southern part of the city, had increased and multiplied in large numbers, reappearing in the winter to the number of one hundred and fifty. They were regularly fed by the city forester each day in the deer-park, and roosted at night in the thatch of the roofs of the buildings. Since then they have very largely increased. About twenty, that same summer, were set at lib- erty in Monument Square, Charlestown.” ? I remember spending the greater part of a cold morning in December, 1869, looking for the alien birds in Boston. On this occasion I failed to find any of them on the Common, but near the pond in the Public Garden I finally came upon six or eight huddled together in the top of a leafless bush. During the next three years they became numerous in Boston, and in 1873 % they began to invade Cambridge, appearing first at Harvard Square and in Cambridgeport. A few were seen in the immediate neighborhood of our own place the following year, and in 1875 a pair nested, for the first time, in our garden. By 1878 they had established themselves very generally throughout Cambridge, as well as in 1 Merriam and Barrows The English Sparrow (Passer domesticus) in North America. U. S. Department of Agriculture. Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy. Bulletin I, 1889, 18, ? Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, History of North American Birds, I, 1874, 526-527. 3 It is possible that a few birds entered Cambridge before this date, but if so I have been unable to obtain any evidence of the fact. 66 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. parts of Watertown, Belmont, Waltham and other neighboring towns, and in the course of the next six or eight years they spread over the greater part of the territory which they now occupy in the Cambridge Region, taking possession first of the town centers, next of the cultivated grounds about suburban dwell- ings, and finally of such outlying farms and orchards as they found suited to their tastes. For some time they shunned all densely wooded and most sparsely populated localities, but they had made themselves thoroughly at home in the country lying immediately to the westward of Mount Auburn before its orchards, woods and fields had begun to give place to settlements of houses. The introduction of the House Sparrow into America called forth a storm of protest and warning from several of our leading ornithologists to whom it was known that in parts of the Old World where the bird abounded its presence was generally regarded —and for good and sufficient reasons—as a curse rather than a blessing. Nor had the Sparrow been long in this country before our newspapers and other serial publications began to teem with accounts of its rav- ages on fruit and grain, and of its murderous assaults on certain of the native birds, while even its usefulness as a destroyer of noxious insects came to be seriously questioned. Its friends and supporters, by no means few in num- ber, rushed to the rescue with counter statements and evidence, coupled with impassioned appeals to humane sentiment, and the pros and cons of the ques- tion were argued at such length and with so much personal feeling that the controversy came to be termed the ‘sparrow war.’ Some of the charges brought against the bird at this time may have been without foundation, and others, unquestionably, were grossly exaggerated, but that most of them were at least based on fact is only too evident at the present day. It is probable, however, that only those of us who personally remember the conditions which existed before the Sparrows came, and who actually witnessed the changes that accompanied their increase and general dispersion, can realize to the full the disastrous and far-reaching effects which their introduction has had on our native bird population. When the House Sparrow began to invade Cambridge, the native bird fauna of this city was rich and varied for so large and populous a place. As the alien hordes multiplied and spread, several of the indigenous species which, up to that time, had bred numerously throughout the entire city, retired first from its central portions and finally beyond its suburbs. The Bluebirds, House Wrens and Tree Swallows were the first to go, and the Eave Swallows soon followed them. So quickly and completely were these four species banished that they had nearly or quite ceased to breed anywhere in the thickly settled parts of Cambridge within ten years from the first appearance of the House Sparrows. The Purple Finches, Song Sparrows, Indigo-birds and Least Flycatchers disap- BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 67 peared more slowly, but in the end almost as completely. These, I believe, are all the birds which became nearly or quite lost to us during this period ; but of the smaller and weaker species that still remain, the Redstart is probably the only one which has not seriously diminished in numbers and become greatly restricted in respect to local distribution. Of the larger and stronger birds, the Robin, Oriole and Flicker, do not seem to have been affected in any way by the coming of the Sparrows, while the Crow, Bronzed Grackle and Rose- breasted Grosbeak are much more numerous and widely distributed within the city proper now than they were thirty years ago. Respecting the precise methods by which our Bluebirds, House Wrens and Swallows were dispossessed of their ancestral nesting places and, with other equally attractive and useful species, driven nearly or quite beyond the confines of our cities and larger towns, my personal experience does not wholly agree with that of certain observers who have testified strongly against the Sparrow. For example, I have only once seen him attack, with obvious anger or malice, a Sully mature bird of any other species, and I believe him to be too crafty — and perhaps also too cowardly — to often resort to such open violence, although that he does so occasionally is beyond all question. Ordinarily, however, he appears to compass his ends by means which in some respects are so subtle and obscure that it is not easy to fathom them. Obviously he derives a great advantage from his exceeding prolificness and from the fact that he is nearly everywhere a permanent resident. Even before he had become abundant in Cambridge the Bluebirds, House Wrens and Tree Swallows, returning from the south in spring, found him in full possession of their nesting places, for to these he turned his first attention. Possession, in bird, as well as human, law weighs heavily in the balance. Nevertheless the species just mentioned did not, in most cases, aban- don their long established haunts without making the most determined efforts to retain them. They struggled, however, against fearful odds and witha foe too insidious and persistent to be successfully opposed. Not that it was difficult to evict the Sparrows from the bird-houses, olive jars and hollow apple trees in which they had begun their nests, for the cowardly crew fled ignominiously before the first onslaughts on the part of the legitimate tenants, but the latter discovered in the end that, whereas “they may take who have the might,” it is equally true that only “they may keep who can.” The Sparrows collected by dozens about each box or hole, chattering derisively and doing whatever else they could to keep the mother Bluebird, Wren or Swallow in a state of perpetual irri- tation and alarm. If her mate appeared, or if she herself sallied out to attack them, they would instantly scatter and disappear, only to return again shortly afterwards. Whenever she ventured forth in quest of more nesting material, or of food for herself or young, they would enter the hole and tear the nest to pieces, 68 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. while not infrequently they perforated the eggs, or killed the young by pecking holes in their tender skulls. All these deeds of aggression have been repeatedly witnessed, and most of them have come under my own observation. In cases such as those just mentioned the Sparrows were evidently actuated by a strong desire to obtain possession of the comfortable and secure breeding places of the Bluebirds, Wrens and Swallows, but no such motive will account for the similarly conducted forays which they have been known to make on the nests of Warblers, Vireos and even of the smaller Flycatchers. I am of the opinion, however, that these and all other birds which build nests unsuited to the Sparrow’s use have never been maliciously persecuted by him to any serious extent, and that such of them as have withdrawn from the places which he most frequents must have done so chiefly because of influences that he exerts indi- rectly and, no doubt, quite unintentionally. For one thing, I believe that his harsh and insistent voice is discordant to their ears, and that they are annoyed and discouraged when, as so often happens, it drowns their own sweet and musi- cal notes. Assuredly this must be so if, as can scarcely be doubted, they appre- ciate and enjoy their own music or that of their mates. Again, the Sparrow overcrowds most of the localities which it inhabits, and, being constantly present there, devours, almost before they ripen, very many kinds of seeds and berries which formerly attracted and nourished other and infinitely more desirable seed- and fruit-eating birds. With the sources of supply on which insectivorous birds depend, the Spayrow does not, however, interfere to any appreciable extent ; although he occasionally catches and devours small insects, and in June habit- ually feeds his young on the larve of the canker-worm whenever they can be easily obtained. I am quite aware that the House Sparrow continues to have friends and defenders who, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, deny that he has had anything to do with the local disappearance or diminution of any of our native birds, or who maintain that such changes would, in any event, have resulted from the rapid increase in human population and dwellings that has taken place in most of our towns and cities during the past thirty years. With those who have long held strongly to such opinions it is quite useless to argue, since they have become so hopelessly imbued with prejudice as to be unwilling, if not unable, to appreciate the significance and weight of the testimony bearing on the opposite side of the question ; but for the benefit of the younger genera- tions, who may be assumed to be open to conviction, yet not fully informed respecting the past history of the case, it is certainly worth the while to revert to the definitely established, if almost forgotten, fact that up to the time when the House Sparrow became numerous in Boston, Bluebirds, House Wrens, Tree Swallows, and several other kinds of birds which have long ceased to occur Piate IV. N. O. C., Memorr IV. cgi | Hits f 21 Charlestowne re ae Hl i DN a il idea Sat il} Ne fil sal NNT cil PML , il a ie it ital Hi | i il it ny ‘ih | ‘i ty It ity lk ip an ini “iin ih ") Uh MA, g yA "i iti Watertowne vite His References eA I nip Map of CAMBRIDGE St 5 Gov.Dudleys house 7 Main Street 43. Kirkland 4 College grounds 5. Market place a 6. Alewife brook 7 Ariingtoh 8. Sparks 4 North Avenue 2.Linnean St 9 Brattle 5. Vassal Lane Charles D Eniot CE] Compiled Dec. 1880, from the best obtainable data and with apprecamate accuracy by as easting in 4635 Scale 2 22.East Cambridge 9. Putnam Avenue 20.Pieasant Street 21.Millers River 23. Pelham's Island 24. Fort Washington 3 St 10 Dunster WW Mason 12. Ash BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 69 there in summer, bred regularly on Boston Common. Yet the physical condi- tions and immediate environment of this urban park were essentially the same then as they are today. There are also neighborhoods lying near the heart of Cambridge, which within the past thirty or forty years have changed but slightly in respect to the number of houses, or in the extent and character of the gar- dens and other open spaces, but from which the native birds above mentioned disappeared, as they did from Boston, during the period of rapid increase and’ general dispersion of the House Sparrow. EARLY WRITERS AND ORNITHOLOGISTS. Wood’s ‘New Englands Prospect,’ Morton’s ‘New English Canaan,’ and Josselyn’s ‘ New-Englands Rarities Discovered’ and ‘Two Voyages to New- England,’ contain matter which relates more or less directly to the ornithology of the Cambridge Region. They treat chiefly of a narrow coastal belt extend- ing from Plymouth, Massachusetts, to Portland, Maine, and exclusively of periods when most of this region was still either virgin wilderness or but sparsely and recently settled. It is to be regretted that their authors had not more to say of the birds which they met with, but their quaintly phrased testimony is per- haps all the more interesting by reason of its very meagerness and often obscur- ity. Although it has been repeatedly cited and discussed by ornithologists, its value and pertinence have been by no means fully brought out. As I have had rather frequent occasion to quote from these early writers in the text of my paper, it may be well to say here a few words concerning them and the general character of their ornithological work. Thomas Morton was first on the ground, although his ‘New English Canaan’ was not printed until 1637 (Mr. Adams thinks “there is {trong inter- nal evidence that” it “was written in 1634”), and hence three years after Wood’s ‘New Englands Prospect’ was published. Morton made at least four different visits to Massachusetts. On the first occasion he came over in the summer of 1622 (less than two years after the first settlement of Plymouth) and 1jJ, A. Allen, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, I, 1876, 53-60; Memorial History of Boston, I, 1880, 11-14. C. H. Merriam, Birds of Connecticut, 1877, 45 e¢ seg. W. Brewster in ed. C. F. Adams, Jr., Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1883, 189-199. 2 C. F, Adams, Jr., Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1883, 78. 70 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. remained at Wessagussett (Wessaguscus of Morton, now Weymouth) until Octo- ber when he returned to England. He next came early in 1625 to settle at Passonagessit, or Mount Wollaston, as it is now called, a headland of Quincy Bay about two miles north of Wessagussett. “The two localities were feparated from each other not only by the river [the Monatoquit River], which here widens out into a tidal eftuary, but by a broad bafin which filled and emptied with every tide, while around it were extenfive falt marfhes interfected by many creeks.” } On this occasion Morton spent three consecutive years at Mount Wollaston, or “ Ma-re-Mount,” 2 as he called it, consorting freely with the Indians and supply- ing them with guns, ammunition and ‘fire water’ in exchange for furs. By so doing he interfered with the trade, as well as security, of the Plymouth colon- ists, whom he further offended by his conspicuously riotous and immoral manner of life. They accordingly caused him to be arrested by Myles Standish in June, 1628, and he was sent back to England in a fishing vessel two or three months later. He returned to ‘“Ma-+re-Mount” in August of the following year, and remained there until September, 1630, when he was again arrested (this time by order of Governor Winthrop) and, after an imprisonment. of some four months, banished once more to England. He reappeared at Plymouth in the summer of 1643 when “Capt Standish takes great offence ....that he [Morton] is so neer him as Duxburrow [Duxbury], & goeth sometimes a fowling in his ground,” ? but this, of course, was after his book was published. He “feems to have gone in June, 1644,” * from Duxbury to Casco Bay, and to have died “poor and despised” ® at Acomenticus (now York, Maine), in 1645. Morton was a keen sportsman, trained tothe use of a gun and also skilled in the art of falconry which he apparently practised with some success soon after settling in Massachusetts. We gather from his text that he devoted a generous share of his time to the pursuit of the Geese, Ducks and wading birds of various kinds, which, in his day, resorted to the waters and shores of Boston Harbor in countless thousands. It is not improbable that some of his shooting excursions extended as far as the Back Bay and the lower reaches of Charles ‘River, 1C. F. Adams, Jr., Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1883, 9. 2 [bid., 14, foot-note. 3 Edward Winslow in litt. to John Winthrop, Sept. 11, 1643, Massachusetts Historical Collec- tions, fourth series, VI, 1863, 175. *C. F. Adams, Jr., Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1883, 85. 5 John Winthrop, History of New England from 1630 to 1649, edited by James Savage, II, 1826, 192. C. F. Adams,Jr., Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1883, 91. ® He says: ‘at my firft arrivall in thofe parts [I] practifed to take a Lannaret [no doubt a Duck Hawk], which I reclaimed, trained, and made flying in a fortnight, the fame being a paffinger at Michuelmas.’’ (Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1637, 71. Ed. C. F. Adams, Jr., 1883, 195- 196.) BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 71 although of this there is no evidence. Without question, however, most of the birds which he met with near Mount Wollaston formerly frequented the Cam- bridge Region also. Hence his testimony regarding them is not without perti- nence to our present subject. Of its general reliability there can be little or no doubt. Indeed he seems to have been an intelligent and accurate observer, and to have confined himself chiefly to writing of matters with which he was familiar from personal observation. Unfortunately he took little notice of birds other than those in which sportsmen are more or less directly interested. William Wood’s ‘New Englands Prospect’ was published in London in 1634. Its author came to Massachusetts early in 1629 and returned to England in August, 1633. He describes, evidently from personal knowledge and obser- vation, most of the islands in Boston Harbor, “ Weffagutus” (= Weymouth), Mount Wollaston, Dorchester (then “the greateft Towne in Mew England’ ), Roxbury, Boston, Charlestown, Cambridge (then “ New-towne”), Watertown, “Mifticke” (= Medford), “Saugus” (= Lynn), Nahant, Salem, “ Marvill Head”’ (= Marblehead), “ Agowamme” (= Ipswich), and “Merrimacke” (= Newburyport).!_ He also mentions making a trip to Plymouth, which he reached by following Indian trails leading through the dense forest. But although he appears to have visited nearly if not quite all of the settlements which then existed in Massachusetts, most of his time was apparently passed at a place which he calls “Saugus,” of which he was one of the original founders. Mr. Charles C. Smith, Treasurer of the Massachusetts Historical Society, writes to Mr. Walter Deane, that “when we first hear anything of Saugus it covered all the territory between Boston and Chelsea on the west and Salem and Marblehead on the east; and this was the case when Wood wrote. So far as I can discover, the few inhabitants were scattered over the whole region, from Swampscott to Chelsea. About three years after Wood wrote, the name was changed from Saugus to Lynn; and it was not until 1815 that the present Saugus was incorporated ; it is only a small part of the original Saugus.” Wood’s map places Saugus at or very near the present location of Lynn, and his text makes it perfectly clear that this -was where he lived during the greater part of the four consecutive years that he spent in New England. We may further assume with reasonable safety that most of the wading birds and water-fowl which he mentions were met with in the marshes and shallow bays lying between Lynn and Revere and along the shores of the open ocean between Nahant and Marblehead. If, as there are some reasons for inferring, Wood was less of a sportsman } William Wood, New-England’s Prospect, edited by Charles Deane, 1865, 40-49. 72 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. than Morton, he certainly excelled him as a naturalist and writer. His zodlogi- cal interests were wider and deeper, he had a saner and more logical mind, while in respect to literary ability his superiority is especially marked. When writing of matters which had come under his personal observation he was habitually careful and moderate of statement, but he occasionally allowed himself to be betrayed into crediting, and also repeating, untrustworthy testimony regarding birds and mammals with which he was unacquainted. Singularly enough the text of the reckless and unprincipled Morton is almost wholly free from bor- rowed evidence of this character. Wood is said to have returned to Lynn the year (1635) after his book was published, and to have “represented that settlement in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1636. He led a colony of fifty to Sandwich, Mass., in 1637, and then suddenly disappears from the printed records. He evidently was a learned business man, loving the wilderness, and extraordinarily at home with the American Indians, of whom he is a most accurate reporter.” } John Josselyn’s ‘New-Englands Rarities’ was published in 1672, and his ‘Two Voyages to New-England’ in 1674. The earlier of his two voyages was undertaken in 1638, when he landed at Noddle’s Island in Boston Harbor on July 10, and after remaining there two days went directly by sea to Black Point (now Scarborough, Maine). Here he spent rather more than a full year, return- ing to Boston in September, 1639, and to England that same autumn. His second voyage was made in 1663, when he arrived at Boston on July 28. The following six weeks were apparently devoted to accumulating information regard- ing the already numerous towns and settlements of southern New England. Of these he treats at considerable length but in terms which indicate that his knowl- edge of them was largely derived from a study of books and maps, supplemented by hearsay evidence. It is probable, however, that on this and perhaps subse- quent occasions he visited most of the places lying near Boston and along the coast to the northward as far as Portland, Maine. Cambridge, he says, was then “the neateft and beft compacted Town, having many fair ftructures and hand- fom contrived ftreets; the Inhabitants rich, they have many hundred Acres of land paled with one common fence a mile and half long, and ftore of Cattle.”? He also tells us that “in 1669 the pond that lyeth between Water-town and Cambridge [i. e., Fresh Pond], caft its fifh dead upon the fhore, fore’t by a min- eral vapour as was conjectured.” 3 1E. M. Boynton, William Wood, New Englands Prospect, 1898, Introd., iii-iv. John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New-England, ed. 2, 1675, 165. W. Veazie’s reprint, 1865, 127. 3 Tbid., 189. Lbid., 145. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 73 By the middle of September, 1663, Josselyn was again at Black Point, reaching it, as before, in a coasting vessel from Boston. His second stay at this place apparently lasted for upwards of eight consecutive years. At least there appears to be no evidence that he went elsewhere during this period. It is therefore probable that a large proportion of the facts and fables reported in his books relate more or less directly to this particular locality or to the wil- derness that bounded it on the west and north. After leaving it for the last time, at the close of August, 1671, Josselyn returned to Boston, sailing thence for England on the roth of the following October.! Josselyn was a fluent and interesting writer, but what he has to say regard- ing the birds and mammals of New England appears to have been taken chiefly at second-hand and often on more than doubtful authority. He gave particular attention to plants, and especially to their medicinal properties, but Tuckerman says that “his curiofity in natural hiftory, and efpecially in botany, is his chief merit ; and this now gives almoft all the value that is left to his books.’2 We may picture him as an intelligent, well-educated but ease-loving man who pre- ferred sitting with a book by his brother’s fireside at Black Point to tramping with dog and gun across treacherous marshes or through difficult forest paths, but who, nevertheless, was not without interest in the plant and animal life of the regions which he visited. Naturalists who lack extensive field experience are seldom competent judges of the value and accuracy of field observations made by others, and Josselyn was no exception to this rule. Indeed he ap- pears to have lent a credulous ear to almost everything that was told him by the colonists and Indians, for his text abounds in absurd or exaggerated state- ments. Thus he tells of a “Triton” or “ Mereman”’ reported at Casco Bay, of a sow that, being killed, was found to have twenty-five pigs “ within her belly,’’? of a Snow Goose with three hearts, etc. The Moose, he says, is ‘‘ twelve foot ’’ high “from the toe of the fore-foot, to the pitch of the fhoulder”’ and the tips of its horns ‘are fometimes found to be two fathom [2. ¢., twelve feet ! ] afun- der.” + Nuttall’s ‘Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada’ was written in Cambridge, and much of the original matter which it contains apparently relates to observations made in the immediate neighborhood of that 1 All the dates given by me in the above accounts of Morton’s, Wood’s and Josselyn’s visits to New England were taken from the works of these authors, and hence are ‘old style’ dates. ?E. Tuckerman, John Josselyn, New-Englands Rarities Discovered, 1865, Introd., 9. 3 John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New-England, ed. 2, 1675, 23, 25. W. Veazie’s reprint, 1865, 23, 24. 4 [bid., 88, 89. Tbid., 70. 74 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. place between 1822 and 1832. The ‘Land Birds’ (Vol. I) was published by Hilliard and Brown of Cambridge in 1832, and the ‘Water Birds’ (Vol. II) by Hilliard, Gray, and Company of Boston in 1834. A second edition of the Land Birds, repaged and containing a good deal of additional matter, was issued by the latter firm in 1840. In 1891 Little, Brown, and Company of Boston brought out a ‘Popular Handbook of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada, Based on Nuttall’s Manual.’ This book was severely handled by the critics, and with good reason, for its editor, Mr. Montague Chamberlain, took many unwise liberties with Nuttall’s text, changing or omitting much of the original matter, and re-writing all the descriptions of the birds as well as those of their nests and eggs. A second and somewhat improved edition of the Nuttall-Chamberlain Manual appeared in 1896, and a third edition, reprinted from the electrotyped plates of the second edition, was issued in 1903. Thomas Nuttall was born in Settle, Yorkshire, England, in 1786. He is believed to have been of humble parentage and to have received no regular educa- tion, although he is said to have been “a well-informed young man,” ? possessing some knowledge of natural history, as well as of Latin and Greek, when, after serving as an apprentice to a printer in England, he came to America in 1808. Almost immediately after landing at Philadelphia he formed the acquaintance of Professor Benjamin S. Barton, through whom he became interested in botany. During the spring of this year he collected plants assiduously, bringing them to Barton, with whose assistance they were identified and preserved. Some of the field excursions made by him about this time extended as far as the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina. In the autumn of 1809 he accompanied the Scotch naturalist, John Bradbury, on an expedition up the Missouri River, whence he returned early in 1811 with a considerable collection of seeds, plants and minerals. During the following eight years he spent his winters at Phila- delphia, studying the collections made during summer trips to various parts of the region lying east of the Mississippi, between the Great Lakes and Florida. These field and closet investigations furnished the material for his ‘Genera of North American Plants’ a work which appeared in 1818 and which, in the opin- ion of Professor John Torrey, “contributed more than any other [work] to advance the accurate knowledge of the plants of this country.” ? During his journey into the interior of Arkansas, of which he published an account 3 in 1821, Nuttall was absent from Philadelphia about sixteen months 1, Durand, Biographical Notice of the late Thomas Nuttall, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, VII, 1860, 297. 2 J. Torrey, Flora of the Northern and Middle Sections of the United States, 1824, v. 3T. Nuttall, Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Territory, during the year 1819, 1821. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 75 (from October 2, 1818, to the spring of 1820), travelling it is said, ‘more than five thousand miles, mainly over a country never visited before by scientific explorers, and still in the undisputed possession of the wild Indian.”! This expedition was apparently only second in interest and importance to that which he and John K. Townsend made across the continent with Captain Wyeth (of Cambridge, Massachusetts) in 1834. After his return from Arkansas, Nuttall spent upwards of two years more at Philadelphia. During this period (between the years 1821 and 1823) he published a number of scientific papers, chief among which were: ‘Observations on the Geological Structure of the Valley of the Mississippi’; ‘A Description of some new species of Plants, recently introduced into the gardens of Philadelphia, from the Arkansa territory’; ‘Descriptions of rare plants recently introduced into the gardens of Philadel- phia’; ‘A Catalogue of a collection of Plants made in East-Florida during the months of October and November, 1821'; ‘Observations on the Serpentine rocks of Hoboken, in New-Jersey, and on the minerals which they contain’; ‘Observations and Geological Remarks on the Minerals of Patterson and the valley of Sparta, in New-Jersey’; ‘Observations on the genus Oryzopsis’ ; ‘Remarks on the Species of Corallorhiza, indigenous to the United States.’ “ At the end of 1822,” according to Durand, “Mr. Nuttall was called to Cam- bridge, to fill, in the Harvard University, the place of the late Mr. Peck. He was not elected Professor of Natural History, but simply appointed Curator of the Botanic Garden, the fund of the Massachusetts Professorship of Natural History being insufficient for the support of a professor. Mr. Nuttall had con- sequently but light duties of instruction assigned to him. He delivered only occasional lectures on Botany to the students and residents of Cambridge ; his time was almost exclusively devoted to the culture of rare plants and to his favorite studies, mineralogy and ornithology included. While at Cambridge, Mr. Nuttall led very much the same retired life that he had done in Philadel- phia ; he made few acquaintances, and the late Mr. James Brown was, perhaps, his only intimate friend. The house which he then occupied, and which is now the present habitation of the Professor of Botany, retains yet traces of some ingenious arrangements to favor his recluse habits.” ? “Towards the beginning of 1833, Mr. Nuttall returned to Philadelphia, bringing with him a collection of plants gathered by Capt. Wyeth, during a journey overland to the Pacific. Capt. Wyeth was soon to start on a second expedition, and Nuttall had decided to accompany him ; but, not succeeding in 1E. Durand, Biographical Notice of the late Thomas Nuttall, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, VIJ, 1860, 303. 2 Tbid., 304. 76 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. obtaining a prolonged leave of absence from the college authorities at Cambridge to perform this long journey, he concluded to resign his office of Curator of the Botanic Garden. During his short residence in our city [Philadelphia], prepara- tory to his arduous journey across the continent, he was assiduously engaged at the Academy of Natural Sciences, studying Capt. Wyeth’s plants, and prepar- ing his memoir on those which he had collected himself in the interior of Arkansas. The result of these labors was the publication of several valuable papers,” ! among them being: ‘A Catalogue of a Collection of Plants made chiefly in the Valleys of the Rocky Mountains or Northern Andes, towards the sources of the Columbia River’; ‘Collections towards a Flora of the Territory of Arkansas’; ‘A Description of some of the rarer or little known plants indig- enous to the United States, from the dried specimens in the herbarium of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.’ Nuttall’s journey across the continent was the last that he made into wild and dangerous regions. On this occasion he was accompanied by John K. Townsend, a young naturalist who was sent out to make collections for the Phil- osophical Society and for the Academy of Natural Sciences, and who during this expedition obtained a number of birds new to science, most of which were after- wards described and figured by Audubon. Nuttall and Townsend left Philadel- phia early in 1834, joining Capt. Wyeth’s party at St. Louis in March. On the 28th of April their “caravan, consisting of seventy men, and two hundred and fifty horses, began its march”? at Independence, Missouri, according to Town- send, whose well-known ‘ Narrative’ gives a full and very interesting account of the expedition. He and Nuttall reached Fort Vancouver at the mouth of the Columbia River on the 16th of the following September. Towards the close of the year they sailed for the Sandwich Islands, where they arrived on January 5, 1835, and remained upwards of three months. Returning to Fort Vancouver, they spent most of the following spring and summer on or near the Pacific Coast. Durand says that Nuttall sailed for home from the Sandwich Islands in a Boston vessel, and that he “arrived in Boston in the beginning of October, 1835.” These statements have been since repeated in substance by other writers, apparently on the authority of Durand, but, as Mr. F. V. Coville has pointed out* they are obviously erroneous, for 1E. Durand, Biographical Notice of the late Thomas Nuttall, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, VII, 1860, 305-306. 2 J. K. Townsend, Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains, to the Columbia River, 1839, 27. 3E. Durand, Biographical Notice of the late Thomas Nuttall, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, VII, 1860, 311. ‘F. V. Coville, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, XIII, 1899, 109-113. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 77 Townsend’s Narrative shows that in October, 1835, Nuttall was making his second voyage from the Columbia River to the Sandwich Islands,! while Richard H. Dana’s ‘ Two Years before the Mast ’ contains entries? which make it abso- lutely certain that Nuttall sailed with Dana from San Diego, California, on May 8, 1836, in the ‘Alert,’ and that, after rounding Cape Horn, they landed together in Boston on the 21st of the following September. Dana’s account of his meeting with Nuttall in California is most amusing. He says: “I had left him quietly seated in the chair of Botany and Ornithology, in Harvard University; and the next I saw of him, was strolling about San Diego beach, in a sailor’s pea-jacket, with a wide straw hat, and barefooted, with his trousers rolled up to his knees, picking up stones and shells....he came down to the boat, in the rig I have described, with his shoes in his hand, and his pockets full of specimens.’’ The second mate of the ‘Pilgrim’ had de- scribed him to Dana before this as “a ‘sort of an oldish man,’ with white hair, and spent all his time in the bush, and along the beach, picking up flowers and shells, and such truck, and had a dozen boxes and barrels, full of them.” The sailors nicknamed him “ ‘Old Curious,’ from his zeal for curiosities, and some of them said that he was crazy, and that his friends let him go about and amuse himself in this way..... One of them, however, an old salt, who had seen some- thing more of the world ashore, set all to rights, as he thought, — ‘Oh, ’vast there! — You don’t know anything about them craft. I’ve seen them colleges, and know the ropes. They keep all such things for cur’osities, and study ’em, and have men a’ purpose to go and get ’em. This old chap knows what he’s about. He a’n’t the child you take him for. He'll carry all these things to the college, and if they are better than any that they have had before, he’ll be head of the college. Then, by-and-by, somebody else will go after some more, and if they beat him, he ’ll have to go again, or else give up his berth. That’s the way they do it. This old covey knows the ropes.’”’ ? When the ‘Alert’ was off “the island of Staten Land, just to the east- ward of Cape Horn.... Mr. N. said he should like to go ashore upon the island and examine a spot which probably no human being had ever set foot upon; but the captain intimated that he would see the island — specimens and all, — in — another place, before he would get out a boat or delay the ship one moment for him,” 4 1 J. K. Townsend, Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains, to the Columbia River, 1839, 233- 2 [R. H. Dana, Jr.], Two Years before the Mast, 1840, 347 ef seq. 3 [bid., 359, 300, 361. 4 Tbid., 412, 413. 78 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Nuttall spent the next four or five years in Philadelphia, working at the Academy of Natural Sciences, in close association with his friend Dr. Pickering, on the rich collections obtained during his trip across the continent and to the Sandwich Islands. This expedition furnished some fresh matter for the second edition of the ‘Land Birds’ besides a great amount of novel botanical material. In 1840 he published in the ‘ Transactions of the American Philosophical Soci- ety’ an important memoir entitled: ‘Descriptions of new Species and Genera of Plants in the natural Order of the Compositz, collected in a Tour across the Continent to the Pacific, a Residence in Oregon, and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands and Upper California, during the Years 1834 and 1835.’ This paper was quickly followed by another giving a ‘Description and Notices of new or rare Plants in the natural Orders Lobeliaceze, Campanulaceze, Vacciniez, Ericacez, collected in a Journey over the Continent of North America, and dur- ing a Visit to the Sandwich Islands, and Upper California.’ Soon afterwards he wrote an appendix to Michaux’s ‘ Sylva,’ which, however, was not published until several years later. In 1842 Nuttall returned to England, where he spent the remainder of his life on an estate in the neighborhood of Liverpool, which had been left to him by anuncle. He devoted himself to farming and to the cultivation of various kinds of plants, especially rhododendrons. In the autumn of 1847 he visited America for the last time, remaining at Philadelphia five or six months, and doing some further botanical work. His death took place in England on September 10, 1859. Mr. Durand gives the following interesting description of Nuttall’s personal appearance and characteristics:1 “He was a remarkable-looking man: his head was very large, bald, and bore the marks of a vigorous intellect ; his fore- head expansive, but his features diminutive, with a small nose, thin lips, and round chin, and with gray eyes under fleshy eyebrows. His complexion was fair, and sometimes very pale from hard labor and want of exercise. His height was above the middle ; his person stout, with a slight stoop; and his walk pecul- iar and mincing, resembling that of an Indian. “Nuttall was naturally shy and reserved in his manners in general society, but not so with those who knew him well. If silent or perhaps morose in the presence of those for whom he felt a sort of antipathy, yet, when with congenial companions, he was affable and courteous, communicative and agreeable. From long solitary study, the cast of his mind was contemplative and abstracted ; but when doubts and difficulties were solved, he was apparently light and buoyant. 1E. Durand, Biographical Notice of the late Thomas Nuttall, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, VII, 1860, 306-307. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 49 ‘At the conclusion of a piece of work,’ says one who has been most intimate with him, ‘I have seen him rise from his chair, approach the stove, and, in his own peculiar way, put his hands behind his back, and, for an hour or two, pour forth a torrent of narrative and scientific facts on which was the cast of his own philosophical thoughts and conclusions. I have frequently seen him in social circles, when he was the delight of the company, from his cheerful and natural replies to all interrogatories, and his voluntary details upon the subject of his travels and adventures.’ ”’ Although Nuttall made long and arduous journeys through wild and remote regions, enduring hardships of every kind with admirable patience and equanimity, he seems to have been ill-fitted in some respects for leading an adventurous life. Thus we are told by Durand that “he had the utmost horror of the Indians,” ! and that once, when he was warned that they were about to attack his party, his gun, which “had been freely used to uproot plants ’”’ was found to be “ filled with gravel to the muzzle.”? On another occasion when he had lost his way he mistook some friendly Indians, who had been sent to assist him, for hostile savages, and, in his attempts to elude them, passed three days without food or sleep. Nuttall was a naturalist of the old school, and a very good one, too. His interests took a wide range, for, while he devoted himself chiefly to plants, he also gave much attention to birds and was by no means without curiosity and knowledge respecting shells and minerals. As a botanist he so distin- guished himself that Durand wrote of him soon after his death: ‘No other explorer of the botany of North America has, personally, made more discov- eries ; no writer on American plants, except perhaps Professor Asa Gray, has described more new genera and species.”? This is higher praise than can be truthfully given to Nuttall’s work in ornithology. Indeed his only book on birds, the ‘Manual,’ is largely a compilation. Besides including borrowed state- ments and quotations for which he gave full credit, and much general matter which he made in a sense his own by re-writing it, he took long passages without acknowledgment and with but comparatively slight verbal changes from Wilson.+* Many instances of this might be cited. Some of the best are furnished by Nuttall’s life histories of the Wood Duck and Black Skimmer which were taken almost wholly, and those of the Mockingbird, Black Duck, Green Heron 1E. Durand, Biographical Notice of the late Thomas Nuttall, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, VII, 1860, 307. ? [bid., 308. 3 (bid. 315. 4 This fact was first brought to my attention several years ago by that diligent and appreciative student of Wilson, Mr. Walter Faxon. 80 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. and Bittern, which were in large part, from Wilson. Even the article on the familiar Bluebird contains, near its close, a rather long paragraph from Wilson’s justly celebrated account of this species. Asa rule the matter thus appropri- ated is somewhat disguised by the frequent addition, omission, substitution or transposition of words and sentences, as well as by the occasional interpolation of original statements or comments; but the thought remains essentially Wilson’s, and the verbal changes are rarely more than sufficient to give Nuttall’s trans- cript the character of a rather free translation, while in very many lines the text of the two authors matches almost word for word. It is not less to be wondered at than regretted that Nuttall should have resorted so freely to this practice. No doubt he considered it innocent enough, believing that he had sufficiently changed the extracts from Wilson to bring them within the scope of legitimate compilation. At the time of writing his ‘Manual’ he probably knew less about birds than has been commonly supposed. According to Durand, Nuttall “ did not relish much his residence at Cambridge ; he used to say that he was only vegetating, like his own plants. At last, his friend, Mr. Brown, induced him to write a work on Ornithology.” 1 From this we gather that the task of preparing the Manual, although probably not uncon- genial, was nevertheless more or less perfunctory. Apparently finding, as he progressed, that his knowledge of his subject was deficient at many points, he was forced to supplement it, more extensively than he cared to acknowledge, by drawing on the works of earlier authors. But why, it may well be asked, should he have borrowed from the brains or experience of others, when writing of birds with which he himself must have been perfectly familiar? Perhaps the habit grew upon him until he became almost unconscious of it. Some such explanation seems necessary to account for his appropriation of the Wilson par- agraph relating to the Bluebird. This passage contains nothing of novelty or importance, although as an expression of poetic and delicate sentiment it is truly admirable. Nuttall, however, was by no means deficient in sentiment of an equally refined quality, while he had a rare gift of phrasing his thought in quaintly attractive language. Indeed it is chiefly to the literary excellence of his ‘Manual’ that this book owes its enduring popularity. Not that it is without merit of other kinds. The portions which are compiled were taken from the best sources of information available at that time, and Nuttall was too good a naturalist and writer to deal with this matter other than intelligently and effec- tively, as well as pleasingly. His accounts of his own experiences and observa- tions are so very interesting and attractive that one is disappointed only because 1 E. Durand, Biographical Notice of the late Thomas Nuttall, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, VII, 1860, 305. ‘ BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 81 his book does not contain more of them. He was without question an excep- tionally careful and accurate observer of everything which especially attracted his attention. His original descriptions of the habits and actions of birds are invariably good, and his renderings of their songs and call notes rank among the very best that have ever been published. It is probable that the period of Nuttall’s greatest interest and activity in the field study of birds was that during which he was engaged in writing the ‘Manual,’ and that his original contributions to this book are based very largely on observations made in the immediate neighborhood of Cambridge. Indeed the ‘local coloring’ of much of the matter is unmistakable. Such portions of it as clearly relate to his experience in the Cambridge Region afford testimony of the utmost credibility and value, but these, unfortunately, are too fragmentary and disconnected to give us any very clear idea of what the bird life of Cambridge was likein Nuttall’stime. Evidently he had no thought either of the desirability of distinguishing the general from the local matter, or of the importance of making the latter as full and complete as possible. In view of these facts we should be cautious about laying too much stress on the negative testimony afforded by his work, although there are cases, I think, where it is entitled to consideration. It should be understood that all references to ‘the Cabots’ in the text of the present paper relate to Dr. Samuel Cabot and his brothers, Mr. J. Elliot and Mr. Edward C. Cabot, all formerly of Boston. Samuel Cabot was born in Bos- ton on September 20, 1815. He entered Harvard College in 1832 (the year when Nuttall’s ‘Manual of the Land Birds’ was published). Before and during his college days, as well as for a number of years after his graduation in 1836, he gave a large share of his time to the pursuit of ornithology, making a con- siderable collection of birds which was given, after his death, to the Boston Society of Natural History. He went to Paris to study medicine and surgery in September or October, 1839, returning to Boston in the spring or summer of 1841. In the winter of 1841-1842 he visited Yucatan with John L. Stephens,! obtaining there several birds new to science, which he described. Not long after this he began the practice of medicine in Boston. It absorbed more and more of his attention, as the years went by, although he never lost his inter- est in birds. Had he been able to devote his life to their study, he would, with- 1 This was Stephens’s second expedition to Yucatan, the first having been made in 1839-1840. Stephens published a two-volume work relating to each expedition. The appendix to volume II of the later work (Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, New Vork, 1858) has a brief chapter by Dr. Cabot, containing a full list of the birds which he observed in Yucatan between October, 1841, and June, 1842. 82 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. out question, have become one of the most eminent of the ornithologists of his time, for he had pronounced scientific tastes, great steadfastness of purpose, and a remarkably keen and analytical mind. He died on April 13, 1885. J. Elliot Cabot was born on June 18, 1821. He entered Harvard in 1836 and was graduated in 1840. He was a man of refined and scholarly tastes, devoted to literature, and also a true lover of nature. That his interest in birds, although sincere and lasting, was probably less profound and certainly less scien- tific than that of his brother Samuel, is indicated by the following passages ! which my neighbor and friend Mrs. Charles Almy (a daughter of Dr. Samuel Cabot) has kindly permitted me to quote from an autobiographical sketch by J. Elliot Cabot, printed for private circulation in 1904 :— “In 1836 (June, I suppose) I entered Harvard College, at the usual age of fifteen..... My intimates (besides a few of the younger Southerners) were two Boston boys who lived near me (at Mrs. Willard’s, where the A. D. Club is or lately was), William Sohier and Henry Bryant, the first an ardent sportsman, and the second an ardent ornithologist, who between them led me to spend much time in shooting excursions on Charles River and woods from there to Fresh Pond and the marshes. Shooting was not allowed by the authorities; and we were obliged to carry our guns slung (in two parts, the barrel separated from the stock) under our cloaks (which were then the regular college wear in place of great-coats). Our chief (or only) danger was meeting Jones Very before we had reached the shelter of the woods and remote fields, for he (alone of the college Faculty) was a great walker. When he met us in this rig (as he often did), he looked at us sorrowfully, no doubt penetrating our disguise, but was too high-minded to call us to question. I learned to be skilful in skinning birds, and sent vast numbers of specimens to my brother Sam, who was in Paris, studying medicine, and wanted them for exchange; for he was a devoted ornithologist without prejudice to his professional labors. I did not often carry a gun myself,— perhaps only as a cripple-stopper for Sohier,— but spent much time in studying the birds with my eyes while my companion was ranging about with his gun. Sohier was sufficiently interested in my pursuit to shoot all the birds I wanted, game or not. I gained in this way a good knowledge of the birds of this vicinity, which has been a source of pleasure to me since, but at extravagant cost. “My devotion to ornithology was much assisted and excused to myself by the urgings of my brother Sam (to whom I looked up very much, and who could see nothing but good in the stuffing of birds) to supply him with speci- 1[J. E. Cabot], J. Elliot Cabot [Autobiographical sketch — Family reminiscences — Sedge birds], 1904, 20, 22-24. ALI *(obgi-z&gi1) GNOd HSHYd ‘GNVIS ONLLOOHS LOdVS ‘AI IOWA “D °O BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 83 mens for exchange with naturalists in Paris, where he was living as a student of medicine. I must have sent him a vast number.” In the summer of 1848 J. Elliot Cabot accompanied Louis Agassiz on a scientific expedition to the northern shores of Lake Superior. The party also included — besides a number of Harvard instructors and undergraduates — the eminent entomologist, Dr. John L. LeConte. Professor Agassiz’s well-known book} relating to this expedition opens with a ‘Narrative of the Tour’ by Mr. Cabot. This paper contains, in addition to a ‘ Report of the Birds collected and observed at Lake Superior,’ comparatively little ornithological matter ; although pleasingly written, it is inferior, in respect to literary finish and attractiveness, to ‘ Sedge-birds,’ which Mr. Cabot published some twenty years later? He died in Brookline on January 16, 1903. Edward C. Cabot was an architect by profession. Having the artistic tem- perament and being, like all true artists, keenly alive to the beautiful in nature, he loved birds and also knew them fairly well, although they do not seem to have interested him deeply. He was about intermediate in age between his brothers Samuel and J. Elliot, and his death occurred in January, 1901. During most of the period between 1832 and 1840 the three brothers were frequently together in Cambridge. They were all sportsmen, and also more or less interested in birds from the standpoint of the ornithologist. Both interests drew them to Fresh Pond and the neighboring swamps, of which J. Elliot Cabot afterwards wrote with such exquisite grace and feeling in his ‘Sedge-birds.’’ As we may gather from this delightful little essay, he and his brothers followed the early morning shooting at Fresh Pond with some regu- larity during their college days. For several years they shot over live decoys in Cambridge Nook where, at the outlet of the pond, they had a brush stand, of which a sketch, kindly drawn for me from memory by Mr. Edward C. Cabot shortly before his death, is here reproduced. They were also fond of paddling in a canoe from Fresh Pond to Spy Pond by way of Alewife Brook and Little River, starting in the early morning, dining at the old Cooper Tavern in Menotomy Village, as Arlington was still called in those days, and returning over the same route late in the afternoon. It was by no means uncommon for them to shoot as many as twenty or thirty Black Ducks and Wood Ducks during such an excursion. Of these and kindred matters Dr. Samuel Cabot talked most entertainingly up to the very close of his long and useful life, for his interest in ornithology was ever almost if not quite as keen as that in the practice of medi- cine, by which he chiefly distinguished himself. On the occasion of our last 1L. Agassiz, Lake Superior: its Physical Character, Vegetation, and Animals, 1850. 2J.E. Cabot, Atlantic Monthly, XXIII, 1869, 384-386. 84 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. meeting, only a few months before his death, I questioned him closely as to his experience with certain of the birds (especially the water-fowl), which he and his brothers had found between the years 1834 and 1840 in the immediate neighbor- hood of Cambridge. His answers, which I noted carefully at the time, were as decided and unequivocal as if based on written records, for he had an exception- ally clear and retentive memory. Indeed I have such entire confidence in the accuracy of this testimony that very much of it has been cited in the course of the present Memoir. I have also included several interesting notes which Mr. J. Elliot Cabot was kind enough to send me four or five years ago. WILLIAM BREWSTER. Cambridge, March 30, 1905. ANNOTATED LIST OF THE BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 1. Colymbus holbeellii (Reinh.). HOLBGLL’s GREBE. Of rare occurrence during migration and in winter. Although Holbeell’s Grebe is a common spring and autumn migrant, and a not uncommon winter resident, at many localities on the seacoast of Massa- chusetts, it seems to be a rather rare visitor to the Cambridge Region. There is a specimen in the New England collection of the Boston Society of Natural History which was killed on January 4, 1869, in the Back Bay Basin, where, on a few occasions in late autumn, I have seen single birds swimming about not far from West Boston Bridge. I have never met with the species in any of our fresh-water ponds, but Mr. Walter Faxon saw a solitary bird in the Upper Mys- tic Pond on April 27, 1893, and Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., in a letter dated April 4, 1905, tells me of the capture of two specimens in Arlington. One of these, he says, was shot “in Spy Pond, in October, about fifteen years ago, by O. W. Whittemore.” It “was identified by George Freeman who was a local authority on sea- and water-fowl.” The other bird was killed in Lower Mystic Pond in October, 1902, by Charles Sunergren who lives on the shore of the pond.” I have further learned from Mr. Warren E. Freeman, a son of Mr. George Freeman, that in October, 1904, about the 1oth of the month, he thinks — he examined a freshly killed Holboell’s Grebe which had been taken in Spy Pond. The gunner in whose possession he found it refused to part with the bird and Mr. Freeman does not know what afterwards became of it. 86 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 2. Colymbus auritus Linn. Hornep GREBE. Transient visitor, uncommon in autumn, very rare in spring. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 26, 1896, one male! taken, Lower Mystic Pond, A. Franklin. October 2, 1894, one im. taken, Lower Mystic Pond, G. B. Frazar. November 9, 1902, one seen, Fresh Pond, P. T. Coolidge. The Horned Grebe occurs abundantly along the Massachusetts coast during the spring and autumn migrations, and is not uncommon there in winter, also, but it does not visit the waters of the Cambridge Region at all regularly or fre- quently. I have never personally met with it in any of them, but my collection includes the skins of two young birds which were killed in Fresh Pond, one on October 13, 1882, the other during the same month of the following year. Both were taken by Mr. Charles R. Lamb, in whose note-book, under date of October, 1882, I find the following entry: ‘‘ Horned Grebes were common in Fresh Pond during this month, from about the 8th to the 25th or not quite so late. I saw two or three nearly every morning, and should say that at least ten or a dozen were shot. Asa rule they occurred singly and were very shy, diving or flying when approached. On the morning of the 17th, however, three very tame birds were seen together.’’ Mr. Harold Bowditch tells me that in 1902 he noted a Horned Grebe in Fresh Pond nearly every day from October 25 to November 3, and that a bird, which he believes to have been the same individual, was seen there on November 9g by his friend, Mr. Philip T. Coolidge. I have a Horned Grebe in nearly full breeding plumage which Mr. Arthur Franklin of West Medford shot in Lower Mystic Pond on March 26, 1896, and Mr. George B. Frazar has shown me a young bird which he took in this pond on October 2, 1904. Mr. Walter Faxon informs me that there is a mounted speci- men in Arlington, which was killed in Spy Pond about thirty years ago. 1 No. 46,153, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 87 3. Podilymbus podiceps (Linn.). PIED-BILLED GREBE. DIPPER. Transient visitor, common in autumn ; formerly found breeding in one locality. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 22, 1894, two seen, Great Meadow, W. Faxon. April 6 — November to. November 22, 1897, one seen, Fresh Pond, O. A. Lothrop. NESTING DATES. April 23 — 30. On June 13, 1891, Mr. Walter Faxon found a number of Pied-billed Grebes breeding at Great Meadow. There can be little doubt that they had been established there for some time previous to this, for the shallow, brush-grown reservoir which they inhabited had then been in existence for nearly twenty years. On the occasion just mentioned, Mr. Faxon saw or heard at least six or eight different birds, one of which was accompanied by chicks only a few days old, and on April 27, 1892, he discovered a nest containing five fresh eggs. During the following eight years Great Meadow was frequently visited by our local ornithologists, and the manners and customs of the Grebes were closely studied. One or two birds often appeared in the pond as soon as it was free from ice — this sometimes happening before the close of March —and by the middle of April the full colony was usually re-established. It was difficult to judge as to how many members it contained, for they were given to haunting the flooded thickets, and we seldom saw more than three or four of them on any one occasion ; but at times, especially in the early morning and late after- noon when the weather was clear and calm, their loud cuckoo-like calls and odd whinnying outcries would come in quick succession from so many different parts of the pond that one might have thought there were scores of birds. Probably the total number of pairs did not ever exceed a dozen, while during some seasons there were apparently not more than five or six. They built their interesting floating nests in water a foot or more in depth, anchoring them to the stems of the sweet gale and button bushes, and laying from five to eight eggs which usually were covered by the bird whenever she left them. Although a few sets of eggs were taken by collectors, the Grebes reared a fair number 88 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. of young every season, and without doubt they would have continued to resort to Great Meadow for an indefinite period, had not the reservoir been abandoned, ‘and its waters almost completely drained, in the autumn of 1901; since then the birds have ceased, of course, to frequent the place. The locality just mentioned is the only one in the Cambridge Region where the Pied-billed Grebe is known to have been found breeding ; everywhere else it is of rare occurrence in spring, but in September and October migrating birds alight rather frequently in most of our ponds, preferring those which have shal- low, weed-grown coves, and sometimes lingering for weeks at a time if not too much disturbed by the gunners. They also used to frequent the reaches of Charles River lying between the Cambridge Cemetery and the Watertown Arsenal, and they have been seen there occasionally within the,past few years. 4. Gavia imber (Gunn.). Loon. Transient visitor in spring and autumn, of rare occurrence during recent years. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 26, 1905, one seen, Fresh Pond, H. Bowditch and R. S. Eustis. May 6, 1879, two seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. October 3, 1868, one seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. December I, 1902, one male! taken, Belmont, T. Mahoney. I have noted single Loons in Fresh Pond on October 3, 1868, May 5, 1869, and November 23, 1870, while on May 5 and 6, 1879, I observed two birds, no doubt a pair, swimming together off Hemlock Point. Mr. O. A. Lothrop tells me that one appeared in this pond on October 21, 1899, remain- ing until the 26th. Another, which was seen there almost daily from November 19 to December 1, 1902, became so tame that several of my friends approached it within a few yards as it was fishing close to shore. Unfortunately it was not content to spend its entire time in this sheet of water, but established a habit of flying to a flooded clay-pit in the eastern part of Belmont where it was shot, late in the afternoon of December 1, by Thomas Mahoney, a young sportsman, who brought the bird to me that same evening. The two instances last mentioned 1No. 30,445, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 89 are the only ones known to me of the occurrence of the species in Fresh Pond during the last twenty years. Loons occasionally visit the Mystic Ponds, and Mr. W. A. Jeffries tells me that he has seen them, on one or two occasions, flying over the Back Bay Basin ; he does not think, however, that they ever alight there. 5. Gavia lumme (Gunn.). RED-THROATED Loon. Very rare transient visitor in autumn. I am indebted to my friend Mr. Ruthven Deane for the skin of a young male Red-throated Loon which he shot in Fresh Pond on October 21, 1871. This is the only record that my notes supply for the Cambridge Region, although the species occurs commonly enough at its seasons of migration, and not uncommonly in winter, along the neighboring seacoast. 6. Uria lomvia (Linn.). BruNNICH’s MurRRE. Rare visitor in late autumn and winter. On December 11, 1901, a Briinnich’s Murre was seen in the Back Bay Basin very close to Harvard Bridge by Mr. Harold Bowditch and Mr. John T. Nichols. At one time it was nearly beneath them, and as they had a good glass they feel confident that no mistake was made concerning its identity. I am equally sure of that of a young Murre which I found in Fresh Pond on the morn- ing of November 30, 1902. It was swimming in deep water about two hundred yards from the end of Hemlock Point and not far from an immense flock of Herring Gulls. During the twenty minutes or more that I spent watching it, it remained in nearly the same spot, busily employed in preening its feathers. 1Just as this paper is going to press I learn that a Loon, apparently in immature plumage, was seen in Fresh Pond on April 26, 1905, by Mr. Harold Bowditch and Mr. Richard S. Eustis. go MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Through the powerful field telescope that I had with me I could make out clearly the shape and proportions of the bill and the characteristic lines of demarkation between the black and white on the cheeks and throat which dis- tinguish the young of Briinnich’s from that of the Common Murre. Indeed the identification of the bird was almost as satisfactory to me at the time as if I had held it in my hand. It was seen in the pond later that same day by Mr. Walter Deane, but neither of us succeeded in finding it there the next morning. Although Briinnich’s Murre occurs inland oftener than do any other of the Alcidz, its visits to the fresh-water ponds and rivers of New England appear to be made only at wide and irregular intervals. It is a rather common winter resident along our seacoast. 7. Alle alle (Linn.). Dovekie. LITTLE AUK. Transient visitor in late autumn or winter, occurring infrequently and at irregular inter- vals, but sometimes abundantly. Like the Puffin and the Razor-billed Auk, the Dovekie loves the open ocean, but unlike them it is apparently unable to remain at sea during every kind of weather, for exceptionally heavy gales, occurring late in autumn, or in winter, sometimes drive it inland in considerable numbers. Indeed it is probable that the memorable flight which inundated eastern Massachusetts on November 15, 1871,1 comprised nearly, if not quite all, the birds which were living at that time off our coast. On the date just named a violent easterly storm, accompanied by torrents of rain and an exceptionally high tide, forced multitudes of Dovekies to seek refuge in the fresh-water ponds and rivers near the coast, and many birds were picked up in an exhausted condition in fields, meadows, barnyards, and even in our city streets. Within the area to which this paper relates they appeared in the great- est numbers in Charles River between Cambridge and Waltham; in the Mystic Ponds; and in Fresh Pond. The sheet of water last named was visited by hundreds, which came in singly or by twos and threes, and occasionally in flocks 1] have two specimens which I shot during this flight, one, no. 4135, on the 16th in Fresh Pond, the other, no. 4136, on the 17th in Charles River near the Cambridge Cemetery. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. gI of from ten or a dozen to thirty or forty individuals each. The larger flocks often rose and left the pond, when disturbed, but the single birds, although somewhat restless, were absurdly tame. Some of them were taken alive, others killed with oars, and very many shot by collectors or sportsmen, fifty or more being captured in all. Several killed on the 16th and 17th had their stomachs filled with the remains of young alewives, which in those days abounded in Fresh Pond. No inroad at all approaching in magnitude the one just mentioned has since occurred in this region, but my notes supply the following records of smaller, subsequent flights of Dovekies. 1876, February 21. A single bird, alive but exhausted, picked up in Lexington by a farmer. 1876, November 20. A heavy northeaster, the wind blowing a gale all day, prostrating telegraph poles, wrecking dilapidated buildings and doing much damage to shipping. On this and the following two days a few Little Auks were seen in or near Cambridge, and one or two were taken. A flock was reported in Mystic River. I did not hear that any were met with very far inland. 1878, November 22. An easterly storm of considerable energy accompanied by sleety rain and an exceptionally high tide. Three Dovekies were taken in Charles River just above Waltham, and a fourth was caught alive in a coal-yard on Brighton (now Boylston) Street, Cambridge. Still another was found dead on November 26, in a market garden in Arlington. [1888, November 25. A furious northeaster swept the entire coast of New Eng- land today. The wind at times reached a velocity of eighty miles an hour. About six inches of snow fell. These conditions should have caused a heavy flight of Little Auks, but only two specimens have been reported. One of them was exposed for sale in Quincy Market, Boston, the other was brought to one of the Boston taxider- mists. Both were said to have been taken near Boston, but just.where I was unable to ascertain. | 1892, November 3. ‘There was a heavy rainstorm today. A Little Auk, mounted by Mr. M. Abbott Frazar, was shot in one of the Mystic Ponds on this date. Another, sent to Mr. James T. Clark for preservation, was captured about the same time in an empty freight car standing, with open door, on a siding at West Dedham. Nuttall, writing of the Little Auks, says:! ‘‘Those which have been ob- tained in this vicinity, usually in the depth of winter, have sometimes been found in Fresh Pond, and so lean and exhausted, by buffeting weather and fatigue as to allow themselves to be quietly taken up by the hand.’ This statement is somewhat ambiguous, inasmuch as Fresh Pond is ordinarily closed by ice during the ‘depth of winter,’ at which season, however, Dovekies may often be found in salt water along the seacoast near Boston. 1T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 1834, 532. Q2 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 8. Larus glaucus Brinn. GLaucous GuLL. BURGOMASTER. Rare winter visitor, occurring from November to April. Of the five instances, undoubted or probable, that have come to my knowl- edge, of the occurrence of the Glaucous Gull in the Cambridge Region, three relate to birds which have been found in the Back Bay Basin. One of these birds, now in the collection of Messrs. E. A. and O. Bangs, was killed by a gunner on April 4, 1881. Another, taken in December, 1882, was mounted by Mr. Pertia W. Aldrich, a well-known Boston taxidermist of former days, in whose possession IJ saw it in April, 1883, writing at the time, in my note-book, that it “ seems to be a fully adult specimen in winter plumage.” It was after- wards purchased by the late Mr. Gordon Plummer and is now in the collection of the Brookline (Massachusetts) High School. The third bird was observed by Mr. Glover M. Allen, who writes me as follows regarding it: “On January 20, 1905, I was crossing Harvard Bridge on the front platform of an inward-bound car, when my attention was drawn to a Gull that seemed pure white allover. It was standing on the ice near the edge of an open space at the Boston end of the bridge, about half-way between the bridge and the large culvert where the waters from the Fens empty. The sun was in the east and hence shone full on the bird, so that the conditions were as favorable as possible for observing colors. There was no pearly mantle visible, nor any dark markings on the wings. The bird stood out with a ghostly distinctness against the gray background of the ice. .... Two days later, while walking out over the bridge at a little before sunset, I again saw what I took to be the same bird, but this time it was farther off, and the light was behind it, as it stood on‘the ice near the open space. I do not feel that these observations are very conclusive, but in my own mind I have little doubt that the bird seen on January 20 was a Burgomaster.” Although Mr. Allen’s observations are certainly not ‘conclusive,’ they seem to me worth giving in view of the fact that about six weeks later a Gull similar in appearance to the one teported by him, and perhaps the same bird, appeared along the upper tidal reaches of Charles River, where it was noted first on March 4, and very frequently afterwards up to the 17th of the month, by Miss Adelaide Stockwell who is known to me as a careful and discriminating student of birds. She tells me that she saw the white Gull at various places along the river from the bridge near the center of Watertown to the Arsenal a BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 93 mile or more below, that it was always accompanied by a number of Herring Gulls and occasionally by a few Black-backed Gulls, that she had repeated oppor- tunities for comparing it with these species, and that on several occasions it was very near her, sometimes on wing, sometimes standing on a cake of ice. It seemed to be of about the size of a large Herring Gull, and its entire plumage, including that of the wings, was pure white. The legs and feet were light- colored, as was the bill except for a dark space at the tip. In short her descrip- tion leaves no doubt in my mind that the bird was a Glaucous Gull in the immature or ‘ utchinsizz’ plumage. On November 29, 1899, I found a Glaucous Gull in Fresh Pond. Like the bird seen at Watertown by Miss Stockwell it was in the ‘ Zutchinsiz’ plumage, i. e., wholly white, without trace of blue in the mantle or of mottling anywhere. Its bill, which was flesh-colored with a dark band near the tip, appeared some- what larger than the bills of the numerous Herring Gulls by which it was closely surrounded. I could see all this distinctly with a strong glass, for the bird was in a good light and at no great distance. During most of the time that I spent watching it, it remained apparently asleep with its head buried among the scapular feathers, slowly revolving as it drifted before a light wind. Every now and then, however, it would rouse itself and preen its plumage for a few minutes before lapsing into unconsciousness again. g. Larus leucopterus Faber. IcELAND GULL. WHITE-WINGED GULL. Winter visitor of infrequent if not rare occurrence. Messrs. E. A. and O. Bangs have an immature Iceland Gull which they took on January 31, 1880, in the Back Bay Basin where it was flying about, near the Milldam, “in company with another of the same species.” 1 A third bird of similar size and appearance was seen here by Mr. Outram Bangs on January 15, 1894, and a fourth by Mr. W. A. Jeffries on February 11 of the same winter. A fifth, shot by a boy on November 4, 1897, was flying over the Glacialis, into which it fell, remaining in the water until two days later when Mr. O. A. Lothrop found it floating within reach of shore. It is one of a number of exceptionally rare or interesting specimens which the gentleman last named has been kind and generous enough to contribute to my collection. 1 E. A. and O. Bangs, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, VI, 1881, 124. 94 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. On December 11, 1897, I saw an Iceland Gull in Fresh Pond, about three hundred yards from shore, off the end of Hemlock Point. It was so much smaller and lighter colored than any of the young Herring Gulls which were swimming close about it that it attracted my attention the moment it came within the field of my glass, a small telescope of considerable power, through which I watched it for half an hour or more. It was a young bird lacking all traces of bluish on the mantle and having the primaries (which it was obliging enough to twice display by slowly raising and opening its wings) of a nearly uni- form light brownish color. In the neighborhood of Eastport, Maine, and St. John, New Brunswick, young Iceland Gulls occur rather commonly in winter in company with about equal numbers of adult Kumlien’s Gulls. I have never seen a fully mature bird of the former species from any part of the Atlantic coast south of Newfound- land, and the young of the latter remain unknown or, at all events, unrecog- nized. These facts have led me to suspect that at least some of the young birds which pass as /eucopterus may really be Aumltent. For the purpose of investigating this question I have brought together a rather large series of specimens, but such study as I have been able to give them has failed to produce any definite results. The chief difficulty has been that I have found no opportunity of comparing them with fully identified young of leucopterus, for all the supposed specimens of the latter which I have examined came from localities where 2umltenzt is also known or likely to occur. Several years ago, Mr. Gerritt S. Miller, Jr., was kind enough to take two skins, which illustrate the extremes of dark and light coloring (there is much variation in this respect) represented by my series, to England where he showed them to Mr. Howard Saunders, who, under date of July 20, 1894, wrote me as follows regarding them: “Miller turns up with the Gulls and we went over them and the British Museum series — not a grand one, but sufficient. On the evidence I think he [Mr. Miller] agrees with me that your birds are both L. /eucopterus and that young kumlieni is yet to be found..... Why kumlient adult should come down to Bay of Fundy, etc., and not the young, is a puzzle..... As for young kumlzent, I expect it will prove to be, as Kumlien says, a very dark bird, like young of L. glaucescens.” 1 1In the Auk for January, 1906, Dr. Jonathan Dwight describes and discusses (on pages 36-41) what he feels “convinced is the undescribed plumage of the young” Kumlien’s Gull. I am by no means satisfied that his young birds (one of which I have examined) are really umlieni, although I consider it probable that in referring them to this species he has made no mistake. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 95 1o, Larus marinus Linn. GreaT BLACK-BACKED GULL. BLACK~BACKED GULL. BLACK-—BACK. Common winter resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. November 19, 1868, several seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. December 1 — April 15. April 25, 1904, one seen, Back Bay Basin, R. S. Eustis. On our seacoast the Black-backed Gulls arrive from the North early in September and linger well into May. They seldom appear inland before the lat- ter part of November or after the 15th of April, but within this period they may be seen frequently, and at times constantly, for weeks in succession, flying about over the Back Bay Basin with the Herring Gulls, in whose company they also occasionally visit Fresh, Spy, and the Mystic Ponds. It is unusual to note more than three or four Black-backs at any one time about such land-locked waters, although, on several occasions, I have known this number to be con- siderably exceeded in the Back Bay Basin. The adults with their strongly contrasting sable backs and snow-white heads and tails which give them, especially when they are soaring in circles, a superficial resemblance to adult Bald Eagles—are conspicuous and easily recognized birds, but the young are colored so nearly like those of the Herring Gull as to be frequently mistaken for the latter, despite the fact that the Black-back is decidedly the larger of the two. It is one of the wariest of all birds, and few if any specimens have ever been taken in our neighborhood. Dr. Townsend has reported seeing a few Black-backed Gulls “during the summer of 1903,” and no less than seven adults on July 17, 1904, at Ipswich, Massachusetts! On July 18, 1890, I found at least thirty or forty birds, all but two or three of which were in the grayish immature plumage, at Great South Pond, a brackish sheet of water lying just within the beach ridge on the south side of the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Such instances of local occur- rence in midsummer afford no evidence, however, that the species ever breeds in Massachusetts, for the birds to which they relate are believed to be invariably barren individuals. 1C. W. Townsend, Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, no. III. Birds of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1905, 90. 96 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. ir. Larus argentatus Briinn. HERRING GuLL. Sea GULL. Gray GULL. Abundant winter resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. August 18, 1902, one seen, Cambridge, W. Deane. October 15 — May 8. May 20, 1905, flock of eight seen, Fresh Pond, G. C. Deane. At certain places along our coast, such as Ipswich and the shores of Cape Cod, a good many immature and barren Herring Gulls spend the entire summer. The breeding adults, with their dark brown young, also begin to arrive from the North at these and other coastwise localities early in September. Herring Gulls seldom visit land-locked waters in Massachusetts, however, between May 15 and October 15 following. ‘About the latter date a few birds appear in the Back Bay Basin, but they do not become really numerous there until the roth to the 15th of November. From this time until well into April they are almost con- stantly present, enlivening the wide expanse of water or fields of drifting ice by their picturesque forms and graceful flight. Their numbers vary greatly from day to day, according to the tides, the weather, and the condition and extent of the ice. Sometimes there are but a dozen or so, ordinarily from fifty to a hundred, on exceptional occasions from three to four or five hundred. From the Basin they follow up the Charles River to Watertown; and when Fresh, Spy, and the Mystic Ponds are open they resort to them daily in consid- erable numbers, passing over the intervening land at a great height in compact flocks which are sometimes mistaken for those of migrating Geese. In calm weather they alight in these ponds, forming beds at a safe distance from shore and spending hours at a time preening their feathers or floating idly on the smooth surface. When there is a strong wind they scatter and fly about in search of 1 In his ‘ Birds of Essex County’ (Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, no. III. Birds of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1905, 91-98), published since the above passage was written, Dr. C. W. Townsend gives a full and most interesting account of his observations on the Herring Gulls at Ipswich. Among the birds present there in early summer he regularly finds a varying but usually small percentage of adults in full nuptial plumage. For reasons which he gives at considerable length he considers it ‘‘reasonable to suppose that some, perhaps only afew, of these Gulls are daily excursion- ists from their breeding places [on the Maine coast] to the beaches of Essex County for the food to be found there.” BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 97 food, picking up many a dead fish that would otherwise remain to pollute the water. So far from appreciating this useful service —to say nothing of the attraction which the presence of so many large and beautiful birds lends to such a place — the park keepers at Fresh Pond, acting it is said, under direct orders from the officials of the Cambridge Water Board, have repeatedly attempted to drive the Gulls away by shooting at them with rifles. Whenever the birds have been unmolested for a time they have visited the pond very regularly in autumn, and within recent years in constantly increasing numbers. On December 23, 1900, there were fully a thousand there, and on Christmas Day of the same year Mr. Walter Deane counted 1375 collected in and about an opening in the ice, while he estimated the number present on the morning of November 30, 1902, at upwards of 2400. Within the past few years the proportion of young to adult birds among the Herring Gulls which pass, the winter in the neighborhood of Boston, has very materially increased, a fact which indicates that the protection afforded, under Mr. William Dutcher’s supervision, to the breeding colonies scattered along the coast of Maine, has been conducted faithfully and with marked practical success. 12, Larus philadelphia (Ord). BonaPaRTE’s GULL. Rare transient visitor in spring. Dr. C. W. Townsend tells me that on April 7, 1905, he observed a Bona- parte’s Gull on wing near the Union Boat House on the Boston side of the Back Bay Basin. As it was in full nuptial plumage, and as its dark plumbeous head and reddish orange legs and feet were distinctly made out by Dr. Townsend, his identification of the bird may be accepted without hesitation. Messrs. Francis G. and Morris C. Blake have reported! seeing a Gull which they referred to this species “flying over the Charles River near the Harvard Bridge, May 14, 1904.” This record is too brief and vague to be wholly satisfactory. Bonaparte’s Gull is of common occurrence (especially in autumn) along the Massachusetts coast, and, as it is also perfectly at home about inland waters, such as Lake Umbagog, there would seem to be no good reasons why it should 1F, G. and M. C. Blake, Auk, XXI, 1904, 391. 98 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. not visit our larger fresh-water ponds, as well as the Back Bay Basin, with some frequency and regularity. The two records just given are, however, the only ones known to me which relate to the Cambridge Region. 13. Sterna hirundo Linn. Common TerRN. WILSON’s TERN. Very rare transient visitor. On September 11, 1868, I saw a Tern which I took to be a Wilson’s flying about over Spy Pond. Three days later another (or possibly the same) bird was shot at Fresh Pond by one of my friends, who brought it to me for identification. It proved to be an adult Common Tern. The specimen, unfor- tunately, was not preserved. A few Wilson’s Terns continued to breed, up to within the past twenty-five or thirty years, on some small, rocky islands off Swampscott, but along this and neighboring portions of our seacoast they are now seldom seen excepting at their seasons of migration, when they still occur commonly enough, especially in late August and early September. 14. Oceanodroma leucorhoa (Vieill.). Leacu’s PETREL. MoTHER CaRey’s CHICKEN. Rare transient visitor in autumn. Leach’s Petrel occasionally visits our fresh-water ponds and rivers, where it is likely to appear quite as often in fine as in stormy weather, but only, I believe, during the period when it is migrating southward in autumn. On October 8, 1870 —a brilliantly clear day —I shot a female in Fresh Pond. It came in at daybreak and, after flying about for a few minutes, alighted well out from shore and began pluming itself and sipping the water, taking, apparently, no heed of the boat in which I approached it within close gun-range. This specimen is still in my collection. I have another —a young male — which was killed by a boy on October 7, 1896, in the Lower Mystic Pond. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 99 It is probable that Leach’s Petrel also appears in the Back Bay Basin on rare occasions, for Dr. Charles W. Townsend tells me that in September or October, 1898 or 1899, he saw what he took to be a bird of this species flying about near Harvard Bridge. No other instances of occurrence relating to the Cambridge Region are at present known to me, but a Petrel, supposed to have been a Leach’s, was seen by my friend, Mr. Daniel C. French, skimming over the Sudbury River at Fair- haven Bay, Concord, some time in the autumn of 1870 (if I remember rightly), and Mr. Charles J. Paine, Jr., has given me the skin of a bird that was shot by his brother, Mr. John B. Paine, on October 14, 1904, at Wayland, where it was flying over the marshes that border the Sudbury River just below the old stone bridge. There is also a published record by Mr. A. P. Morse! of a Leach’s Petrel which was taken at Farm Pond, Framingham. It is an interesting fact that Wilson’s Petrel, although much more numer- ously represented in summer off our coast than is the species just considered, has never been found at any inland locality in Massachusetts. 15. Phalacrocorax dilophus (Swains.). DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT. Accidental visitor in autumn. On September 16, 1889, Mr. William P. Hadley and Mr. E. B. Winship saw a flock of about a dozen Cormorants, all apparently alike, flying over Great Meadow, which, at that time, was covered with water. The birds finally alighted well out from shore, when Mr. Hadley and his companion, after procuring a boat, approached them within long gun-range and shot two of them. One of these specimens was skinned by Mr. J. R. Mann and has since come into my possession. It isa young female Double-crested Cormorant in its first winter plumage. I know of no other instance of the appearance of the species in the Cam- bridge Region, but I have seen it once at Concord, Massachusetts, and it occurs regularly and rather commonly, especially in autumn, at Ipswich, Nahant and various other places along our seacoast. 1A. P. Morse, Birds of Wellesley and Vicinity, 1897, 11. 100 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 16. Merganser americanus (Cass.). AMERICAN MERGANSER. GOOSANDER. SHELDRAKE. Of rather rare occurrence in autumn and winter. At sunrise on November 22, 1867, I saw a flock of about thirty American Mergansers alight near the middle of Fresh Pond. Two birds of the same species, which had been feeding close in under the land, but which up to this time I had not noticed, swam out and, joining the others, soon returned with them. The flock then spread over a considerable space along the rocky shore near the Tudor boathouse (long since removed), some of its members landing on a pebbly beach to preen their feathers, others half swimming, half wading, in the shallow water, many diving for fish, and a few well out in the pond cruising about, with heads erect, on the watch for danger. All were females or immature males. I approached them under cover of the boathouse and, waiting until three birds came together, fired, killing two and wounding a third which was afterwards secured by another gunner. Still earlier that same autumn (on October 12) I had taken a solitary Goosander (a young male) in Fresh Pond, and on December 8 of the following year I saw there two males in fully adult plumage which were accompanied by a female or immature male. I preserved the bird killed on October 12, 1867, as well as one of those taken the following month, but neither of these specimens is now in existence. There can be no question as to their identity, however, for I had them both in my possession up to 1874, when I had become perfectly familiar with the rather nice points of dif- ference which distinguish females and young males of the present species from those of the Red-breasted Merganser. I have heard that the American Merganser sometimes visits Spy Pond. Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., assures me that he has seen it there several times and that on one occasion, about twenty years ago, he observed a flock containing ten or a dozen birds. Mr. Walter Deane tells me that in January, 1904, some Goosanders appeared in Charles River near the Cambridge Hospital. The weather was bitterly cold at the time, and most of the river thickly encased in ice, but there were a few spaces of open water where the birds alighted to swim about and dive for fish. On January 14 he noted an adult male and five females or young males with crested, rufous brown heads; on the 17th two adult males and nine females or young males; on the 24th an adult male and one female or young male. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. IOI The adult males were in fully mature plumage, and Mr. Deane got sufficiently near them to make out all their characteristic markings with absolute certainty. Up to within the past five or six years I have found the American Mer- ganser regularly, and during some seasons abundantly, in March and April, on the flooded meadows along Concord River, all the way from Wayland to Bed- ford, but the instances above mentioned are the only ones definitely known to me of its occurrence in the Cambridge Region. 17. Merganser serrator (Linn.). RED-BREASTED MERGANSER. SHELDRAKE. Uncommon transient visitor in late autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. November 17, 1900, one seen, Fresh Pond, O. A. Lothrop. December 29, 1866, one ad. male seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. As the Red-breasted Merganser is of regular and very common occurrence in Boston Harbor during autumn, winter and early spring, one would suppose that, like the Whistler, it would also frequent the Back Bay Basin, but Mr. W. A. Jeffries has never known it to alight there although he occasionally sees small flocks passing and repassing rather high over the water. On December 29, 1866, I noted a solitary bird in Fresh Pond, where it was swimming close under the steep northern shore of Hemlock Point; as it was a male in fully mature plumage, and at one time within a few yards of me, there can be no question as to the correctness of my identification. Mr. O. A. Lothrop is equally sure that two adult male Sheldrakes which he saw together in this pond on November 24, 1897, and a single bird which he found there on November 17, 18, 28, and 30, 1900, were Red-breasted Mer- gansers. I also learn from Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., that he has killed represen- tatives of this species in Spy Pond and in the Mystic Ponds. 102 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 18. Lophodytes cucullatus (Linn.). ‘-HoopED MERGANSER. Transient visitor in autumn, formerly common. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. August 11, 1868, one im. female taken, Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Brewster. November 10 — 30. December 22, 1898, one seen, Fresh Pond, O. A. Lothrop. The late Dr. Samuel Cabot told me, shortly before his death, that Hooded Mergansers occurred numerously in the Fresh Pond Swamps when he was at Harvard College (1832-1836). He used to find them oftenest in the secluded pools and reaches along Alewife Brook, where he killed numbers of young birds in autumn and, on one occasion, a fine drake in full plumage, with its mate, in spring. He did not think, however, that they bred in or near Cambridge at that time. From 1867 to 1875, and probably for several years later, the Hooded Mer- ganser visited Fresh, Glacialis, Little, Spy, and Mystic Ponds regularly each autumn, and late in November was often more numerously represented than any other kind of Duck. In Fresh Pond, during this period, I occasionally saw flocks containing upwards of thirty or forty members each, although ordinarily not more than ten or fifteen birds would be found together. They frequented sheltered coves and were incessantly diving for food in the shallow water near shore, or close to the edges of the ice when the ponds were partly frozen over. They were so very alert and wary that it was most difficult to approach them, and but few were killed by the gunners. I do not remember ever seeing a fully adult male among them, nor have I ever met with the species here in spring. On August 11, 1868, however, I shot a female in Little River a few hundred yards below Little Pond. This specimen was a young bird—so very young, in fact, that I have sometimes thought that it may have been hatched not far from the spot where it was killed, although it was fully feathered and quite able to fly well. It remained in my collection for a number of years, but finally was destroyed by moths. During the past twenty years or more the Hooded Merganser has been steadily decreasing in numbers throughout New England, and it is fast becoming a positively rare visitor to eastern Massachusetts. Mr. Walter Faxon tells me BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 103 that a wing-broken specimen was caught alive on the ice at Spy Pond on December 20, 1896, and Mr. O. A. Lothrop saw a solitary bird on October 25, and another on December 22, 1898, in Fresh Pond, where I also noted one on November 20, 1899. These instances are all that I can give of the occurrence of the species in the Cambridge Region within the last ten years. 1g, Anas boschas Linn. MALLARD. Of regular if sparing occurrence in autumn during the past nine years, especially at Fresh Pond. No early records for the Cambridge Region. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 19, 1900, one ad. male seen, Fresh Pond, O. A. Lothrop. December 26, 1900, one ad. male seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. During the earlier years of my shooting experience the Mallard was un- known to our local gunners, and everywhere throughout New England was considered a rare bird. Within the past decade, however, it has become a regu- lar and not uncommon visitor in autumn to several localities in eastern Massa- chusetts, especially to certain of the ponds near Boston. My first record for Fresh Pond is that of a female which I saw on Decem- ber 11, 1897, in company with five Black Ducks and a pair of Green-winged Teal. On October 25 of the following year a single drake was seen by Mr. O. A. Lothrop. In 1899 from one to three birds were almost constantly present between October 30 and December 25, and on November 20 two adult males were seen together; after this date there was a single drake, often accompanied by one and occasionally by two females. Hence at least four different birds must have visited the pond that autumn. In 1900 a drake in full plumage appeared on October 19 and was seen at frequent intervals up to December 26. My only record for 1901 is that of an adult male which I noted on November 21, and for 1902 that of a female seen by me on December 1. All these Mallards were, no doubt, attracted to Fresh Pond by the ever present Black Ducks, in whose company they were invariably found. Some of them tarried for a day or two only; others remained considerably longer; and in 1899 and 1900 at least one bird —a drake — stayed on week after week until the pond was completely closed by ice. Doubtless he learned to appreciate 104 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. the safe asylum which it afforded by day, and at night he probably accompanied the Black Ducks to their feeding grounds in the tidal creeks of the Revere or Lynn Marshes, while it is not improbable that he spent both winters with them off the neighboring coast. Mr. Walter Faxon tells me that a gunner of his acquaintance killed a Mallard in one of the Mystic Ponds a few years ago, and Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., includes the species in a list of the water-fowl which he has shot at Great Meadow. 20. Anas obscura Gmel. Brack Duck. Very common transient visitor in spring and autumn and not uncommon summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 15 — November 1. NESTING DATE. April 19, 1897, nest and thirteen eggs, Pout Pond Swamp, O. A. Lothrop. 21. Anas obscura rubripes Brewst. RED-LEGGED Biack Duck. Of abundant occurrence during the migrations in late autumn and early spring ; also resi- dent in large numbers on our seacoast during the entire winter, visiting Fresh Pond daily whenever its waters are not closed by ice. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 20 — March 15. Unlike most of our water-fowl the Black Duck does not appear to have diminished greatly in numbers during the past thirty years. It is a singularly -intelligent bird, and, despite its excessive shyness and its preference for remote solitudes, it is quick to perceive that the safest asylums may sometimes be found in places much frequented by man and constantly disturbed by sights and BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 105 sounds to which many other creatures, much less wary but also less discriminat- ing, never become accustomed. Thus although it has ceased to frequent cer- tain of our ponds which it used to visit regularly, it resorts to others oftener and in decidedly greater numbers than it did thirty or even sixty years ago. In Fresh Pond, for example, but few Black Ducks alighted between 18 32 and 1840, according to information which I have received from Mr. J. Elliot Cabot, while most of those which occurred there during my own early experience. merely passed overhead on migration although the pond then had extensive, reedy coves which attracted other kinds of surface-feeding water-fowl. No doubt the Black Ducks of those days knew full well that they were closely watched by ambushed gunners, and equally without doubt the birds of the present time have observed that shooting is no longer regularly practised at Fresh Pond ; for although its coves have been filled, its beds of reeds obliterated, and a broad, much fre- quented driveway carried around its entire margin, one is now nearly sure of finding Black Ducks in this pond almost any day between the middle of August and the date when the water freezes over. They usually arrive in the early morning and spend the day near the middle of the pond where they float or paddle idly about, preening their plumage or sleeping in perfect security. The railroad trains which dash noisily along the eastern shores do not seem to alarm them, and they pay no attention whatever to the carriages and bicycles that tra- verse the parkway drive, but the report of a gun, however distant, will often cause them to rise suddenly and leave the pond. They invariably depart at nightfall, either on migration of for more or less distant feeding grounds. Their numbers vary greatly from day to day and from month to month. In August it is unusual to see more than ten or a dozen at any one time; in September, more than twenty or thirty ; in October, more than seventy-five or one hundred ; but in November and December one may frequently count over one hundred and occasionally as many as two hundred and fifty. Most of the birds present in late November and in December, remain in our immediate neighborhood through the entire winter, visiting the pond by day whenever it is free from ice! and feeding by night in the tidal creeks and marshes near Lynn and Revere. Of these wintering Ducks the greater number, without doubt, belong to the form rubripes. Indeed we are often able to make out the chief distinguishing characters of this large northern race when the birds are swimming or flying near at hand. There can be little doubt that true obscura also occurs in winter, since it has been found sparingly at that season at Ipswich and elsewhere along the Massachusetts seacoast. To what extent its times of 1On several occasions they have been seen in some numbers, standing or lying on the ice, after the pond was almost completely frozen over. 106 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. migration differ from those of 7bvipes we are not at present definitely informed, but it certainly moves southward earlier in autumn and probably returns some- what later in spring. In the days when the Cabots were at Harvard College, Alewife Brook and Little River abounded in secluded, grassy pools and reaches which attracted great numbers of Black as well as Wood Ducks, but the former species had nearly deserted these particular haunts before 1865. At that time and for some five years later, however, a great many Black Ducks were killed in Smith’s Pond by a market gunner named Frost who shot from a brush stand over live decoys. Large flocks also occasionally alighted in Hardy’s Pond, as did small ones or single birds in the Mystic Ponds, Pout Pond, the Glacialis, Bird’s Pond, and Charles River. In spring the Black Duck arrives long before our ponds are free from ice, but it finds an abundance of food and a reasonable degree of safety in flooded brook meadows or in pools of water formed by the melting snow in pastures or even among dense woods. To several places of this character, in the less settled parts of Belmont, Arlington and Waltham, it still resorts during the latter half of March and the greater part of April, usually in pairs or singly but not infre- quently in flocks containing from ten or fifteen to thirty or forty birds each. I am very positive that the Black Duck did not occur in summer near Cambridge between the years 1865 and 1880. Had it done so, its presence would almost certainly have been discovered, for during this period, and especi- ally between 1868 and 1875, the whole Cambridge region was very frequently and thoroughly ransacked by good field observers. Nor did the Cabots find the bird breeding between 1832 and 1840, although Dr. Samuel Cabot, on one occa- sion in spring, shot a female whose oviduct contained an egg nearly ready to be laid. In 1889 I saw a Black Duck near Fresh Pond on June 9, and in 1893, as I am informed by Mr. Walter Faxon, a nest with eggs was found among some bushes on the top of a hill not far from Great Meadow. On May 12 of the following year a brood of young only a few days old and accompanied by the parent bird was met with by Mr. George C. Shattuck in a brook meadow near the Lyman estate, Waltham, and a few days later another brood was found in Rock Meadow by a farmer who caught and took home five of its members. Since 1894 broods of young or nests with eggs have been reported nearly every season. During the past six or seven years one or two pairs of birds have bred regularly in the Fresh Pond Swamps where, on April 19, 1897, I was shown a nest 72 sifu, with its set of thirteen eggs, by my friend, Mr. O. A. Lothrop. Mr. Alfred S. Swan writes me that in 1901 two ducklings of this species were captured in a bushy swamp near the outlet of the Lower Mystic Pond, Arling- BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 107 ton, by Mr. Everett S. Chapman, and that another brood was seen in the same place during the summer of 1902. 22. Mareca americana (Gmel.). BALDPaTE. AMERICAN WIDGEON. Transient visitor in autumn, formerly not uncommon, rarely seen during recent years. Dr. Samuel Cabot once told me that when he was at Harvard College (1832-1836) he used to kill American Widgeon regularly and in some num- bers, in autumn, finding them either in Fresh Pond or along the then retired reaches of Alewife Brook between the outlet of this pond and the road (now Massachusetts Avenue) leading from Harvard Square to Menotomy (now Arlington). They must have nearly or quite ceased to frequent these localities before my shooting experience began, for I have never met with the species anywhere in the region about Cambridge. Nor can I learn of any recent instances of its occurrence there other than the following, for which I am indebted to Mr. O. A. Lothrop :— On September 19, 1899, Mr. Alton H. Hathaway killed a female Baldpate at Pout Pond, over which, in company with two other birds of similar appear- ance, it was circling in the evening twilight. At this same pond, on the follow- ing evening, Mr. Lothrop saw a single Duck which he took to be a Baldpate, and on the evening of the 27th he shot one which proved to be a female of that species. It is not improbable that the bird seen on each-of these latter two occasions was one and the same, and it may also have been one of the two Ducks which escaped Mr. Hathaway’s gun on the evening of the rgth. Both of the specimens which were taken were mounted by Mr. Lothrop, who has since given me the one that he killed on the 27th. It is difficult to understand why the American Widgeon has been noted so seldom of late in the Cambridge Region, for within recent years it has occurred rather commonly — although apparently somewhat irregularly — at other locali- ties in eastern Massachusetts. In Wenham Lake (Essex County), for exam- ple, eleven birds were killed in 1903 and no less than nineteen in 1904, accord- ing to Dr. Townsend. 1C, W. Townsend, Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, no. III. Birds of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1905, 52. 108 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 23. Nettion carolinensis (Gmel.). GREEN-WINGED TEAL. Uncommon transient visitor. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE, April 4, 1868, two seen, Belmont, W. Brewster. April 23, 1875, one female taken, Fresh Pond Marshes, J. Nesbitt. September 6, 1871, one im. taken, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. December 13, 1899, one im. male seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. Although I know of but two instances of the local occurrence of the Green- winged Teal within the past fifteen years, I used to meet with the bird rather regularly and not so very infrequently — oftener in autumn than in spring but never in any numbers at either season. Perhaps it may be worth while to give a condensed summary of all my notes which relate to the field covered by this list. April 4, 1868. Started two Green-winged Teal from a small brook in Belmont, near the railroad station now known as Hill’s Crossing. September 8, 1868. Shot one in the Fresh Pond Swamps. September 12, 1868. Shot a young male in the Fresh Pond Swamps. October ro, 1868. Started one from a ditch in the Fresh Pond Swamps. October 19, 1868. Shot one in the Glacialis. October 24, 1868. Found three swimming together in the Glacialis and killed them all at one shot. One was an adult male in full nuptial plumage ; another (per- haps the mate of the first) an adult female; the third a young male in the plumage of the female. November 4, 1868. Saw two birds swimming together in Hardy’s Pond. November 6, 1868. Found the two Teal again in Hardy’s Pond this morning and shot one of them. April 10, 1869. Saw a pair in Fresh Pond. ‘The male was in full plumage. September 12, 1870. One was shot in Fresh Pond. October 4, 1870. The last bird of the season was killed in Fresh Pond today. These Teal have been unusually numerous here during the past few weeks. September 6, 1871. A young bird was taken in Fresh Pond. It was among some tame ducks the owner of which said that the Teal had been living with them for the past ten days and that it had even accompanied them to the house when they were fed. September 16, 1871. On this date I shot a young male in Muskrat Pond. October 3, 1874. Shot one in the Fresh Pond Marshes. April 23, 1875. A female was shot in the Fresh Pond Marshes by Mr. John Nesbitt. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. Tog November 10, 1888. Two birds were started from a pool in woods near Hardy’s Pond, Waltham, by Mr. Alfred L. Danielson who killed one of them. December 11, 1897. Sawa pair in Fresh Pond, swimming in deep water near the middle, in company with Black Ducks. The male Teal, as I easily made out by the aid of a powerful glass, was a young bird just passing into mature plumage. December 13, 1899. Saw a young male in Fresh Pond in company with Black Ducks. Its plumage was similar to that of the male seen on December 11, 1897. Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., writes me that he has killed the Green-winged Teal both in Spy Pond and at Great Meadow, and that it has also occurred in the Mystic Ponds. 24. Querquedula discors (Linn.). BLUE-—WINGED TEAL. Transient visitor, formerly of regular and very common occurrence in autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 11, 1898, two seen, Fresh Pond Swamps, O. A. Lothrop. June 20, 1894, a pair of ad. birds taken, Spy Pond, W. E. Freeman. August 30, 1876, Waltham, C. J. Maynard. September 1 — 30. October 25, 1898, two seen, Fresh Pond, O. A. Lothrop. In the earlier years of my shooting experience the Blue-winged Teal was one of the most abundant of the water birds that visited the region about Cambridge in autumn, but since 1880 its numbers have steadily diminished, not only here but everywhere throughout New England, until now it is comparatively seldom met with. It used to appear very regularly in September, coming, as a rule, with the first light frosts and frequenting all our ponds, the Fresh Pond Swamps, and to some extent the courses of the larger brooks. During excep- tionally wet seasons it also occasionally alighted in hollows in upland fields, pastures or even apple orchards, where rain water had collected in sufficient quantity to form shallow, temporary pools. I have only four spring records: the first, of a male which I saw flying over the Brickyard Swamp on May 4, 1868 ; the second, of a fully adult specimen of the same sex which I shot in this swamp on June 8 of the same year and which is still in my possession ; the third, of two hirds which were seen in the Fresh Pond Swamps on April 11, 1898, by Mr. O. 110 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. A. Lothrop; the fourth, of a pair of birds in high nuptial plumage preserved in the collection of Mr. Warren E. Freeman who shot them in Spy Pond on June 20, 1894. It is difficult to account for the presence here in June of Blue-winged Teal, except on the assumption that they occasionally breed in the Cambridge Region — which is not wholly improbable. 25. Spatula clypeata (Linn.). SHOVELLER. Very rare transient visitor. . Nuttall says incidentally! that he examined a pair of young Shovellers which were killed in Fresh Pond, obviously before 1834, and probably in autumn, although he does not mention either the year or month. The instance furnished by this ancient record is the only one known to me of the occurrence of the Shov- eller in the Cambridge Region, while elsewhere in Massachusetts the bird has been, during the entire period covered by my experience, one of the very rarest of our surface-feeding Ducks. 26. Dafila acuta (Linn.). Pintait. Gray Duck. Rather rare transient visitor. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 3, 1873, one ad. male taken, Cambridge, T. H. Eames. October 2, 1882, five seen, one female” taken, Glacialis, C. R. Lamb. December 21, 1899, one ad. male and one im. maleseen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. All but one of my local records for the Pintail relate to places now within the city limits of Cambridge ; they are as follows : — 1T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 1834, 376. 2 No. 8204, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. I1Il In the autumn of 1863 or 1864, either late in September or early in Octo- ber, I shot a Pintail near the foot of Vassall Lane. It was flying across a meadow towards a pool which we used to call ‘Muskrat Pond’ from which I had started a similar-looking Duck about half an hour before. The specimen remained in my collection for a number of years, but was finally destroyed by moths. It was a brown bird and either a female or a young male. Soon after sunrise on the morning of April 3, 1873, a fine drake Pintail in full plumage was shot by the late Thomas H. Eames in a marshy hollow filled with rain water on the Stimpson farm, not far from the present point of intersec- tion of Huron Avenue and Appleton Street, a locality now thickly covered with houses. I examined this bird a few hours after it was killed ; Mr. Eames had it mounted, but it was afterwards destroyed. On October 2, 1882, a flock of five Pintails, flying over the Glacialis, passed within long gun-range of Mr. Charles R. Lamb, who shot one of them, a female, the skin of which is now in my collection. In December, 1899, on the 13th and again on the 21st of the month, I saw two Pintails in Fresh Pond — the same individuals, no doubt, on both occasions. One was a fine old drake, the other a young male in a plumage about intermedi- ate between that of the female and of the adult of its own sex. They were in company with a number of Black Ducks, but invariably kept close to one another. Mr. William P. Hadley has shown me a young Pintail, apparently a female which he shot at Great Meadow some time in the autumn of 1899. It wasa solitary bird, he tells me, and rather tame. 27. Aix sponsa (Linn.). Woop Duck. Formerly a very common transient visitor and not uncommon summer resident; now seen only at its seasons of migration, and then in no great numbers. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March Io, 1892, a pair seen (Concord), W. Brewster. April 1 — 30. (Formerly in summer.) September 15 -—— October 20. October 26, 1867, one male taken, Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Brewster. November 18, 1894, one ad. male + taken (Concord), W. Brewster. 1No. 30,702, collection of William Brewster. 112 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. I can remember when the strikingly beautiful and exceptionally interesting Wood Duck was one of the commonest of the water-fowl which frequented the inland ponds and rivers of eastern Massachusetts. In the Cambridge Region it occurred very regularly and really numerously in spring and autumn, and not uncommonly in summer. In spring it might be sometimes met with along the wooded reaches of Beaver Brook between Rock Meadow and the Waverley Oaks; in autumn it alighted more or less freely in Fresh, Smith’s, Spy, and Bird’s Ponds; at both seasons, as well as in summer, its favorite haunts were Pout Pond, the more retired stretches of Alewife Brook and Little River, and the shallow ponds and ditches scattered throughout the neigh- boring swamps. During the earlier years of my field experience, or, to be more precise, from 1865 to 1872, it was by no means unusual to find Wood Ducks in midsummer at several of the localities just mentioned. When the young had become fully grown and strong on the wing, they were especially given to frequenting the Brickyard Swamp, where, in late August, I have seen scores of them in the course of a single evening, circling low, in small flocks, over the thicket-encircled pools. It is possible, of course, that some of the birds present during this month may have come from further north, but there can be no doubt that many of them were bred in the immediate neighborhood. Indeed I recall one occa- sion about the middle of June (in 1870, I think it was, but the date unfortunately has been mislaid), when I surprised a female Wood Duck, accompanied by ten or a dozen ducklings only a few days old, swimming in a sluggish brook near the outlet of Pout Pond. In 1867 the proprietor of the Fresh Pond Hotel purchased ten or a dozen pairs of Wood Ducks and confined them in a large, slatted enclosure at the rear of his stable. Although but imperfectly sheltered from the weather, they all lived through the following winter. Early the next spring most of them escaped into the neighboring swamps, where several were killed by the gun- ners not long afterward. It is probable that the survivors bred in or near these swamps that season, for young birds were more numerous about Fresh Pond during the following summer than I have ever known them to be before or since. My notes supply no local records of the occurrence of the Wood Duck in summer between 1875 and 1887, but during 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, and, I believe, for several seasons later, the birds were constantly observed in May and June about several of their former haunts. In April, 1891, Mr. Frank Bolles found two pairs near the Waverley Oaks, and on the 22d of the month he saw a female fly from one of these trees which contained a cavity apparently well suited for a nesting place, but too difficult of access to be closely examined. I BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 113 have also good reasons for suspecting that during this same season, and perhaps also in 1890, another pair nested in the grove of large oaks and hickories in front of the old mansion house at Payson Park, where both birds were observed feeding in a small, artificial pond. From 1887 to 1896 or 1897 Wood Ducks were frequently met with in early summer in the Fresh Pond Swamps, and in 1890 a man living on the shores of Pout Pond assured me that a brood of young had appeared near his house during each of the preceding three years. His son, a bright and truthful- seeming lad whom I afterwards questioned on the subject, confirmed this state- ment, adding that in the spring of 1889 he had found a nest, containing ten eggs, in a hollow stump on the edge of the pond — where, by an odd coinci- dence, a pair of the birds alighted while we were talking about them. Their regular occurrence at this time in a locality bordered by houses and other build- ings, crossed by several lines of steam railway, and situated less than two miles from Harvard Square, is sufficiently surprising, but they have occasionally ven- tured even nearer the heart of our city, for just after a snowstorm in early March, 1891, Mr. Frank Bolles saw one fly low over his house to the grounds of the Episcopal Theological School on Brattle Street, where it alighted in the branches of a large tree. Since 1898 the Wood Duck has apparently ceased breeding in the Fresh Pond region, to which, moreover, it is fast becoming an uncommon visitor even at its seasons of migration. It has been seen oftenest, of late years, at Great Meadow, where in 1899, 1900 and 1901, as I am informed by Mr. William P. Hadley, a pair nested in a large, hollow oak that stood on the northern edge of the shallow, brush-grown reservoir. The old tree blew down and the reservoir was drained of its water in 1902; since then the birds have not re- appeared in that neighborhood. 28. Aythya americana (Eyt.). REDHEAD. Rather rare transient visitor in autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 7, 1899, a pair seen, Waltham, H. B. Bigelow. December 21, 1903, one male seen, Fresh Pond, H. Bowditch. Not long after sunrise on the morning of October 24, 1868, a flock of eight I14 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Redheads alighted in Cambridge Nook, Fresh Pond. I sculled my boat to within thirty yards of them, but both barrels of my gun missed fire and the birds flew to the other side of the pond, where Mr. Ruthven Deane got a shot at them, wounding two which dove so adroitly and persistently that neither could be secured. Two of the members of this flock were old males whose rich chest- nut heads and necks, grayish backs and black rumps showed conspicuously in the sunlight as they floated buoyantly on the smooth water. On October 21, 1902, Mr. Richard S. Eustis observed a flock of five Red- heads in Fresh Pond, getting sufficiently near them to make out that two were males and three in the plumage of the female. It is probable that the males remained in the pond during the following month, for I found two birds of that sex on the mornings of November 14 and 30, as well as on that of December 1, swimming in company with Black Ducks in the deep water off Hemlock Point. On one of these occasions they approached the shore closely and I had an excel- lent view of them. One was a fully mature and remarkably handsome bird ; the other had the chestnut red of the head and neck of a yellowish cast, and the black of the breast tinged with brown. In 1903 a solitary male Redhead was seen in Fresh Pond by Mr. Walter Deane on December 6, and on the 11th, 17th, and 21st of the month either the same or a similar bird was observed there by Mr. Harold Bowditch. Mr. Walter Faxon writes me that “an intelligent gunner ” of his acquaint- ance claims to have shot a Redhead in Smith’s Pond in the autumn of 1888; Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., that the species has also been taken at Spy Pond; Mr. Henry Bryant Bigelow that he “saw a pair, male and female, on a small pond on the estate of Miss Walker in Waltham, on October 7, 1899.” The birds last mentioned have been already recorded by Messrs. Howe and Allen According to Miss Walker they appeared in the pond several days before the date of Mr. Bigelow’s observation and remained there about a week. 29. Aythya vallisneria (Wils.). CANVAS—BACK. Of very rare occurrence during migration. ° The Canvas-back is known to breed only in the northwestern portions of 'R. H. Howe, Jr., and G. M. Allen, Birds of Massachusetts, 1901, 53. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. IIS North America, and the line of migration followed by the birds which winter in the Middle and South Atlantic States is believed to extend directly from the Great Lakes to Chesapeake Bay and more southern waters. Hence it is not sur- prising that the species is, and apparently always has been, but little more than a chance straggler to New England. Of its occurrence in the Cambridge Region I can give but three records. The first of these was originally mentioned, many years ago, in the ‘Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History,’ in the following words: “Dr. S. Cabot, Jr., stated that he had recently received a pair of canvass-back ducks, shot near Newburyport. He had known only one previous instance of these birds being taken in this vicinity, to wit, at Fresh Pond, by Capt. N. J. Wyeth.” ! The second record relates to a solitary bird which visited Fresh Pond in the autumn of 1903, remaining there nearly two weeks. It was first noted by Mr. Harold Bowditch and Mr. Richard S. Eustis on November 18. Mr. Walter Deane and I had an excellent view of it on the afternoon of November 30, the latest date on which it is known to have been seen by any one. We found it swimming and diving within a few yards of shore, in a sheltered cove, in com- pany with two Ring-necked Ducks and six Coots (Fu/ica). Through our field- glasses, at a distance of less than one hundred yards, we could distinctly make out the characteristic shape and proportions of the head and bill of the Canvas- back as well as the general coloring of its plumage which was that of a female. The bird for a time was unaware of our presence (we were concealed behind a bank) and quite at its ease, but upon discovering us it swam directly out into the pond, with the Coots and Ring-necks following in its wake. On reaching a safe distance from land it buried its head in the feathers of the back and, for the next half hour or more, remained apparently sound asleep, its body slowly revolving, as well as drifting, under the influence of a light breeze. The Ring- necks, behaving in a similar manner, kept it close company, but the Coots returned to the shallow water near shore soon after we had left the neighbor- hood of the cove. The third record comes to my knowledge just in time to be inserted in the present connection. It concerns a Canvas-back which was noted in Fresh Pond by the Rev. H.G. Wright on December 23, 1905, and which was afterwards seen there almost daily up to January 8, 1906, (the date of the present writing). Mr. Walter Deane had a good view of the bird on December 31, 1905. He tells me that it was a male in fully adult plumage. 1[S. Cabot,] Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, II, 1846, 89. 116 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 30. Aythya affinis (Eyt.). LeEssER Scaup Duck. LEssER ScAaup. BLUE-BILL. A transient visitor to our larger ponds, not uncommon in autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 8, 1882, one ad. male! taken, Charles River, East Watertown, C. R. Lamb. May 5, 1892, one male and one female seen, Lower Mystic Pond, W. Faxon. October 18, 1869, four seen, three taken, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. December 6, 1900, six seen, Fresh Pond, W. Deane. In the earlier years of my shooting experience small flocks of Lesser Scaups frequently alighted in Fresh Pond in autumn. They were usually rather tame and, like the Ruddy Ducks and Scoters, loath to leave the pond, even when repeatedly fired at. I do not remember to have ever met with them in spring, but I have a male in full plumage which Mr. Charles R. Lamb shot on April 8, 1882, in Charles River, near the Watertown Arsenal, and Mr. Walter Faxon tells me that he saw a pair on May 5, 1892, and three birds together on May 1, 1893, in the Lower Mystic Pond. On November 22, 1900, and again on the 26th of that month, I found a male Scaup, which I identified as afinzs, swimming, in company with some Ruddy Ducks, in Fresh Pond where, later the same autumn (on December 6), Mr. Walter Deane observed a flock of six birds which he feels sure belonged to this species. I also learn from Mr. J. H. Hardy, Jr., that a flock of seven Lesser Scaups were seen in Spy Pond during “a rainy day in the last week of October, 1899,” and that he shot one of them. The instances last mentioned are all that my notes supply of the recent occurrence of this species in the Cambridge Region. About four miles to the southward, however, in Jamaica Pond — which, by the way, is surrounded by a much more thickly settled and bustling neighborhood than that bordering on any of our Cambridge ponds— the Lesser Scaup has appeared regularly and in considerable numbers during the past few years. Mr. Harold Bowditch tells me that he first noticed it there in December, 1900, when he saw about thirty birds on the 15th of the month and nearly as many on the following day. On December 1, 1901, he observed upward of fifty in the pond at onetime. He 1 No. 8207, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 117 has also sent me a letter written on June 4, 1902, by our mutual friend, Mr. William H. Slocum, who says: “The Scaup Ducks’ regular visits to Jamaica Pond started a few years ago with a small number one autumn, which stayed, I think, till driven out by the ice. Each autumn since, the number has been larger and the birds have fed nearer to the shore. Not being disturbed, they have become tamer, or the larger number has made the search for food keener. The spring visits have been more irregular, shorter in time and less in numbers. Last spring very few were seen.” I am not aware that the Greater Scaup Duck has ever been found in the Cambridge Region although I have seen it at Concord in spring as well as autumn. 31. Aythya collaris (Donov.). RING-NECKED Duck. RING—NECK. Very rare transient visitor in autumn. Shortly after sunrise on the morning of November 26, 1867, I noticed a solitary Duck in Smith’s Pond, diving for food near the eastern shore. By advancing quickly when it was under water, and flattening myself on the open, marshy ground just before it came to the surface, I approached within easy gun-range and killed the bird, which proved to be a young male Ring-neck. The specimen is still preserved in my collection. On the afternoon of November 30, 1903, Mr. Walter Deane and I found two Ducks, which I am positive were Ring-necks, in Fresh Pond. Accom- panied by a female Canvas-back and six Coots (/zlica), they were feeding close to shore in a shallow cove where we had a good view of them in a strong light at a distance not exceeding one hundred yards. They were diving continually and with remarkable vigor and agility, springing quite clear of the water just before they disappeared beneath its surface. Both were plain brown birds and apparently females. As they rose in the water to flap their wings, the bluish gray speculum, which distinguishes the Ring-neck from all our other Ducks except the Redhead, showed distinctly. The female Redhead not only pos- sesses this marking but is, in certain other respects, colored very nearly like a female Ring-neck. The two species differ materially in size, however, and these particular birds, as I fortunately was able to satisfy myself by comparing them with the Canvas-back and with the Coots, were not larger than Lesser Scaups, and hence much too small for Redheads. 118 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. The above records are all that I am able to give for the Cambridge Region, to which, indeed, the Ring-necked Duck appears to be nearly if not quite as infrequent a visitor as is the Canvas-back. 32. Clangula clangula americana (Bonap.). AMERICAN GOLDEN-EYE. WHISTLER. Rather common transient visitor to our larger ponds, and abundant winter resident on Charles River Basin. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 27, 1868, small flock seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. November 15 — April 1. April 29, 1898, one seen (Concord), R. A. Gilbert. July 26, 1889, one seen diving, Back Bay Basin, W. Brewster. Whistlers have always been common in late autumn and winter in the Back Bay Basin. They were formerly much disturbed by sportsmen and espe- cially by the draw-tender of West Boston Bridge who kept a grass-ttrimmed gun- ning-float in constant readiness for the pursuit of these and other water-fowl. ‘In consequence of this persecution the visits of the Whistlers became less and less frequent as the years went by. About 1874, however, a horse was badly frightened by a shot fired near the Milldam by some careless gunner, and soon afterwards a law was passed prohibiting all shooting on the Basin. During the next ten or fifteen years the numbers of the Whistlers which resorted to the Back Bay Basin remained about the same, but with each succes- sive season the birds came oftener and stayed longer. It was exceptional to note more than fifteen or twenty at any one time prior to 1889, but on Decem- ber 31 of that year I counted nearly one hundred. After this their numbers steadily increased, until in January, 1897, from five or six hundred to a thousand birds might be frequently seen scattered over the sheet of water lying between Harvard and West Boston Bridges. During the years 1897, 1898 and 1899 a considerable portion of the muddy flats which constituted the favorite feeding grounds of the Whistlers was removed by dredging, and since then the birds have not reappeared in anything like the numbers that were present in 1897. They often spend the entire day in the Basin, but invariably leave it a little before sunset, flying off in the direction of Boston Harbor and returning early the next morning. They evidently find an abundance of food, for they are BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 12 fe) constantly diving, often within gun-shot of, and sometimes almost beneath, the bridges. I do not know just how late into the spring they continue to frequent these waters, but I seldom see them there after the 8th or 10th of April. On July 26, 1889, however, I noticed a single bird diving near the West Boston Bridge. It was probably a crippled or a barren individual which had failed to go north at the usual time and was passing the summer in the neighborhood. Whistlers also resort to the tidal reaches of Charles River between Old Cambridge and Watertown, as well as to Fresh, Spy and the Mystic Ponds. At Fresh Pond they used to occur only occasionally, during the autumn migration, but since 1890 their visits have increased in frequency, and at the present time they may be often seen in small numbers in November and December; even in midwinter, when the pond is covered with ice, they sometimes alight in the open water about a fountain through which the pipe from Stony Brook Reser- voir enters Fresh Pond. 33. Charitonetta albeola (Linn.). BuFFLE-HEAD. BUTTER-BALL. Transient visitor in autumn (and winter? ). SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 20, 1868, one im. male taken, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. October 30 —— November 15. (Winter?) November 27, 1867, one seen, Spy Pond, W. Brewster. The pretty little Buffle-head used to occur quite regularly, if somewhat sparingly, in autumn, appearing late in October or early in November with the first hard frosts and, like the Dumb-birds, usually alighting well out from shore in our larger ponds. Even in the earlier years of my shooting experience it was far from numerous. Indeed I have never known more than eight or ten birds to be killed during a single season in Fresh Pond which has always been one of their favorite resorts in this neighborhood. I have seen them in Spy Pond, and on November 2, 1891, I found a single bird swimming and diving in a small ice-pond lying at the foot of Prospect Hill, Waltham. According to Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., the Butter-ball has been taken in the Mystic Ponds, and Mr. W. A. Jeffries tells me that he picked up a wounded bird in the Back Bay Basin about thirty-five years ago and that he has seen others there in late autumn, but never in winter. In December, 1903, however, a female or young 120 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. male spent a week or more in this sheet of water. I hada good view of it on the 23d of the month, when it was feeding in company with some Whistlers within one hundred yards of the sea-wall on the Boston side of the river. I cannot learn that the Buffle-head has ever been noted in spring in the Cambridge Region, and of late its autumnal visits appear to have been becoming less and less frequent. Indeed my only local records (besides the one last given) which relate to the past nine years are as follows. November 24, 1897. An adult male seen by O. A. Lothrop. November 9, 1898. An adult male seen by O. A. Lothrop. November 12, 1898. An adult male seen by Walter Deane. - November 21, 1898. A single bird seen by O. A. Lothrop. October 30, 1899. A fine adult male seen by O. A. Lothrop. The bird noted on November 9, 1898, was in the Glacialis. All the other records relate to Fresh Pond. 34. Harelda hyemalis (Linn.). OLpD-squaw. Transient visitor in late autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 24, 1871, seven males seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. November 17, 1870, one female! found dead, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. If I remember rightly, a few Old-squaws were killed every autumn in Fresh Pond during the years (1868-1872) when I was accustomed to shoot there regu- larly. My notes, however, furnish but few definite records for this pond; they are as follows : — On November 5, 1870, a pair of Old-squaws, accompanied by eight Ruddy Ducks, alighted in the pond about sunrise. After the flock had been fired into and scattered by another gunner, the Old-squaws came my way and dropped into the water not far from my boat. I sculled up to within thirty yards of them and killed them both. The female is still in my collection. I have another specimen (also a female) which I found early on the morning of November 17 of the same year, floating dead in Fresh Pond. Evidently it had died from the 1No. 4068, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. I2I1 effects of a gun-shot wound, probably inflicted the day before. On the morning of October 24, 1871, I had a good view of a flock of seven Old-squaws, all apparently adult males, which flew about low over the pond, but did not alight there. On November 8, 1875, a female Old-squaw, now in my possession, was shot in Fresh Pond by Mr. M. Abbott Frazar. Mr. George B. Frazar tells me that Old-squaws still occasionally visit the Mystic Ponds, and he has shown me a fine old male that was killed on Novem- ber 10, 1894, in Brooks’s Pond, an artificial sheet of water less than four acres in extent, in West Medford, not far from the Lower Mystic Pond. In Spy Pond, as I am assured by Mr. Warren E. Freeman, the Old-squaw has been seen rather frequently within the past fifteen years, sometimes in flocks containing as many as fifteen or twenty birds each. Mr. Freeman has an adult male, shot in this pond about eight years ago, which, he writes me, was “one of a flock of over twenty-five birds.” [Camptolaimus labradorius (Gmel.). Lasrapor Duck. Thomas Morton, writing “Of Birds, and fethered fovvles” noted by him in New England between 1622 and 1630, says: “Ducks, there are of three kindes, pide Ducks, gray Ducks, and black Ducks in greate abun- dance.”! It has been conjectured that his ‘pide’ Duck was the Pied or Labrador Duck of more recent authors. Although this is by no means clear, it is not unlikely that he really met with the Labrador Duck, perhaps in Quincy Bay, during his residence at Merrymount. If we may reason from analogy there are other and still better grounds for believing that this interesting species once visited all the larger bays connected with Boston Harbor, as well as the lower reaches of Charles River. The evidence on this head is purely circumstantial, however, and briefly as follows: (1) The Labrador Duck was found regularly, if only very sparingly, along the coast of Massachusetts, up to 1850 or a little later, and specimens are known to have been taken at localities no further distant from Boston than Swampscott and Ipswich. (2) Although for the most part a maritime bird, it was by no means confined to salt water. On the con- trary it sometimes wandered far inland, and in the neighborhood of the coast was more or less regularly addicted, at least in the Middle States, to following up the courses of broad tidal streams. Of the latter fact we are assured by Audubon, who states that this bird “at times” ascended the Delaware River “at least as far as Philadelphia,” and in such numbers that he found in the possession of “a bird-stuffer”? at Camden “many fine specimens,” all of which, we are led to understand, were taken in the river near that place “by baiting fish-hooks with the com- mon mussel. 2 If the Pied Duck was given to frequenting the tidal rivers and estuaries of Massachu- setts before they were much disturbed by white men, —as seems probable, — it could scarcely have failed, in those early times, to visit the shoal salt waters of the Back Bay to fish for mus- sels. It may even have alighted —at least occasionally —in some of our larger ponds, to lave its striking black and white plumage in their fresh waters, as the equally sea-loving Scoters and Old-squaws continue to do. It is believed to have become extinct before the 1 Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1637, 67, 68. Ed. C. F. Adams, Jr., 1883, 189, 190. 2J. J. Audubon, Birds of America, VI, 1843, 329. 122 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. close of the past century, for the last living bird of which we have definite knowledge was killed near Long Island, New York, in the autumn of 1875." 35. Somateria spectabilis (Linn.). Kine EIDER. Casual visitor in early winter. On the afternoon of December 4, 1893, Mr. George B. Frazar saw three large Ducks flying over Lower Mystic Pond. They alighted near the middle and soon swam inshore, diving at frequent intervals. By making short, quick runs when they were under water and concealing himself before they reappeared, Mr. Frazar approached within gun-shot of the birds and disabled two of them, which he had to shoot at many more times before finally securing them, for they were exceedingly tenacious of life. They proved to be King Eiders. The third bird, without doubt, was of the same species. It flew out over the pond and re-alighted, but was not afterwards seen. The ground, at the time, was covered with snow; the weather was clear and very cold with a violent north- west wind. One of the specimens just referred to is now in my collection. It shows a good deal of black on the scapulars and sides, and in these respects resembles the young male of the King Eider, but it is small for a bird of that sex and Mr. Frazar, who dissected and mounted it, was probably right in marking it a female. The other specimen, mounted by Mr. Morton E. Cummings, in whose pos- session I have lately seen it, is a plain brown bird and unquestionably a young female. The only other instance known to me of the occurrence of the King Eider at any inland locality in Massachusetts is that, reported? by Mr. Bent, relating to a young bird taken at Nippenicket Pond in Bridgewater on October 21, 1899. I suspect that the species visits our seacoast oftener than is generally supposed, although perhaps not regularly, and certainly by no means numerously. My col- lection contains seven Massachusetts specimens, of which two young birds (a male and female) were shot on January 6, 1875, off Revere (formerly Chelsea) Beach and hence not far from the eastern borders of the Cambridge Region. 1W. Dutcher, Auk, VIII, 1891, 204, 210, 213; XI, 1894, 9. 2A.C.Bent, Auk, XIX, 1902, 196. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 123 36. Oidemia americana Swains. AMERICAN SCOTER. BUTTER-BILL Coot. BUTTER-BILL. Transient visitor in autumn, of infrequent and apparently rare occurrence. Mr. W. A. Jeffries tells me that the American Scoter occasionally alights in the Back Bay Basin in autumn and it has been taken at that season in Spy Pond and in the Mystic Ponds, according to Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr. Among our older local gunners of thirty years or more ago there existed, as I well remember, a tradition to the effect that in still earlier times large flocks of ‘Coots’ had been occasionally seen in Fresh Pond, usually during heavy north- easterly storms, and it was said that on one memorable occasion upwards of fifty Butter-bills had been slain there in a single day. There can be little ques- tion that these stories, although probably somewhat exaggerated, were based on fact. I can give but one definite instance, however, of the occurrence of the American Scoter at Fresh Pond, — that of a fine old male which I saw and vainly attempted to shoot on October 3, 1868. It was killed by another sportsman on the following morning, but the specimen, unfortunately, was not preserved. 37. Oidemia deglandi Bonap. WHITE-WINGED SCOTER. WHITE—WINGED Coot. Transient visitor in autumn, formerly not uncommon. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 1, 1868, three seen, one taken, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. November 26, 1900, six seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. I can remember a time (1867 to 1872) when White-winged Scoters used to alight in Fresh Pond nearly every autumn— usually during October, quite as often in clear as in stormy weather, and almost invariably at daybreak. Asa rule they appeared singly or two or three together, sometimes in company with Ruddy Ducks. Nearly all were young birds and so tame that they fell easy 124 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. victims to the gunners. Nuttall, writing in 1834, says! that “when they have been seen in Fresh Pond, which they sometimes visit, at least the young, their heads have been observed nodding, as though they were oppressed by sleep; and we sometimes here have a saying of being as sleepy as a Coot.” Mr. O. A. Lothrop has given me a finely mounted adult male of this spe- cies, which was obtained at Fresh Pond in the autumn of 1899. It appeared there on October 29 and was seen daily up to November 4 when it was picked up dead near shore by the Park policeman. A still more recent instance of occurrence at this pond is that of a flock of six birds which I saw on November 26, 1900. They circled low over the water several times and then flew off towards the eastward. Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., writes me that the White-winged Scoter occasion- ally visits Spy and the Mystic Ponds. I have an impression that I saw an adult male, many years ago, swimming in the Back Bay Basin near West Boston Bridge, but my notes contain nothing to confirm this recollection. 38. Oidemia perspicillata (Linn.). SurF Scorer. Gray Coot. Transient visitor in autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 13, 1868, one im. taken, Fresh Pond, C. E. Chenery. October 23, 1893, five seen, four taken, Lower Mystic Pond, fide G. B. Frazar. Mr. George B. Frazar tells me that on October 23, 1893, a flock of five Surf Scoters alighted in the Lower Mystic Pond. He shot one of them, and three of the remaining four were killed by another gunner. I have met with this species only twice at Fresh Pond — on October 13, 1868, and October 17, 1870. On each of these occasions a solitary young bird came in at daybreak and was quickly shot. Mr. Alfred S. Swan of Arlington writes that “in times past a few Gray Coot used to drop into Spy Pond during hard ‘northeasters’’’ and that he killed “ nine out of a bunch of forty, one morning.” The females and young of the present species are invariably called ‘Gray Coot’ by our local gunners, but 1T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 1834, 421. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 125 as this term is sometimes applied to the young of the American Scoter, also, the identity of the birds taken by Mr. Swan is perhaps open to doubt. 39. Erismatura jamaicensis (Gmel.). Ruppy Duck. DuMB-BIRD. A transient visitor, formerly abundant in autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. June 22, 1890, one ad. male! taken, Charles River, Mr. Rivet. September 30, 1868, thirty seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. October 10 — November 8. December 14, 1900, six seen, Fresh Pond, W. Deane. Twenty-five or thirty years ago the ‘ Dumb-bird,’ as it was universally called by our local gunners, was by far the most abundant of the water-fowl which visited Fresh, Spy and the Mystic Ponds in autumn. It also alighted rather frequently in Smith’s Pond, occasionally in Hardy’s’ Pond, and sometimes in Charles River between Cambridge and Watertown, while on one occasion I found a single bird swimming in a small pond-hole surrounded by bushes in the Brick- yard Swamp. The migration began about the close of September or early in October, and continued late into November, although the bulk of the birds passed between October 15 and November 8. They came into the ponds in the greatest numbers when the weather was clear and frosty, usually at daybreak or shortly afterwards, sometimes singly or in pairs, oftener in bunches of from six or eight to a dozen or fifteen individuals each. At Fresh Pond I have had three or four such flocks in sight at once and have known upwards of fifty birds to be killed in a single morning. The last really heavy flight took place in 1882, when the Ruddy Ducks were almost as numerous as they had been during any of the preceding ten or twelve years. Only a very few birds are known to have visited Fresh Pond between 1890 and 1899, but in 1900 a good-sized flock appeared on November 17 and remained several weeks, haunting Cambridge Nook, where they were constantly diving and seemed to obtain an abundance of food. Up to December 6 there were from fifteen to seventeen of them, the number varying within these limits from day to day. On December 9 and 10 only five were present. On the 14th 1No. 45,097, collection of William Brewster. 126 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. there were six. The next morning Cambridge Nook was frozen over and the Ruddy Ducks had disappeared, not to return again that season. They reap- peared the following autumn, as I am informed by Mr. Richard S. Eustis, on October 22, when eight birds were seen. After this date they were almost constantly present in numbers varying from one or two to fifteen or twenty, while on October 31 twenty-two were counted by Mr. Eustis. It is to be hoped that they, like the Black Ducks, have at length discovered that Fresh Pond, once so perilous a halting-place for all their tribe, has become a safe haven of refuge, and that they will continue to visit it in ever increasing numbers, for they are among the most interesting of our water-fowl. Mr. Warren E. Freeman writes me under date of January 11, 1903, that at Spy Pond no less than thirty-two Dumb-birds were killed, and ten or fifteen others seen, on October 19, 1901, and that his note-books show that since he began shooting there in 1895 from twenty to thirty-five have fallen to his own gun every autumn. He does not think, however, that the total number taken in any one season during this period has ever exceeded fifty birds. These state- ments indicate that, despite the incessant persecution to which they are still sub- jected at Spy Pond, the Ruddy Ducks have occurred more numerously there, of late, than at Fresh Pond. At the Mystic Ponds, however, according to Mr. George B. Frazar, very few have been seen during the past ten or twelve years. On June 22, 1890, a male Ruddy Duck in full breeding plumage was killed in Charles River not far from the Watertown Arsenal, and directly opposite Faneuil Station, by a Mr. Rivet, who took the bird, next day, to Mr. M. Abbott Frazar by whom it was mounted. This specimen is now in my collection. Mr. Frazar tells me that it was alone when shot, but that another Duck, apparently of the same species, was reported to have been seen with it shortly before its capture. [Chen hyperborea (Pall.). Lesser SNow Goosz. Chen hyperbcrea nivalis (Forst.). GREATER SNow Goosz. All three of the early writers so often quoted in this paper speak of white Geese in terms which indicate that these birds were of rather common and regular occur- rence in eastern Massachusetts when the country was first settled; at that time they doubtless visited the Cambridge Region, although of this we have no definite proof. Morton says: “There are Geefe of three forts vize brant Geefe, which are pide, and white Geefe which are big- ger, and gray Geefe which are as bigg and bigger then the tame Geefe of England.”! Josselyn enumerates “the Gray Goofe, the White Goofe, and the Brant,” adding, “I once found ina White Goofe three Hearts.”2 Wood states that the “white Goofe” is “almoft as big as an 1 Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1637, 67. Ed. C. F. Adams, Jr., 1883, 189-190. 2 John Josselyn, New-Englands Rarities Discovered, 1672, 9. E. Tuckerman’s ed., 1865, 42, 43. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 127 Englifh tame Goofe,” adding, “thefe come in great flockes about Michelmas, fometimes there will be two or three thoufand in a flocke, thofe continue fixe weekes, and fo flie tothe Southward, returning in March, and ftaying fixe weekes more, returning againe to the Northward; the price of one of thefe is eight pence.”! That the white birds just referred to were Snow Geese is beyond question, but whether or not they represented both forms of that species is less certain. Both continue to appear in New England, but the larger bird (Chen hyferborea nivalis) has been taken only a few times within the past fifty years, and the smaller (Chen hyper- borea), although decidedly the commoner of the two, is no longer a frequent or regular visitor. ] 40. Branta canadensis (Linn.). CaNADA GOOSE. “ Transient visitor in spring and autumn, formerly abundant and still not uncommon. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 8, 1894, large flock, Cambridge, R. Walcott. March 15 — April 15. April 29, 1889, one seen, Rock Meadow, W. Faxon. October 7, 1891, flock of fifty seen, Cambridge, H. W. Henshaw. November 1—30. December 26, 1898, flock of twenty-five seen over Fresh Pond, O. A. Lothrop. Canada Geese may still be seen or heard nearly every spring and autumn, passing high in air over the Cambridge Region on their northward and southward migrations. Although observed much less often than formerly, they continue to appear in considerable numbers, attracting general attention by their imposing flight and wild, musical clamor — which stirs the blood of old sportsmen more, perhaps, than does any other sound in all nature. Between April 1 and 8, 1893, ten flocks passed within sight of our place in Cambridge, and five of them (all noted on the 8th) contained respectively fifty, sixty, seventy-five, one hun- dred, and one hundred and twenty-five Geese —as nearly as the birds could be counted. This, of course, was an exceptionally heavy migration for so recent a time, although it would not have been considered very remarkable forty or fifty years ago. . Since my earliest recollection no large flocks of Geese have been known to visit our ponds, but small flocks and single birds used to alight rather fre- quently, and still do so occasionally, in Fresh, Spy and the Mystic Ponds. Mr. Walter Faxon tells me that he found a solitary Goose in Rock Meadow on April 1 William Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. 2, 1635, 26. Charles Deane’s ed., 1865, 34. 128 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 29, 1889, and another was noted by Dr. Charles W. Townsend in the Brighton Marshes opposite the Cambridge Hospital on April 20, 1890. Mr. W. A. Jeffries reports seeing two birds in the Back Bay Basin a few years ago, and five alighted together in Spy Pond as recently as December, 1901, according to Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr. Dr. Townsend asserts on the authority of Dr. Phillips “that it is only in or after stormy weather that Wild Geese fly in to Wenham Lake and alight.”? I have seen the birds swimming in Fresh Pond, and in Concord River, much oftener when the weather was clear or, at least, fair than during or just after storms. I remember, however, a tradition current among our local gunners of forty years ago, to the effect that not long before that period a large flock of Geese had alighted, during a snowstorm, on Strawberry Hill near the southern shores of Fresh Pond. These birds, it was said, had become so exhausted and so loaded with damp snow that numbers of them were killed with clubs. A record of the breeding of this species within our limits is given in the ‘Ornithologist and Odlogist,’? in the following words: “A set of two eggs of the Canada Goose was taken about the last of April at Lexington, Mass. The geese were noticed flying every morning at break of day, regularly, to a certain locality, which attracted attention. Upon investigation the goose was discovered on a nest, which was a hollow, at the foot of a large pine, about four feet from the water, and about five rods from an ice-house, on the land of Henry Simonds. The finder placed the eggs under a hen, but they failed to hatch. The geese disappeared after the nest was disturbed.’ I have been unable to verify these statements, and since they are not accompanied either by the name of their author, or by that of the alleged finder of the nest, they cannot be accepted with much confidence. A striking and probably not exaggerated account of the numbers in which Canada Geese occurred near Boston in early Colonial days is given by Morton who says: ‘I have had often rooo. before the mouth of my gunne,” adding, “the fethers of the Geefe that I have killed in a fhort time, have paid for all the powther and fhott, I have {pent in a yeare, and I have fed my doggs with as fatt Geefe there, as I have euer fed upon my felfe in England.” ® All this hap- pened, no doubt, between 1625 and 1630, at Merrymount, now Wollaston, only a few miles south of the Cambridge Region. Wood — evidently referring to his experience in ‘the neighborhood of 1C, W. Townsend, Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, no. III. Birds of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1905, 149. 2 [Editor,] Ornithologist and Odlogist, XIV, 1889, 14. 3 Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1637, 67, 68. Ed. C. F. Adams, Jr., 1883, 190. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 129 ‘Saugus’ (now Lynn), where he lived during most of the period (1629-1633) that he spent in Massachusetts — gives similar testimony, for in a passage relating to the “great gray Goofe, with a blacke necke, and a blacke and white head” he asserts that “ moft of thefe Geefe remaine with us from Michelmas to Aprill; they feede on the fea upon graffe in the Bayes at low water and gravell, and in the woods of Acornes,.... If I fhould tell you how fome have killed a hundred Geefe in a weeke, fiftie Duckes-at a fhot, fortie Teales at another, it may be counted impoffible, though nothing more certaine.”’ ! 41. Olor columbianus (Ord). WHISTLING SWAN. Accidental visitor in autumn. I have a male Whistling Swan, in fully adult plumage, which was killed in Weston, Massachusetts, on December 17, 1890, by Michael McCarthy of Auburndale, who gave me the following account? of the circumstances attending the capture: He was walking along the west bank of Charles River near Norumbega Tower at about half-past six o’clock in the morning, looking for ducks, when he saw seven large white birds within a yard or two of the shore in a bay where the water was perhaps two feet deep. They were apparently feeding on the bottom, thrusting their heads and long necks under the water every few seconds. He succeeded in getting within about seventy- five yards of them and fired, killing one, when the others rose at once and flew out of sight, following the course of the river towards Waltham, two, which probably were wounded, lagging behind the rest. All looked pure white, like the one captured. The latter weighed seventeen pounds. The morning was cloudy with an east wind which brought rain about noon. There was a little ice in the middle of the river, but the water along the shores was perfectly open. Charles River at the place where these Swans were seen is a broad, slug- gish stream, expanding in a succession of bays and bordered on both banks by nearly unbroken stretches of woods. Lest objection be made to giving the Whistling Swan a numbered place in } William Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. 2, 1635, 26. . Charles Deane’s ed., 1865, 34. 2W., Brewster, Auk, VIII, 1891, 232. 130 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. our list on the strength of a specimen taken in Weston, it may be well to state that Norumbega Tower stands only one hundred yards or less from the bound- ary of Waltham and that, as the six birds which escaped “flew out of sight, following the course of the river towards Waltham,” there can be no question that they were actually seen to enter that town and hence the Cambridge Region. There is a Whistling Swan in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural History that is said! to have been taken at Nahant by a Mr. Taylor about 1865, and I have a young bird in grayish plumage, which the late Mr. W. Wendte found hanging in a provision store at Newburyport, and sent to me on December 2, 1902, with a letter from which I take the following extracts : “On 11th m. 27 [November 27, 1902,] six of these birds were seen in the water near Woodbridge Island, Newburyport Harbor. The fact was reported to Geo. F. Thurlow, who sculled over to the spot the next day and there killed one of them, which is now in thy collection.” About a month later he wrote me that he had ascertained that “the bird was first crippled in the water off Woodbridge Island,” but that it afterwards “flew over into Plum Island Creek within the limits of Newbury, and there was captured.’ It is probable that some of the survivors of this flock lingered in the neighborhood of the locality where they were first seen for several days, for on December 4, 1902, the ‘Gloucester Daily Times’ published an account of a “ Whistling Swan .... shot one day this week in Ipswich Bay” by Mr. William H. Vivian of Gloucester, Massachusetts. On writing to Mr. Vivian I learned that the bird was alone and that he killed it “on Dec. 1 at about 9 A. M.,” as it was flying past his boat which lay, at the time, “about two hundred yards off the beach, at the westerly side of Essex Road.” The specimen was mounted and is still, I believe, in Mr. Vivian’s possession. Swans, no doubt representing the present species, and perhaps also O. buc- cinator, are mentioned by most of the early writers on New England. Morton says: “There are of them in Merrimack River, and in other parts of the coun- try, greate ftore at the feafons of the yeare;”? Wood: “There be likewife many Swannes which frequent the frefh ponds and rivers, feldome conforting themfelves with Duckes and Geefe.’’? These statements show conclusively that the birds must have occurred regularly and numerously in eastern Massachusetts before the country became thickly settled. 1 W. Brewster, Bulletin of the Nuttall Omithological Club, IV, 1879, 125. 2 Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1637, 67. Ed. C. F. Adams, Jr., 1883, 189. 3 William Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. 2, 1635, 26. Charles Deane’s ed., 1865, 33. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 131 42, Plegadis autumnalis (Hasselq.). Gtossy Isis. Casual visitor, known to have occurred on but one occasion— in May, 1850. According to the late Mr. F. C. Browne, to whom we are indebted for the best account ! which has ever appeared of the little flight of Glossy Ibises that invaded eastern Massachusetts in 1850, the well-known specimen taken in Cambridge during that year, and now in the New England collection of the Boston Society of Natural History, was shot on May 8, “at Fresh Pond in this town by classmate E. Brown [Edward Wyeth Brown], from a flock of three.’’2 One of the two survivors was thought by Mr. F. C. Browne to have been the Ibis which was captured at Concord, Massachusetts, about the same time and which also has found its final resting-place in the collection of the Boston Society. The third bird has never been satisfactorily accounted for. The locality above given for the Cambridge specimen is, of course, suffi- ciently definite for general purposes, but it may be of interest in the present connection to state that Mr. E. W. Brown told Mr. Walter Faxon, a few years since, that the bird was killed in a meadow just north of the turnpike road (Concord Avenue) near what is now the extreme southwestern end of the Glacialis. On the evening of July 14, 1878, while driving in Belmont, I saw a flock of about twenty large birds flying southward at a moderate elevation. Moving very swiftly with quick, continuous wing beats, they crossed the road at some distance ahead of me in a broad extended front — or rather in a line drawn at right angles with their course. Had it not been for the fact that they appeared to be wholly dark-colored, I should have taken them for White Ibises, which they closely resembled in shape and in manner of flight. They certainly were not Ducks, Herons, Curlews, nor any of the other birds of similar size which occur regularly in eastern Massachusetts. I have always believed that they were Glossy Ibises, but I have no disposition to insist on the probability of such a conjecture, for it undeniably rests on evidence which is far from satisfactory. Indeed, I should not consider the incident worth mentioning, were it not for the recorded fact that during May of that same year several Glossy Ibises were shot on Cape Cod. 1F, C. Browne, Auk, IV, 1887, 97-100. 2 Tbid., 97. 132 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 43. Botaurus lentiginosus (Montag.). AMERICAN BITTERN. Common transient visitor in spring and autumn ; also breeding in a few localities, SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 31, 1894, one seen, Cambridge Region, W. Faxon. April 15 — October 20. November 26, 1874, one taken, Belmont, W. Brewster. NESTING DATES. May 5—2o0. Nuttall, writing of the Bittern in 1834,! says: “In the breeding season, and throughout a great part of the summer, we often hear the loud booming note of this bird from the marshes of Fresh Pond.” Mr. J. Elliot Cabot also mentions? the booming of the Bittern in terms which indicate that it must have been one of the characteristic spring sounds of this locality in his col- lege days. It was never heard in Cambridge, so far as I am aware, between 1865 and 1894, although during this period the birds occurred commonly enough at their seasons of migration. Since 1895, however, the Bittern has been a regular summer resident of the Fresh Pond Marshes, and its nest and eggs have been repeatedly found in the beds of cattail flags immediately to the north and west of the Glacialis. For several years after its reappearance only a single pair was noted each summer, but in 1902, as I am informed by Mr. Rich- ard S. Eustis, two if not three males were repeatedly heard pumping at the same time. It is difficult to account for the absence of the birds from this ancestral breeding ground during the years above mentioned, but their return to it in 1895 was probably due largely, if not wholly, to the increase and dispersion of the cat- tail flags which had taken place only a short time before. There is no evidence, however, that these flags were more numerous at the time referred to by Nut- tall than they were during the earlier years of my own experience, when they occurred only in scattered patches along the banks of Little River and about a few of the pools in the Brickyard Swamp. 1T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 1834, 61. 2J. E. Cabot, Sedge-birds, Atlantic Monthly, XXIII, 1869, 385. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 133 In May, 1868, I heard a Bittern pumping in Rock Meadow, and ever since that time I have never failed to find a pair established there in late spring and early summer whenever I have visited the place at these seasons. One or two pairs have also bred in Great Meadow within recent years. 44. Ardetta exilis (Gmel.). LEAst BITTERN. Summer resident, of local distribution. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 12, 1876, one ad. male! taken, Belmont, W. Brewster. May 15 — August 1. August 11, 1868, one taken, Fresh Pond Marshes, W. Brewster. NESTING DATES. June 1— 5. In Nuttall’s time (z.2., prior to 1834) Least Bitterns were “ occasionally started in the interior of the great marshes of Fresh Pond,” where this author thought that they probably bred “in the sedgy tussocks; though we have occa- sionally seen one or two in the society of the Kwa Birds, in the dark woody swamp of their breeding place.”? The late Mr. J. Elliot Cabot also mentions the species among his Fresh Pond ‘Sedge-birds.’ It has been a regular sum- mer resident of the Fresh Pond Swamps ever since I began to be interested in them. In the earlier days its favorite haunts were the Brickyard Swamp, where I could always find one or two pairs of old birds in May and June anda few young in July and August, but where I looked in vain for the nests. They must have been concealed among the low bushes which surrounded the shallow pools where I used to start the birds, for there were only a few thin and scat- tered clusters of cattail flags. When the Brickyard Swamp was drained, the Least Bitterns removed to the broad, open meadows lying west of Ale- wife Brook, where they have since bred regularly and in numbers increasing with the increase and dispersion of the cattail flags, among which their nests 1 No. 326, collection of William Brewster. 2T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 1834, 66-67. 134 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. have been frequently found within the past five or six years. A few pairs also pass the summer in a swamp at East Lexington, and I have seen one or two birds in May about Rock Meadow. All the Least Bitterns which breed in the Cambridge Region apparently depart for the south before the close of August. 45. Ardea herodias Linn. Great BLUE HERON. Uncommon transient visitor in spring and autumn, occasionally seen in winter. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 17, 1894, one seen, Cambridge Region, W. Faxon. April 1 — May I. May 5, Igoo, one seen, East Lexington, W. Brewster. July 30, 1891, two seen, East Lexington, W. Faxon. September 1— October 20. (Winter.) December 20, 1886, one im. male1 taken, Mystic Ponds, a gunner. The Great Blue Heron continues to visit us at its seasons of migration. In spring it is seen less often and for shorter periods than in autumn when it sometimes arrives as early as the last week of July and lingers through Novem- ber or even into December. It has never been very common since I can remem- ber, and I am inclined to believe that it occurs quite as regularly and almost as numerously now as it did thirty or forty years ago, at least in places where it still finds congenial feeding grounds. Its favorite resorts at the present time are Rock Meadow, Great Meadow, the shores of the Mystic Ponds, and the marshes north of the Glacialis. It used to be seen rather frequently in the salt marshes bordering Charles River and about the shallow, reedy coves of Fresh Pond, but these localities have become so changed of late as to nearly or quite cease to attract it. So far as I am aware, there are no reasons for believing that it has ever bred in the Cambridge Region, at least within the past fifty or one hundred years. I have a young male Great Blue Heron which was killed in Arlington on December 20, 1886. The gunner who shot the bird told me that it had been haunting the Mystic Ponds for two or three weeks previous to this date, spend- ing the day well out on the ice and fishing at morning and evening about some 1No. 13,545, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 135 air-holes close to shore. Another specimen was taken at Lexington on Decem- ber 8, 1890.1 There are several published records of the occurrence of the species during this month in the immediate neighborhood of Boston. Mr. Frederic H. Kennard writes me that he sawa bird in Brookline on February 5, IQOI. 46. Florida czrulea (Linn.). LITTLE BLUE Heron. Casual visitor from the south. I am indebted to my friend, Mr. H. W. Henshaw, for the following inter- esting manuscript account of the capture, in the Cambridgeport Marshes, many years ago, of a Little Blue Heron in the white plumage: “It must have been in the early sixties, 61 or 62, when I saw for the first and only time, a little white Heron (Florida cerulea) on the Cambridge marsh not far from Whitte- more’s Point. It was in the early fall, September I think, after a stormy period of several days, and the marsh was being traversed in every direction by six or eight gunners, all after Peeps. How the unfortunate Heron had eluded the scrutiny of so many eyes I know not, but when I espied it the bird was stand- ing motionless in the open marsh, though in a crouching attitude as if thoroughly frightened, by a small rush-bordered creek. It was very tame and allowed me to approach within easy range. My shot wounded it sorely, and no doubt it would have soon fallen, but in its labored flight it chanced to pass near a gunner who brought it down, and I lost the prize. I remember that everyone on the marsh gathered around the lucky sportsman to view and handle the strange bird, none of them ever having seen such a bird before. Afterwards the bird was stuffed by a local taxidermist and so passed into oblivion.” This is the only instance known to me of the capture of the species in the region covered by the present Memoir. . In his ‘ Rarer Birds of Massachusetts’ Dr. Allen, writing of the Little Blue Heron, says: “Mr. Maynard informs me he has recently seen it on one or two occasions in autumn.”? Mr. Maynard himself, in the ‘ Naturalist’s Guide,’ ® characterizes it as a “rare summer visitor,” adding “I have met with it 1[Editor,] Ornithologist and Odlogist, XV, 1890, 188. 23. A. Allen, American Naturalist, III, 1870, 637. 3C. J. Maynard, Naturalist’s Guide, 1870, 143. 136 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. but twice in this section.” In response to my inquiry as to just where his birds were found, Mr. Maynard writes me as follows: ‘The Little Blue Herons that I saw were in what is known as Purgatory Swamp which lies partly in Newton and partly in Waltham. I started them on the Newton side of the swamp and they crossed into Waltham.” Hence it appears that this now somewhat ancient record relates directly to our Cambridge Region. A Little Blue Heron in immature plumage was shot at Cohasset, about 1852, by a Mr. Morse;? another bird, also in the white plumage, and now in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural History, was taken at Ipswich on August 10, 1881 ;2 and I havea female in full nuptial plumage, which was killed at Roslindale in April, 1896, by Mr. W. R. Zappey. There are still other Massachusetts records relating, however, to localities too far from the Cambridge Region to be worth mentioning in this connection. 47. Butorides virescens (Linn.). GREEN HERON. Common summer resident, more numerously represented of late than formerly. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 26, 1879, one seen, Belmont, W. Brewster. May 1— September 30. October 16, 1868, one seen, Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Brewster. NESTING DATES. May Io— 25. The Green Heron usually arrives late in April and departs for the south before the first of October. It is rather generally distributed in summer through- out most of the Cambridge Region, nesting in dense birch or maple woods, usually near ponds or marshes, or along the courses of brooks, but occa- sionally on high ground at considerable distances from any water. Like the Crow and the Black Duck, it is at once a wary and a venturesome bird, endowed with sufficient intelligence to discriminate between real and imaginary dangers and often making itself quite at home in noisy, thickly settled neighborhoods 1T. M. Brewer, Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, XIX, 1878, 259. 2R, H. Howe, Jr., and G. M. Allen, Birds of Massachusetts, 1901, 45. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 137 where food is abundant and where it is not too much molested. In the Fresh Pond region it has been very much more numerously represented within the past decade than it was thirty or forty years ago, despite the disappearance of most of the woods and thickets which it formerly frequented and the rapid multiplica- tion of houses and human population. In the earlier days we seldom met with more than two or three breeding pairs in any one summer, but in May, 1896, Mr. O. A. Lothrop found no less than ten nests containing eggs or young within a space of about an acre in the Maple Swamp. There were almost if not quite as many there the following spring, but most of the eggs were taken by boys, and the birds have since nearly ceased to frequent the place. It is excep- tional for them to form a colony of this kind for, unlike most Herons, they are not habitually gregarious at any season. Their local increase, which began about 1885 and reached its maximum ten or twelve years later, was due, no doubt, to one or another of the changes in.the physical and vegetal condition of the swamps, that occurred during this period ; such changes, for example, as the partial submergence, at every season, of the region lying to the north and west of the Glacialis, or the excessive multiplication and wide dispersion of the cattail flags over this semi-flooded area. In midsummer, after their young had become strong of wing, our Cam- bridge Green Herons were once accustomed to feed in the early morning and late afternoon — as well as at all hours of the day when the weather was lower- ing —in the salt or brackish marshes along Charles River. We used to see them constantly in the month of August, passing and repassing low over Brattle Street at various points between Sparks Street and Mount Auburn. They all returned to their roosts in the Fresh Pond Swamps at evening, when the last stragglers sometimes met the first flights of Night Herons moving in the oppo- site direction. Within the past two or three years both species have nearly ceased to visit the Charles River Marshes. As nearly as I can ascertain, they feed at the present time chiefly in the Fresh Pond Marshes, at Great Meadow, and about the shores of our larger ponds. It is probable that some of them resort to the salt marshes near Revere Beach and perhaps also to the fresh-water meadows along the Concord River opposite Bed- ford, for these localities lie within easy flight (for Herons) of the Cambridge Re- gion, and both, I believe, are still frequented by the birds in summer. 138 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 48. Nycticorax nycticorax neevius (Bodd.). BLacK-CROWNED NicHT Heron. NIGHT HERON. Quvuaw BIRD. Formerly an abundant summer resident; from 1875 to 1895 a permanent resident, but not common in winter; at the present time found only sparingly, chiefly in late summer and early autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 1o— November 1. (Formerly permanent resident.) Sixty years or more ago Night Herons nested very numerously in the immediate neighborhood of Cambridge. Their breeding place, according to Nuttall,! was “in a very secluded and marshy island, in Fresh Pond,” where, although “the birds have been frequently robbed of their eggs, in great num- bers, by mischievous boys, they still lay again immediately after, and usually succeed in raising a sufficient brood.” It is difficult to understand this assertion unless we assume that the word ‘swamps’ was accidentally omitted after ‘Fresh Pond,’ for the pond itself is not known to have ever contained an island, ‘marshy’ or otherwise. Dr. Brewer once told me that, when he visited the Cambridge heronry in 1834 and 18365, it was in a tract of swampy woods near Alewife Brook and not far from where the Cambridge Almshouse now stands, but on the opposite (¢.¢. southwestern) side of the main road (now Massachusetts Avenue) leading from Cambridge to Arlington. Owing to its proximity to this road the birds, even then, were much persecuted and their numbers, although considerable, had been greatly reduced. In the ‘ Water Birds of North America’? Dr. Brewer states that this heronry once “occupied many acres; that, ‘‘previous to the draining’’ of the surrounding region, it “was almost inaccessible ;”” and that the Herons’ “nests were in the highest trees, and never less than twenty feet from the ground.’’ I questioned Dr. Samuel Cabot closely, respecting these matters, when I last saw him, shortly before his death, in 1885. His testimony, in the main, agreed with that of Dr. Brewer. He said that when he was at Harvard College (1832-1836) the heronry was situated in some extensive swampy woods that 1T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 1834, 55-56. ? Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, Water Birds of North America, I, 1884, 59. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 139 bordered the north bank of Little River just above its junction with Alewife Brook ; that it was then inhabited by several hundred Night Herons; and that these birds nested in the taller trees, most of which were large white pines. The original growth must have been removed not long afterwards, for the entire tract was densely wooded with oaks and maples fifteen or twenty feet in height when I first became acquainted with it in 1865 or 1866. These second-growth trees were cut down in the winter of 1901-1902. The area which they once covered may still be traced by the stumps and brushwood which remain. It lies a little beyond the western borders of Cambridge, in Arlington, and the Lexing- ton Branch of the Boston and Maine Railroad passes through it just after cross- ing Alewife Brook. The following interesting reference to this heronry occurs under date of May 10, 1850, in some manuscript records of the earlier meetings of the Harvard Natural History Society, now preserved in the library of the Museum of Compara- tive Zodlogy: “With regard to the locality near Fresh Pond, of which Nuttall speaks, some conversation arose. The President remarked that the Blue! and Green Herons, which Nuttall found in the same vicinity, were now entirely gone. He had lately visited the heronry. There were this year eight or nine pairs only of the Night Heron. Only one nest was ready for the season [sic], at the time of his visit. The number of the birds was gradually decreasing, and before many years the spot would be quite deserted.” So far as I am able to learn no nests of the Night Heron have been found in the Cambridge Region since 1860, although we used to look for them per- sistently and at first hopefully, but always vainly, not only in spring but also in winter when it was easy to traverse the frozen swamps and when even the smallest nests were conspicuous in the leafless trees and thickets. The birds were numerous enough up to about 1885 and by no means uncommon for some twelve or fifteen years after that, occurring continuously from the middle of April to well into October. Most of those seen in early spring were in full nuptial dress and no doubt, were migrants bound still further north. Those which remained through May, June and July, were apparently not in breeding condition, for their plumage, as a rule, was ragged and faded (usually of a plain grayish brown) and the sexual organs of such as I shot and dissected invariably proved to be undeveloped. In August there was a marked and sometimes very considerable influx of brown, white-spotted young, probably from breeding sta- tions further inland or to the northward. 1One might infer from this passage that Nuttall found either the Little Blue Heron (orida c@rulea) or the Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) breeding near Fresh Pond. No mention of such an experience, however, occurs in his ‘ Manual.’ 140 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. At every season during the earlier years of my experience most of the Night Herons which frequented the Cambridge Region, roosted by day in the Fresh Pond Swamps and fed by night in the salt marshes and creeks along Charles River, crossing and recrossing the intervening upland singly or in small flocks, in the evening and morning twilight. The morning flight passed almost unnoticed, — save by ornithologists and sportsmen, — but in the warm, midsum- mer evenings, when nearly every one was out of doors, the big birds, sweeping like ghostly shadows just above the tops of the trees, uttering their loud, hoarse calls at frequent intervals, attracted very general attention. Most of them passed over Brattle Street at or very near Elmwood, but they also appeared regularly over our own place, and in August,— when they were especially numerous, — we sometimes saw or heard as many as fifteen or twenty there in the course of a single evening. The Night Heron is not known to have occurred in midwinter near Cam- bridge prior to 1875. In December of that year eight or ten birds appeared in the white pine grove at Elmwood where they remained through January and February, 1876. Mr. Lowell reported their presence in the ‘Boston Daily Advertiser’ for February 12, 1876, and on the evening of the 17th of that month I saw them leave the grove and fly towards the neighboring salt marshes. For upwards of twenty years later a varying but usually somewhat smaller number continued to frequent the Elmwood pines in winter, and a few others were occa- sionally met with at that season in the cedar and pitch pine woods to the west- ward of Mount Auburn, as well as in the Hemlock Grove at Fresh Pond. A small wintering colony was also discovered in Longwood, Brookline, during the latter part of this period. Since the woods about Pout Pond and near Little River were cut down, the Cambridge Night Herons have become widely scattered and greatly reduced in numbers. I have seen none of late in the Fresh Pond Swamps, and within the past two or three years they have nearly or quite ceased to visit the marshes along Charles River. I am told that they continue to occur sparingly about the shores of the Mystic Ponds as well as at Great Meadow, but I fear that the time is not far distant when they will no longer be found regularly in any part of the Cambridge Region. ~ 1I have two specimens taken in this locality by Mr. H. M. Spelman, one, no. 10,187, on Jan- uary 25, 1879, the other, no. 10,186, on February 1 of the same year. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. I4I 49. Nyctanassa violacea (Linn.). YELLOW-—crROWNED NicHTt Heron. Accidental visitor. A Yellow-crowned Night Heron was shot on July 30, 1878, in a rather densely populated part of Somerville! within a few hundred yards of the line which separates that city from Cambridge and not far from Norton’s Woods. The facts attending its capture were as follows: On the afternoon of the day just mentioned Mr. George Cunningham was attracted by a commotion among the Robins and other small birds in the orchard immediately behind his house. On going to the spot he disturbed a large bird which flew from an apple tree and disappeared over an adjoining fence. Shortly afterwards there was another alarm in the orchard and it was found that the intruder had returned. A neigh- bor who was fond of shooting was summoned, the bird was winged and, after a sharp chase, captured. It showed fight, and “ chattered,” as Mr. Cunningham expressed it, “very like a monkey.” The specimen was mounted by Mr. Charles I. Goodale, a well-known Boston taxidermist of that period. I after- wards obtained it from Mr. Cunningham and it is still in my collection It is a young bird in the spotted autumn plumage, many of the feathers of which retain the hair-like filaments that characterize the downy stage of young Herons, and are pushed outward on the tips of the feathers which succeed the down. Nevertheless it was old enough to have flown a considerable distance, perhaps even from some breeding ground in the South Atlantic States. Mr. John A. Farley tells me that in 1893 a pair of Yellow-crowned Night Herons were seen during the early part of the breeding season (he thinks in June) about the old Malden reservoir (“then a small pond”’) near the dividing line between Malden and Medford. One of them was shot and is now in the possession of Mr. O. D. Flood, formerly of Malden, now of Leominster. This bird, no doubt, is the specimen briefly referred to by Messrs. Howe and Allen in their Massachusetts list as killed in Malden about 1893.3 The locality where it was taken lies outside the Cambridge Region, but only a few miles from its eastern borders. . W. Brewster, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, IV, 1879, 124-125. 2 No. 401, collection of William Brewster. 3R. H. Howe, Jr., and G. M. Allen, Birds of Massachusetts, rg01, 46. 142 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. There are several other records of the occurrence of the Yellow-crowned Night Heron in eastern Massachusetts, the earliest of which relates to a bird obtained at Lynn by Mr. N. Vickary in October, 1862.1 [Grus americana (Linn.). WHOOPING CRANE. Grus canadensis (Linn.). LirTLze BRowN Crane. Grus mexicana (Miill.). SANDHILL CRANE. Morton, in the ‘New English Canaan,’ says: “Cranes, there are greate ftore, that ever more came there at S. Davids day [March 1], and not before: that day they never would miffe. Thefe fometimes eate our corne, and doe pay for their prefumption well enough; and ferveth there in powther, with turnips to fupply the place of powthered beefe, and is a goodly bird in a difhe, and no difcommodity.”? There can be little doubt that this account relates chiefly if not wholly to Merrymount (now Wollaston), only a few miles south of the Cambridge Region, where Morton lived from 1625 to 1628 and again in 1629 and 1630. Wood, referring probably to observations made at ‘ Saugus’ (now Lynn) be- tween 1629 and 1633, gives equally interesting testimony, as follows: “The Crane although he be almoft as tall as a man by reafon of his long legges and necke; yet is his body rounder than other fowles, not much unlike the body of a Turkie. I have feene many of thefe fowles, yet did I never fee one that was fat, though uery fleekie, I fuppofe it is contrary to their nature to grow fat; Of thefe there be many in Summer, but none in Winter ; their price is two fhillings.” Cranes are also mentioned by Josselyn in his ‘ Two Voyages.’* Our Great Blue Heron is often called ‘Crane’ by country folk, but it does not eat corn nor is it “a goodly bird in a difhe.” For these reasons it could not well have been the species referred to by the writers above quoted. Wood’s assertion to the effect that Cranes were especially numerous “in Summer” would seem to imply that they bred in eastern Massachusetts in his day, but this, although possible, is not probable. Turning to more recent authors we find that Samuel Williams says® that the Sandhill Crane, “Ardea canadenfis,” was among the commonest of the “ Water Fowl” found in Ver- mont in 1794, and Belknap, in 1792, included ® it among the birds of New Hampshire, while, even as late as 1842, Thompson asserted” that the Whooping Crane continued to be “occasionally seen during its migrations”? in Vermont. Emmons gives both species as rare, in his list of the birds of Massachusetts, ® published in 1835, but, as he marks the Whooping Crane as breeding in this State, his testimony is, perhaps, not entitled to much weight. From the evidence above cited we may conclude that in early Colonial times true Cranes of some kind were perfectly regular and rather common migratory visitors to the region immedi- ately about Boston, as well as to certain other parts of New England. That they had ceased to be anything more than rare or accidental visitors before the middle of the past century, is still more certain. Whether the birds which were formerly found in eastern Massachusetts were Sandhill or Whooping Cranes is not clear. It is probable, however, that both species occurred and that the Sandhill Crane was the more numerous of thetwo. Neither bird, I believe, has 1j. A. Allen, American Naturalist, III, 1870, 637. 2 Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1637, 69. Ed.C. F. Adams, Jr., 1883, 192. 3 William Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. z, 1635, 26. Charles Deane’s ed., 1865, 33. 4 John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New-England, ed. 2, 1675, 100. W. Veazie’s reprint, 1865, 79. 5S, Williams, Natural and Civil History of Vermont, 1794, 119. 6 J, Belknap, History of New Hampshire, III, 1792, 169. 7Z. Thompson, History of Vermont, Natural, Civil, and Statistical, 1842, pt. i, 103. 8E. Emmons, E. Hitchcock, Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zodlogy of Massachusetts, 1835, 532. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 143 been reported from anywhere in New England within very recent times, but a specimen of the Little Brown Crane was shot at Natick Hill, Rhode Island, on October 9, 1889,! and it is said? to have been accompanied by another, apparently of the same kind. This capture suggests the possibility that the species last named may have been represented among’ the Cranes on which the roistering Morton feasted during his residence at Merrymount.] so. Rallus elegans Aud. Kine Ratt. Casual visitor; only one definite record. On several occasions within the past few years Mr. Walter Faxon and I have heard in May or June, in the Fresh Pond Marshes, and also at Great Meadow, a deep, guttural wmph, umph, umph, umph, something like the grunting call of the Virginia Rail but louder and also suggestive of the quacking of a hoarse-voiced Duck. We have reasons for believing that these notes are pro- duced by the King Rail but the evidence on this head is not as yet conclusive. Up to the time when the introduction to the present Memoir was finished and printed I was not aware that the species in question had ever certainly been found in the Cambridge Region, and for this reason it was omitted from my pre- liminary list of ‘Occasional or Accidental Visitors.’ Since then, however, Mr. John A. Farley has discovered in the collection of Mr. A. C. Hill of Belmont, and has kindly brought to me for examination, a Cambridge specimen of the King Rail It is apparently a young bird in the first winter plumage. Mr. Hill tells me that he received it alive on the evening of December 30, 1896, from a boy who said that he had caught it in his hands, that afternoon, on the ice at Pout Pond. Although it seemed to be in good health and spirits, running about very actively when liberated in Mr. Hill’s poultry-house, it died during the following night. On skinning and dissecting it, Mr. Hill found it to be a male and excep- tionally thin in flesh, even for a representative of its proverbially attenuated tribe. No doubt it had become not only emaciated, but also much weakened, by starva- tion, for otherwise it would hardly have been captured so easily. Although generally believed to be but a chance visitor to eastern Massa- chusetts, the King Rail has been found there rather frequently, especially within 1J. M, Southwick, Ornithologist and Odlogist, XIV, 1889, 159. W. Brewster, Auk, VII, 1890, 89. 2R. H. Howe, Jr., and E. Sturtevant, Birds of Rhode Island, 1899, 45. 3jJ. A. Farley, Auk, XXII, 1905, 409. 144 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. recent years. There are published accounts of its capture at Nahant, on No- vember 21, 1875;1 in the Sudbury Meadows, “some years” before 1878 ;? at North Truro, “early in February,” 1892 ;° at Salem, on July 10, 1894 ;* at Ipswich, in October, 1901; at Ellisville, Plymouth County, on January 20, 1903. To these records I can add the following, none of which, I believe, have been hitherto reported : — On September 9, 1893, an adult female King Rail was shot in the marshes bordering the Neponset River, just above Readville, Massachusetts, by Mr. J. H. Bowles who, on August 27 of the following year, killed a second specimen in these marshes, flushing it, by a curious coincidence, within a few yards of the spot where his first bird was secured. Both specimens were mounted by Mr. Bowles. I believe that he still has the one taken in 1893; the other he gave me several years ago. I also have the head and legs of a King Rail which Mr. Charles R. Lamb has contributed to my collection and which bear the original label, inscribed as follows: “Collection of Foster H. Brackett, Boston, Mass. No. 677, Chatham, Mass., Sept. 24, 1884. ¢.” Mr. Lamb thinks that the bird to which these fragments once belonged was shot by Mr. Brackett him- self, but as the latter gentleman is no longer living this impression cannot now be verified. It will be observed that two of the above records relate to birds taken in midwinter. We also have knowledge of a specimen that was killed at Falmouth, Maine, on December 17, 1899.7. Thus the occurrence of the King Rail in Cambridge at so late a date as December 30 is not, after all, very remarkable. Nor would it be surprising to find that the species breeds occasionally in eastern Massachusetts. Such a possibility is suggested by some of the evidence just given and also by the condition of the bird taken by Mr. Bowles on August 27. This specimen, although fully grown, is evidently a very young bird, for it still retains a number of feathers which are characteristic of the first or juvenal plumage of the King Rail. 1H. A. Purdie, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, II, 1877, 22. 2 Jbid., III, 1878, 146. 3G. S. Miller, Jr., Auk, IX, 1892, 396. ‘C. W. Townsend, Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, no. III. Birds of Essex County, Massachusetts, 1905, 159. 5 Tbid. ®A.L. Reagh, Auk, XX, 1903, 304. 7H. H. Brock, Auk, XIX, 1902, 285. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 145 51. Rallus virginianus Linn. Vircinia Rat. Summer resident, abundant in a few localities. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 14, 1899, one heard, Fresh Pond Swamps, A. H. Hathaway. April 20 — September 25. November 9, 1898, one seen, Pout Pond, A. H. Hathaway. NESTING DATES. May 15—25. The Virginia Rail breeds abundantly in the Fresh Pond Swamps, very commonly at Great Meadow and Rock Meadow, sparingly or sporadically in a few other places. In the locality first named its numbers have increased con- siderably since the cattail flags became so widely dispersed over the broad marshes lying to the westward of Alewife Brook. It is now found most fre- quently and numerously among these flags, but in earlier days its favorite summer haunts were the Brickyard and Maple Swamps, where it usually nested in thickets of alders or patches of briers. It prefers brush-grown to open, grassy meadows, although rank beds of cattail flags suit it best of all. Like all its near relatives it is a retiring, elusive bird, much oftener heard than seen. In spring and early summer the male utters a guttural cut, cut, cutta, cutta, cuttu, which may be heard at a distance of half a mile or more when the air is still. Equally characteristic of the breeding season, but apparently common to both sexes, is another cry which consists of a rapid succession of low yet penetrating grunting sounds not unlike those produced by a hungry pig. In late summer and early autumn the calls given by both old and young birds are closely similar to those used at these seasons by Carolina Rails. Most of our Virginia Rails depart for the south before the end of August, but a few linger through September, and stragglers are occasionally seen in October. It is probable that these late birds come from more northern breeding grounds, although there is no marked migration here, either in spring or autumn. 146 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 52. Porzana carolina (Linn.). Sora. CAROLINA RAIL. Summer resident, locally abundant. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 14, 1890, one heard, Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Faxon. April 15 — October 31. December 3, 1898, one ad. male! taken, Pout Pond, A. H. Hathaway. NESTING DATES. May 20—31. Of the Carolina Rail Nuttall,? writing in 1834, says: “In the vicinity of Cambridge, (Mass.) a few, as a rarity only, are now and then seen in the course of the autumn, in the Zzzanza patches which border the outlet of Fresh Pond ; but none are either known or suspected to breed in any part of this state, where they are, as far as I can learn, every where uncommon.” It is difficult to discredit this testimony, for Nuttall was a close observer, and especially keen and accurate in discriminating bird notes. Even had he overlooked the Sora in autumn, he could scarcely have done so in spring and early summer when its loud and persistent calls are among the most prominent and characteristic sounds of the places which it inhabits. The chances are, therefore, that he was correct in thinking that the species did not then breed, nor perhaps occur numerously at any season, in the immediate neighborhood of Cambridge. However the case may have stood prior to 1834, the Sora was certainly common enough in and about Cambridge some thirty years later, both in the breeding season and in autumn. Indeed between 1864 and 1870 IJ found not only the birds, but their nests and eggs as well, in the Fresh Pond Swamps; in a narrow strip of meadow bordering a ditch at the western base of the hill on which the old Cambridge reservoir formerly stood ; on a grassy, floating island in the little pond just behind Mount Auburn; and at Rock Meadow. Several of these localities, it will be observed, were favorite haunts of Nuttall. 'In the collection of O. A. Lothrop. 27. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 1834, 213. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 147 At the present time the Sora breeds in the Fresh Pond Swamps; along Beaver Brook just below the Waverley Oaks; at Rock Meadow; at Great Meadow; and near the Lower Mystic Pond. Like the Virginia Rail, it has increased materially in numbers within the past twenty years, especially in the Fresh Pond Swamps. Here in spring and early summer the two birds occur in close association, and in about equal abundance, among the cattail flags, where they often nest within a few yards of each other. Elsewhere their respective summer haunts are not always quite the same, for the Sora seldom if ever breeds in the briery thickets which are so much affected by the Virginia Rail, while the latter is often nearly or quite absent from the more open, grassy meadows where the Sora especially loves to dwell. In autumn both species frequent similar places, but the Sora is much the commoner of the two, especially when the more northern-bred migrants are pass- ing southward. At such times the report of a gun or the splash of a stone thrown into the shallow water among the beds of ‘reeds in which the birds are concealed is sure to be instantly followed by a chorus of ke&s, kiks, hi-kiks and other similarly abrupt, explosive cries, uttered in tones suggestive of indignant protest and coming from far and near on every hand. Most of these calls are made by young Carolina Rails. The love song of the male Sora, a sweet plain- tive ee, given with a rising inflection and suggesting the ‘scatter call’ of the Quail, is seldom heard later than the first of August, and the silvery, whinnying notes, which the female utters so often in May and June, are equally character- istic of the breeding season. 53. Porzana noveboracensis (Gmel.). YELLOW RAIL. Rare transient visitor in autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. September 13, 1876, one found dead, Belmont, E. A. and O. Bangs. October 14, 1878, one! taken, Charles River Marshes, A. L. Danielson. There are some reasons for suspecting that the Rails which Nuttall men- 1No. 26,678, collection of Museum of Comparative Zodlogy. 148 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. tions hearing in October, 1831, among the reeds at Fresh Pond were not, as he supposed, of this species, but Carolina Rails. No such doubt can attach, how- ever, to the bird which he examined and which, he says, was surprised and shot ‘while feeding on insects or seeds, by the margin of a small pool, overgrown with the leaves of the water lily,” apparently “in the vicinity of West Cam- bridge” (now Arlington). ? There is a specimen of the Yellow Rail in the New England collection of the Boston Society of Natural History, labelled ‘male, near Boston, Mass., Dr. S. Cabot,” which probably was taken in Cambridge, as the following extract from a letter written a few years since by the late Mr. Edward C. Cabot to the late Mr. Foster H. Brackett will show: “ When my brother [Dr. Samuel Cabot] was in college, 1832—36, I was in the habit of shooting with him on the Fresh Pond marshes. ... At the time I refer to, the mouth of the brook [z. ¢. the outlet of the pond] where there was a patch of wild rice, was the resort of wild ducks, water hen and rail, and I have no doubt that these birds [the Yellow Rail and a Florida.Gallinule, also in the collection of the Boston Society] were found there though I have no recollection of facts in regard to these specimens.” : To these early records I can add only two of more recent date, w7z., that of a bird in the collection of Messrs. E. A. and O. Bangs which they found dead on September 13, 1876, at the eastern (Belmont) end of Rock Meadow, and that of a specimen in the Museum of Comparative Zoology which Mr. Alfred L. Danielson shot on October 14, 1878, in the Charles River Marshes opposite the Watertown Arsenal. It is strange that the Yellow Rail has not been met with of late years in the Fresh Pond Swamps, for it is not very uncommon in autumn at Wayland and the late Mr. C. I. Goodale used to take it quite regularly, in both spring and autumn, in a meadow at Wakefield, while in September, 1895, Mr. J. H. Bowles shot two birds, and started two others which he did not attempt to kill, ona small floating island in Ponkapog Pond, Canton. These localities lie, it will be observed, about equidistant from the Cambridge Region in three different directions. {Porzana jamaicensis (Gmel.). BLack Raitt. Although the Black Rail has never been taken nor even, so far as I am aware, seen, in the Cambridge Region there are good grounds for suspecting that it has not only occurred but dred there within recent years. The evidence on which this suspicion rests has been presented so fully by me in an article entitled ‘An Ornitho- 1T. Nuttall, Manual of the Omithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 1834, 216. : BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 149 logical Mystery’! that it seems unnecessary, in the present connection, to give more than a brief recapitulation of the essential facts connected with the case, which are as follows :— At about six o’clock on the afternoon of June 7, 1889, I heard, among the dense beds of cat- tail flags at Pout Pond, some bird notes which were wholly new to me. They proved equally so to Mr. Walter Faxon and Mr. Bradford Torrey whom I took to the place later that same evening. As we were unable at the time to obtain any clue to the identity of the author of these sounds, and as his song regularly began with a series of ‘ Aick-kicks, we christened him the ‘ Kicker,’ by which name he has since been known to Cambridge ornithologists, In the course of the following fortnight two more birds of the same kind were heard in the large marsh directly north of the Glacialis, one at Rock Meadow, one about half-way between the Waverley Oaks and the Clematis Brook station of the Fitchburg Railroad, and one at the reservoir in East Lexington, while three were noted in the Neponset River meadows near Read- ville, one on the banks of the Sudbury River just above Concord, and five in a meadow near the mouth of West Brook in Sudbury. All of these birds were evidently settled for the season and no doubt breeding, for such of them as we were able to keep under close observation continued to be heard at their respective stations nearly or quite to the end of June. Although Mr. Faxon and I spared no pains to ascertain what they were, we were wholly unsuccessful, at least during that season. So far as we know, the mysterious birds have not since returned to any of the meadows in or near Cambridge, but I noted one at Falmouth, Massachusetts, on June 25, 1890, and in the extensive marshes opposite my camp on Concord River, about two miles below the town center of Concord, one was singing in the evening of June 22, 1892, and another nearly every evening from May 18 to June 12, 1898; while I heard at least three and I think four different ‘ Kickers’ in these meadows during the last week of June, 1901. Most of the birds just mentioned were in very wet fresh-water meadows or swamps, either among luxuriant wild grasses or in beds of tall rushes or of cattail flags. In short their haunts were similar to those of the Carolina and Virginia Rails, and their periods of greatest activity appeared to be to an even larger degree nocturnal, for we seldom heard them by day and, as a rule, they did not begin calling regularly until after sun- set while they kept it up the greater part of the night. Their voices, also, were unmistakably Rail-like. What we took to be the song, since it was uttered almost unceasingly, at short regular intervals, for hours at a time, consisted of a series of notes which may be written thus: &rc-kic-kic, kt-keeer. The kic-kic notes were very like those which the Virginia Rail sometimes produces, but the terminal kéeer (or guéer) was wholly unique and characteristic. The Rail-like character of the habits, haunts and notes of the ‘ Kicker’ led us to suspect, from the first, that the bird was some kind of Rail. Among the Rails known or likely to occur in summer in the fresh-water marshes of southern New England, the only species with which our local ornithologists are not familiar are the King and Black Rails. Judging from descrip- tions the notes of the King Rail are very different from those of the ‘ Kicker,’ but the latter’s kic-kic-kic, ki-keeer is apparently not unlike the “ck? chz-cro-croo-croo” which Mr. March suggests? as a rendering of the call of the Black Rail which inhabits Jamaica and which is believed by ornithologists to be identical with the bird that breeds in the eastern United States. These con- siderations, taken in connection with the fact that in the little meadow at Falmouth where I heard the ‘Kicker’ singing on the evening of June 25,I found, next morning, a nest closely resembling that of the Black Rail, have led me to conclude that the mysterious ‘ Kicker ’ is prob- ably Porzana jamaicensis. The question cannot be regarded as settled, however, until some one is fortunate enough either to shoot or to obtain a good view of the bird while it is in the act of uttering its peculiar notes.] 1W. Brewster, Auk, XVIII, 1901, 321-328. 2W.T. March, Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1864, 69. 150 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 54. Gallinula galeata (Licht.). Fioripa GALLINULE. Summer resident, breeding sparingly in one or two localities. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 29, 1895, one seen, East Lexington, W. Faxon. May 15 — October 25. November 9, 1898, one seen, Pout Pond, A. H. Hathaway. NESTING DATE. June 5, 1890, nest! and twelve eggs, Pout Pond, W. Brewster. Josselyn in the ‘Two Voyages’ includes? “ Duckers or Moorhens”’ among the birds which he found in New England either in 1638 or between 1663 and 1671. As he also mentions the Coot (referring without doubt to Fudica amert- cana) and as the Moorhen of England is a true Gallinule closely resembling our Florida Gallinule, there can be little or no question that the latter was the species to which he refers. It would be interesting to know whether he found it in the region near Boston, with which he was personally familiar, or at Black Point (now Scarborough), Maine, where he lived for upwards of eight years. In either case his mention of the bird is, I believe, the earliest that relates to any part of New England. Nuttall apparently did not meet with the Florida Gallinule near Cambridge, but Peabody, in his ‘ Report on the Ornithology of Massachusetts,’ published in 1839, states,? on the authority of “Mr. Cabot,” that a specimen “was shot in Fresh Pond several years ago.’ Mr. J. Elliot Cabot, also, includes * the species among the ‘Sedge-birds’ which he and his brother found in the Fresh Pond Marshes between 1832 and 1840, and Mr. Edward C. Cabot mentions it (in the letter quoted in connection with my account of the Yellow Rail) in terms which indicate that it was not very uncommon and that its chosen haunts were the beds of reeds at the outlet of Fresh Pond. 1No. 2527, collection of William Brewster. 2John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New-England, ed. 2, 1675, 101. W. Veazie’s reprint, 1865, 80. 3 W. B. O. Peabody, Storer and Peabody, Reports on the Fishes, Reptiles and Birds of Massa- chusetts, 1839, 258. 4jJ. E. Cabot, Atlantic Monthly, XXIII, 1869, 384. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. I51 On June 3, 1868, in the Brickyard Swamp, I came upon a bird which, at the time, I supposed to be a Coot, but which I afterwards decided must have been a Florida Gallinule. It was swimming in a ditch bordered by bushes into which it retreated soon after discovering me. Probably it had a mate and nest hard by, for early the following autumn Mr. Ruthven Deane and I found several young Gallinules (two of which we shot) in Muskrat Pond,! a small, reed- encircled pool distant only a few hundred yards from the spot where the bird had been seen the previous June. No Florida Gallinules are known to have been met with in the Fresh Pond region between the year last mentioned and 1889 when, on several occasions in early June, Mr. Walter Faxon and I heard one calling in the extensive marshes north of the Glacialis. The next year certainly two and perhaps three pairs of Gallinules passed the summer in this neighborhood, and, on June 5, we found one of their nests. Since 1891 old birds have been frequently seen or heard in the Fresh Pond Marshes in May and June, and young in September and October. There are also reasons for believing that the Florida Gallinule has bred at Great Meadow within the past ten years. It is one of the most retiring and elusive of all swamp-loving birds, and its presence may be easily overlooked by those who are not familiar with its varied and peculiar notes. Its favorite haunts are exten- sive beds of rank, matted cattail flags, in which it remains closely concealed dur- ing the day, but at early morning and just after sundown it often ventures out into open water where it swims about with nodding head and neck, much after the manner of a Coot. The nest mentioned above contained twelve eggs, some of which were quite fresh, others far advanced in incubation. It was placed in a half-submerged thicket of bushes (chiefly Spzr@a salicifolia, var. Jatifolta) in a flooded meadow near Pout Pond. With the exception of a little dry tussock grass, which formed the lining, it was composed wholly of dead, sodden cattail flags some of which were nearly two feet in length and an inch thick at the base. Although apparently floating on the surface of the water, which was twelve or fifteen inches in depth, it evidently derived its chief support from the stems of the bushes among which it was firmly wedged. Owing partly to its pale, bleached coloring, but largely, also, to the slight shelter afforded by the thin foliage of the dying bushes, the nest was so conspicuous an object that it attracted my attention at a distance of fully twenty-five feet. The birds had been seen in the meadow for two weeks or more before this nest was found, and after it was taken they con- tinued to frequent the place, probably laying again, although, as we did not care to disturb them further, we made no search for their second nest? 1Dr. J. A. Allen was mistaken in giving the locality as Fresh Pond. See American Naturalist, III, 1870, 639. 2 W. Brewster, Auk, VIII, 1891, 1-7. 152 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 55. Fulica americana Gmel. AMERICAN Coot. Coot. MrapOWw-HEN. MUD-—HEN. Transient visitor, of rare or irregular occurrence in spring, not uncommon in autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 18, 1890, one seen, Fresh Pond Marshes, B. Torrey. April 27, 1892, a pair seen, East Lexington, W. Faxon. August 16, 1895, one taken by a gunner, Lower Mystic Pond, de W. Faxon. September 15 — October 25. December 20, 1903, one seen, Fresh Pond, H. Bowditch. Coots occurred very commonly in the Cambridge Region twenty or thirty years ago. I have seen as many as thirty or forty in the course of a single autumn, meeting with most of them in the thicket-encircled pools of the Brickyard Swamp and the shallow, reedy coves of Fresh Pond. Muskrat Pond at the foot of Vassall Lane was another of their favorite resorts, and they were wont to appear with some regularity in the reservoir at Great Meadow, before its waters were drained. Most of these once favored haunts have long since ceased to exist or have become so changed as no longer to attract the Coots, which, however, continue to reappear, although in greatly diminished numbers, about Spy and the Mystic Ponds, the Glacialis, and certain small, nameless pools scattered throughout what remain of the Fresh Pond Swamps, especially those in the neighborhood of Pout Pond. As the birds are ordinarily very tame, they fall an easy prey to even the most inexperienced gunners, and in the earlier days many were killed every season. During the past twelve or fifteen years only a few Coots have been seen in Fresh Pond. In the late autumn of 1903, however, its waters were enlivened, for upwards of six weeks, by the almost constant presence of one or more birds. Two were noted on November 4, four on the 9th and rith, five on the 16th, seven on the 18th, 19th, 22d, 23d, 25th, and 27th, and six on the 30th. The pond froze over on the night of November 30, leaving, however, on the western side, a strip of open water which was frequented by a single Coot on December 6, 8, 9, 10, II, 15, 19, and 20, and by two birds on December 16, 17, and 18. On November 30 I visited the pond in the afternoon when six Coots were feeding together close inshore, in company with a female Canvas-back and two Ring-necked Ducks. The Coots were diving in water several feet in depth, and BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 153 bringing up quantities of aquatic weeds which they seemed to be eating. When disturbed by the approach of people walking or driving along the park roadway, they would swim out into the pond, returning as soon as the coast was clear again. I do not remember to have ever before seen so many Coots together in the Cambridge Region, and it is unusual for them to occur here at all after the close of October. Within the total period covered by my experience less than half a dozen Coots have been observed near Cambridge in spring. Mr. Walter Faxon tells me that on August 16, 1895, he examined one which a gunner had just shot in one of the Mystic Ponds. This date is so very early as to suggest that the bird, which, by the way, was adult, may have passed the summer somewhere in the neighborhood. The species is not known to breed, however, in any part of Massachusetts. 56. Crymophilus fulicarius (Linn.). RED PHALAROPE. Rare transient visitor in spring. Although it is highly probable that the Red Phalarope occasionally visits our fresh-water ponds during its seasons of migration, I have no evidence to offer that such is really the case. Indeed the claim of the species to mention in the present Memoir rests solely, I believe, on the occurrence of a single bird which was shot in August, 1880, in Charles River about opposite where the Cambridge Gas-House once stood. This specimen was examined and identified by Mr. H. M. Spelman, who, however, cannot now recall by whom it was killed or what eventually became of it. 57. Phalaropus lobatus (Linn.). NORTHERN PHALAROPE. Of rare occurrence in spring. On May 21, 1894, Mr. C. J. Smith, a son of the draw-tender at Craigie Bridge, brought three freshly killed Northern Phalaropes to Mr. M. Abbott 154 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Frazar with the following story: On the morning of the day before (the 20th) he found “fully one thousand” of these Phalaropes swimming in Charles River between the Craigie and the West Boston Bridges. The weather was foggy at the time, and he thought that the birds, which were very tame, must have come in during the preceding night. They stayed until noon, when they rose toa considerable height and flew off in the direction of Boston Harbor. Mr. Frazar credits this account, but he thinks that the number of birds may have been exag- gerated. I saw the specimens just referred to immediately after they had been skinned. All three were in full nuptial plumage. It is singular that neither _ the Red nor the Northern Phalarope has been noted in any of the fresh-water ponds of the Cambridge Region, for elsewhere in New England both species are of by no means rare occurrence in autumn about inland waters. 58. Philohela minor (Gmel.). AMERICAN WOODCOCK. Formerly an abundant summer resident, now rare in summer and but an uncommon transient visitor in spring and autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. February 13, 1890, two seen, Waverley, F. B. Pullen. March 15 — November to. December 13, 1871, one im. male taken, Waverley, W. Brewster. NESTING DATES. April 15 —25. Dr. Samuel Cabot once told me that when he was at Harvard College (1832-1836) he used to get fairly good Woodcock shooting within the present limits of the city of Cambridge. A tract of springy ground grown up to alders at the base of the knoll where the Fresh Pond Hotel formerly stood was sure, he said, to harbor eight or ten birds, and he even shot a few in the College Delta. Dr. Walter Woodman mentions the Woodcock in his manuscript list of the birds which he found in Norton’s Woods in summer between 1866 and 1870. During the early years of my own experience or, to be more definite, between 1865 and 1870, I flushed Woodcock occasionally in early spring in the BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 155 Pine Swamp and very frequently in summer in the Maple and Brickyard Swamps as well as under some large willows at the foot of Vassall Lane. Most of the midsummer birds were young, some of which, no doubt, were reared in these swamps although the majority probably came from Arlington, Belmont and Waltham, where Woodcock then bred abundantly, especially in the low ground west of Arlington Heights; about the edges of Rock Meadow; and in the densely wooded and well-watered valley which lies to the southwest of Crown Hill and which was known to the local sportsmen of those days as the ‘Warren Run.’ Here the birds were so numerous at times that on July 7, 1869, I started between thirty and forty in the course of a few hours, and here, on April 24, 1875, I found my first Woodcock’s nest with its set of four beau- tiful eggs. The number of breeding birds diminished rapidly in the course of the succeeding ten years, and very few have been reported since 1890, but as lately as May 6, 1902, a nest containing four eggs was found by Mr. James E. Gard- ner, Jr., not far from the eastern end of Rock Meadow. It was afterwards. visited by Mr. Ralph Hoffmann and Mr. William Lyman Underwood, the latter of whom took some fine photographs of the sitting bird. On May 25 she had departed with her young, leaving one unhatched egg in the nest. Years ago when Woodcock were really numerous in summer about Cam- bridge they were given to resorting in August to cornfields and vegetable gardens near houses, and on one occasion (in 1868, if I remember rightly) I flushed one in our own garden. Mr. H. A. Purdie and I started another at the edge of the salt marsh behind the Cambridge Cemetery on July 11, 1894. This is the latest instance known to me of the occurrence of the species within our city limits in summer, but on April 7, 1900, a boy brought me a living bird which he said he had caught two days before among some bushes on the edge of Gray’s Woods. It had evidently flown against a telegraph wire, for most of the skin of the forehead had been freshly torn away, although the skull was uninjured. During the year last mentioned Mr. E. M. Davis saw a Woodcock in Norton’s Woods on April 2 and 6, and on the latter date the bird was also seen by Miss Bertha T. Parker. At several localities in the more thinly settled parts of Belmont, Arlington, Lexington, and Waltham, migrating Woodcock continue to occur regularly, if only very sparingly, in spring and autumn. At the former season they are almost invariably found in thickets along the courses of brooks or about the borders of swamps and meadows, where the ground is soft and springy, but in autumn they often frequent rather dry covers, especially such as are composed largely of gray birches and second-growth oaks or maples. On December 13, 1871, I shot a Woodcock in Waverley, and in 1901 156 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. another was seen on December 1, and again on the 8th of the same month, in the Wren Orchard, near Arlington Heights, by Mr. Richard S. Eustis. Strictly speaking these are winter dates, but I am inclined to believe that both of the birds to which they relate were merely belated migrants on their way still further to the southward. 59. Gallinago delicata (Ord). WILson’s SNIPE. ENGLISH SNIPE. Transient visitor in spring and autumn, formerly abundant, still common.’ SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 20, 1871, one taken, Belmont, W. Brewster. April 6— May 6. May 18, 1890, one seen and heard, Pout Pond, W. Brewster. September 5, 1868, three seen, Cambridge, W. Brewster. September 12 — November 15. November 23, 1868, several seen, Arlington, W. Brewster. According toa statement made to me by the late Dr. Samuel Cabot, shortly before his death, Wilson’s Snipe used to occur in sufficient numbers to afford really good shooting, sixty-five or seventy years ago, in the then vacant and ill- drained but now thickly settled regions, lying between Broadway and Cambridge Street near Harvard College, and, also, to the south of Dana Hill in Cam- bridgeport. The birds had ceased to frequent these localities before 1865, although I remember starting a stray one in 1867 or 1868 in a field at the corner of Fayette Street and Broadway, within fifty yards of the Cambridge High School. Up to 1870 or a little later Wilson’s Snipe were regularly found in spring about wet hollows in the mowing fields and pastures bordering Vassall Lane, and so numerously at times that I have flushed upwards of fifty there in a single afternoon. The brook meadows extending along both sides of the Fitchburg Railroad between Hill’s Crossing and Belmont were also excellent spring grounds in those days, as well as for ten or fifteen years afterwards, and the Brickyard Swamp, up to the time of its obliteration, always harbored a good many birds in both autumn and spring. But at both seasons and since time immemorial, whenever they were neither too wet nor too dry to afford good feeding grounds, the broad, unreclaimed marshes bordering Alewife Brook and BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 157 extending northward and westward to Little River and Smith’s Pond, have been the favorite haunts of the Snipe in the Cambridge Region. To these marshes the birds have been pretty strictly confined during the last ten or fifteen years, although they continue to be seen more or less frequently, and at times rather plentifully, at Rock Meadow, Belmont, and Great Meadow, East Lexington. During exceptionally wet autumns Snipe occasionally resort in large num- bers to the highly cultivated truck farms of Arlington and Belmont. An inter- esting instance of this happened in September, 1875, when a flight, larger than any that I have known to occur in the Cambridge Region before or since, settled in some water-soaked fields covered with crops of corn, potatoes, cab- bages, etc., on the Hittinger farm, Belmont. Learning of the presence of these birds, about a week after their arrival, I visited the place early the next morn- ing, but all save ten or a dozen of them had departed, owing, no doubt, to the fact that there had been a hard frost during the preceding night. The borings and other signs which they had left convinced me, however, that the statement made to me at the time by Mr. Jacob Hittinger, to the effect that he had started Jour or five hundred Snipe there only the day before, was probably not an exaggeration of the truth. When, on the other hand, there has been little or no rain in late summer and early autumn the Snipe, on returning from the north, sometimes find their usual haunts too dry to serve as feeding grounds. At such times I have often flushed birds from beds of rank grass or tall reeds about the shores of our larger ponds and along the course of Alewife Brook; I have also known them to frequent the salt marshes bordering Charles River, and in the Longfellow Marshes to even occur in numbers sufficient to furnish fairly good shooting. So far as I am aware Wilson’s Snipe have never been found in summer within the limits covered by the present Memoir. Upwards of thirty years ago my friend, Mr. James C. Melvin, a sportsman of long and varied field experi- ence, met with a brood of young during the first week of July in Carlisle, Massachusetts. On nearly the same date of the following year he flushed another brood in the same meadow. On both occasions he shot one or more of the young, which were large enough to fly. Iam told that Snipe have also been seen in the river meadows just below Concord early in July. Mr. N. A. Francis has reported! a supposed case of their breeding in Brookline, but as the young birds which he found there were still in the nest, although “half- grown,” it is not probable that they were Wilson’s Snipe. ™N. A. Francis, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, VIII, 1883, 243. 158 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 60. Arquatella maritima (Briinn.). PuRPLE SANDPIPER. Accidental visitor in autumn. On October 30, 1871, Mr. H. W. Henshaw shot a Purple Sandpiper! at the extreme end of Whittemore Point (since obliterated by the filling of the neighboring flats and marshes), Cambridgeport. This record is likely to long remain the only one for the Cambridge Region, as the species to which it relates is rarely met with out of sight or sound of the open ocean, at least in New Eng- land. Purple Sandpipers used to occur regularly in winter —and probably do so still—on the Pig Rocks off Swampscott, Massachusetts. I found a flock of fifteen there on January 3, 1881, and killed several specimens, which are pre- served in my collection. Mr. W. A. Jeffries tells me that some of the birds which frequent these small, ledgy islands are accustomed to visit the shores of the neighboring mainland during stormy weather, when he has repeatedly seen them feeding among the rocks on Marblehead Neck. 61. Actodromas maculata (Vieill.). PECTORAL SANDPIPER. Grass Birp. Transient visitor in autumn, formerly not uncommon. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 5 — 20. The Pectoral Sandpiper or Grass Bird, as it is usually called by the gunners, used to visit us very regularly and at times rather plentifully, in autumn, resort- ing chiefly to the salt or brackish marshes along Charles River between Whitte- more Point and the Watertown Arsenal. It also occurred sparingly in the fresh- water meadows bordering Alewife Brook immediately to the northward of the 1 This specimen was preserved and is now, I believe, in the British Museum. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE: REGION. 159 Glacialis ; here, up to about 1875, I often met with it during the month of Octo- ber, feeding singly or in small flocks, in wet or very moist places where the grass had been recently cut. Although I have no definite knowledge that it has fre- quented any of these localities within the past ten or fifteen years, the chances are that it has not, as yet, wholly deserted them. It is also probable that a few birds may still be found, at the right season, in Great Meadow, where the recent draining of the reservoir has left extensive muddy flats which, at present, attract numbers of Wilson’s Snipe besides several species of small Sandpipers. 62. Actodromas minutilla (Vieill.). Least SANDPIPER. PEEP. Transient visitor in spring and autumn, formerly abundant, still very common. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 13, 1871, thirty or more seen, Charles River, W. Brewster. May 15 — 28. June 1, 1875, one seen, several heard, Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Brewster. July 13, 1883, about twenty seen, Charles River Marshes, C. R. Lamb. July 20 — September 1. September 21, 1870, large flock seen, Charles River, W. Brewster. I have occasionally seen Least Sandpipers singly or in small flocks about the shores of Fresh Pond and not infrequently in the marshes just to the north- ward of the Glacialis, while Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., writes me that he has killed them in Great Meadow. Their favorite haunts in the Cambridge Region, however, are — or rather were —the salt marshes and tidal creeks of Charles River between Watertown and West Boston Bridge. Here they were wont to occur most abundantly at Whittemore Point, Cambridgeport; in the Brighton or Longfellow Marshes opposite Old Cambridge; and about a small muddy island near the Watertown Arsenal where I have known as many as two or three hundred birds to be assembled at one time. Their numbers have dimin- ished very materially within the past twenty years, but they are, I believe, still common enough at the proper seasons wherever they continue to find suitable feeding grounds. 160 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 63. Pelidna alpina sakhalina (Vieill.). RED-BACKED SANDPIPER. Grass BIRD. Rare transient visitor in autumn. On October 12, 1867, I found five Red-backed Sandpipers feeding together in the Longfellow Marshes on the Brighton side of Charles River, and killed two of them. This is the only definite record that my notes supply of the occurrence of the species in the Cambridge Region. If I am not greatly mistaken in my recollection, however, a few birds used to be met with, nearly every season, by the gunners who regularly visited the Charles River Marshes in autumn twenty- five or thirty years ago. 64. Ereunetes pusillus (Linn.). SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER. PEEP. Transient visitor, formerly abundant in late summer and early autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. August 4, 1875, about one hundred seen, two! taken, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. August 1o— September 15. October 5, 1874, one taken, Fresh Pond Marshes, W. Brewster. The autumnal migration of the Semipalmated Sandpiper begins and ends a week or two later than that of the Least Sandpiper. During the greater part of August, however, the two species may be found together and in about equal numbers. The Semipalmated used to occur abundantly along Charles River where it frequented the salt marshes, tidal creeks and mud flats, all the way from West Boston Bridge to the Watertown Arsenal. I have also seen it repeatedly in the marshes lying between the Glacialis and Little River, and Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., writes me that he has killed it at Great Meadow. In the summer of 1875 the water in Fresh Pond was drawn down to an exceptionally 1 Nos. 232 and 233, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 161 low level, laying bare a considerable portion of the sandy bottom of Cambridge Nook. ' Here, on August 4 of the year just mentioned, I found a flock containing upwards of one hundred Semipalmated Sandpipers besides a few Least Sand- pipers and about a dozen Ring-necked Plover. Although I have few definite notes of the occurrence of the Semipalmated Sandpiper within the past few years, there can be little question that it con- tinues to resort to several of the localities just mentioned. I cannot remember ever seeing it in spring, but it probably visits us occasionally at that season. 65. Calidris arenaria (Linn.). SANDERLING. Rare transient visitor in autumn. I know of but one instance of the occurrence of the Sanderling in the Cambridge Region, v7z., that of a solitary bird which I found on September 6, 1875, feeding on the shores of Fresh Pond. The species has been noted at several localities still further inland in Massachusetts, as well as in other parts of New England, but, as a rule, it is very strictly confined to our seacoast, where it frequents sandy beaches and is still common, at its seasons of migration, especially in early autumn. 66. Limosa hemastica (Linn.). Hupsonian GOpwIT. Exceedingly rare transient visitor in autumn. Mr. Outram Bangs tells me that he saw a Hudsonian Godwit near the head of tide-water in Charles River in August or September about 1875. It was feeding, not far from the Watertown Arsenal, on a muddy island formerly much frequented by Yellow-legs, Ring-necked Plover, and Least and Semipal- mated Sandpipers. This is the only instance known to me of the occurrence of the Hudsonian Godwit in the Cambridge Region. There is a record of a 162 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. specimen taken about equally far inland, at Dedham, Massachusetts, “by G. E. Browne and now in his collection.”"! The species is a not uncommon — if somewhat irregular — migratory visitor, in summer and autumn, to the more extensive salt marshes along our coast, especially those at Ipswich and near the extreme end of Cape Cod. It is seldom noted anywhere in New England in spring, and is believed to return to its breeding grounds at the North chiefly through the interior of the United States. 67. Totanus melanoleucus (Gmel.). GREATER YELLOW-LEGS. WINTER YELLOW-LEG. Common transient visitor in spring and autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 30, 1870, six seen (Newtonville), C. J. Maynard. April 20 — May 20. May 29, 1899, one seen (Concord), W. Brewster. August 1 — October 20. November 4, 1897, one seen (Concord), W. Brewster. Nuttall, writing in 1834, characterized? the Greater Yellow-legs as “so uncommon” in Massachusetts “that it may be considered almost as a straggler ” which then, as he believed, confined its visits in autumn “chiefly to the eastern extremity of Cape Cod and Cape Ann,” and proceeded northward in spring ‘‘ principally by an inland route.” During the past twenty or thirty years, how- ever, it has been one of the commonest of our larger migratory waders in both spring and autumn, occurring about our inland ponds and marshes almost as frequently as along the seacoast. Mr. W. A. Jeffries tells me that until very recently it has been regularly seen in spring on the flats of the Back Bay Basin, and between 1865 and 1875 I often met with it in autumn at Fresh Pond and the Glacialis where, as I am assured by Mr. O. A. Lothrop, it has been observed repeatedly within the past six or eight years. According to Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., it has been taken at Spy Pond and also at Great Meadow. 1A. P. Morse, Birds of Wellesley and Vicinity, 1897, 18. 2T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 1834, 148, 149. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 163 If, as is not improbable, Nuttall, in the passage above quoted, used the term ‘uncommon’ in a comparative sense, his statement is not difficult to under- stand, for Eskimo Curlew, Golden Plover, and certain other large Limicoline birds which frequented the Massachusetts seaboard in countless thousands sixty or seventy years ago, have since almost ceased to visit it at all. In comparison with these species the Greater Yellow-legs may have seemed as uncommon to Nuttall as it seems common to the sportsmen of the present time and yet not have changed its own status materially in the interim. As far as my own observations go to show, its numbers have remained about the same during the last quarter of a century. 68. Totanus flavipes (Gmel.). YELLOW-LEGS. LESSER YELLOW-LEGS. SUMMER YELLOW-LEG. Transient visitor, formerly common in late summer and early autumn, now rare at all seasons. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 3, 1868, three seen, Cambridge, W. Brewster. August 4, 1875, one seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. September 15, 1868, one seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. Nuttall’s account of the Lesser Yellow-legs contains the following charm- ingly quaint and picturesque passage which evidently relates chiefly, if not wholly, to his personal experience with the bird in the marshes bordering the tidal reaches of Charles River in Cambridge and Brighton: “At the approach of autumn small flocks, here also, accompany the Upland Plover (Zotanus Bar- tramius,) flying high, and whistling, as they proceed inland to feed, but return- ing again towards the marshes of the sea coast to roost. Sometimes, and perhaps more commonly at the approach of stormy weather, they are seen in small restless bands, roving over the salt marshes, and tacking and turning along the meanders of the river, now crossing then returning, a moment alighting, the next on the wing; they then spread out and reconnoitre, again closing in a loose phalanx, the glittering of their wings and snow white tails, are seen conspicuous as they mount into the higher regions of the air ; and now intent on some more distant excursion, they rise, whistling on their way, high over the village spire, and beyond the reach of danger, pursue their way to some other clime, or to 164 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. explore new marshes and visit other coasts more productive of their favorite fare. While skimming along the surface of the neighboring river, I have been amused by the sociability of these wandering waders. As they course steadily along, the party, never very numerous, would be joined by some straggling Peeps, who all in unison pursue their route together like common wanderers, or travellers, pleased and defended by the access of any company.” ! During the earlier years of my own field experience a good many Summer Yellow-legs continued to resort each season to the marshes along Charles River. I also used to meet with them rather frequently about Fresh Pond and the Glacialis, and I have a mounted specimen which I killed on August 24, 1875, at the edge of a stagnant pool on the Stimpson farm, Cambridge, not far from the present point of intersection of Appleton Street and Huron Avenue. Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., includes the species in a manuscript list of the birds which he has shot at Great Meadow, and he further informs me that it has been taken at Spy Pond. The Lesser Yellow-legs is not known to have ever been a frequent visitor in spring to any part of New England. I have but one record of its occurrence at this season in the Cambridge Region, vzz., that of three birds which I found feeding near the foot of Vassall Lane, in a meadow bordering Muskrat Pond, on May 3, 1868. They were very tame and I watched them for a long time, stand- ing within a few yards of them and making an absolutely certain identification. At most places on or near the coast of Massachusetts the Summer Yellow- leg was very much more numerous than its larger cousin thirty or forty years ago. If Iam not greatly mistaken it has since become, throughout New Eng- land, rather the less common of the two. Nor is this to be wondered at, for it is one of the least suspicious of the larger waders and our gunners have never shown it any mercy. The fact that its visits to the Cambridge Region have been much less frequent of late than in earlier days is evidently due, however, largely to the destruction, partial or complete, of so many of its former feeding grounds, especially those once furnished by the extensive salt marshes bordering on Charles River. I am told that a few birds continue to appear on the mud flats of the Back Bay Basin, and I do not doubt that others are occasionally seen in the Fresh Pond Marshes, although I have no records of the recent occur- rence of the species in the latter locality. 1T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 1834, 153-154. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 165 69. Helodromas solitarius (Wils.). SOLITARY SANDPIPER. Common transient visitor in spring and autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 6, 1878, one ad. male! taken, Cambridge, H. M. Spelman. May 12 — 23. June 5, 1889, one ad. female? taken, Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Brewster. July 7, 1889, one seen and heard, Pout Pond, W. Brewster. August Io — September 30. November 28, 1895, one seen, Mount Auburn, W. Robinson. The Solitary Sandpiper is one of the few waders that have not diminished perceptibly in numbers within the past thirty years. It always occurs com- monly, and often really abundantly, in both spring and autumn, visiting most of our open fresh-water marshes and pond shores and also the margins of sluggish brooks and small, isolated pools which are more or less shaded by trees or bushes. In Nuttall’s day “a pair, but oftener a single individual, .... usually frequented, very familiarly, the small fish-pond in the Botanic Garden in Cambridge.”’? I have seen as many as five or six birds at one time scattered along the margin of a pool on the Stimpson farm near the head of Vassall Lane and I have known others to appear about the artificial ponds in Mount Auburn, but during the earlier as well as later years of my personal experience the species has been met with oftenest and in the greatest numbers in the Fresh Pond Swamps and at Rock Meadow. The June date, given above, relates to a specimen which I shot near Little River. It appeared to be unable to fly, and on dissecting it I found that one of its wings had been broken some time before and that the bones had reunited in such a way as to render the wing practically useless for flight, facts which suffi- ciently accounted for the presence of the bird in this locality so very late in the season. 1 No. 828, collection of H. M. Spelman. 2No. 30,169, collection of William Brewster. 3T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 1834, 160. 166 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 7o. Bartramia longicauda (Bechst.). BARTRAMIAN SANDPIPER. UPLAND PLOVER. FIELD PLOVER. Transient visitor, formerly not uncommon in autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 20, 1869, one heard, Cambridge, W. Brewster. May 6, 1870, one ad. male! taken, Cambridge, W. Brewster. July 26, 1894, one seen, East Watertown, W. Brewster. September 14, 1890, one heard, Cambridge, W. Brewster. Whenever I have occasion to spend the month of August in Cambridge, I am nearly sure to hear — although much less frequently now than formerly — the rapid, musical flight-calls of Upland Plover migrating by night, or in the early morning, low over the house. Some of these passing birds were accus- tomed, up to within a very few years, to resort for food and rest to a rough, boggy pasture which bordered the Brighton side of the Longfellow Marshes. A broad extent of gently sloping mowing fields in the eastern part of Waltham, not far from the Gore estate, also used to attract a good many others, as I am informed by Mr. Outram Bangs. I have found single birds in late April or early May, in the grass fields near Vassall Lane, as well as in those to the west- ward of Hill’s Crossing, Belmont, but that happened more than thirty years ago. The places just mentioned are the only ones in the Cambridge Region where I have ever known the Field Plover to alight. I fear that it no longer frequents any of them, but its voice, as I have just said, has not wholly ceased to be heard overhead. It is one of the most pleasing as well as characteristic of the sounds which mark the near approach of autumn. The Bartramian Sandpiper is prized by epicures for the delicacy of its flesh, and the zeal with which it is pursued by sportsmen and market hunters will account, no doubt, for the fact that the beautiful bird has diminished alarmingly in numbers within recent years, not only in Massachusetts but elsewhere along the Atlantic coast and also over most of its extensive range in western North America. Within my recollection Field Plover have nested plentifully on the grassy hills of Worcester County, Massachusetts, and on those of southern Maine and New Hampshire, but there are few localities in New England where one can be sure of finding the birds in summer at the present time. 1No. 3810, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 167 71. Actitis macularia (Linn.). SPOTTED SANDPIPER. Common summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE, April 21, 1896, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. April 26 — September 30. November 1, 1903, one seen, Fresh Pond, A. C. Comey. NESTING DATES. May 25—- June 5. The Spotted Sandpiper is common almost everywhere, during the breeding season, throughout the open and cultivated but more thinly settled portions of the Cambridge Region. It nests, as a rule, in barren fields, and in strawberry beds and patches of potatoes or other low-growing vegetables, often at a consid- erable distance from water and always on ground not subject to inundation. A picturesque, rocky island which formerly existed in the upper mill-pond at Wa- verley, in what is now the Beaver Brook Reservation, was once sure to harbor a breeding pair, and within the past few years several birds have nested regularly in the clay-pits at the eastern end of the Fresh Pond Swamps. As soon as the young Spotted Sandpipers are able to fly, they, with their parents, resort to the margins of our larger ponds and to the salt marshes and tidal creeks along Charles River. They used to frequent the Cambridgeport and Longfellow Marshes in considerable numbers in July and August, and they continue to be seen frequently during these months, as well as in late April and early May, about the shores of Fresh, Spy, and the Mystic Ponds. 42. Oxyechus vociferus (Linn.). KILLDEER. Rare transient visitor in spring and autumn and very rare summer resident. Mr. Outram Bangs tells me that he used to find Killdeer about the Back 168 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Bay Basin, thirty or more years ago, and Mr. M. Abbott Frazar once showed me a set of four eggs which a boy had taken (in 1880 or 1881, if I remember rightly) on some filled land now occupied by the Back Bay Fens. Another pair almost certainly bred in June, 1903, on the Cambridge side of the Basin not far from the northern end of Harvard Bridge where, on a wide expanse of flat, gravelly land that has replaced the salt marsh of earlier days, both birds were repeatedly seen together during the first half of the month by several Cambridge ornithologists, among whom were Mr. Walter Faxon and Mr. Ralph Hoffmann. I have met with the Killdeer only twice in the Cambridge Region — in April, about 1865, when I flushed a shy, noisy bird in a ploughed field at the eastern end of the Brickyard Swamp, and on June 30, 1898, when I spent an hour or more watching a pair that had settled for the season near the same locality in a large, well-drained clay-pit, the bottom of which was in most places covered with a dense growth of short, wild grasses and white clover, although there were also wide spaces of bare, clayey earth and occasional pools of water. The presence of these birds was made known to me by Mr. O. A. Lothrop who, with his friend, Mr. Alton H. Hathaway, had had one if not both of them under close observation for upwards of four weeks. They were seen together, how- ever, only on the occasion just mentioned, when they behaved as if they had young, but my search for the latter proved as fruitless as had been that pre- viously made for the eggs by Messrs. Lothrop and Hathaway. These birds were not noted after July 2, nor did they return to the clay-pit the following year. In November, 1888, immense numbers of Killdeer Plover invaded New England, driven, it is supposed, from the South by a violent storm.! Many of them spent the entire winter in Massachusetts, and one was killed by Dr. W. P. Coues on December 25, of the year just mentioned,? in the Longfellow Marshes, not far from where the Harvard University Boathouse now stands. This specimen is the only one known to me that has ever been actually taken in the region covered by the present Memoir, but I have another —a fine adult male — which was shot in Newtonville by Mr. C. J. Maynard on April 7, 1873. There is a recent record of a bird which was seen in a ploughed field at Belmont on October 19, 1901.3 1A. P. Chadbourne, Auk, VI, 1889, 255-263. 2 [Editor,] Ornithologist and Odlogist, XIV, 1889, 14. 3H. M. Turner and R. S. Eustis, Auk, XIX, 1902, 78. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 169 73. @gialitis semipalmata (Bonap.). SEMIPALMATED PLOVER. RING—NECKED PLovER. RING-—NECK. Transient visitor, seldom seen in spring but formerly common in autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE, May 25, 1871, several seen, Longfellow Marshes, W. Brewster. August 4, 1875, twelve or more seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. August 10 — September 15. September 26, 1901, five seen, Charles River Marshes, W. Brewster. The pretty little Ring-necked Plover used to occur commonly and very regularly, in August and early September, throughout the salt marshes along Charles River all the way from Whittemore Point, Cambridgeport, to the Water- town Arsenal. It also visited some of our larger ponds, especially during seasons when the water was exceptionally low. On September 2, 1869, 1 met with a large flock scattered along the western shore of Sherman’s Pond, Waltham. On August 4, 1875, I saw a dozen or more birds feeding, in company with great num- bers of Semipalmated Sandpipers and a few Least Sandpipers, on a sandy flat in Cambridge Nook, Fresh Pond; here I shot two Ring-necks on September 6 of the year last mentioned. I have no evidence to offer that the Semipalmated Plover has ever been noted at Spy Pond or the Mystic Ponds, but Mr. John H. Hardy, Jr., writes me that he has taken it at Great Meadow. Of its occurrence in spring I can give but one definite record — that of several birds which I saw flying about over the Longfellow Marshes on May 25, 1871. Its visits in summer and autumn have been becoming less and less frequent of late, owing, no doubt, to the fact that most of its former feeding grounds have been drained or filled. Indeed, within the past few years, I have seen it only in limited numbers, on the muddy banks of Charles River near the Cambridge Hospital. I am assured by Dr. A. H. Tuttle, however, that it continues to appear rather numerously in late summer about the Back Bay Basin, where it feeds on the oozy flats exposed at low tide and also to some extent in depressions of the filled land on the Cambridge side of the river near Harvard Bridge, where surface water often collects in shallow pools after heavy rains. 170 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 74. Colinus virginianus (Linn.). Bop—-wHITE. QUAIL. Permanent resident, sometimes abundant. NESTING DATES. June 20 — 30. In the region about Cambridge, as at most northern localities, Quail vary greatly in numbers from year to year. They breed so rapidly that whenever they are favored by a succession of mild winters they soon become abundant despite their numerous enemies. But a single severe winter accompanied by deep snows and icy crusts will often reduce them to the point of extinction, as has happened several times within my experience in this neighborhood. During the years of their greatest abundance I have started as many as five or six bevies in a single day in autumn, in Arlington, Belmont or Waltham, or heard, in June or July, the ‘ d0b-white’ of three or four males coming from as many directions at once. Within these towns the best quail grounds, since time immemorial, have been the crest and western slopes of the long ridge that extends from Arlington to Waver- ley and the country lying immediately about Rock Meadow. Here the birds are still miore or less common at all seasons, frequenting the outskirts of cultivated fields in summer and autumn, haunting wood edges and pastures grown up to cedar and barberry-bushes in winter and early spring. They depend largely for subsistence on the fruit of the cedar and barberry when the ground is deeply covered with snow. Until comparatively recently Quail were always to be found in autumn and winter in the Fresh Pond Swamps, and also in the region between Mount Auburn and the Watertown Arsenal; but such instances of their near approach to the confines of a populous city were quite eclipsed by the presence of a bevy during the greater part of each autumn for several successive years, in the immediate neighborhood of Harvard Square. It usually contained eight or ten Quail, and its habitual range included Norton’s Woods, Jarvis Field, and the gardens and cultivated grounds lying along Kirkland Street and the western portions of Broadway and Harvard Streets. On one occasion several of the birds alighted on Cambridge Common in the midst of a number of boys who were engaged in playing baseball; on another my neighbor Mr. Walter Deane was surprised beyond measure by flushing the entire bevy from a grass plot within fifteen BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 171 feet of his house on Brewster Street. Mr. Deane’s experience occurred in Sep- tember, 1883, and that year, if I remember rightly, was the last when Quail were seen in the parts of Cambridge just mentioned. 75. Bonasa umbellus (Linn.). RuFFED GROUSE. PARTRIDGE. Permanent resident, formerly very common. NESTING DATES. May 15 — 25. Ruffed Grouse were common enough at all seasons, twenty-five or thirty years ago, in the wooded portions of Arlington, Belmont, Lexington and Wal- tham. In autumn and winter a few could always be found in the Fresh Pond Swamps and also on the cedar- and pine-clad ridges just to the westward of Mount Auburn, while during the season of Partridge ‘madness’ (October and Novem- ber) an occasional straggler was even known to invade the more densely popu- lated parts of Old Cambridge or Cambridgeport. But the cutting away of woods, and especially of undergrowth, the building of houses, the multiplication of dogs and cats, and the ever growing persecution on the part of the sportsmen, have combined to render most of the former haunts of the Partridge within the Cambridge Region no longer tenable. A few birds still linger, however, in the more retired portions of the towns above mentioned, especially in the neighbor- hood of Arlington Heights and Waverley; one was seen by Capt. Wirt Rob- inson in the Maple Swamp as lately as 1897 and a nest containing eggs was fottnd by Mr. O. A. Lothrop in Belmont as recently as May, 1902. {Tympanuchus americanus (Reich.). Prairie Hen. In the early spring of 1884 or 1885 six pairs of Prairie Hens, brought from Iowa, were liberated by Mr. Robert B. Nesbitt of Cam- bridge at various points along Concord Avenue between Belmont and Concord. He tells me that he was afterwards informed —on somewhat questionable authority, however — that several of these birds reared broods of young that season. I can vouch for the fact that a year or two later an adult male spent most of the spring in a grain field near the village of Carlisle, Massa- chusetts, where it was seen by my friend Mr. George H. Robbins and several of his neighbors. Another bird of the same sex was met with by Mr. Walter Faxon in the Fresh Pond Swamps (on the Arlington side of Little River) on May 14, 1892. The latter instance might be taken to 172 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. indicate that at least a few of these Grouse may have succeeded in maintaining themselves for a number of years, but there are no good reasons for believing that any of them are still living or have left living descendants. In short the attempt to establish them permanently in the Cam- bridge Region, as well as in certain other parts of Massachusetts where they were liberated at about the same time, has evidently proved a complete failure.] {Tympanuchus cupido (Linn.). HratH HEN. It is probable that Wood refers to this Grouse when he speaks of the ‘ Heathcocke’ in his poetical enumeration of “fuch kinds of Fowle as the Countrey affoords.”” The word occurs in the following line: “Ze Turky-Phefant, Heathcocke, Partridge rare.’ In the following text he says: “Pheafons be very rare, but Heathcockes, and Partridges be common; hee that is a husband, and will be ftirring betime, may kill halfe adozen in a morning.” Headds: “The Partridges be bigger than they be in Exgland, the flefh of the Heathcockes is red, and the flefh of the Partridge white.”' This indicates that his ‘ Heathcocke’ must have been the Heath Hen, and his Partridge the Ruffed Grouse. What his ‘ Pheafon’ was we can only conjecture. Apparently he was not personally familiar with the bird and he probably learned of it through the Indians, who may have had the Spruce Grouse in mind, or, perhaps, from white men who had been in Virginia, where the Ruffed Grouse was and still is called ‘ Pheasant.’ Josselyn asserts that “the Country hath” no “Pkheafants, nor Woodcocks, nor Quails,”? but he mentions the “ Partridge” which, he says, “is larger than ours, white flefht, but very dry, they are indeed a fort of Partridges called Groofes.’’* This passage relates, of course, to the Ruffed Grouse. Morton’s testimony on these points is so interesting that I give it in full. It is as follows: “There are a kinde of.fowles which are commonly called Pheifants, but whether they be pheyfants or no, I will not take upon mee, to determine. They are in forme like our pheifant henne of England. Both the male and the female are alike; but they are rough footed; and have ftareing fethers about the head and neck, the body is as bigg as the pheyfant henne of Eng- land; and are excellent white flefh, and delicate white meate, yet we feldome beftowe a fhoot at them. “Partridges, there are much, like our Partridges of England, they are of the fame plumes, but bigger in body. They have not the figne of the horfefhoe on the breft as the Partridges of England; nor are they coloured about the heads as thofe are; they fit on the trees. For I have feene 40. in one tree at a time: yet at night they fall on the ground, and fit untill morning fo together; and are dainty flefh. “There are quailes alfo, but bigger then the quailes in England. They take trees alfo: for I have numbered 60. upon a tree at atime. The cocks doe call at the time of the yeare, but with a different note from the cock quailes of England.’’* Despite what Morton says to the effect that its flesh was white, I am inclined to believe that his ‘pheifant’ must have been the ‘Heathkcocke' of Wood, which, as I have already stated, was almost certainly the Heath Hen of later authors. The ‘ Partridges’ mentioned by Morton 1 William Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. z, 1635, 22-23, 25. Charles Deane’s ed., 1865, 29, 30, 32. 2 John Josselyn, New-Englands Rarities Discovered, 1672, 12, 13. E. Tuckerman’s ed., 1865, 46-47. 3 John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New-England, ed. 2, 1675, 99. W. Veazie’s reprint, 1865, 78. 4 Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1637, 70. Ed. C. F. Adams, Jr., 1883, 193-195. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 173 were, without much doubt, Ruffed Grouse, and his ‘quailes,’ unquestionably Bob-whites which, as he asserts, occasionally “take trees alfo.” Nuttall, writing of the Heath Hen in 1832, says: “Along the Atlantic coast, they are still met with on the Grous plains of New Jersey, on the brushy plains of Long Island, in similar shrubby barrens in Westford, Connecticut, in the island of Martha’s Vinyard on the south side of Massachusetts Bay; and formerly, as probably in many other tracts, according to the infor- mation which I have received from Lieut. Governor Winthrop, they were so common on the ancient bushy site of the city of Boston, that laboring people or servants stipulated with their employers not to have the Heath-Hen brought to table oftener than a few times in the week! ””! The final statement in the above passage has a familiar sound, for with the substitution of ‘ sal- mon’ or ‘shad’ for ‘ Heath-Hen’ it appears in the early annals of several New England towns. If ‘laboring people’ and ‘servants’ were really ever surfeited with the flesh of Heath Hens killed on the hills now occupied by the city of Boston, the birds must have also visited the Cambridge shores of the Back Bay. I have been permitted to quote the following interesting passage from ‘ Notes of conversa- tions with Eliza Cabot written down by her son, J. E. C[abot],’ and printed for private circula- tion in 1904: “I recollect the Western prairie grouse in this part of the country. I saw one once in Newton; and once, after I was married, your father went down to the Cape, fishing, and in the woods there I saw a grouse very near me, and saw him puff up that orange they have on the side of the neck.” Eliza Cabot was born on April 17, 1791, and married about 1811. Her granddaughter, Mrs. Charles Almy, thinks it probable that she saw the Grouse in Newton about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the one on‘ the Cape’ (Cape Cod, no doubt) about 1812. That both birds were Heath Hens can scarcely be doubted, for there is no evidence that living western Grouse of any kind were introduced into Massachusetts at so early a period. From the evidence above cited we may assume with reasonable safety that the Heath Hen was found rather numerously on the “ancient bushy site” of Boston, at the time that city was founded, while there are also reasons for believing that it frequented many other localities, more or less similar in character, along the neighboring coast, probably ranging as far north- ward as Cape Ann. Apparently it was exterminated nearly everywhere by the English colo- nists not long after this coast region became generally settled, and perhaps before 1650. Mrs. Cabot’s testimony indicates, however, that it had not wholly disappeared from Cape Cod, nor even from the immediate neighborhood of Boston, at the beginning of the past century. On the island of Martha’s Vineyard it has continued to exist in limited and varying numbers down to the present day.] [Phasianus torquatus Gmel. RING-NECKED PHEASANT. ‘MONGOLIAN PHEASANT.’ This fine bird, the Ring-necked Pheasant, has apparently become permanently established in the Cambridge Region — as well as in many other parts of Massachusetts — during the past eight or ten years. Although not as yet very numerously represented in our immediate neighbor- hood, it appears to be already rather generally distributed there, especially in portions of Cambridge, Arlington, Belmont and Watertown. It is perhaps seen oftenest and in the great- est numbers in the region lying immediately to the north and west of Fresh Pond. Here as else- 1T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Land Birds, 1832, 662. d 2[J. E. Cabot,] J. Elliot Cabot [Autobiographical sketch — Family reminiscences — Sedge birds], 1904, 94. 174 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. where it frequents practically every kind of ground, although it is found less often — at least in summer — in dense woods than in open, thinly settled farming country, where it feeds at morn- ing and evening well out in cultivated or grassy fields and skulks during the remainder of the day about the edges of briery thickets or in beds of rank herbaceous plants. In these respects its habits resemble those of our Quail. Like that bird, too, it sometimes comes close about build- ings when the ground is deeply covered with snow and food difficult to obtain. During the winter of 1902-1903 a dozen or more Pheasants were frequently seen, shortly after sunrise, feeding on a large manure heap near a barn on the Hittinger farm, just to the westward of Fresh Pond. When disturbed they invariably separated into two flocks which flew off in differ- ent directions. It is said that a nest containing eggs was found not far from the eastern con- fines of this farm in the spring of 1902. I have compiled the following brief statement of the more important facts and dates relating to the introduction of these Pheasants from the annual reports of the Massachusetts Commis- sioners of Inland Fisheries and Game.' In the summer of 1894 a few birds were obtained, apparently from Oregon, by Mr. Samuel Forehand and by him were presented to the Massachusetts Commissioners of Inland Fisheries and Game who erected a ‘ State aviary’ for their reception at Winchester. Although a number of eggs were laid, it does not appear that any chicks were reared that season. Early the next spring twelve more birds (three cocks and nine hens) were received, also from Oregon. They bred so successfully that by the close of the summer there were consider- ably more than seventy-five young birds, many of which were allowed to escape into neighbor- ing gardens and woods. The following year over two hundred chicks were reared in the aviary, while nests with eggs and broods of young, belonging to escaped birds, were found in various parts of Winchester. In 1897 nine pairs of mature birds were liberated in Winchester, and a number of broods of young were seen in that town. A Pheasant was killed in Watertown during this year. In their report for 1899 the Commissioners state that “there have been but few [Pheasants] liberated in Winchester from the State aviary, yet this and the surrounding towns are becoming fairly well stocked. ....On one estate, within two miles of the aviary, the owner reports that not less than seven or eight broods have been seen this season, and surely not less than fifty birds reared.” From the standpoint of the naturalist the introduction of most exotic forms of animal life must ever be a matter of regret rather than of satisfaction. And these Pheasants, despite their undeniable beauty of form and coloring and reputed value as game, seem deplorably out of place in a New England landscape. Even if they do not crowd out our Quail or Ruffed Grouse,— as 'In these reports the birds are invariably referred to as ‘Mongolian Pheasants,’ and the Commis- sioners distinctly assert in one connection (Report for 1894, p. 17) that they declined to purchase specimens of the “ ordinary ring-neck, a very different pheasant from the Mongolian.” I have had no opportunity of closely examining any of the birds which they have introduced, but other ornitholo- gists who have done so (among whom may be named as good an authority as Mr. Outram Bangs) have unhesitatingly pronounced them to be P. torguatus. Mr. Robert Ridgway in the last edition of his ‘Manual of North American Birds’ (p. 206) cites zorguatus among the species which have become naturalized in Oregon (whence our Massachusetts birds were originally derived) and does not mention the Mongolian Pheasant as occurring in North Americaat all. A recent popular writer on Pheasants also refers to ‘‘the so-called ‘ Mongolian’ pheasant, properly the China Ring-neck, or Torquatus” ; adding, ‘‘the true Mongolian has never reached this country alive.’? (Homer Davenport, Country Life in America, IV, 1903, 335.) BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 175 it has been feared they may eventually do,—or devastate our cultivated crops,—as they are already accused of doing, —it would have been much wiser to expend the time and money which have been devoted to their naturalization in fostering and increasing our stock of native game birds.] {Meleagris gallopavo silvestris (Vieill.). Wirp Turxey. The works of Morton, Wood, Josselyn and other early writers on New England furnish convincing evidence that the Wild Turkey was abundant in eastern Massachusetts when the country was first settled. Morton, re- ferring, no doubt, to his experience at_Merrymount, now Wollaston, only a few miles south of the Cambridge Region, where he lived from 1625 to 1628, and again in 1629 and 1630, says: “great flocks [of Turkeys] have fallied by our doores;....I had a Salvage who hath taken out his boy in a morning, and they have brought home their loades about noone. I have afked them what number they found in the woods, who have anfwered Neent Metawna, which is a thofand that day.”! Wood confirms this by stating that “fometimes there will be forty, three- {core, and an hundred of a flocke, fometimes more and fometimes leffe; their feeding is Acornes, Hawes, and Berries, fome of them get a haunt to frequent our Exglifh corne: In Winter when the Snow covers the ground, they refort to the Sea fhore to looke for Shrimps, and fuch {mall Fifhes at low tides. Such as love Turkie hunting, muft folllow it in Winter after a new falne Snow, when he may follow them by their tracts; fome have killed ten or a dozen in halfe a day; if they can be found towards an evening and watched where they peirch, if one come about ten or eleaven of the clocke, he may {hoote as often as he will, they will fit, unleffe they be flenderly wounded. Thefe Turkie remaine al the yeare long, the price of a good Turkie cocke is foure fhillings; and he is well worth it, for he may be in weight forty pound; a Hen two fhillings.’’2 Josselyn mentions seeing, probably at Black Point (now Scarborough), Maine, “threefcore broods of young Turkdes on the fide of a Marfh, funning of themfelves in a morning betimes, but this was thirty years fince [in 1638 or 1639], the Exglifk and the /zdrax having now [1671] deftroyed the breed, fo that ’tis very rare to meet with a wild 7urkze in the Woods.” That the species was formerly found throughout the Cambridge Region, there can be no reasonable doubt. Turkey Hill in Arlington may well have derived its name from the presence there of this noble bird in early Colonial days. Indeed, Mr. Walter Faxon writes me that an acquaintance of his has seen “in a manuscript diary of the ancestor of an Arlington man.... an entry of killing some Wild Turkeys in the region about Turkey Hill.” At Concord, less than ten miles further inland, the species had not become wholly extinct at the beginning of the past century. The late Steadman Buttrick of that town, a keen lover of field sports and a man of undoubted veracity, who died in 1874, used to delight in narrating how, when a boy, he had made repeated but invariably fruitless expeditions in pursuit of the last Wild Turkey that is known to have lingered in the region about his home. He often saw the bird, a fine old gobbler, but it was so very wary that neither he nor any of the other Concord gunners of that day ever succeeded in getting a fair shot at it. It was in the habit of roosting in some tall pines on Ball’s Hill whence, when disturbed, it usually flew for refuge into an extensive wooded swamp on the opposite (Bedford) side of Concord River. Mr. Buttrick was born in 1796. As he was pre- sumably at least twelve or fifteen years of age before he began to use a gun effectively, it is probable that his experience with the Wild Turkey happened some time between 1808 and 1815.] 1 Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, 1637, 69-70. Ed. C. F. Adams, Jr., 1883, 192-193. 2 William Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. 2, 1635, 25. Charles Deane’s ed., 1865, 32. 3 John Josselyn, New-Englands Rarities Discovered, 1672,9. E. Tuckerman’s ed., 1865, 42. 176 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 76. Ectopistes migratorius (Linn.). PASSENGER PIGEON. WILD PIGEON. Formerly a transient visitor in spring and autumn, sometimes occurring in immense num- bers ; now exceedingly rare, and perhaps extinct. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 23, 1875, one ad. male! taken, Waltham, W. Brewster. October 21, 1871, one female taken, Watertown, W. E. D. Scott. Of the many passages which might be cited, attesting the extraordinary abundance of Wild Pigeons in New England in former times, that published in 1634 by Wood is perhaps the most pertinent to the present connection, since it evidently relates in part to a locality (the neighborhood of Lynn) only a few miles distant from the Cambridge Region to which, without doubt, it might equally well have been applied. It is as follows: ‘‘Thefe Birds come into the Countrey, to goe to the North parts in the beginning of our Spring, at which time (if I may be counted worthy, to be beleeved in a thing that is not fo {trange as true) I have feene them fly as if the Ayerie regiment had beene Pigeons ; feeing neyther beginning nor ending, length, or breadth of thefe Millions of Millions. The fhouting of people, the ratling of Gunnes, and pelting of {mall fhotte could not drive them out of their courfe, but fo they continued for foure or five houres together: yet it muft not be concluded, that it is thus often; for it is but at the beginning of the Spring, and at A7zchaelmas, when they returne backe to the Southward; yet are there fome all the yeare long, which are eafily attayned by fuch as looke after them. Many of them build among{t the Pine-trees, thirty miles to the North-eaft of our plantations; joyning neft to neft, and tree to tree by their nefts, fo that the Sunne never fees the ground in that place, from whence the /zdzans fetch whole loades of them.” ? Dr. Samuel Cabot told me, shortly before his death, that when he was at Har- vard College (1832-1836) Passenger Pigeons visited Cambridge regularly in both spring and autumn, sometimes in immense numbers. He dwelt particularly on the recollection of a morning in early spring when the ground was still covered with three or four inches of snow and when, as he was crossing the College Grounds ‘ 'No. 215, collection of William Brewster. 2 William Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. z, 1635, 24. Charles Deane’s ed.,1865, 31-32. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 177 on his way to a recitation, he was tantalized by the sight of great flocks of Pigeons continually passing overhead towards the westward. The recitation finished, he returned to his room for a gun and followed their line of flight which led to some gravel banks at Simon’s Hill, near where the Cambridge Hospital now stands. Here he took a position on the crest of a knoll and ina short time killed eighteen birds. Not far off some men were working a net. They had captured a large number of Pigeons, and Dr. Cabot saw them take several dozens at a single ‘strike.’ Such experiences were numbered among those of the past in the Cambridge Region when I began to take an active interest in its birds, but for ten or fifteen years later it was by no means uncommon to meet with a few Pigeons here, even within our city limits. I saw a flock of about fifty at Pout Pond on the morning of September 2, 1868. They came from the northward, and I still remember how distinctly the red breasts of the males showed in the level beams of the rising sun as the birds circled once over the pond; they were apparently looking for a place to alight, but finally kept on southward. Three years later a really heavy flight passed through eastern Massachusetts between September 2 and 10. I was in the Maine woods at the time, but on my return was assured by game dealers in the Boston markets and by reliable sportsmen of my acquaintance that the birds had been very numerous everywhere and that “thousands” had been killed. At Concord and Reading old pigeon trappers had even used their long neglected nets with some success. My notes state that at Cambridge large flocks were seen passing at frequent intervals for three or four days, and that at night the birds ‘“roosted in pine woods.” On July 6, 1870, I shot a female Passenger Pigeon which was eating red cur- rants in our garden, and on June 20, 1874, I killed another in the same cluster of bushes, the fruit of which, however, could scarcely have been ripe at so early a date. Both these birds were young, —fully grown but still in first plumage. They were exceedingly tame, as was also a third young bird which, early in Sep- tember, 1878, spent a week or ten days in or near our grounds, feeding, much of the time, in Sparks Street, where I frequently saw it avoid passing carriages by merely moving a little to one or the other side, just as a domestic pigeon would have done under similar circumstances. Mr. W. E. D. Scott has asserted that in “1870, and before, ....close to the town [Cambridge], in the vicinity of Mount Auburn, a few [Passenger Pig- eons] bred every year.”! In another and more recently published passage relat- ing to the same period, he has reasserted that at “‘The Farm’... . just back of 1W, E. D. Scott, Bird Studies, 1898, 203. 178 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Mount Auburn” these Pigeons “still bred in small numbers in the pine woods.”! In 1869 I was living during the entire spring, summer and autumn in a house situated less than a quarter of a mile from the woods to which Mr. Scott refers, and during this year, and the five or six years immediately preceding, as well as following, it, ‘The Farm’ was at all seasons one of my favorite and most productive collecting grounds. It was also visited more or less frequently by H. W. Hen- shaw, Ruthven Deane and several other excellent observers. Had Wild Pigeons been found breeding anywhere in the neighborhood during this period it does not seem likely that the fact would have been known only to Mr. Scott, especially as we were all intimately acquainted with him and his field work when he was at Cambridge. As it has been unknown, all these years, to everyone else, I feel justified in claiming that his statements, above quoted, require confirmation. Probably they were based on his recollection of the capture of the young birds to which I have just alluded, or on that of a female Pigeon which he him- self shot on October 21, 1871, in an asparagus bed near Mount Auburn? All these birds were quite strong enough of wing to have flown a hundred miles or more, but it is not unlikely that some of them were reared in Middlesex County. Indeed I have notes of the breeding of the Passenger Pigeon at two localities in this county in 1875. On May 22 of that year a nest containing a single egg was found in Weston by the late Mr. E. B. Towne. Later that same season my friend, Mr. George H. Robbins, met with no less than three nests, on which the birds were sitting, near his house in Carlisle. As he is a careful observer and accustomed by long experience to distinguish Wild Pigeons from Carolina Doves, I have entire confidence in the accuracy of this record. On April 23, 1875, I killed a fine adult male near the Lyman estate in Waltham. It was the last Pigeon that I have seen, or am likely to see, alive in the Cambridge Region, but on September 30, 1885, Mr. H. W. Henshaw and I, while collecting in the ‘Warren Run’ (a little to the southwest of Crown Hill), picked up an adult female which had evidently been dead only a few hours and which proved, on dissection, to have been shot through the lungs. Both of these birds, with the young female, taken on June 20, 1874, in our garden, are pre- served in my collection. ' J find it difficult to believe that the Wild Pigeon has become wholly extinct, but some of my ornithological friends, who have recently investigated the subject rather carefully, are convinced that the only birds now living are a few captive ones in the possession of Professor C. O. Whitman of Chicago, Illinois. 1W.E. D. Scott, Story of a Bird Lover, 1903, 39, 40. 2 This is the only Wild Pigeon mentioned in Mr. Scott’s catalogue of the birds which he collected in the region about Cambridge, the original manuscript of which is in my possession. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 179 77. Zenaidura macroura (Linn.). Mourninc Dove. Caro.ina Dove. Rather rare transient visitor in spring and autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 8, 1881, one male! taken, Belmont, H. M. Spelman. June 18, 1883, one seen, East Lexington, W. Brewster. September 18, 1868, one seen, Brickyard Swamp, W. Brewster. November 15, 1898, one seen near Payson Park, W. Faxon. NESTING DATES. May 8— 20. Although the Carolina Dove is a common summer resident of several local- ities in Concord and Lincoln, it seldom visits the Cambridge Region. I have met with it here on but four occasions——September 18, 1868, when I sawa single bird flying low over the Brickyard Swamp, Cambridge ; September 19 of the same year,-when another (or perhaps the same) bird was seen in the same place; September, 1878, or 1879, when, as I was driving through Brattle Street, Cambridge, a Dove flew close past me and disappeared among the pines at Elm- wood ; June 18, 1883, when I started a bird in East Lexington, on the western edge of Rock Meadow. Mr. Walter Faxon tells me that he has personally noted only three birds, the first on September 26, 1890, near the Waverley Oaks; the second on April 18, 1897, at the Mystic Ponds ; the third on November 15, 1898, near Payson Park, Belmont. I have a female Dove (in my mounted collection) which was taken by my friend, Mr. C. M. Carter, on April 19, 1873, in an apple orchard in Belmont, about half a mile to the westward of Fresh Pond, and Mr. H. M. Spelman possesses the badly mutilated skin of a male which he shot at close range, on April 8, 1881, in dense pine woods near Arlington Heights. On April 9, 1887, a bird was seen by Dr. Arthur P. Chadbourne on the Fitchburg Railroad embankment a little to the eastward of the station in Belmont, and on October 7, 1902, another was flushed by Mr. Richard’S. Eustis in a thicket lying between the Glacialis and Fresh Pond in Cambridge. 1No. 379, collection of H. M. Spelman. 180 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. The following lines occur in an attractive little poem on “ Sweet Auburn” written by Miss Caroline Frances Orne and published in 1844: “While the quail whistled in its plaintive tone, And cooing stock-doves made their gentle moan. ”! As we gather from this poem and its preface, Miss Orne was accustomed in early youth to spending long spring and summer days in the then extensive and primitive woods of what is now Mount Auburn Cemetery. It also appears that she had intimate and, in the main, accurate, knowledge of the common and more conspicuous birds which she met with during her walks. Her expression ‘gentle moan’ so aptly characterizes the cooing of the Carolina Dove as to sug- gest that this must have been the species to which she alludes. If such an assumption be granted and if, as may be further inferred, her ‘ stock-doves’ were frequently heard cooing in summer, we may reasonably conclude that the Caro- lina Dove bred in or near Sweet Auburn in those early days. Nuttall does not mention finding it there, but Lowell says: “A rarer visitant [to Elmwood than the Quail] is the turtle-dove, whose pleasant coo I have sometimes heard, and whom I once had the good luck to see close by me in the mulberry-tree.”? Elmwood, of course, lies very near Mount Auburn, and Lowell’s passage, although published in 1868, may well have related to experiences which had happened during the earlier years of his life and perhaps at the very time to which Miss Orne refers. Among the birds of Massachusetts which “ yeeld us much profit, and honeft pleafure,’’ Wood included, in 1634, “ The harmonious Thrufh, fwift Pigeon, Turtle-dove, Who to her mate doth ever conftant proove.”* His ‘/wift Pigeon’ was, of course, the Wild Pigeon (Zctopistes migratorius), and since he evidently distinguished it from his ‘ Zurtle-dove’ the latter must almost of necessity have been the Carolina Dove which, as we may further assume with some degree of probability, he is most likely to have noted during his residence at Saugus (now Lynn), and hence within a few miles of the eastern boundary of the Cambridge Region. 1C. F. Orne, Sweet Auburn and Mount Auburn, with other Poems, 1844, 6. 2J. R. Lowell, My Garden Acquaintance, Atlantic Almanac for 1869, 1868, 37. 3 William Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. 2, 1635, 23. Charles Deane’s ed., 1865, 29, 30. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 181 78. Cathartes aura (Linn.). Turkey VULTURE. TuRKEY BuzzarD. Casual visitor. The normal range of the Turkey Vulture on or near the Atlantic coast is not believed to extend, at the present time, to the northward of New Jersey, but the bird pays wandering and not so very infrequent visits to New England, usu- ally in spring, summer or early autumn. It has been reported a number of times from eastern Massachusetts and there are two apparently good records for the Cambridge Region, one of a bird seen, by “a gentleman who is perfectly familiar with the appearance” of the species, “flying over the meadows at Waltham in August, 1867,”! the other of three birds, observed by Mr. F. H. Hosmer, on September 25, 1898, passing high in air towards the south over Somerville2 Early in April, 1893, Mr. Samuel Smith shot a Turkey Vulture in Weston, not far from the confines of the Cambridge Region, merely breaking its wing and afterwards keeping it in captivity for a year or more? To the instances already recorded of the occurrence of the Turkey Buzzard in the more eastern parts of Massachusetts I take the present opportunity to add that of a bird which Mr. William Stone and I saw on wing at South Yar- mouth on September 6, 1903. Although flying at no great height, and in the leisurely, effortless manner characteristic of all Vultures, it did not seem to be looking for food, but rather to be journeying to some distant place, for it followed a nearly straight course towards the northwest. After skirting the eastern shores of a brackish sheet of water known as Swan Pond, and skimming close over the tops of some pitch pines, it crossed an open field in which we were standing, passing so near us that we made out the dark red coloring of its naked head and neck with perfect distinctness. 1C, J. Maynard, Naturalist’s Guide, 1870, 137. 2G. H. Mackay, Auk, XVI, 1899, 181. 3F, B. White, Auk, XI, 1894, 250. 182 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 79. Circus hudsonius (Linn.). Marsyu Hawk. Froc Hawk. Common transient visitor in spring and autumn, formerly breeding in our locality. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 1, 1871, one taken, Cambridge, W. Brewster. March 20— November Io. November 2g, 1893, one female seen (Concord), W. Brewster. NESTING DATE. June 5, 1875, nest! and four eggs,1 Waltham, W. Brewster. Marsh Hawks are wide-roving birds at all seasons, and the occasional appearance of one in May or June does not necessarily indicate that it has a nest near the place where it may happen to be seen. For this reason the actual dis- covery of the nest is essential to establish the fact of breeding. I know of but one locality within the Cambridge Region where the nest has ever been found, vtz., Rock Meadow. Here I took a set of four eggs on June 5, 1875, and a sec- ond, comprising the same number, on June 11, 1877, while a third set of four was taken on June 7, 1879, by Mr. H. M. Spelman. These eggs are all in my collection. All three nests were built within a yard or two of the same spot, on a little meadow island covered with wild rose bushes and other low shrubs. My attention was first drawn to this nesting place by the behavior of the birds. On May 21, 1875, I repeatedly saw the male rise to a great height above the meadow island and then return to it by a succession of short, nearly vertical, downward swoops, each of which terminated in a graceful upward turn. While making these plunges he uttered a dry, cackling kep-kep-kep-kep-kep. The final drop carried him into the bushes, where he usually remained some time before mounting into the air for another descent. Marking the spot where he invari- ably disappeared, I approached it unseen, under cover of a neighboring thicket, on the morning of May 24, when I found the pair of Marsh Hawks there. They were very noisy, calling to one another almost incessantly.. The note which both birds used on this occasion, a shrill, squealing guce, guee, quee, was new to me at the time and I have never heard it since. During the hour or 1No, 2176, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 183 more that I spent watching them the male was busily engaged in collecting dry grass and flying with it to the nest. He obtained most of it within thirty yards of the island, and none of his flights exceeded one hundred yards in length. The female, meanwhile, sat perched on the top of a stake, encouraging her mate by her voice but taking absolutely no part in his labors, although she once made a brief visit to the nest, apparently merely to see how the work was progressing there. At length the male soared up into the sky and was soon lost to sight in the distance. The female remained and, when I approached the island, circled close about me, squealing loudly. The nest, which proved to be nearly finished, was placed on the ground at the foot of a cluster of bushes. It was a primitive structure, large, almost perfectly flat, and composed of dead sticks covered with a thick layer of dry grass. I have seen Marsh Hawks at Rock Meadow on several occasions in early summer since 1879, but I doubt if they have bred there within the past ten or fifteen years. They still occur commonly enough during migration about most of the meadows near Cambridge, but their numbers here, as elsewhere in New England, have been steadily decreasing of late. 80. Accipiter velox (Wils.). SHARP-SHINNED Hawk. Common transient visitor in spring and autumn and not uncommon winter resident; also an occasional summer resident, at least formerly. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 3— May 11. (Summer.) September 7 — October 25. ( Winter.) NESTING DATES. May 20 —3I. The Sharp-shinned Hawk is one of the most familiar and least shy of our diurnal birds of prey. It has been repeatedly observed in the very heart of Cambridge, especially since House Sparrows became abundant there. A bird paid several visits to our garden during the winter of 1898-1899, and others have been seen within the past few years in or near the College Grounds, usually in late autumn or winter. The species is met with oftenest, however, during 184 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. migration and in thinly settled localities, especially about the edges of woods and the bush-grown borders of fields, where small birds abound. It preys largely on Sparrows and to some extent, also, on Robins in pursuit of which it frequently enters apple orchards near farm buildings. On May 23, 1870, a nest of the Sharp-shinned Hawk containing five fresh eggs was found by my friend, the late Mr. Frank P. Atkinson, in a white pine swamp in East Lexington about half a mile to the westward of Rock Meadow. This is the only instance known to me of the breeding of the Sharp-shinned Hawk within the limits covered by the present Memoir. 81. Accipiter cooperii (Bonap.). Cooper’s Hawk. Common transient visitor in spring and autumn and not uncommon summer resident; also found occasionally in winter. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 10 — October 20. (Winter.) NESTING DATES. May 5— 20. Cooper’s Hawk is a much more wary and retiring bird than the Sharp- shinned Hawk. I have met with it oftenest in the wilder parts of Belmont, Lexington, Arlington, and Waltham, where its favorite haunts are extensive tracts of woodland, especially such as abound in white pines and other evergreen trees. I also used to see it not infrequently in the region just to the westward of Mount Auburn. When in pursuit of its prey, which consists largely of such birds as Robins, Catbirds, Brown Thrashers, Meadowlarks, and Cuckoos, it often visits fields and meadows, but excepting when attracted by the presence of young chickens, which it seems to prefer to all other birds, it seldom approaches houses or cultivated grounds. I have occasionally seen it passing over densely popu- lated parts of Cambridge during migration, but have never known it to alight there at any season. Nests of Cooper's Hawk have been found rather frequently along the western borders of the Cambridge Region, especially in Waltham. I have a set of five eggs which I took on May 8, 1880, from a nest in pitch pine woods near Arlington Heights. . BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 185 82. Accipiter atricapillus (Wils.). AMERICAN GOSHAWK. Irregular and uncommon winter visitor. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 4, 1896, one ad. seen, East Lexington, W. Faxon. February 26, 1868, one ad. seen, Watertown, W. Brewster. Goshawks invade eastern Massachusetts only at irregular and rather wide intervals, but sometimes in considerable numbers. They arrive in October and November and most of them pass further southward before January, although some remain with us through the winter. During these flights the beautiful but destructive birds are occasionally noted in the Cambridge Region. I saw a fine adult in a grove of pitch pines immediately behind Mount Auburn on February 26, 1868, and another about a mile to the westward of Rock Meadow on Novem- ber 16, 1880; while a third was met with by Mr. Walter Faxon at East Lex- ington on October 4, 1896. I have an adult female that was taken in Lexing- ton on December 14, 1896. Nuttall states (Land Birds, 1832, 85) that on October 26, 1830, he received “from the proprietor of Fresh Pond Hotel” a Goshawk “in the moult, having the stomach crammed with moles and mice.” It ‘was shot in the act of devouring a Pigeon,” probably in the hemlock grove near the hotel. Mr. C. J. Maynard asserts that a pair of Goshawks “remained in Weston, near a heavily wooded district, during the breeding-season” of 1868, adding “they evidently had a nest in the immediate vicinity.”! As he does not explain under just what conditions, or even by whom, the birds were observed, one can- not help suspecting that some mistake was made in their identification, especially as we have no definite knowledge that the species has ever bred in Massachu- setts. The most southerly breeding record for New England is, I believe, that of a nest which was found by Mr. Ralph Hoffmann at Alstead in southern New Hampshire in 1902.7, A young Goshawk taken by Mr. Hoffmann from this nest is in my collection. 1C. J. Maynard, Naturalist’s Guide, 1870, 134-135. 2R. Hoffmann, Auk, XX,1903, 211-212. 186 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 83. Buteo borealis (Gmel.). RepD-TAILED Hawk. Hen Hawk. Transient visitor in spring and autumn, locally resident in winter ; formerly very common, now of comparatively rare occurrence. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE, October to — April 20. (Summer ?) Up to about 1880 the Red-tailed Hawk was decidedly the most numerously represented of our Buteos in autumn, winter and early spring. It may still be seen at these seasons, but only in greatly diminished numbers and much less often than the Red-shouldered Hawk. So far as I have been able to ascertain, it has never been found breeding within the limits of the Cambridge Region, although I have taken the eggs in Bedford and have seen young birds in early summer near Concord. The Red-tailed Hawk used to occur most commonly in April and Novem- ber, when the migrations were passing. Its favorite haunts were Rock Meadow, the Fresh Pond Swamps and the extensive open fields and meadows between Hill’s Crossing and Belmont. Until very recently one or two birds were always to be found in winter near the Cambridge Cemetery and the Watertown Arsenal on the borders of the Charles River Marshes, where they preyed on the rats and meadow mice which frequented the banks of the tidal creeks and ditches. [Buteo cooperi Cass. Cooprr’s HENHAWK. CALIFORNIA Hawk. In November, 1866, a large light-colored Hawk was repeatedly seen in or near the Pine Swamp. It looked so very white, especially when flying, that I suspected it might be a Gyrfalcon. For a time all my attempts to secure it proved unavailing, for it was exceedingly shy; but at length— on the 17th of the month —I surprised and shot it among some dense pines near Pout Pond. The specimen was shown, about three years later, to Dr. J. A. Allen who identified it as Buteo cooperi Cassin, and under that title recorded its capture in his ‘ Notes on some of the Rarer Birds of Massachu- setts,’ (American Naturalist, Vol. III, 1870, p. 518). Immediately after this Mr. Maynard published a detailed description of the bird, at the same time expressing a conviction that it was merely an exceptionally light-colored example of the Red-shouldered Hawk.! This ruling was confirmed a little later by Mr. Ridgway? to whom the specimen was sent for examination 1C, J. Maynard, Naturalist’s Guide, 1870, 135-136. ° Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, History of North American Birds, III, 1874, 296. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 187 in 1869 or 1870. Unfortunately it was destroyed by moths soon after Mr. Ridgway saw it. Iremember it, however, with perfect distinctness. Although it was very unlike any of the numerous specimens of the Red-shouldered Hawk which have since come under my obser- vation, I do not seriously doubt that Mr. Maynard and Mr. Ridgway were correct in referring i! to that species, of which it may have been a partially albinistic representative. Bwteo cooper’ Cassin is now generally believed to have been based on a light phase of plumage of Buteo borealis harlani (Aud.).] 84. Buteo lineatus (Gmel.). RkED-SHOULDERED Hawk. Hen Tiawk. Permanent resident, common from April to November, not uncommon in winter. NESTING DATES. April 10 — 20. Nuttall believed? that the Red-shouldered Hawk was “never seen.... in Massachusetts, nor perhaps much further [north] than the state of New York.” Had it occurred regularly near Cambridge in his day he could scarcely have overlooked it, for he was perfectly familiar with its notes and habits, of which he gives an admirable description based on personal observations made in the Southern States. As early as 1867, however, I found the Red-shouldered Hawk common enough in the region about Cambridge. Since then its numbers have not varied greatly from year to year, nor with the different seasons, although it is least numerous in winter and most conspicuous in early spring when its soaring flights and persistent screaming are likely to attract the atten- tion of every one who approaches its haunts. It breeds more or less regularly in retired and heavily wooded parts of Belmont, Arlington, Lexington, and Wal- tham, but I have never known its nest to be found in Cambridge or \Water- town. The birds, however, are often seen in the Fresh Pond Swamps and along the edges of the Charles River Marshes, especially in winter. At this sea- son, when they are nearly or quite silent, they are given to haunting level, open country sprinkled with large, isolated trees. In some of these the Hawks have favorite perches to which they resort day after day and year after year, to bask in the winter sunshine and to watch for meadow mice. 1T, Nuttall, Manual of the Omithology of the United States and of Canada. The Land Birds, 1832, 107. 188 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 8s. Buteo platypterus (Vieill.). BROAD—WINGED Hawk. Uncommon transient visitor in early autumn, rare in spring and summer. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE, April 19, 1893, one seen between Waltham and Lincoln, W. Brewster. April 25— September 30. October 2, 1875, one im. female taken,’ Belmont, a gunner. The Cambridge Region contains few tracts of woodland sufficiently remote and extensive to attract the forest-loving Broad-winged Hawk. Hence this bird is, and indeed has always been, within the period covered by my field experience, the least common of our Buteos. It occurs oftenest during the autumnal mi- grations which begin about the first of September and usually terminate by the middle of October. The Pine Swamp used to be one of its favorite haunts at this season. I have seen it repeatedly in April, May and June on the eastern slope of a wooded ridge that borders the southern end of what is now Hobbs Brook Reservoir, and I believe that it has bred there within recent years. A fine adult male in my collection was perhaps obtained in this locality. It was brought in the flesh to Mr. M. Abbott Frazar on May 8, 1893, by a Waltham gunner, named Harding, who said that he had shot it the day before in Lincoln, and that he had found it sitting on a nest which contained eggs. The ridge just mentioned lies partly in Lincoln and partly in Waltham and it is often visited by Waltham sportsmen. The Broad-winged Hawk is of rare and irregular occurrence in summer throughout most if not all of Middlesex County, but it breeds rather commonly in eastern portions of Worcester County, especially in the townships of Harvard, Lancaster and Sterling, where my friend, Mr. John E. Thayer, has frequently found it nesting within the past ten or twelve years. He tells me, however, that it is fast disappearing from that portion of the State, probably because of the fact that many of the tracts of woodland which it formerly frequented have been recently devastated by the wood choppers. 1No. 300, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 189 86. Archibuteo lagopus sancti-johannis (Gmel.). AMERICAN ROUGH-LEGGED Hawk. RovuGH-LEGGED Hawk. Transient visitor in spring and autumn, sometimes not uncommon at the latter season. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 25, 1900, one seen, Fresh Pond, W. Deane. May 8, 1879, one seen, Rock Meadow, W. Brewster. November 3, 1873, one seen, Fresh Pond Marshes, W. Brewster. November 10 — 30. December 28, r1go1, one seen, Rock Meadow, R. S. Eustis. The favorite haunts of the Rough-legged Hawk in the Cambridge Region are Rock Meadow and the Fresh Pond Marshes. Here the sluggish but grace- ful birds, larger than any of our other Hawks and showing conspicuously white upper tail-coverts, may be seen in late autumn, perched among the upper branches of isolated trees or beating about over the marshes, occasionally pois- ing at no great height above the ground on afparently motionless wings as if sus- pended by an invisible wire. This remarkable feat, practised also by the Euro- pean Kestrel and by our Sparrow Hawk, is possible, I believe, only when there is a light, steady wind. In November, 1873, I noted no less than five different Rough-legged Hawks at the localities above named, but it is exceptional to see so many in the course of a single season and during some years none are reported. I have met with but one in spring —at Rock Meadow on May 8, 1879. This is a late date, for at Northampton, where the species occurs regularly, and at times rather numerously, during the vernal migration, it seldom or never lingers after the mid- dle of April. There can be no question that the bird seen at Rock Meadow was correctly identified, for I had an excellent view of it and made out all its charac- teristic markings with perfect distinctness. The only other spring record that I can give for the region about Cambridge is that of a bird which Mr. Walter Deane observed on March 25, 1900, flying over Fresh Pond, closely pursued by some Crows. Mr. Richard S. Eustis tells me that in 1901 he saw a Rough-legged Hawk near Fresh Pond on December 8, and another at Rock Meadow on the 26th and again on the 28th of the month ;— dates which suggest that the species may sometimes spend the winter in our neighborhood, as it is known to do, in very limited numbers, in certain other parts of Massachusetts. 190 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 87. Aquila chrysaétos (Linn.). GOLDEN EAGLE. Very rare visitor. A young Golden Eagle in the New England collection of the Boston Society of Natural History was taken at Lexington many years ago (I can find no record of the precise date) and presented to the Society by Dr. Samuel Kneeland. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway refer to this specimen! as “a young male”’ hav- ing “the tail plain black, the extreme base and tip white.” They also mention another bird which “was secured alive in Brighton, near Boston, in 1837, by being taken in a trap which had been set for another purpose.”? There are a few other records for localities not far distant from the Cambridge Region — as Lynn, Lynnfield, Salem and Weymouth. To the more eastern portions of Massachusetts, however, the Golden Eagle has been ever —at least within historic times—a decidedly rare visitor, usually occurring in winter or late autumn. . 88. Halizetus leucocephalus (Linn.). Batp Ect. Of irregular and infrequent occurrence at all seasons. Ever since I can remember, the sight of a Bald Eagle, soaring in majestic circles high in air over our woods and fields or perched on the branch of a tree overlooking one of our fresh-water ponds, has been sufficiently unusual to con- stitute a really noteworthy experience. I have seen the stately bird oftenest in March or April and at or near Fresh Pond. My notes also record its appearance at various other times and places, sometimes during the months of January and February and occasionally directly over central parts of our city, or even over those of Boston. Its visits to the Cambridge Region are evidently becoming 1 Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, History of North American Birds, III, 1874, 315. 2 Tbid., 316. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. IQ! less and less frequent as the years go by. As nearly as I can learn, it has been observed here only twice within the past seventeen years; on February 13, 1890, at Mystic Pond, by Mr. Walter Faxon, and on January 18, 1898, near Fresh Pond, by Mr. Alton H. Hathaway. Elsewhere in eastern Massachusetts, Bald Eagles do not seem to be dimin- ishing materially in numbers. I still see one or two birds nearly every sea- son at Concord, and at Wareham on June 12, 1900, Mr. Outram Bangs and I counted no less than six perched on the trees around the shores of a small pond into which alewives were running at the time. Many of these fish die after depositing their spawn, and are picked up by the Eagles who are ever on the alert to secure such tempting and easy prey. The birds which occur in summer about this and other fresh-water ponds on Cape Cod are usually in immature plumage and obviously not engaged in breeding. Nor is there evi- dence to indicate that the Bald Eagle has nested within recent times in any part of eastern Massachusetts. 89. Falco peregrinus anatum (Bonap.). Duck Hawk. Of rare occurrence in autumn and winter. Most of the Duck Hawks which migrate through eastern Massachusetts follow the seacoast, where they occur not infrequently in spring and autumn. I can give but two records of their appearance in the Cambridge Region. The first of these relates to a bird which Mr. Walter Faxon found at Fresh Pond on Jan- uary 7, 1893, and which was last noted there on February 1 following. During the interim it was seen almost daily by one or another of our local observers, usually in or near the hemlock grove. I had an especially favorable view of it on the morning of January 22 when I found it perched on the dead branch of a tall pine where the Fresh Pond Hotel once stood. As it was in strong sunlight and within one hundred yards of me, I was able to make out distinctly, with the aid of my glass, that it was a male in fully mature plumage. The pond was frozen over during its entire stay, but about the large, geyser-like fountain, at the outlet of the supply pipe from Stony Brook Reservoir, there was a space of open water to which several Golden-eyes resorted daily. It is possible that the Falcon was preying on these Ducks, although on one occasion I saw it fly directly over the pool where they were swimming without apparently either noticing or alarming them. Mr. Faxon and I searched the ground carefully beneath all its favorite 192 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. perches, but we failed to discover any traces of its victims, save some feathers of a Tree Sparrow which littered the surface of the snow under the tree in which the Duck Hawk was sitting on the 22d. The other local instance has been communicated to me by Mr. O. A. Lothrop who noted a Duck Hawk at Fresh Pond on October 26, 1899. This bird was perched in the top of one of the oaks on the old Tudor estate. go. Falco columbarius Linn. Picton Hawk. Rather common transient visitor in spring and autumn ; occasionally found in winter, also. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 23, 1894, one seen, Cambridge Region, W. Faxon. April 25 — May 5. May 16, 1894, one female seen, East Lexington, W. Brewster. September 15, 1866, one im. taken, Belmont, C. M. Carter. September 25 — October 20. (Winter.) For a bird of prey the Pigeon Hawk is arather common and very regular visitor to the Cambridge Region. Not that it ever occurs numerously or at fre- quent intervals, but the observer who is much afield and who is able to distinguish the bird from the Sparrow Hawk, which it closely resembles in form and flight, is nearly sure to note it at least once or twice every spring and autumn. It is seen oftenest in April and October, skimming swiftly over open fields and meadows or sitting on the dead branch of some isolated tree that commands a good view of the surrounding country. Asa rule it does not remain perched for more than a few minutes at a time. Indeed its life appears to be one of almost ceaseless activity, for it is an eager and persistent hunter, tireless of wing and given to roaming widely in its daily search for food. It sometimes comes boldly into densely populated parts of Cambridge to prey on English Sparrows, usually in winter or very late autumn when most of our smaller native birds, on which it ordinarily depends for food, have departed for the south. I have known it to appear, even within recent years, on Cambridge Common; in the College Yard ; at Norton’s Woods; and in our garden or its immediate neighborhood. In 1900 an adult male spent the entire month of December at Fresh Pond, making its headquarters in the hemlock grove where the Duck Hawk was seen in January, 1893. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 193 g1. Falco sparverius Linn. AMERICAN SPARROW Hawk. Sparrow Hawk. Formerly an uncommon transient visitor in spring and autumn; now a permanent resi- dent, common during the breeding season, rare and perhaps not always present in winter. NESTING DATES, May 5— Io. The pretty little Sparrow Hawk has apparently added itself to our local summer fauna within comparatively recent times. At least the earliest record of its breeding within the Cambridge Region of which I have any knowledge is that which was established by the finding of a nest at Waverley on May 26, 1877. Previous to that year we had seen the bird only during migration when it was somewhat less common than the Pigeon Hawk. Of course we may have over- looked it in summer, but this does not seem probable. The nest just mentioned contained five eggs far advanced in incubation. It was found by Mr. M. Abbott Frazar and the Messrs. E. A. and O. Bangs in a Flicker’s hole near the top of a tall dead sycamore which stood in a hollow by the roadside not far from where the buildings of the Convalescent Home have been since erected. All the eggs were taken, and one of the parent birds was killed. Eleven years later —on May 12, 1888 —a second nest, also containing five eggs, was found in one of the Waverley Oaks by Mr. Frank Bolles. On July 17, 1889, I saw a family of young Sparrow Hawks in Payson Park. After this the birds increased in numbers and extended their local distribution. Since 1895 they have bred more or less regularly at six or seven different places in Cambridge, Belmont and Watertown. In Cambridge they are chiefly confined to the region immediately about Fresh Pond, where nests have been found in Gray’s Woods and in the old trees on the Tudor estate. I fear that the birds have reared but few young since their presence in this neighborhood has become generally known, for their nests are not difficult to find and their eggs are too beautiful to be often spared by collectors. Most of the Cambridge Sparrow Hawks apparently migrate southward in autumn, returning in early spring, but single birds have been noted every month of the year in the neighborhood of Fresh Pond and Mount Auburn, where it is probable that one or two usually remain during at least the greater part of the 194 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. winter. The Sparrow Hawk seldom alights in the more densely populated parts of the city, but it often passes over them and I see it occasionally, at all seasons, circling at no great height, above our garden. 92. Pandion haliaétus carolinensis (Gmel.). AMERICAN OSPREY. FISH Hawk. Rather common transient visitor in spring and autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 2, 1885, one seen, Watertown, M. A. Frazar. April 5 — 25. May 29, 1890, one seen, Cambridge, W. Brewster. August 27, 1899, one seen, Lower Mystic Pond, W. Faxon. September 15 — October 1o. October 21, 1892, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. At its seasons of migration the Fish Hawk continues to be a regular visitor to most of our larger ponds, and it is occasionally seen along Charles River, also. Of late years it has been observed oftenest in spring, about the Mystic Ponds. It used to occur most numerously in autumn, at Fresh Pond where, during the month of September, thirty or forty years ago, one or two of the big, eagle- like birds were almost constantly present. In those days the untrimmed woods which came to the water’s edge along the shores of the Tudor estate, at Straw- berry Hill, and at Hemlock Point, afforded plenty of dead stubs or branches on which the Fish Hawks and Kingfishers loved to perch. Both birds found food in abundance here, for the pond then swarmed with aiewives and other fish. Since the alewives have been shut out by the filling in of the natural outlet, the Fish Hawks have visited Fresh Pond much less often than formerly. I can find no evidence which indicates that they ever bred in the Cambridge Region, although it is not unlikely that they did so in early Colonial days, when the country was covered with primitive forest. Dr. Allen in his ‘ Rarer Birds of Massachusetts’! mentions “a former nesting site near Ipswich” which, in 1869, was ‘still remembered by some of the older residents there.” The species is a common summer resident of Bristol County, Massachusetts, where it breeds in close proximity to houses and is very generally encouraged and protected by the fishermen and farmers. 1jJ. A. Allen, American Naturalist, III, 1870, 569. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 195 93. Asio wilsonianus (Less.). AMERICAN LONG—EARED OwL. LONG—EARED OWL. Permanent resident, sometimes common in autumn or winter, rare at all other seasons. NESTING DATES. April 1 — ro. At irregular intervals — perhaps on an average once every five or six years — we have a very considerable influx of Owls from further north. The move- ment ordinarily begins in October — or even a little earlier — and seldom reaches its height before the middle of November. Many of the birds are killed by sportsmen or collectors, and others, no doubt, go further south to pass the winter, but a certain proportion usually remain with us until early spring. Dur- ing these flights numbers of Long-eared Owls pass through the hands of our local taxidermists. I have known as many as forty or fifty to be received by one man, in the course of a few weeks, most of them from eastern Massa- chusetts. No single field observer, however, is likely to meet with more than two or three of the birds in any one season. In autumn I have repeatedly found them roosting by day in deciduous trees or shrubs in the Fresh Pond Swamps, even after the leaves had fallen, but at all times of the year they pre- fer to haunt dense evergreen woods, especially those which are largely made up of white pines or Virginia junipers. Two instances of the breeding of the Long-eared Owl in the Cambridge Region have come under my personal observation. On July 18, 1867, as I was walking in company with a friend under some large white pines which at that time covered a hill southwest of Rock Meadow, an Owl of this species came flying close about us, uttering loud and peculiar cries. Shortly afterwards we found one of its young perched in a neighboring tree. The young bird, although fully grown and able to fly, was still clothed, for the most part, in down and hence could not have been long out of the nest. On another occasion (June 12, 1874) I discovered a nest, containing two half-grown young, at Arlington Heights. The nest was in a Virginia juniper which, with a few other trees of the same kind, stood on the outskirts of a dense and extensive piece of woods composed chiefly of pitch pines. The dates just mentioned may seem exception- ally late in comparison with the ‘nesting dates’ given above, but they are not really so, for the Long-eared Owl, like most birds of prey, requires a long time 196 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. for hatching and rearing its young. Thus, while the eggs are usually laid early in April, the young are seldom seen on wing before the first of July. 94. Asio accipitrinus (Pall.). SHORT-EARED OWL. Transient visitor, uncommon in autumn, rare in spring. One instance of occurrence in midwinter. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 15, 1901, one seen, Fresh Pond Marshes, W. Faxon. April 15, 1901, one seen, Fresh Pond Marshes, W. Faxon. September 24, 1881, one seen, Fresh Pond Marshes, H. M. Spelman. October 15 — November 30. (Winter.) Although the Short-eared Owl is found regularly and at times really numerously — especially in late autumn—=§in the salt marshes and sand dunes along the seacoast of Massachusetts, it is uncommon at most inland localities, and my notes, covering a period of more than thirty years, record less than a dozen instances of its appearance in the Cambridge Region. Nearly all of these relate to the Fresh Pond Swamps. Here, in the broad, open meadows lying between the Glacialis and Little River, I have repeatedly started Short-eared Owls in October or November while looking for Wilson’s Snipe. I have a specimen which was killed in these marshes on April 4, 1872, and Mr. Walter Faxon tells me that he saw another there on April 15, 1901. A third, in Mr. O. A. Loth- rop’s collection, was taken by Mr. Henry C. Wells near the shores of Smith’s Pond on February 16, 1901. The specimen last mentioned is the only one known to me which has been found in the Cambridge Region in midwinter, but on December 12, 1890, I shot a bird about a mile to the westward of Rock. Meadow, flushing it in an opening surrounded by birches, where the ground was broken into hillocks and carpeted with moss. It is unusual for Owls of the present species to be seen in or near woodland of any kind. I have another specimen, however, that I killed at Lake Umbagog in a dense thicket of young spruces and balsam firs. Mr. H. W. Henshaw tells me that Short-eared Owls occurred sparingly in the Cambridgeport Marshes thirty or forty years ago. There can be little doubt that they visited the Longfellow Marshes also, although I have no definite evidence that such was actually the case. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 197 95. Syrnium varium (Barton). BarrRED OwL. Rare permanent resident, sometimes common in late autumn. Coming, no doubt, in migratory flights from further north and appearing at irregular intervals, the Barred Owl is sometimes common in the Cambridge Region for weeks at a time in late autumn, especially during the latter part of November and the first half of December. In November, 1866, I took three specimens’ in the course of a single week in the Pine Swamp—then a favorite resort for birds of prey. I also used to meet with the species rather frequently in the cedar and pitch pine woods just to the westward of Mount Auburn, as well as occasionally in the more remote and extensive woodlands of Belmont, Arlington and Waltham, where Barred Owls continue to be found at the pres- ent day. Most of the birds which visit us in November and December dis- appear before the first of January. Many of them, no doubt, are killed, but the majority probably pass further south; a few, however, often remain until early spring. They sometimes appear close to houses in densely populated localities, even in the very heart of Cambridge. One spent the greater part of the winter of 1899-1900 in Norton’s Woods. Mr. Faxon, who had this bird under close observation from January 31 to February 10, tells me that the pel- lets found beneath the large white pines where it roosted during the day, were composed almost wholly of the undigested remains of English Sparrows. I can- not learn that the Barred Owl has ever been found breeding in the Cambridge Region, but I have an adult female? which was shot in Belmont on May 2, 1893. 96. Scotiaptex nebulosa (Forst.). GREAT Gray OWL. Very rare winter visitor. The Great Gray Owl appears in eastern Massachusetts only at long and 1One bird, no. 275, collection of William Brewster. 2No. 44,914, collection of William Brewster. ° 198 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. irregular intervals and in very limited numbers. The nearest approach to a pronounced flight of which we have definite knowledge was that which took place in 1842-1843, when, according to Dr. Samuel L. Abbot,! no less than seven birds were obtained within the limits of our State. Several specimens have been taken near Boston, but only two, I believe, in the region treated in the present Memoir. The first of these was originally reported, by Dr. Samuel Cabot, at a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, held on February 3, 1847, as having been “ procured lately, by Prof. Agassiz” and “shot.... in Cambridge.”’? The other, a male now in my collection, was killed on February 22, 1898, in Payson Park, Belmont. The circumstances attending the capture of the latter bird were noted by me at the time, as follows :— Mr. R. B. Malone, who lives in the Park, heard Crows making a great out- cry there during the whole forenoon. They kept increasing in numbers until, as he thinks, upwards of one hundred were assembled. Their clamor finally became so loud and incessant as to annoy him seriously, and soon after dinner he took a ‘Flobert rifle’ and went out to disperse them. Near his house is a row of tall Norway spruces, behind this an old apple orchard, and just beyond the orchard a dense growth of Norway spruces, larches and arbor vitzes encircling an open space, in the middle of which are the stables and paddock of the fine old Cush- ing estate. A circular driveway passes under and among the trees, which aver- age fifty or sixty feet in height. Between the driveway and the paddock, in the middle of the thickest spruces, stands a white pine —a vigorous tree with a full green top but dead lower branches. As Mr. Malone approached the spruces he saw great numbers of Crows perched in or flying just above them. A little: later a woman, who had come from a neighboring farmhouse, impelled by curi- osity to find what the Crows were about, called to him that she had found a great Owl and asked him to shoot it. On going to the spot he at once saw the bird perched in an erect position about twenty-five feet above the ground on one of the lower branches of the pine and looking “as big asan eagle.” It stared at him fixedly, with its yellow eyes wide open, but showed no alarm at his presence although he went almost directly under the branch on which it was sitting. After watching it for a few moments, he fired at it but missed. At his second shot the bird flew across the paddock and alighted on the end of a spruce limb. It proved to be badly wounded and soon fluttered down to the ground, where it stood on the defensive, presenting so menacing an appearance that he did not venture to touch it for several minutes. It died a few hours later, and was taken to Mr. M. Abbott Frazar from whom I afterwards purchased the skin. 1[S. L. Abbot,] Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, I, 1843, 99. 2 [S. Cabot,] Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, II, 1847, 206. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 199 97. Cryptoglaux tengmalmi richardsoni (Bonap.). RicHaRpson’s OWL. Exceedingly rare winter visitor. On December 26, 1902, a Richardson’s Owl was taken in a birch swamp near Arlington Heights by a boy of about fifteen years of age, named Walter Crosby, who discovered it perched on a branch of a small birch about six feet above the ground. He began throwing stones at it, when it made a succession of short flights, keeping, however, to the swamp and within one hundred yards or less of the spot where it was first seen. At length it was struck by a stone and killed. Although ignorant at the time of the local rarity of his prize, young Crosby decided to have it mounted, and took it that same evening to Mr. Wil- liam P. Hadley who, on skinning it, found it to be a male “in good condition, although the stomach was almost perfectly empty.’’ I am indebted to Mr. Hadley for the above particulars as well as for the bird itself which he has been kind enough to purchase for me from the Crosby family. It is a beautiful spec- imen in exceptionally fresh, richly colored plumage. An Owl killed in Mount Auburn in 1865, and preserved in my collection for a number of years, was identified and recorded! by Mr. Maynard in 1870 as a Richardson’s Owl. This bird is no longer in existence, but I can vouch for the fact that it was really a Saw-whet, in full and perfectly normal winter plumage. Although not responsible for the original publication of this error, I am certainly blameworthy for having allowed it to stand so long uncorrected. Richardson’s Owl has been taken in Newton (on February 26, 1879%), as well as at Framingham, West Dedham, Malden, Lynn, and a few other localities in eastern Massachusetts. Its visits to our State are rare and infrequent, how- ever, and it is not often seen in northern New England. Perhaps it is less given to southward migrations than are most of the Owls which share its wide boreal range, or it may be one of the least numerously represented among them. The latter view is held by Mr. E. A. Preble who tells me that he has seldom met with it during his extended travels in British North America. According to Major Bendire, however, “it appears to be very common about Great Slave Lake, specimens having been received from all the different Hudson Bay Company 1C, J. Maynard, Naturalist’s Guide, 1870, 133. 2'T. M. Brewer, Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, XX, 1879, 272. No. 867, collection of E. A. and O. Bangs. 200 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. posts located on its shores.” 1 Its most southern known breeding station is the Magdalen Islands, where a nest containing four young and an addled egg was found in June, 18782 98. Cryptoglaux acadica (Gmel.). SAW-wWHET OwL. SAW-WHET. ACADIAN OWL. Not uncommon winter resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 30, 1874, one female taken, East Lexington, W. Brewster. November 10 — March 1. March 12, 1891, one seen, Cambridge, F. Bolles. Saw-whet Owls visit the Cambridge Region nearly if not quite every winter, but in varying numbers. During some years only a few are reported ; in others the birds are not uncommon, especially in November and December. They may be looked for with the best chances of success in the wooded parts of Lexington, Arlington, Belmont and Waltham. They have also occurred repeatedly in the Fresh Pond Swamps, and not very infrequently in that rather densely populated portion of Old Cambridge lying between Massachusetts Avenue and Mount Auburn. The birds which frequent woodlands usually spend the day among the dense evergreen foliage of pines or hemlocks, where they would be quite safe from human observation were it not that their presence is often betrayed by noisy and excited mobs of Chickadees, Kinglets and Nuthatches which gather about them to scold and vituperate. Saw-whets are by no means always so retir- ing, however, for sometimes they may be seen sitting in the full glare of the mid- day sun in leafless trees or bushes along country roadsides, or even in those which border city streets. About noon on February 7, 1898, a brilliantly clear day, I, discovered one of these Owls in our garden, perched ina scarlet oak some ten feet above the surface of the snow which, at that time, covered ‘the ground deeply. Several clusters of dry oak leaves still clung to the branch, and in their midst sat the little Owl erect and motionless, quite aware, no doubt, that their 1C. Bendire, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, XXVIII, 1892. Life Histories of North American Birds, 348. ?C. B. Cory, Naturalist in the Magdalen Islands, 1878, 54. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 201 russet color closely matched certain of the reddish tints of its own exquisite plumage. But it either overestimated the value of protective coloring or was absurdly trustful, for my assistant, Mr. Gilbert, mounting on a step-ladder, caught the bird in his hand without the slightest difficulty. Mr. M. Abbott Frazar tells me that many of the specimens which he receives for preservation are captured in a similar manner. Although the Saw-whet Owl is not known to breed in the Cambridge Re- gion, it probably does so occasionally, for young birds in the juvenal (‘albzfrons ’) plumage have been taken in June or July in Newton, and also on Deer Island in Boston Harbor,’ while nests containing eggs or young have been repeatedly found within thirty or forty miles of Boston. 99. Megascops asio (Linn.). SCREECH OWL. Common permanent resident. NESTING DATES. April 15—zs. The Screech Owl is one of the best examples which the Cambridge fauna affords of a permanently resident species, for it is about equally common here at all seasons and there are apparently no reasons for believing that our local birds ever wander more widely than they find it necessary to do in order to secure food and suitable breeding places. It is possible, of course, that their numbers are sometimes added to in winter by a slight influx of more northern-bred individ- uals, but of this I have seen no good evidence. In our neighborhood Screech Owls nest, as a rule, in apple orchards, preferring those bordering on meadows or woodland and containing old and neglected trees with hollow trunks or branches, I can remember when there were many orchards of this character near Fresh Pond and scattered throughout Watertown, Belmont and Arlington, and when nearly every one of them harbored its pair of breeding Owls. Within the past ten or fifteen years most of the older trees have been cut down or so carefully trimmed and patched that they no longer furnish the conditions which the birds require. 'R. Deane, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, II, 1877, 84. 202 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. In the days of my boyhood Screech Owls occasionally visited the more thickly settled parts of Cambridge, but I do not think that at that time any bred there. Shortly after the English Sparrows became numerous, however, the Owls began to prey on them, and, finding the novel food abundant and to their liking, took up their permanent abode where it could be most easily and certainly obtained at all seasons — that is, in the heart of our city. For upwards of fifteen years past a cavity high in a large elm that stands on Linnzan Street, opposite the Botanic Garden has been regularly occupied as a nesting site by these Owls ; they have also reared young during this period in an elm near Mr. C. F. Batchel- der’s house on Kirkland Street; in June, 1893, a nest containing young was found in the Class Day Elm in the Harvard College Grounds; and in the sum- mer of 1900 a brood of young, still clothed in their natal down, appeared in the horse chestnuts in front of the old Nichols house, also known as the Lee house, on Brattle Street. Even that densely populated part of Boston known as the Back Bay Dis- trict is now occasionally invaded by these daring and adaptive little Owls; Dr. Arthur P. Chadbourne tells me that he heard one wailing in the trees on Marl- borough Street during the evening of January 31, 1902, and late in December, 1903, my assistant, Mr. R. A. Gilbert, saw another which had just been caught on the doorstep of a house on Commonwealth Avenue. 100. Bubo virginianus (Gmel.). Great Hornep OwL. Cat OWL. Formerly resident in small numbers ; now an uncommon autumn or winter visitor. NESTING DATES. ‘February 22 — March 1. Mr. J. Elliot Cabot, in a vivid description in ‘Sedge-birds,’! of the dawn of an autumn morning at Fresh Pond in the early 30’s, evidently refers to the Great Horned Owl in the following passage: “From the pines behind comes the og, hoo-hoo of the owls, like the toot of a distant horn preluding the full blast, and out of the darkness overhead the bark of the Kwa-birds or Night Herons.” As the Cabots’ shooting stand was in Cambridge Nook, very near where Alewife Brook left the pond, the pines above mentioned may have stood where the 1J, E. Cabot, Atlantic Monthly, X XIII, 1869, 385. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 203 Glacialis was afterwards dug by the Tudor Ice Company ; but they are more likely to have been the same noble old trees which for nearly forty years later shaded some six or eight acres of level, swampy land several hundred yards fur- _ ther to the westward and immediately about Pout Pond. On the occasion of my first visit to this primitive bit of wilderness, so often referred to in the present Memoir under the name of the Pine Swamp, an Owl of the largest size followed me about, circling above and around me but always just out of gun-shot, occa- sionally alighting for a moment, and repeatedly uttering a short, barking note which I have since learned is a characteristic cry of the Great Horned Owl when its breeding haunts are invaded. There can be little doubt that the bird just mentioned had young, for it was seen on June 3, 1865. Some time in July or August, 1861, I shot a young Great Horned Owl within two or three hundred yards of our house, in Cambridge. It was perched in a thorny acacia tree on the old Nichols place, near the corner of Appleton and Brattle Streets. Numbers of excited Robins, Bluebirds, Orioles, etc., had gath- ered about it to scold and vociferate. The specimen is still in my possession; it is in the downy natal plumage, but its wing quills and tail-feathers are fully developed. Although this bird was, no doubt, quite able to fly, it had probably come from no great distance, and perhaps from the Pine Swamp. I have also the skin of an adult male which I killed on May 13, 1872, in the extensive oak and pine woods between Belmont and Waverley, now included in the grounds of the McLean Asylum. In 1874, and again in 1875, Mr. M. Abbott Frazar found a pair of Great Horned Owls nesting in a pine swamp on the borders of Lincoln about half a mile beyond what is now the Hobbs Brook Reservoir. The instances just mentioned are all that I can give of the local occurrence of the Great Horned Owl in the breeding season. In late autumn and winter I used to meet with a few birds nearly every year in the more remote parts of Arlington, Belmont and Waltham. On December 11, 1875, I started one in pine woods lying just to the westward of Mount Auburn. 101. Bubo virginianus subarcticus (Hoy). Arctic HorNneD OWL. Casual winter visitor. Mr. Albert P. Morse, writing of the Great Horned Owl in his ‘Birds of Wellesley and Vicinity,’ says: “Dr. Faxon reports a very light-colored speci- 204 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. men, probably belonging to one of the pale western races, in Mus. Comp. Zool. collection, taken at Waltham, Nov. 30, 1867, by C. J. Maynard.”! This bird (a mounted specimen numbered 8336 in the Museum catalogue) was afterwards referred by Howe and Allen to the Western Horned Owl, Bubo virgintanus subarcticus (Hoy), of which they considered it “‘a typical female specimen.” ? On comparing it with a large series of skins which represent all the North American subspecies of Budo (excepting one peculiar to Alaska) which are recog- nized by the latest authority on the genus, Mr. Oberholser, I find that the Wal- tham specimen is distinctly unlike any of the Great Horned Owls which are known to breed in the United States, and that it must be referred to the form which for many years has been generally known as avcticus. Indeed it is prac- tically indistinguishable from several specimens of that race which I have re- ceived from Alberta and which apparently represent what Mr. Oberholser considers — as I think rightly —a dark phase of ‘avcticus.’ No doubt the Waltham bird wandered to Massachusetts from some locality in the interior of British North America, and not from the western United States, as Howe and Allen seem to have thought. Owing to a singular combination of circum- stances, however, the Latin (but not the English) name, under which they recorded it, is that which it should continue to bear. In a paper published? in 1896 Mr. Stone brought forward evidence which confirms the opinion held by several earlier writers (including Cassin, Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, and Coues) to the effect that the name subarcticus Hoy must be regarded as a pure synonym of arcticus Swainson. In the same con- nection he proposed to divide the light-colored Horned Owls of the western United States, to one or more of which the name swbarcticus had been repeatedly and at times very generally applied, into two forms. For “the small southern California subspecies” he used the name facijicus originally suggested by Cassin. “For the large form from the Great Plains” he proposed the new name occi- dentalis. A year later he decided that the “name ‘occidentalis’ must be rele- gated to synonymy ” for the reason that it had been based on a specimen which “unfortunately proves to be intermediate between 2B. virginianus and arcticus.” 4 To replace the name occzdentalis he then proposed “ for the Horned Owl of the interior United States (the ‘swdarcticus’ of authors, nec. Hoy) the name pad/es- cens, designating as the type, No. 152219, Coll. U.S. Nat. Mus. ¢ Watson Ranch, 1A. P. Morse, Birds of Wellesley and Vicinity, 1897, 23. 2R. H. Howe, Jr., and G. M. Allen, Birds of Massachusetts, 1901, 68. 3 W. Stone, Auk, XIII, 1896, 153-156. 4W. Stone, American Naturalist, XX XI, 1897, 236. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 205 18 mi. S. W. of San Antonio, Texas.” ! Acting upon these proposed changes the A. O. U. Committee, in 1897, accepted the name facificus and rejected the names subarcticus and occidentalis. All this happened before Howe and Allen’s ‘Birds of Massachusetts’ was written ; about the time this paper was published the Committee accepted the name fallescens. Since then Dr. Charles W. Richmond has pointed out that the name Budo arcticus was used by Forster for the Snowy Owl in “1817 (Synoptical Catalogue of British Birds, 47)” whereas “ Swainson’s name Sirix (Bubo) arctica (Fauna Boreali-Americana, II, 86, Feb., 1832)’ was not applied to the Arctic Horned Owl until 1832. Dr. Richmond therefore proposed to substitute Hoy’s name subareticus for arcticus® Still more recently Mr. Harry C. Oberholser in his admirable ‘Revision of the American Great Horned Owls’ resuscitates the name occidentalis Stone, which he applies to a rather large and light-colored race formerly included among the birds which were called swbarcticus, but which was not, of course, the swbarcticus of Hoy. This race is found, he says, in the “Western United States, from Minnesota and Kansas to Nevada, southeastern Oregon, Utah, and Montana; south in winter to Iowa.”? He agrees with Dr. Richmond that the name arcticus cannot be used for the Arctic Horned Owl, but he would replace it by the name wapacuthu (Gmelin), which is earlier than subarcticus Hoy The name wapacuthu, however, was based by Gmelin on a description taken by Pennant from a manuscript account by Hutchins of an Owl which, it is distinctly stated, is wéthout ears. This fact precludes the use of the name for the Arctic Horned Owl, at least by those who follow Canons XLITI and XLV of the A. O. U. Code. There are, moreover, other and perfectly good reasons for doubting that the bird mentioned by Hutchins was a Horned Owl of any kind. Thus Samuel Hearne in his ‘ Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay, to the Northern Ocean,’ published in London in 1795, says, on page 402, that the Indians call the Snowy Owl “ Wap.-a-kee- thow.”” According to Richardson, “the Indian word Wapacuthu means ‘ White Owl,’ and is applied also to the Strix nyctea, although the common term for the latter is Wapo-ohoo.” ® In view of the considerations just mentioned it will be necessary, I think, to take the name sudarcticus Hoy for the whitish boreal form which has been hith- erto so generally called avcticus and of which the Waltham specimen, above mentioned, is, in my opinion, a dark-colored representative. 1 W. Stone, American Naturalist, XXXI, 1897, 236. 2C. W. Richmond, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, XV, 1902, 86. 3H. C. Oberholser, Proceedings of the United States National Museum, XXVII, 1904, 191. 4 [bid., 191-192. 6 J, Richardson, Swainson and Richardson, Fauna Boreali-Americana, Vol. II. The Birds. 1831, 86, foot-note. S 206 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 102. Nyctea nyctea (Linn.). Snowy Ow. ARcTIC OWL. Rare and irregular winter visitor. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. November 17, 1871, a female taken, Longfellow Marshes, R. Deane and W. Brewster. January 1, 1894, a bird seen, Cambridge, A. S. Gilman. Snowy Owls visit eastern Massachusetts at irregular intervals and in vary- ing numbers. During some seasons, as in the autumn and winter of 1876-1877, and that of 1905-1906, the beautiful birds are taken or seen by scores or even hundreds, but ordinarily they are far from numerous. They occur oftenest in November or December and on or very near the seacoast. Here they haunt sand dunes, salt marshes and other wide expanses of open ground. During their less frequent visits to inland localities they sometimes appear in densely populated parts of towns and cities. As they move about freely by day they naturally attract general attention, and as they are seldom very shy many of them are killed by local gunners not long after their first appearance. Most of the sur- vivors go further south before the close of December, but some of them remain through the entire winter. The return flight in spring is never very noticeable, probably for the reason that comparatively few birds are left to undertake it. My notes furnish the following records of the occurrence of the Snowy Owl in the region covered by the present Memoir : — November 17, 1871. Mr. Ruthven Deane and I found a female Snowy Owl in the Longfellow Marshes, Cambridge, sitting on the ground, surrounded by a mob of noisy and excited Crows. Approaching under cover of a haystack, Mr. Deane shot the bird which is still in his collection. December 3, 1890. At sunset this evening Mr. Alfred L. Danielson saw a Snowy Owl flying past the Cambridge Gas-House, following up the course of Charles River. 1892. According to report a bird was shot some time in the late autumn or early winter of this year in Brattle Square, Cambridge. I think the specimen was preserved, but I do not know what eventually became of it. December 31, 1893. January 1, 1894. On the afternoon of December 31 a Snowy Owl was seen perched in the top of an elm in the rear of Mr. Edwin H. Abbot’s house on Follen Street, Cambridge, and later that same day it visited Berkeley Street. The following morning it appeared in Linnean Street directly opposite the Botanic Garden. It naturally attracted much attention ; indeed it was followed about on both occasions by a mob of men and boys. Finally a man with a gun appeared and shot at the bird which flew off westward over the Observatory grounds. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 2047 103. Surnia ulula caparoch (Miill.). AMERICAN Hawk Ow. Hawk Ow. Very rare visitor from the north in late autumn. T have an American Hawk Owl which Mr. Wilmot W. Brown shot in West Somerville, not far from the stone powder-magazine, on November 16, 1889. No other record for the Cambridge Region is at present known to me. There is no definite evidence that American Hawk Owls ever breed in New England, but they may do so occasionally, for the Messrs. Edward A. and Outram Bangs have a young bird which they shot on August 10, 1878, at Point Lepreaux, New Brunswick, only about twenty-five miles from the eastern border of Maine. As this specimen retains some of its natal down, it probably was reared not far from the place where it was killed. Most of the Hawk Owls which are noted in New England come, however, from regions much further to the northward. They sometimes appear rather numerously in late autumn and winter in north- ern Maine and New Hampshire ; but even there they are seldom common, and often apparently wholly absent. Their visits to eastern Massachusetts are still more irregular and infrequent. 104. Coccyzus americanus (Linn.). YELLOW~BILLED CucKoo. YELLOW-BILL. Common summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 4, 1896, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. May 12— September 15. September 26, 1870, one taken, Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Brewster. NESTING DATES. May 25 —June 8. Since my earliest recollection the Yellow-billed Cuckoo has been a common summer resident of the Cambridge Region, but its numbers vary considerably in 208 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. different years. During some seasons it is quite as numerously represented as the Black-bill, in others decidedly less so. It is a familiar bird, given to frequent- ing cultivated grounds near houses. We continue to see or hear it in May and June throughout such densely populated parts of Cambridge as those lying between Harvard Square and Mount Auburn, although it is now less often met with here than in the more thinly settled country further inland. Its favorite summer haunts are apple orchards, brush-grown lanes arid roadsides, causeways shaded by willows, and dense thickets near water. It used to breed rather com- monly in the Maple Swamp,— where I have also found it lingering well into the autumn on one or two occasions,—and within recent years it has repeatedly nested in the pear trees in our garden. t05. Coccyzus erythrophthalmus (Wils.). BLACK-BILLED Cuckoo. BLACK-—BILL. Common summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 6, 1905, one heard, Cambridge, W. Brewster. May 12— September 20. October 16, 1890, one seen, Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Faxon. NESTING DATES. May 20—June 5. Much that I have just said of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo will apply equally well to the Black-bill, We hear the voices of both every summer in our city gardens, and elsewhere in the Cambridge Region the birds occur together or in close proximity in many localities. The Black-billed species, however, is, on the whole, a more retiring bird than the other— more given to haunting ex- tensive tracts of dry upland woods and to nesting in wild apple trees, Virginia junipers and barberry bushes in remote rocky pastures such as those which lie scattered along the crest and sides of the high ridge between Arlington and Waverley. In late summer and early autumn I have found the Black-billed Cuckoo oftenest in the Maple Swamp, where it feeds freely on the berries of the deadly nightshade. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 209 106. Ceryle alcyon (Linn.). BELTED KINGFISHER. KINGFISHER. Permanent resident; rare and perhaps not always present in winter, not uncommon in spring and summer, most numerous in autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 26, 1898, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. April 1o— November 1. (Winter.) November 15, 18go0, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. NESTING DATES. May 15— 25. The Kingfisher continues to breed sparingly in the region covered by the present Memoir. It has never been numerously represented here in summer since I can remember, and I am inclined to believe that nests are found almost as often now as they were twenty or thirty years ago, even in the city of Cambridge. As lately as 1899 there was one in a bank on the shores of Fresh Pond. When the alewives had access to this pond their fry swarmed in its waters every autumn, attracting great numbers of Kingfishers during September and the early part of October. At this season the birds are still common enough (although much less so than formerly) about the shores of most of our ponds, as well as along Charles River. They also visit small isolated pools and the deeper reaches of our larger brooks. I remember seeing a Kingfisher many years ago at an artificial pond (long since filled) in the grounds of the Chauncey Smith estate (then owned by Dr. Joseph E. Worcester) on Brattle Street, Cambridge, and on May 24, 1900, another flew low over our lawn, rattling loudly. A few birds con- tinue to frequent the ornamental ponds in Mount Auburn. We used to think that all our Kingfishers went further south to pass the winter, for during the earlier years of my field experience none were ever noted between the close of November and the latter part of March. Since 1890, how- ever, one or two birds have been observed almost every season in December and January, usually along the tidal reaches of Charles River or at the outlets of the Mystic Ponds, where there are nearly always stretches of open water. These, however, can furnish but indifferent hunting grounds for a hungry Kingfisher when the temperature falls to zero, for at such times most of the smaller fishes remain well below the surface. 210 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 107. Dryobates villosus (Linn.). Harry WOoopPECKER. Uncommon visitor in autumn and winter; one summer record. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 5, 1887, one im. female seen, near Cambridge, W. Brewster. October 10— April 15. (Summer ?) May 2, 1881, one seen, Cambridge, C. F. Batchelder. August 25, 1897, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. NESTING DATES. April 22 — May 5. The Hairy Woodpecker may be found in the Cambridge Region from October to April, but it occurs oftenest during October and November. Al- though its numbers vary from year to year, it is never really common, three or four birds being as many as any one observer, however acute and diligent, is likely to meet with in a single season. Most of them occur in the wilder, more heavily wooded portions of Arlington, Belmont and Waltham, for the Hairy Woodpecker is, by nature, a retiring, forest-loving species. Nevertheless it sometimes appears in densely populated localities and even in the very heart of our cities and larger towns. I have seen it in the elms on Boston Common (on November 14, 1903) and in Cambridge it has been observed, during the past ten or fifteen years, with increasing regularity and frequency, usually in or near the grounds of Harvard College or in the large shade trees along Brattle Street. In 1905 a pair frequented our garden from early in January to the latter part of April, feeding greedily on suet, often in company with Chickadees and Downy Woodpeckers. I am not aware that the Hairy Woodpecker has ever been found breeding in the Cambridge Region, but Mr. Walter Faxon tells me that he has noted it in Arlington in late summer—on August 25, 1897. It still nests regularly — if but very sparingly-—in Lincoln and Concord, whence, no doubt, come some of the birds which visit Cambridge in autumn and winter. Others, perhaps, are derived from Maine and New Hampshire, for the Hairy Woodpecker, although certainly not habitually migratory,— like the Sapsucker and Flicker, for exam- ple,— is, nevertheless, somewhat given to wandering southward in autumn, at least from the forests of northern New England. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 211 108. Dryobates pubescens medianus (Swains.). Downy WoopPECKER. Common permanent resident. NESTING DATES. May 22—June 3. Although the Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers are so similar in general appearance as to be distinguishable in life only by size (or by voice), they differ widely in character and tastes. The Hairy is a restless, suspicious creature, prone to take alarm if closely approached, and apparently never quite happy or at ease when far from its favorite woodlands. The Downy, on the other hand, is one of the most contented, trustful and familiar of birds. Like a true philosopher it accepts conditions as it finds them, and, when they change, quickly adapts itself to the new order of things. By virtue of these admirable traits it has maintained itself in practically undiminished numbers throughout the Cambridge Region, despite the cutting down of woods, the rapid increase of houses, and the multiplication and dispersion of the English Sparrows. From November to April it still appears regularly and, for a Woodpecker, really numerously, in many of the older settled parts of Cambridge, and several birds are accustomed to visit our garden almost daily to feed on the suet which we put out for them and for the Chickadees. But while the Downy Woodpeckers make themselves quite at home in our city during the winter months, they invariably desert it at the approach of sum- mer. Some perhaps go further north to breed, for the species is probably migra- tory toa certain extent ; others retire to the wilder parts of Arlington, Belmont, Lexington and Waltham, where I have often found their nests in decayed trunks or branches of apple trees in old, neglected orchards, and in poplar, birch and maple stubs in the woods. It is unusual for them to breed in any locality much frequented by man and I have never known a nest to be found within the corpo- rate limits of Cambridge, even in the earlier days of my field experience when so much of the region lying in the direction of Fresh Pond and Mount Auburn was essentially a farming country, well supplied with old apple orchards and not with- out scattered pieces of woods. From these facts we may infer that the Downy’s trust in man is not altogether so profound as might at first appear. 212 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 1og. Picoides arcticus (Swains.). Arctic THREE-TOED WOODPECKER. BLACK-BACKED THREE-TOED WOODPECKER. Of rare occurrence ; only one record. The Arctic Threetoed Woodpecker visits eastern Massachusetts rather frequently —if somewhat irregularly and sparingly —in autumn and winter, coming, no doubt, from the spruce forests of northern New England which it inhabits at all seasons. It has been found repeatedly at places not far distant from Cambridge, such as Beverly, Lynn, Woburn, Malden, Melrose, Medford, Dorchester, Hyde Park, and Milton, but the only instance known to me of its occurrence within the region covered by the present Memoir is that of a bird which Mr. Walter Faxon saw in Arlington on April 27, 1905. He writes me that it was met with “near Turkey Hill....in a growth of big white pines killed by fire a year or two ago,” adding ‘It was a fine male, with the yellow crown, and I had him at close range to my heart’s content. He was getting grubs from the fire-killed pine in the characteristic way.’’ The date on which this bird was noted is exceptionally late, of course. Mr. F. W. Bridge has reported! that “on October 16, 1883,” he “shot a female specimen of the Black-backed three-toed Woodpecker (Picoides arcticus) at West Medford, Mass.’’ He has recently informed me by letter, however, that the bird was killed “in Medford (not West Medford) about one half mile west of Pine Hill and close to the western side of what is now the Medford Golf Links.”’ This locality is about two and one half miles east of the Mystic Ponds, and hence outside the limits of the Cambridge Region. Most of the records of occurrence of the present species in eastern Massachusetts relate to single birds, but in the winter of 1860-1861 a piece of heavy pine timber in Lynn, which had been burned over, the preceding summer, attracted Arctic Three-toed Woodpeckers in such numbers that Mr. George O. Welch “ often saw as many as six or eight during a single visit to these woods.””? It is exceptional, of course, to meet with so many together in any part of New England, for Arctic Three-toed Woodpeckers are not, as a rule, gregarious ; I have known them, however, to occur even more abundantly in fire-devastated spruce forests in northern Maine, to which they usually resort only during the year after that when the trees are killed. 1F. W. Bridge, Quarterly Journal of the Boston Zodlogical Society, III, 1884, 17. 2 W. Brewster, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, VIII, 1883, 122. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 213 110. Sphyrapicus varius (Linn.). YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER. SAPSUCKER. YELLOW-BELLIED WooDPECKER. Transient visitor, not uncommon in spring and autumn; occasionally seen in winter. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 11, 1899, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. April 24 — May 1. May 5, 1877, one female! taken, Cambridge, C. F, Batchelder. September 10, 1899, one seen, Cambridge, W. Brewster. September 15 — November 1. (Winter.) On January 1, 1862, my friend Mr. Daniel C. French called at our house to give me my first lesson in taxidermy, an art known in those days to but few persons save the professional ‘bird stuffers.’ I was naturally eager to take advan- tage of this opportunity, but it was first necessary to procure a bird not too small nor delicate for inexperienced fingers. By chance a suitable subject was speedily provided, for just as we were about to start, with our guns, for some distant woods, a Sapsucker alighted on the trunk of a butternut tree close to the house and was at once shot. If I remember rightly it was a young bird, but the specimen was destroyed by moths some ten or fifteen years later. It was the only Sapsucker that I have ever seen in Massachusetts in winter, but one was killed in the Botanic Garden, Cambridge, on December 1, 1883, by Mr. George N. Lamb, and another was noted in Waverley on December 24, 1885, by Dr. Arthur P. Chadbourne, while Mr. Frederic H. Kennard has reported ? find- ing one in Brookline on February 6, 1895. Although the Sapsucker is accustomed to visit the Cambridge Region very regularly at its seasons of migration, it is seldom or never seen here in any con- siderable numbers. It occurs oftenest in April and October, and is most likely to be met with in dense mixed woods, especially those which contain pitch pines. It also appears familiarly in apple orchards near farmhouses and about cultivated grounds in the suburbs of our cities and larger towns, where it does some damage to such trees as the Austrian pine and mountain ash by drilling holes through their bark to obtain the sap. While thus engaged it sometimes lingers for days in succession in our garden, and I have notes of its recent occurrence in other equally densely populated parts of Cambridge. 1No. 246, collection of C. F. Batchelder. °F. H. Kennard, Auk, XII, 1895, 301-302. 214 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. (Sphyrapicus varius nuchalis Baird. RED-NAPED SapsuckER. In the ‘History of North American Birds,’ Dr. Brewer, writing of the Red-naped Sapsucker, reported that “two speci- mens of this race have been taken in New England,— one in New Hampshire by Mr. William Brewster, the other in Cambridge by Mr. Henshaw.”! The birds to which this statement relates were referred to nuchalts for a time because they possessed the red nuchal crescent which was then believed to be peculiar to that form. The crescent, however, was much narrower and less well defined than it usually is in typical examples of Red-naped Sapsuckers. As it is now definitely known that eastern specimens of the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker sometimes have this marking, there are no longer any grounds for believing that the true Red-naped Sapsucker has ever occurred in New England.] ‘i riz. Melanerpes erythrocephalus (Linn.). RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. Of irregular occurrence at all seasons, sometimes in considerable numbers. NESTING DATE. June 17, 1882, nest? and at least two eggs, birds seen at hole, East Watertown, C. R. Lamb. The case of the Red-headed Woodpecker is peculiar. Ordinarily the beau- tiful bird is of rare occurrence in the Cambridge Region, while sometimes for years in succession it is not reported by any of our local observers; then will come a season when it is common or even abundant. It visits us oftenest during migration, and most numerously in October and November. Whenever there is a well-marked autumnal flight, some of the birds which compose it usually linger into or even through the following winter, and a very few occasionally remain to breed the next summer. The greatest influx that has taken place within my personal recollection occurred in the autumn of 1881 when, for three or four weeks, Red-headed Woodpeckers literally swarmed about Cambridge and Boston. They were not generally distributed, but seemed to congregate in certain localities and to prefer small, open groves of old, deciduous trees to more extensive and varied woods. Within the Cambridge Region they were seen in the greatest numbers among the oaks and beeches about the shores of Fresh Pond; in the mixed oak and chestnut woods lying to the westward of 1 Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, History of North American Birds, II, 1874, 543. 2 No, 3726, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 215 Mount Auburn ; and in a grove of large chestnuts not far from the village of Waverley. They began to appear late in September, and were most abundant during October when very many were killed by our local collectors. Most of the survivors departed early in November, but a few were noted at intervals during the succeeding winter, and on June 17, 1882, Mr. Charles R. Lamb found a pair breeding near the Watertown Arsenal in some oak woods which have since given place to a dense settlement of houses. The nest of this pair is now in my col- lection. According to Mr. Lamb’s notes “it was about forty feet above the ground, in an entirely rotten tree, and contained two or more perfectly fresh eggs which were broken, however, in the attempt to get the nest down.” Dur- ing this season another nest was found in the same neighborhood by Mr. M. Abbott Frazar. He writes me that, as nearly as he can remember, it was ina large hickory tree on the Adams estate, near School Street, in such a position that he could not get at it. He thinks that the birds reoccupied it during the following year. In 1883 a pair of Red-headed Woodpeckers attempted to breed in Cam- bridge in a large dead elm which stood at the corner of Concord Avenue and Buckingham Street within the grounds of St. Peter’s (Roman Catholic) Church. Here, as well as at several other places in the immediate neighborhood, the birds were repeatedly noted by Mr. H. M. Spelman and Dr. Arthur P. Chadbourne. They drilled a hole— which I saw later that summer — in the south side of the elm at a height of thirty-five or forty feet. Shortly after it was completed, and probably before any eggs had been laid, — although as the nest was not opened this cannot be positively asserted, — both birds suddenly disappeared. It was reported at the time that they had so seriously disturbed the meditations of Father O’Brien, the resident priest, by their incessant drumming on a resonant branch of the old tree, that he had had them shot. Dr. Chadbourne tells me, however, that he has reason to believe that one of them was killed or, at least, mortally wounded, by a certain eager young Cambridge collector of that period. The earliest definite record of the breeding of the Red-headed Woodpecker in the immediate neighborhood of Boston appears to be that by Mr. Purdie! of a nest containing five eggs which was found by Mr. H. K. Job in June, 1878, in a hole of an apple tree in Brookline. According to a statement made to me by the late Mr. Gordon Plummer, several additional nests of this Woodpecker were discovered in Brookline in the summer of 1882. Another and still more recent instance of breeding in a locality equally near the confines of the Cam- bridge Region, is that originally reported by Mr. Torrey,? of a pair which suc- 1H. A. Purdie, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, VII, 1882, 57. 2B. Torrey, Auk, XVIII, 1901, 394. 216 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. cessfully reared their brood in Newton in the summer of 1901. Mr. Walter Deane and I visited their nest on June 27 and saw both birds enter it repeatedly, bearing, in the tips of their bills, small, dark objects which looked like beetles. Whenever one of the parents came to the nest the young invariably set up a chorus of shrill, eager cries, but they did not once show themselves at the en- trance hole which was about twenty feet above the ground in a small red maple. This tree, or rather stub, for it was so completely stripped of bark and branches that it closely resembled a telegraph pole, stood in an open field on the borders of a newly made street, but at no great distance from a knoll wooded with oaks, maples and chestnuts, where the Woodpeckers frequently alighted just before and after visiting the nest. Besides notes relating to the great flight of 1881 — and its aftermath — my record-books mention the following instances of the occurrence of the Red-headed Woodpecker in the Cambridge Region : — 1866, May 20. I saw a beautiful adult bird among some oaks on the Flagg estate near the Trapelo road in Waltham. 1872, March 26. I examined a mature specimen which had been killed that morning by a Mr. Lee in the oak and beech woods onthe Tudor place at Fresh Pond. 1876. At least nine different birds were reported to me as shot during October and November in Watertown and Newton. 1878. Several Red-headed Woodpeckers were taken in Belmont and Watertown. Mr. C. F. Batchelder has one that was killed in the former town on October 5 of this year by a boy who saw other birds of the same species at the same time. 1883. A pair attempted to breed in Cambridge. [This has been referred to above. os May. In early May Mr. John Cullen found a flock of six birds in Water- town and secured two of them. 1896, May 16. A Red-headed Woodpecker was seen near Mystic Pond by Mr. Walter Faxon. ; 1898, September 21. One was met with in Lexington by Mr. Walter Faxon. 1900, December 2. Mr. Walter Faxon noted a Red-headed Woodpecker near Mystic Pond, Arlington. 1900. Two birds were observed at frequent intervals between October 31 and December 16 in a cemetery near the Lower Mystic Pond, Arlington, by Mr. Richard S. Eustis and Mr. A. Vincent Kidder. igor. On April 1 Miss Blanche Kendall saw an immature Woodpecker of this species among the fine old oaks and hickories at Payson Park, Belmont. About four weeks later (on the 27th) she found two fully mature birds in the same place. She was assured by one of her friends that several Red-headed Woodpeckers had passed the preceding winter in this grove. 1go1, May 21. Mr. George C. Deane met with two adult birds in the oak and beech woods at the southwestern extremity of Fresh Pond, BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 217 112. Colaptes auratus luteus Bangs. NorTHERN FLICKER. FLICKER. GOLDEN—WINGED WOODPECKER. YELLOW—HAMMER. Permanent resident, common at all seasons but least so in winter. NESTING DATES. May Io— 25. Flickers winter with us regularly and so commonly that as many as five or six may be seen in the suburbs of Cambridge, or in the farming country a little further to the westward, during a morning walk in December, January or Feb- ruary. They are still more numerous — and very much more conspicuous — at their seasons of migration, especially in late March and early April when the birds which have passed the winter further south herald their return by loud and persistent ‘shouting.’ This sound, one of the most characteristic and wel- come of all early spring voices, is heard not less frequently and generally through- out the Cambridge Region today than it was thirty or forty years ago; for the Flicker, although by nature wary and suspicious, is too intelligent and adaptable, and above all too persistent, to easily relinquish haunts to which it has become attached, simply because their character has changed. No doubt it has learned by observation that thickly settled localities do not harbor many of its natural enemies ; that man is often least to be feared where he is most numerously repre- sented ; and that wherever native trees and shrubs are removed they are usually replaced by cultivated ones which produce equally abundant and attractive fruit. When the Parkman’s apple tree in our garden bears heavily, Flickers visit it almost daily through the winter to feast on its tiny apples — scarce larger than blueberries. At this season they also eat the fruit of our hackberry trees, and in summer they never fail to appear when the cherries and mulberries ripen. They are especially fond of rum cherries, of which we have always an abundance for them, and for the Robins, in September. The Flickers have repeatedly nested in this garden, even during recent years. In 1899a pair took possession of an imitation stub which I made and put up for them. It was simply a long, narrow box covered with bark and having an entrance hole of suitable size bored in one side near the upper end. Eight eggs were laid, but unfortunately none of them hatched although the birds brooded them faithfully for nearly s¢x weeks. The box has since sheltered gray squirrels, House Sparrows and, on one occasion, a Screech Owl, but the Flickers have never returned to it. 218 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 113. Antrostomus vociferus (Wils.). WHIP—POOR-WILL. Formerly a not uncommon summer resident ; now found chiefly and perhaps only during migration. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 25, 1891, one male heard (Concord), W. Brewster. April 30— September 20. September 25, 1895, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. NESTING DATES. May 26— June 5. Lowell, writing in 1868, says:1 “I remember when the whippoorwill could be heard in sweet Auburn.” Perhaps it also nested there before the trees were thinned and the undergrowth was cut away to prepare the place for a cemetery. During the earlier years of my own field experience Whip-poor-wills were occa- sionally started in early May in the dense evergreen woods just to the westward of Mount Auburn, but in summer they were found only in the wilder parts of Arlington, Belmont, Waltham, and Lexington, where they were generally, if somewhat sparingly, distributed. The wooded hills and ridges bordering Rock Meadow on the south and west, and those lying to the north of the Lyman estate in Waltham, were then among the favorite haunts of the Whip-poor-will. In the former locality I heard two males singing at once on the evening of June 2, 1874. Later that same season I started a female whose behavior afforded convincing evidence that she had either eggs or young near at hand. She was among dense oak scrub on a knoll not far from the willow-shaded causeway road. Mr. Ralph Hoffmann assures me that Whip-poor-wills have long since ceased to frequent Rock Meadow in summer, and he even doubts if they now breed any- where within the limits of the Cambridge Region. My most recent summer record is furnished by Mr. Walter Faxon who tells me that he heard a bird in East Lexington on June 12, 1889. The Whip-poor-will occasionally appears in densely populated parts of Cam- bridge during migration. On the evening of April 30, 1871, I heard a male in full song in the grounds of the Gardiner G. Hubbard estate (now Hubbard Park), 1J. R. Lowell, My Garden Acquaintance, Atlantic Almanac for 1869, 1868, 37. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 219 and on May 22, 1900, I found a female in our garden. The latter bird $ent the entire day on one of the larger branches of an old apple tree where it was surrounded by a mob of noisy and excited Robins who apparently mistook it for an Owl. 114. Chordeiles virginianus (Gmel.). NIGHTHAWK. Common transient visitor during migrations and rare summer resident, at least formerly. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 23, 1895, one seen, Cambridge Region, W. Faxon. May 15 — September 25. October 5, 1868, one seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. NESTING DATES. June 5 —15. Nighthawks continue to visit the Cambridge Region in undiminished num- bers at their times of migration! About the middle of May or a little later they may be found singly, by day, roosting on the ground in rocky pastures, on the branches of large pines or oaks in the woods, and of apple trees in the orchards, sometimes near houses and occasionally even in our city gardens; at evening, when twilight is falling and when the warm, moist air is laden with the fragrance of blossoming fruit trees, we often see the birds passing over- head on their way northward. During the return migration, which takes place in the latter part of August or early in September, they are still more numerous or at least conspicuous, appearing about sunset, evening after evening, in strag- gling companies containing from six or eight to fifteen or twenty birds each, and attracting general attention by their graceful yet erratic manner of flight. The members of these flocks, although scattered more or less widely and apparently absorbed in feeding, move onward steadily, if rather slowly, in the same gen- eral direction, ordinarily towards the south or southwest. At first they fly at rather high altitudes, but, as the daylight wanes, they descend to just above the tops of the trees or houses, and finally, when the landscape has become nearly 1 They have been comparatively scarce during the past two years owing, it is thought, to heavy rains which occurred in the summer of 1903 and which are known to have caused widespread destruc- tion among the Swallows and other birds or similar feeding habits. 220 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. shrouded in gloom, they skim close to the earth over fields and meadows and along country roads and lanes. Within my personal recollection the Nighthawk has never bred numerously or generally in the Cambridge Region and I know of but two places where it has been found recently in summer, v7z., at Rock Meadow, Belmont, and near Great Meadow, East Lexington. Of late years, however, it has established the habit of nesting in small numbers on the flat, gravelled roofs of buildings in the Back Bay District of Boston, and birds from this locality sometimes extend their wanderings in search of food to Cambridge, where I occasionally see them at evening flying over our garden. 11s. Cheetura pelagica (Linn.). CHIMNEY SwiFT. CHIMNEY SWALLOW. Abundant summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 18, 1896, seen, Cambridge Region, W. Faxon. April 25 September 20. September 23, 1898, fifteen seen, East Lexington, W. Faxon. NESTING DATES. June 10 — 30. One of the pleasantest recollections of my youth is that of Chimney Swifts careering in swarms, with joyous, twittering cries, over and around our house. Up to 1875 or a little later they continued to breed abundantly in our immediate neighborhood, and very commonly in many other parts of Cambridge. Although they have not yet deserted this city, we no longer see them here in any numbers, at least in early summer. The change has progressed grad- ually, but very steadily. In my opinion it has been due not so much to the spread and increase of the human population, as to the removal or alteration of so many of the older houses, and the accompanying substitution of narrow, smoothly lined chimney flues for those of more ample and primitive type, with inner surfaces sufficiently rough or irregular to furnish suitable points of attachment for the curious nests of the Chimney Swifts. In the farm- ing country to the westward of Cambridge, as well as about the village cen- ters of Arlington, Belmont and Watertown, where chimneys of ancient pattern BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 221 still abound, the Swifts continue to reappear every season in nearly if not quite their former numbers! During rainy or lowering weather they congregate over our ponds and meadows to feed in company with the Swallows. Many years ago the boys living near Fresh Pond were accustomed to indulge in a curious practice which I have often witnessed. Arming themselves with long, thickly branched stems of bushes, from which the leaves had been stripped, they would form in line along the crest of a ridge, and strike at the Swallows and Swifts skimming low over the turf on their way to or from the pond. A few Swifts frequently fell victims to this wanton sport, but the more alert and observing Swallows invariably dodged the switches and ran the gauntlet in safety. In view of the fact that Chimney Swifts breed abundantly throughout north- ern New England, one would expect to see large flights of them passing and repassing over eastern Massachusetts; but my experience has been that unmis- takable migratory movements of this kind are seldom noted here, although the birds are usually more numerous in early May and again in late August than at any time during the intervening period. 116. Trochilus colubris Linn. RusBy-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD. HuMMINGBIRD. HUMMER. RuBy-THROAT. Very common transient visitor during migration and uncommon summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 1, 1891, one male seen, Lexington, W. Faxon. May 10— September 20. October 2, 1882, one seen, Cambridge, W. Brewster. NESTING DATES. May 24 — June 5. Hummingbirds are often common in our neighborhood for a week or two after their arrival from the south in early May, when they frequent places where the Japan quince and the cultivated cherry are in bloom. Before the end of the month most of them pass still further north, only a very few remaining to breed. ' This passage, written several years ago, must now be modified, for the Swifts, like the Night- hawks and Swallows, were seriously reduced -in numbers, throughout eastern Massachusetts, during the cold, rainy weather of June, 1903, and the losses which they suffered that season have not as yet been made good. 222 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Indeed I doubt if a dozen nests of the Hummingbird have been found in the Cambridge Region during the past twenty-five years. Most of those which have been reported within the period covered by my personal recollection have occurred in Arlington and Lexington. I have seen but two in Cambridge. The first of these, containing young, was found inan apple tree in the grounds of the Nichols estate on Brattle Street upwards of forty years ago; the other, with its comple- ment of two eggs, I took on June 3, 1878, in a silver-leaved poplar just behind the house of the late Professor Henry L. Eustis on Kirkland Street. Mr. Charles R. Lamb tells me that as lately as the summer of 1900 a pair again bred in the Nichols estate, placing their nest on a low branch of one of the large horse chestnut trees which stand directly in front of the house, and bringing out their young successfully. The return flight of Hummingbirds from further north begins to reach us about the middle of July, and lasts well into September. It is at its height in August, when, for two or three weeks, the birds are usually common and often positively abundant, frequenting gardens where such plants as the lark- spur, bee balm, nasturtium, and trumpet-vine, flower profusely, and swampy woods or roadsides where the touch-me-not (/mpatiens) abounds. At this season adult males (still showing brilliant ruby throats) are sometimes seen, but over ninety per cent of the birds are females and young males. The Hummingbird is mentioned by both Morton and Wood in terms which indicate that it was common about Boston in early Colonial days. [Agyrtria viridissima (Less.). Linni’s Hummincpirp. This South American species was originally attributed to the Cambridge Region by Dr. Allen+ on the strength of a bird found by him in my possession in 1869 and still preserved in my collection. The history of this specimen is as follows. Early in August, 1865, I shot a Hummingbird in our garden in Cambridge. It was taken by my father to a bird store in Boston, and was left there to be mounted. The proprietor of this store was accustomed to have his taxidermic work done by Nathaniel Vickary, of Lynn, to whom, without much doubt, my Hummingbird was sent. When a similar looking specimen came back to me a few weeks later, I accepted it with entire confidence as the bird that I had killed. There are several reasons for believing that it may have been the same. In the first place Mr. Vickary has always been regarded as trustworthy in respect to such matters. In the second my bird, being shot at very close range, had most of its tail-feathers badly shattered by the charge — as is true of the specimen that was returned to me. On the other hand I was only fourteen years of age at the time the incident occurred, and, moreover, so unfamiliar with the technical characters of Hummingbirds that I might, without question, have been easily imposedon. With respect to all cases of this kind, however, possibilities, or even probabilities, should not be very seriously considered, provided there are any grounds for rea- sonable doubts. Hence the above record must be discredited as, indeed, most ornithologists (including Dr. Allen) have long since agreed.] 1J. A. Allen, American Naturalist, III, 1870, 645. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 223 117. Tyrannus tyrannus (Linn.). KINGBIRD. Common summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 27, 1897, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. May 5 — September 1. September 11, 1891, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. NESTING DATES. May 30 —June 8. The Kingbird occurs in the greatest numbers at its seasons of migration, but it also breeds very commonly throughout most of the Cambridge Region, especially where there are old orchards and fields or pastures sprinkled with isolated oaks and scraggy wild apple trees. In the days of my youth there were many such fields and orchards in parts of Cambridge which are now thickly covered with houses, and the Kingbird inhabited most of them in summer. I remember when it bred regularly and rather plentifully in the country lying between Sparks Street and Fresh Pond and more sparingly in that immediately to the northward of the Botanic Garden. I even saw it occasionally in June on Dana Hill, Cambridgeport, when I was in the High School (1865-1869). It nested for the last time in our garden in 1884. Since then it has ceased to pay us anything more than fleeting migratory visits, although I continue to find it in June and July in the neighborhood of Fresh Pond and Mount Auburn. It used to frequent the marshes along Charles River in late summer, appearing there in small, straggling flocks with the southward-bound flights of Swallows. Its gradual retirement from the greater part of Cambridge has been due, no doubt, chiefly to the contemporaneous building up of vacant lots and the rapid increase and dispersion of shade trees, for the Kingbird is never really at home save where there are wide spaces of open land (or water). Mr. T. B. Bergen has reported! seeing a Kingbird in Cambridge on April 16, 1898, a date so exceptionally early that one cannot help suspecting that some mistake was made in respect to the observation. 1T. B. Bergen, Auk, XV, 1898, 268-269. 224 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 118, Myiarchus crinitus (Linn.). CRESTED FLYCATCHER. GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER. Rare summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 9g, 1889, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. May 15 — September 1. September 26, 1897, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. NESTING DATE. June 26, 1goo, nest! and five eggs,! Waltham, W. Brewster and O. A. Lothrop. Although the noisy and quarrelsome but, nevertheless, interesting Crested Flycatcher breeds commonly in Canton, only about twelve miles south of Boston, it is one of the rarer summer birds in Middlesex County. My notes record only three instances of its occurrence in the Cambridge Region between 1865 and 1885, but during the past ten or twelve years from one to two or three pairs have been met with here nearly every season, usually in old apple orchards in Belmont or Arlington. In 1894 a nest with eggs was taken by a boy in Gray’s Woods, Cambridge, and on June 26, 1900, Mr. O. A. Lothrop showed me another, containing five fresh eggs, built in a hollow branch of an apple tree not far from Sherman’s Pond, Waltham. On August 31, 1881, a Crested Flycatcher visited the grounds (adjoining our own) at the rear of Mr. Charles Theodore Russell’s house on Sparks Street, where it remained until September 3. I frequently heard it calling, especially in the early morning and about sunset, but it kept closely concealed among the foliage of the large apple trees, which evidently afforded it a safe and congenial retreat. Another bird, seen in our garden on May 15, 1900, and again on the following day, by Mr. Walter Deane, continued perfectly silent during its entire stay. It was rather shy, although, when no one was in sight, it spent much of its time perched on the topmost twig of an isolated cherry tree. These two instances are the only ones known to me of the occurrence of the Crested Flycatcher in any of the more densely populated parts of Cambridge. 1No. 3898, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 225 119. Sayornis phoebe (Lath.). PHGBE. Common transient visitor and not uncommon summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 18, 1903, one seen, Lexington, W. Faxon. March 25 — October Io. November 15, 1878, one taken, Belmont, C. W. Townsend. NESTING DATES. April 28 — May Io. According to Nuttall! a pair of Phoebes nested in the boathouse at the Fresh Pond Hotel in 1831, and Lowell in ‘My Garden Acquaintance’ mentions? the species in terms which indicate that it continued to breed at Elmwood up to about 1868. Mr. C. F. Batchelder writes me that “in the middle or later ‘60's a pair nested for at least two or three seasons, in spite of much disturbance (that caused them to desert their eggs once or twice), under a rough piazza roof at the back of our house” on Kirkland Street, Cambridge. As recently as 1898, Mr. Walter Deane observed a pair which had a nest on the timbers of a bridge that spans one of the artificial ponds in Mount Auburn. On May 28, 1869, I found a nest with two eggs, built among the roots of a fallen tree in thé Pine Swamp, and I have seen a few nests which were placed beneath the eaves of icehouses on the shores of Fresh and Spy Ponds. During the earlier as well as later years of my experience, however, the Phoebe has never occurred commonly within the present limits of the city of Cambridge, excepting at its seasons of migration when I used to meet with it very frequently in the fields and orchards bordering Fresh Pond and Vassall Lane as well as in the neighborhood of the Cambridge Cemetery and Mount Auburn. It has also been seen, at these seasons, in Norton’s Woods. Through- out the farming districts of Belmont, Arlington, Lexington, Watertown, and Waltham, it still breeds rather commonly, although by no means so generally and numerously as it did thirty or forty years ago. 1T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Land Birds, 1832, 280-281. 2J. R. Lowell, Atlantic Almanac for 1869, 1868, 37. 226 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 120. Nuttallornis borealis (Swains.). OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER. Formerly a locally common summer resident ; now only a transient visitor, rare in spring and recorded but once in autumn. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 15, 188g, one seen, Arlington Heights, J. Dwight, Jr. May 20 — June 6. (Formerly in summer.) September 5, 1897, ‘one bird seen, and singing,” Arlington, W. Faxon. NESTING DATES. June 16 —25, formerly. The local history of the Olive-sided Flycatcher is peculiarly interesting. The bird was first reported from the Cambridge Region by Nuttall who states! that it ‘was obtained in the woods of Sweet Auburn, in this vicinity, by Mr. John Bethune, of Cambridge, on the 7th of June, 1830. This, and a second specimen, acquired soon afterwards, were females on the point of incubation. A third individual of the same sex was killed on the 21st of June, 1831.” All three of these birds were apparently taken at ‘Sweet Auburn’ where Nuttall himself “watched the motions of two other living individuals,” probably in 1830 or 1831, although the year when his observations were made is not mentioned. “One of the birds, the female, whom I usually saw alone, was uncommonly sedentary. The territory she seemed determined to claim was circumscribed by the tops of a cluster of tall Virginia junipers or red cedars, and an adjoining elm, and decayed cherry tree...., in the solitude of a barren and sandy piece of forest, adjoining Sweet Auburn..... The nest of this pair I at length dis- covered, in the horizontal branch of a tall red cedar 40 or 50 feet from the ground..... It contained 3 young, and had probably 4 eggs. The eggs had been hatched about the 2oth of June, so that the pair had arrived in this vicinity about the close of May.” My own acquaintance with the Olive-sided Flycatcher also began at ‘Sweet Auburn’— or Mount Auburn, as it had then come to be called — and on June 9, 1867, when my attention was attracted by the clear, ringing voice of a bird 17. Nuttall, Manual of the Omithology of the United States and of Canada. The Land Birds, 1832, 282, 283. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 224 which I quickly discovered perched in the blasted top of a tall oak near the stone tower and at once recognized. Returning a few days later (on June 18), I searched the whole neighborhood and its surroundings, finding three pairs of the Flycatchers and two of their nests which were built on the horizontal branches of isolated pitch pines. One of these trees was of rather large size and growing on the top of a knoll just within the boundary fence of Mount Auburn Cemetery, about two hundred yards to the eastward of the tower and nearly opposite the entrance gate of the Cambridge Cemetery ; the other tree, scarce fifteen feet in height, stood on the crest of a low ridge about half a mile to the southwestward near the mouth of Arsenal Brook. The first nest con- tained four eggs which had been incubated only a few days; the other, three eggs in which the embryos were far advanced. In the same locality, on June 16 of the following year (1868), I again found two nests. One, with three fresh eggs, was in an apple tree (an unusual situation), near the extremity of a long, drooping branch and about twelve feet above the surface of a little pond (now partially filled), just behind Mount Auburn; the other, containing two eggs,} also perfectly fresh, was near the mouth of Arsenal Brook, in the same small pitch pine in which one of the nests of the preceding year had been placed. On both occasions the birds built so very near the ground that I could look into their nest by pulling down the slender branch on which it rested. All the eggs just mentioned were taken. None of the birds, however, were molested and, as they were seen or heard in their respective haunts after their nests had been despoiled, I consider it probable that they laid again on each occasion and reared their broods in safety. I was unable to observe them closely after 1868, but my notes show that at least one pair frequented Mount Auburn in the summers of 1869 and 1874. In June of either 1877 or 1878 Mr. M. Abbott Frazar took a nest with three eggs about half a mile to the westward near the Watertown Arsenal, and during the following year he secured another nest in the same locality. Since then no one, so far as I am aware, has noted the Olive-sided Flycatcher in the Mount Auburn region, even during migration. From 1868 to 1879 inclusive I used to find Olive-sided Flycatchers nearly every season at Waverley, usually during the latter half of May and in or near what is now known as the Beaver Brook Reservation. Some of these birds may have been migrants, lingering for a day or two only before continuing their jour- ney northward, but the behavior of others satisfied me at the time that they were settled for the summer and preparing to breed. Unfortunately most of them were shot, almost as soon as they arrived, by the local collectors of that period. In 1874 a pair almost certainly attempted to nest in some mixed cedar and pitch pine woods on the eastern slope of the hill which extends from Waverley 1 These eggs with the nest, no. 1780, are still in my possession. 228 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. to Belmont, for they were constantly seen there from late in May up to June 14, when, as I regret to say, both birds were killed. Since 1880 the Olive-sided Flycatcher has been met with in the Cambridge Region only during migration and then but rarely. Its withdrawal from our neighborhood cannot be attributed either to the local persecution from which it has undeniably suffered to some extent or to changes in its breeding grounds. At Waverley the woods have remained practically untouched to the present day, and for several years after the last specimen was killed there the birds continued to reappear in their usual numbers, while the little colony at Mount Auburn, as I have already said, was disturbed only by the taking of a few nests, and it ceased to exist before any material changes had been made in its haunts. Moreover the abandonment by the Olive-sided Flycatcher of the localities just mentioned was coincident with its disappearance from Medford, West Newton, Auburndale, Waltham, Concord, and various other towns within twenty miles of Boston, where it was found breeding more or less regularly and commonly during the last ten or fifteen years of its occupancy of the Cambridge Region. The mystery attending its disappearance is not likely to be ever definitely solved, but, as I have stated in connection with a theory advanced in the Introduction to the pres- ent Memoir, I am inclined to believe that the birds which formerly bred in east- ern Massachusetts represented an overflow from other and more congenial summer haunts to which they have since returned. 121. Contopus virens (Linn.). Woop PEWEE. Common transient visitor and not uncommon summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May Io, 1895, one male seen and heard, Arlington, W. Faxon. May 18 — September 15. September 27, 1893, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. NESTING DATES. June 1o— 25. Although the characteristic haunts of the Wood Pewee are deep, solitary woods, the bird used to breed rather commonly in apple orchards and small, isolated groves of oaks or hickories, on the outskirts of Cambridge. .It was also BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 229 found regularly, if somewhat sparingly, in summer, throughout much of the city proper, especially in the neighborhood of Harvard College and in the old elms overhanging Brattle Street. In the days of my boyhood there was always a nest on our own place, but the birds bred there for the last time in 1878. A pair frequented some large oaks and willows in the late Dr. Morrill Wyman’s grounds at the head of Sparks Street through the entire summer of 1899, and since then I have heard birds in June or early July in Norton’s Woods, at Elm- wood, and in the Mount Auburn and Cambridge Cemeteries. Everywhere in or very near Cambridge, however, and even throughout the more retired por- tions of Arlington, Belmont and Waltham, the Wood Pewee has been slowly but steadily diminishing in numbers for the past twenty-five years. Iam inclined to believe that the English Sparrows have been largely responsible for its prac- tical disappearance from the more densely populated parts of the Cambridge Region, and that its partial withdrawal from the country districts has been due chiefly to the cutting down or pruning of so many of the older forest and orchard trees. However this may be, it is deplorable that so attractive a bird should bid fair to become nearly or quite lost to our local summer fauna. The Wood Pewee still occurs rather numerously at its seasons of migra- tion, especially in late August when its sad, plaintive notes may be heard almost everywhere in our woods and orchards, accentuating rather than breaking the otherwise profound silence of the hot midday hours. 122. Empidonax flaviventris Baird. YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER. Transient visitor in late spring and early autumn, often occurring rather numerously. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 16, 1905, one seen, and heard calling, in our garden, Cambridge, W. Deane. May 25 — June 3. June 5, 1875, one heard, Belmont, W. Brewster. August 25, 1884, one male! and two females! taken, Watertown, W. Brewster. August 28 — September 8. September 9, 1875, one im. female (?)? taken, Maple Swamp, W. Brewster. The Yellow-bellied Flycatcher is one of the most silent and retiring of 1 Male, no. 9488, females, nos. 9489 and 9490, collection of William Brewster. 2. No. 1380, collection of William Brewster, 230 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. birds. For this reason it is seldom noticed save by those who look for it care- fully and intelligently at the proper times and places. From 1869 to 1885, when I was actively engaged in collecting about Cambridge, I used to note it regularly, both during the spring migration in May and when the return flights were passing southward in late August and early September. I was accus- tomed to find it at a number of different localities in Arlington and Belmont, but most frequently and numerously in the pitch pine and Virginia juniper woods which formerly covered so much of the country immediately to the westward of Mount Auburn and among dense thickets of deciduous shrubs in the Fresh Pond Swamps. It was unusual to meet with more than one or two birds in a single day, although I have seen as many as five or six in the course of as many con- secutive hours. But few instances of the local occurrence of the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher have been brought to my notice within recent years, but I have little doubt that the species visits us quite as regularly and commonly now as it did in earlier times. 123. Empidonax traillii alnorum Brewst. ALDER FLYCATCHER. TRAILL’S FLYCATCHER. Transient visitor, of irregular and usually rare occurrence in spring, very rare in autumn; occasionally seen in summer, also. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 23, 1891, one male taken (Concord), W. Brewster. May 28—June 6. (Summer.) August 24, 1875, one im. female? taken, Brickyard Swamp, W. Brewster. NESTING DATES. June 15 —25. On June 2, 1873, I killed an Alder Flycatcher in a thicket of barberry bushes growing within a few yards of Mr. Charles Deane’s house on Sparks Street, Cambridge, and on May 31, 1875, I ‘heard the characteristic call note of another in some shrubbery just across this street from our garden and in front of Mr. Israel M. Spelman’s house. The next morning I found two birds among low willows in the Brickyard Swamp, and a third in the Pine Swamp. They were as noisy and apparently quite as much at home as if on their breeding JNo. 45,173, collection of William Brewster, BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 231 grounds, uttering their songs or calls almost incessantly. I shot two of them, and I have a fourth Cambridge specimen which I killed on August 24, 1875, in the Brickyard Swamp. The bird last mentioned furnishes the only instance known to me of the occurrence of the species during its return migration. Mr. Walter Faxon heard an Alder Flycatcher in the Beaver Brook Reser- vation, Waverley, on May 30, 1890, and another in Arlington on May 31, 1891, while a third, which he found at Great Meadow, on June 3, 1894, remained in the same place for a little more than a week, being last seen on June 11. Mr. J. A. Farley, who has repeatedly taken the nest and eggs of this Fly- catcher at Lynnfield, Massachusetts, reports! that he has “noted it in the breed- ing season ....so near Boston as Fresh Pond, Cambridge,” where, as he informs me by letter, he met with a bird on June 9, 1900, in a bushy tract somewhere to the northward of the Glacialis. This individual, as well as the one seen by Mr. Faxon at Great Meadow, may have been settled for the season and pre- paring to breed, although in neither instance was the date of observation suffi- ciently late to make this certain. In 1901, however, a male remained in Wav- erley nearly if not quite through June, frequenting a meadow traversed by a brook the banks of which, as well as those of some connecting ditches, were fringed with panicled cornel, alder, raspberry and blackberry bushes, and a va- riety of other low-growing native shrubs. It would be difficult to imagine a more typical breeding ground of the Alder Flycatcher than that afforded by these thickets ; but, although they were repeatedly and most thoroughly searched, the nest, if really concealed there, escaped observation. Mr. Walter Deane and I looked for it long and carefully on the morning of June 25, when the Flycatcher was singing or calling almost incessantly among some elms on the borders of the meadow. I cannot learn that the bird was noted after this date, or that it was ever seen in company with a mate. The Alder Flycatcher has been so long and familiarly known as Traill’s Flycatcher that there are very many of us who, through mere force of habit, continue to call it by that name. It has been recently ascertained,? however, that the true Traill’s Flycatcher of Audubon does not occur in New England, where it is replaced by the closely allied form al/norum. The latter breeds rather commonly in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and in the adjoining ele- vated portions of northwestern Connecticut, but only locally and very sparingly in eastern Massachusetts. It is found abundantly in summer in many parts of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, where it frequents thickets and second- growth woods on the borders of clearings and along the banks of streams. 'J. A. Farley, Auk, XVIII, 1901, 347. 2 W. Brewster, Auk, XII, 1895, 159-163, 232 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 124. Empidonax minimus Baird. Least FLYCATCHER. Least PEWEE. CHEBEC. Very common summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. April 22, 1889, one male! taken, Cambridge, W. W. Brown. May 1— August 25. September 21, 1893, one male? taken, Lexington, R. Hoffmann. NESTING DATES. May 20— June 5. The Chebec is the commonest and most familiar of our smaller Flycatchers. It breeds throughout the Cambridge Region;—-most numerously in apple or pear orchards; frequently in shade trees near houses; sparingly or, at least, locally in extensive upland woods; rather commonly in swampy woods of limited extent, such as those in the Maple Swamp which has always been one of its favorite haunts. It used to be very generally and plentifully dis- tributed over practically the whole of Cambridge, but since the English Sparrows became abundant it has nearly disappeared from the more densely populated parts of that city. One or two pairs continue, however, to linger near the Museum of Comparative Zodélogy and in the neighborhood of our own place. The last nest that was built in our garden (in 1895) was attacked by a large troop of English Sparrows when it contained young about half grown. Although both parents defended it with the utmost spirit, the Sparrows succeeded in tearing away part of the outer walls of the nest, and one of them, standing on its rim, bent down and delivered several murderous but fortunately ineffective pecks at the heads of the young. In the end the Flycatchers triumphed and put the cowardly horde to ignominious flight. AsI watched this desperate combat I became fully satis- fied as to the reasons why the Least Pewee has so nearly deserted Cambridge. [Alauda arvensis Linn. SxyLarx. Dr. J. A. Allen, writing in 1880, says: “Skylarks and other European birds were set loose, some years ago, in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cam- 1No. 25,222, collection of William Brewster. 2 No. 44,433, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 233 bridge, but are supposed to have all soon died.”"!_ I can add nothing to this statement, for I have no recollection of any such introduction of foreign birds, nor is it mentioned anywhere in my manuscript notes.] 125. Otocoris alpestris (Linn.). Hornep LARK. SHORE LarRK. A not uncommon transient visitor in early spring and late autumn; occasionally seen in winter, also. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 28, 186g, flock of fifty seen, Fresh Pond, W. Brewster. November 1 — April Io. April 19, 1878, one male? taken, Cambridge, H. M. Spelman. The Cambridge Region seems to offer few attractions to the restless, wide- roving Horned Lark. It is true that we note this species very regularly and not infrequently in spring and autumn — as well as occasionally in winter — flying in loose, scattered flocks over ponds, marshes and broad stretches of open, upland country ; but most of the birds which we see are evidently either migrating or on their way to distant feeding grounds. I have known them to frequent the shores of Fresh Pond, when its waters were sufficiently low to expose extensive mud flats in the shallower coves, and I have repeatedly met with them running over ploughed land in Belmont or Watertown, while on one occasion (Decem- ber 17, 1868) I found three birds feeding on a gravelly ridge where the Cambridge Hospital now stands. Shore Larks may still be seen within the limits of our city in Cambridgeport where, as I am told by Dr. A. H. Tuttle, they occasion- ally visit the filled land that has replaced the salt marshes near Harvard Bridge. There is, however, so far as Iam aware, no locality in our immediate neighbor- hood where the Shore Larks are, or ever have been, in the habit of regularly and frequently alighting. They occur oftenest in late March or early April and dur- ing November. My note-books record a few instances of their appearance, in small numbers, in December and February, as well as one reference to five birds which were observed on January 27, 1871. 1j. A. Allen, Bulletin of the Nuttall Omithological Club, V, 1880. 120. 2 No. 117, collection of H. M. Spelman. 234 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 126. Otocoris alpestris praticola Hensh. PraiRIE HORNED Lark. Very rare transient visitor. On August 21, 1897, Mr. H. A. Purdie and I found a young Prairie Horned Lark at Payson Park, Belmont. It was feeding, in company with a number of Vesper and Chipping Sparrows, among some weeds which covered the surface of arecently gravelled roadway. Approaching within a few yards of the bird, we watched it for ten or fifteen minutes as it rambled about searching for food. Every now and then it would stop and stand erect for an instant with the feathers of the crown raised in a pointed crest. It was still in the spotted first plumage, but the wings and tail were fully grown. The date on which it was met with and the fact that it was evidently too young to have come from any great distance afford practically conclusive evidence that it must have been a Prairie Horned Lark. Were it not for these considerations I should not venture to formally include pratico/a in the present Memoir on the strength of the evi- dence just given, for although Mr. Purdie and I were perfectly sure of our identi- fication of the bird seen at Payson Park we were unprovided, at the time, with any means of securing the specimen. I know of no other instance of the occurrence of the Prairie Horned Lark in the Cambridge Region, but the bird has been noted with increasing frequency of late in other parts of eastern Massachusetts, to which it appears to be chiefly a migratory visitor although its young in first plumage have been recently taken in summer at Ipswich. It has been found nesting very commonly, if somewhat locally, in many of the more open portions of Maine, New Hampshire and Ver- mont, and also in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. There is a general impres- sion that it has extended its breeding range'into New England, from New York and regions further to the westward, within the past twenty-five or thirty years. I suspect, however, that it has been a summer resident of Massachusetts during a somewhat longer period, for on July 5, 1869, I saw at Concord a pair of birds which were certainly Horned Larks of some kind and which, in the light of our present knowledge, it is fair to assume must have belonged to the form fraticola. They were flying about over some sandy fields admirably adapted for breeding grounds and, indeed, closely similar to summer haunts of the Prairie Horned Lark that I have visited in New York State and elsewhere. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 235 127. Cyanocitta cristata (Linn.). - BLUE Jay. Permanent resident, common at all seasons, but most numerously represented in autumn. NESTING DATES. April 28 — May 20. Since time immemorial the Blue Jays of the Cambridge Region have been mercilessly persecuted by boys just learning to shoot, as well as by vandal gun- ners of maturer years. Nevertheless the birds do not appear to have diminished sensibly in numbers, at least during the period covered by my personal recollec- tion. Within recent times, however, they have nearly or quite deserted several of their former haunts in the immediate neighborhood of Cambridge. Most fav- ored of these in the earlier days was the region lying to the westward of Mount Auburn where beautiful, secluded woods of oak and pine, groves of old Virginia junipers, extensive orchards of large apple trees, and sheltered nooks and hollows abounding in seed-bearing weeds and berry-laden shrubs, combined to form a per- fect paradise for birds of various kinds. The noisy, brilliant-plumaged Jays were found here at all seasons. In autumn and winter, when they were most abundant and conspicuous, it was by no means unusual to meet with them in flocks con- taining as many as a dozen or fifteen birds each. Their range extended from the Watertown Arsenal to about where the Cambridge Hospital now stands, and in- cluded Mount Auburn, the old Winchester place on the banks of Charles River, the Cambridge Cemetery, the adjoining Coolidge farm, Elmwood, and Gray’s Woods. They also appeared regularly, if somewhat sparingly and infrequently, in most of the cultivated grounds along Brattle Street. I cannot recall ever seeing them to the southward of Harvard Square, but they used to frequent Norton’s Woods and, I believe, are occasionally found there still. I have known them to breed in the Norway spruces of Hubbard Park, and in 1878 a pair hatched and reared their brood within our own grounds, building their nest near the top of a tall linden which stands close to the house. In the neighboring Nichols estate, as I learn from Mr. Charles R. Lamb, several young, barely large enough to fly, were observed as lately as the summer of 1900. A few Blue Jays continue to reappear in autumn and winter throughout most of the densely populated region lying between the Botanic Garden and Mount Auburn, and they are not infrequent visitors to our garden. At the present 236 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. time, however, one must go as far inland as Arlington or Belmont to find the birds in any numbers. In certain parts of these towns, as well as in Lex- ington and Waltham, they are common enough at all seasons, especially in extensive and primitive tracts of woodland where pines, hemlocks and Vir- ginia junipers abound. In summer they are chiefly confined to the woods, but in winter, when the weather is not too cold and windy, they often venture well out into the open country, visiting apple orchards, trees and shrubbery along roadsides, and briery thickets bordering swamps and the courses of brooks. They are still more venturesome, as well as much more ubiquitous, in autumn when the flights of more northern-bred birds are passing southward. Indeed there are days in early October, just before the leaves begin to fall, when the whole country seems alive with Blue Jays and when one is rarely out of sound of their shrill voices, even in the heart of towns and villages. 128. Perisoreus canadensis (Linn.). CaNaDa Jay. Casual visitor from northern New England. There are two records of the occurrence of the Canada Jay in the Cam- bridge Region. The first of these, relating to a bird in my collection, taken by Mr. E. B. Winship, is unquestionably authentic in the main, although ap- parently inaccurate in respect to certain of its published details. Mr. J. R. Mann, who mounted the specimen, receiving it in the flesh from Mr. Winship, originally reported! that it was killed on October 16, 1889, at Arlington Heights. He has since written me that the correct date was “probably” the 17th instead of 16th of October; and Mr. W. P. Hadley, who was with Mr. Winship when the bird was shot, tells me that it was found not at Arlington Heights, but on the Winship farm in Lexington, very near the southern borders of Woburn. It was in deciduous woods, composed chiefly of maples, and appeared to be quite alone. The other record rests on too slight evidence or, at least, authority, to inspire much confidence. It concerns a bird which is assumed to have belonged to the present species and which was seen at Arlington Heights on May 12, 1896. ? 1J. R. Mann, Ornithologist and Odlogist, XIV, 1889, 176. 2 W. S. Kennedy, In Portia’s Gardens, 1897, 221. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 237 Mr. Maynard met with a Canada Jay at Newtonville, in early summer, about twenty-five years ago,! and there is a mounted specimen in the Essex County collection of the Peabody Academy at Salem, Massachusetts, which was shot near that city on October 25, 1878.7 [Corvus corax principalis Ridgw. NorTHERN RaveN. Wood, writing in 1634 of the birds which he found in New England, says:% ‘The Ravens, and Crowes be much like them of other Countries,” and Josselyn, in the ‘Two Voyages,’ published in 1674, asserts‘ that “the Raven is here numerous.”’ From these statements, and from those of certain more recent authors which need not be cited here, we may infer that the Raven was common and generally distrib- uted throughout the coast region of eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire, with that of southern Maine, when the country was first settled. We may further assume, with reasonable safety, that Wood saw the bird very near, if not actually in, the Cambridge Region, for he lived at ‘Saugus’ (now Lynn) during most of his stay in the colony, and his text indicates that he must have repeatedly visited the country lying about Cambridge and Boston.] 129. Corvus brachyrhynchos C. L. Brehm. AMERICAN Crow. Crow. Common permanent resident and abundant transient visitor in spring and autumn. NESTING DATES. April 15—28. The Crow is the only large bird which can be seen every day in the year throughout the Cambridge Region. Here it has not only held its ground, in spite of the cutting down of woods and orchards and the multiplication of houses, but during the past quarter of a century it has apparently increased in numbers and has certainly extended its local breeding range. In my younger days Crows seldom alighted anywhere in the neighborhood of our place and none were ever known to nest there, although they bred regularly on the Norton estate, where there were rather extensive and really primitive woods, as well as at Elmwood, which was then on the extreme outskirts of the city proper. At that time we often found Crows’ nests in the Pine Swamp, and in the cedar and pitch pine woods to the westward of Mount Auburn, while the birds paid frequent preda- 1C, J. Maynard, Birds of Eastern North America, pt. vii, 1878, 168. 2W. Brewster, H. D. Minot, Land-birds and Game-birds of New England, ed. z, 1895, 474-475, Appendix. 3 William Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. 2, 1635, 25. Charles Deane’s ed., 1865, 32. ‘John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New-England, ed. 2, 1675, 98. W. Veazie’s reprint, 1865, 78. 238 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. tory visits in spring and summer to the farming country lying to the eastward of Fresh Pond. In autumn and winter they assembled, sometimes in consider- able numbers, to feed on the marshes and muddy banks along Charles River between Cambridgeport and Watertown. Throughout most of Arlington, Bel- mont, Watertown, and Waltham they were then —as they are still — numerous and conspicuous at all seasons, but especially so in early spring and late autumn, when the migratory flights were passing. When, some twenty-five or thirty years ago, the suburbs of Cambridge began to extend rapidly in the direction of Fresh Pond and Mount Auburn, the Crows at first retreated, but, being shrewd and observing, as well as wary and suspicious birds, they have apparently learned by slow degrees that where houses and ornamental grounds replace orchards and cornfields man practically ceases to molest them. At all events they have not only returned to most of their former haunts, but have even taken up new ones in rather densely populated parts of the city. They now frequent the trees about our house almost as regularly and familiarly as do the Flickers and Downy Woodpeckers, while nests with eggs or young have been found of late in Hubbard Park; over the driveway leading to the late Dr. Morrill Wyman’s house ; in the grounds of the Harvard Observatory ; and at several other places in our immediate neighborhood. In the summer of 1900 a pair actually succeeded in rearing three or four young not far from the State House on Beacon Hill, Boston. Their nest was built in a large elm directly behind the Somerset Club house on Beacon Street. The birds were often seen feeding in the Common and Public Garden where they naturally attracted much attention and interest, for they were the first Crows that had appeared in these city parks for very many years. 130. Corvus ossifragus Wils. FisH Crow. Casual visitor; one record. a There is but one record,! I bélieve, of the occurrence of the Fish Crow in the Cambridge Region, vzz., that of a bird which I saw on March 16, 1875, flying over our garden in a westerly direction, pursued by an excited mob of common Crows. Although the fugitive was identified merely by its peculiar notes (which were repeatedly uttered) and by its equally characteristic manner 1W. Brewster, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, I, 1876, 19. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 239 of flight, I have never felt that there could be any reasonable doubt as to the correctness of my determination, for I was perfectly familiar, at the time, with the Fish Crow in life, having studied it only the year before in the neighborhood of Washington, D.C. When my note was published the Fish Crow had never been taken in Massachusetts, but since then a specimen has been shot at Wareham,! and another at Springfield 2 In the spring of 1905 Mr. J. A. Farley and Mr. E. H. Forbush met with Fish Crows in considerable numbers in the southern part of Massachusetts near the shores of Buzzards Bay. Mr. Farley writes me that the birds were noted there on several occasions between March 27 and May 30. On May 7 seventeen were seen at one time. No nests were found although Mr. Farley made a long and thorough search for them. 131. Dolichonyx oryzivorus (Linn.). Bosotink. SKUNK BLACKBIRD. Summer resident, formerly abundant and generally distributed, still occurring numerously in a few localities. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May I, 1890, one male heard, Belmont, W. Faxon. May 8 — September Io. September 25, 1882, one seen, Cambridge, H. M. Spelman. NESTING DATES. June 1 — 8. In the days of my youth Bobolinks nested every season in a grassy enclo- sure just behind our house, and their tinkling music might be heard almost every- where in the fields and meadows a little further to the westward, especially in those bordering on Vassall Lane. The birds were still more numerous in the meadows between Belmont and Hill’s Crossing and throughout the broad mow- ing lands of the Adams estate in Watertown. We saw them last in our own grounds about 1873, and they had disappeared from the entire region lying to the south and east of Fresh Pond before 1885. During the next decade they abandoned most of their former haunts in the eastern parts of Watertown and 1W. Brewster, Auk, IV, 1887, 162. 2R, O. Morris, Auk, XIV, 1897, 100. No. 48,279, collection of William Brewster. 240 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Belmont — where, however, a few scattered pairs still breed. Thus it has come to pass that those of us who, with the advent of each fresh summer, feel an uncontrollable longing to renew early associations by rambling through fields crowded with white daisies and golden buttercups and alive with rollicking Bobo- links, must now go well beyond the confines of the city of Cambridge to gratify this desire. Fortunately the birds are still common enough in the meadows about Waverley, at Rock Meadow, and at various other localities to the westward of the town centers of Arlington, Belmont, and Watertown. Their gradual with- drawal from the more eastern portions of the Cambridge Region has been coin- cident with, and, no doubt, due largely to, the physical changes which have been wrought in so many of their former haunts. They have been steadily diminish- ing in numbers, however, in many other parts of Massachusetts, for twenty years or more. This general decrease has been caused chiefly, I believe, by the changed methods and season of harvesting our hay crops. Formerly the grass was cut by hand, and rarely before the middle of July when most of the young Bobolinks were safely on wing; now late in June, while nearly all of them are still in the nest, the fields are so thoroughly shorn by the mowing-machine and .scored by the horse-rake that the young birds stand little chance of escape. At the close of their breeding season in July, and when the migratory flights are arriving from further north in August, Bobolinks resort, in flocks, to the Fresh Pond Swamps, where they feed on the seeds of various kinds of wild grasses and sedges. We used to find them at these seasons in the salt marshes along Charles River, sometimes in very considerable numbers. 132. Molothrus ater (Bodd.). CowsirD. Cow BuNTING. Common summer resident; also found casually in winter. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 13, 1898, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. March 25 —November 1. (Winter.) November 21, 1898, one seen, Belmont, W. Faxon. NESTING DATES. May 15 —June 15. The Cowbird is occasionally seen in our garden, in May or early June, engaged in a furtive search for the nests of Vireos, Yellow Warblers or Chip- BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 241 ping Sparrows, in which to lay its eggs, but to this and other densely populated parts of Cambridge, as well as to most of the country lying immediately to the eastward of Fresh Pond and Mount Auburn, the interesting but unprincipled bird has become, within the past ten or fifteen years, a decidedly infrequent visitor. Elsewhere in the Cambridge Region it occurs in numbers which have apparently suffered no diminution during the past quarter of a century. In spring and early summer Cowbirds are most likely to be found in orchards and grassy upland fields ; in late summer and early autumn they frequent pas- tures where cattle are feeding and fresh-water marshes where, in company with Red-winged Blackbirds and Bobolinks, they gorge themselves on the seeds of the wild rice and of various rank grasses or sedges. In the swampy maple woods which formerly bordered on Little River near its junction with Alewife Brook, there existed, many years ago (from 1873 or 1874 to 1876), an immense Robin roost to which, in late summer, large numbers of Cowbirds and Crow Blackbirds resorted, to pass the night. The Cowbird usually remains with us through October, and is sometimes seen numerously in November, while it has been known to occur in mid- winter. 133. Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus (Bonap.). YELLOW—HEADED BLACKBIRD. Casual visitor from the western United States. The only known instance of the occurrence of the Yellow-headed Blackbird in the Cambridge Region is that which was reported at nearly the same time by Dr. Allen! and Mr. Maynard.? The latter says: ‘A single specimen was procured by my young friend, Frank Sanger, at Watertown, about the 15th of October, 1869. The wings, tail, and one foot of this specimen are now in my possession. Through the kindness of Mr. J. A. Allen, I have been enabled to compare them with specimens of the same species in the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy, thereby identifying them. This bird was in immature plumage, evidently the young-of-the-year. It was shot in an orchard.” I am unable to ascertain what has become of the interesting fragments 1J. A. Allen, American Naturalist, III, 1870, 636. 2C, J. Maynard, Naturalist’s Guide, 1870, 122. 242 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. = mentioned by Mr. Maynard. He writes me that he thinks they were given by him to the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy, but they cannot be found there now; nor are they mentioned in any of the record-books of this Museum. The Yellow-headed Blackbird is only a chance straggler to New England from its home in the Middle and Far West. In addition to the specimen just considered three others have been taken in Massachusetts, two of them by a Mr. Loud, at Eastham, on September 10, 1877,! the third, a female, by Mr. W. B. Revere, at Monomoy Island, on September 8, 18972 134. Agelaius phceniceus (Linn.). RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. REDWING. Swamp BLACKBIRD. Abundant summer resident; also found in winter in one locality. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. February 26, 1866, a dozen or more males seen, in full song, Watertown, W. Brewster. March 10 — August 30. (Winter.) November 17, 1898, large flocks seen, Belmont, W. Faxon. NESTING DATES. May 16 — 28. The familiar and conspicuous Redwings have thus far yielded but little of the ground that they occupied in and near Cambridge thirty or forty years ago. It is true there are a few localities well within our city limits—such as that where a bushy swamp once existed on the borders of Norton’s Woods and some hollows in the fields just to the westward of the site of the old reservoir on High- land Street — from which they have been driven, within my recollection, by the drainage of land or the building of houses, but they continue to breed in appar- ently undiminished numbers, and really abundantly, in the Fresh Pond Swamps, at Rock Meadow, and at Great Meadow, while there are scores of swampy or marshy places of more limited extent where a few pairs regularly pass the summer. For several weeks after their first appearance in early spring Redwings are usually found in flocks composed wholly of males. At this season they 1jJ. A. Allen, Bulletin of the Essex Institute, X, 1878, 18. 2L, B. Bishop, Auk, XVIII, 1901, 195. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 243 are seldom seen about their breeding grounds excepting in the early morning and late afternoon. At most other hours of the day they frequent open and often elevated farming country, where they feed chiefly in grain stubbles and weed-grown fields. When disturbed at their repasts they fly to the nearest de- ciduous trees and immediately after alighting burst into a medley of tumultuous song, inexpressibly wild and pleasing when heard at a distance, but rather over- whelming if the flock be a large one and close at hand. J remember when the birds often indulged in these delightful concerts in apple orchards near our house in Cambridge and when they were always to be heard, at the right season, in the fields bordering Vassall Lane, but that was many years ago. After the female Redwings arrive (I seldom see them before the first week of May) the males spend most of the time with them in the swamps and marshes, but even at the height of the breeding season it is by no means unusual to find birds of both sexes feeding, in flocks, in dry, upland fields. In the Cambridge Region the nest of the Red-winged Blackbird is almost invariably built in some wet or, at least, very moist place and usually in the top of a low bush; between the stems of a cluster of cattail flags; in a bed of rank grass; or in the crown of one of the curious little mounds formed by the tussock sedge (Carex stricta). I learn from Mr. C. F. Batchelder, however, that on June 17, 1877, he found a nest containing young, in “a vertical fork of a small apple tree” in an orchard lying at some distance from any swampy land but not far from the shores of Fresh Pond. In July and August our Redwings congregate, sometimes by hundreds, in the Fresh Pond Swamps where, in company with Cowbirds and Bobolinks, they feed on the seeds of the wild rice and other semi-aquatic plants which flourish about the borders of ponds and ditches. They used to resort in smaller numbers, at the same season, to the Longfellow Marshes, where I suspect they also bred occasionally, for in May and June I have seen birds, which acted as if they had eggs or young, flying about over brackish pools in the neighborhood of the Cam- bridge Cemetery. Most of our Redwings depart for the south before the close of August (an interesting fact in view of the early dates at which they arrive in spring), but they may be sometimes met with in small, straggling troops in September and October, and since 1889! a very few (the number varying from one or two to six or eight) have been seen nearly every winter —often in January and February, when the cold’ was intense and the ground deeply covered with snow — at Pout Pond. They usually appear here about sunset, and evidently pass the night in the shelter afforded by some dense bushes and matted beds of cattail flags. Just how and where they obtain food at this season is not known to me. 1H.M. Spelman, Auk, VII, 1890, 288-289. R.S. Eustis, Auk, XIX, 1902, 204. 244 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 135. Sturnella magna (Linn.). MEADOWLARK. MarsH QualL. Lark. Permanent resident, formerly abundant and still not uncommon in summer, occurring regularly, but only locally and in limited numbers, in winter. NESTING DATES. May 28— June 8. The Meadowlark will ever be intimately associated in my mind with the Bobolink, and both species with the level, grassy fields and meadows which, in my younger days, stretched uninterruptedly from the old reservoir on Highland Street, Cambridge, to Fresh Pond. Here both birds bred numerously up to about 1875, and sparingly for a few years later. The Bobolinks usually removed to the neighboring swamps as soon as their young had become strong on the wing ; but the Larks invariably remained in the fields until late in the autumn, - and in October I have seen as many as thirty or forty of them collected within the space of a single acre. We used to regard them as legitimate game and to hunt them eagerly and persistently, but they were so very wary that even the younger and less sophisticated birds were by no means easy to bag. They afforded us many exciting and valuable lessons in the art of stalking, for we usually attempted to approach them in that way, taking advantage of inequalities in the surface of the ground, or of such cover as was furnished by isolated bushes or tufts of tall grass, and crossing the more open spaces by crawling on hands and knees — or even wriggling, snake-fashion, on our stomachs — through the scanty, drought-parched herbage. Another plan, sometimes crowned by success but much oftener resulting in failure, was that of driving the flock towards some place where one or more of our number had been concealed. At evening we occasionally obtained flying shots at close range by stumbling on birds which had gone to roost in beds of matted meadow grass, where I have known them to lie almost as closely as scattered Quail. Another favorite and still more extensive summer resort of the Meadowlark in those early days was the tract of open country lying between Belmont and Hill’s Crossing. Very many birds also used to inhabit the broad mowing fields of the Adams estate in Watertown. These two stations have not been, as yet, wholly abandoned, and there are other localities in Watertown and Belmont where a few Meadowlarks continue to nest more or less regularly, while one or two pairs BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 245 still frequent the old Tudor place at Fresh Pond. There are also several well- known breeding grounds in Lexington and Waltham. Throughout the Cambridge Region the Meadowlark has diminished sadly in numbers within the past twenty-five years. This decrease has been due partly, no doubt, to changes in local conditions similar to those which have operated in the case of the Bobolink ; in addition the Larks have had to contend with cold and starvation in winter, for some of our birds remain in or near their breeding haunts through the entire year, while those which migrate probably go no further south than Cape Cod or Connecticut. It is a matter of definite knowledge that both on the Cape and in Connecticut, as well as in the Middle States and even further to the southward, countless Meadowlarks perished in the severe winter of 1892-1893. They were exceptionally scarce in eastern Massa- chusetts during the following summer, but since then the losses which they suffered have been partly made good. 136. Icterus spurius (Linn.). ORCHARD ORIOLE. Summer resident, of local and curiously irregular occurrence. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 8, 1895, one male seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. May 15 —July —. July 20, 1868, a pair and young seen, Belmont, W. Brewster. The Orchard Oriole is ordinarily one of our rarest summer birds, and some- times is apparently wholly absent from the Cambridge Region for years in succession. I have known periods, however, during which it has continued to increase in numbers for several successive seasons until it has become compara- tively common, only to disappear again, perhaps abruptly. These fluctuations are not easily explained, but as most of the male Orchard Orioles which we see are immature, and as Massachusetts evidently lies a little to the northward of the normal summer range of the species, it seems probable that the birds visit us only when their breeding grounds in Connecticut and further to the southward become somewhat overpopulated. Nuttall states! that neither he nor his “scientific friend, and a close observer, 1T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada, The Land Birds, 1832, 165, 246 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. Mr. C. Pickering,” ever saw or “heard of” this Oriole in Massachusetts. I first met with it near Cambridge on July 20, 1868, when I found a pair of old birds, accompanied by several young, feeding on the ground in a freshly mown field in Belmont. On May 19, 1876, a pair appeared in our garden, but remained there only a short time. Since 1880 Mr. Walter Faxon and I have repeatedly noted birds which were apparently settled for the season and probably breeding. Most of them have been seen in Cambridge, Arlington and Belmont, in or near apple orchards. In 1894 they were so numerous that we had no less than six different males under observation. One, which was frequently seen in. company with its mate, was evidently nesting in a cluster of buttonwood and wild apple trees on the edge of the Charles River Marshes near the Cambridge Cemetery. Another sang regularly in the elms which shade Fayerweather Street, Cambridge, just to the westward of the site of our old city reservoir. The nest of a third, found by Mr. Faxon in an apple tree in Arlington just after the young had left it, is now in the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy. 137. Icterus galbula (Linn.). BALTIMORE ORIOLE. GOLDEN ORIOLE. GOLDEN RosBiIn. HANGBIRD. , Abundant summer resident. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. May 1, 1896, one male seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. May 8— September 1. September 9, Igo1, one seen, Cambridge, W. Brewster. NESTING DATES. June 1—8. None of the merely local changes which have affected so many of our native birds appear to have caused any diminution in the numbers of the Baltimore Oriole nor even to have materially reduced the area of its breeding range. In May the sound of its rich bugle call and the sight of its striking black and orange livery are quite as frequent and familiar now as they were thirty years ago, even in densely populated parts of Cambridge and its suburbs ; here in late June we continue to hear the insistent, monotonous calls of young Golden Robins issuing from nests swinging at the ends of elm branches that droop over our busiest city streets, The birds are still more numerous about BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 2447 the village centers of Arlington, Lexington, and Belmont, and along such of our country roads as are well shaded by large elms. They also breed very commonly in apple orchards, and their nests are occasionally built in wild cherry trees or maples on the borders of woodlands. After the breeding sea- son is over both old and young resort more or less freely to bush-grown pastures and the edges of woods. On July 19, 1889, I saw upwards of forty collected within the space of half an acre in Norton’s Woods, and I have met with smaller flocks at Rock Meadow and in the Maple Swamp. 138. Euphagus carolinus (Miill.). Rusty BLACKBIRD. Very common transient visitor. One instance of occurrence in winter. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 7, 1876, small flock seen, Watertown, W. Brewster. March 10 — May 8. May 30, 1883, one female! taken, Cambridge, H. M. Spelman. September re, 1868, one seen, Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Brewster. September 15 — October 31. (Winter.) November 27, 1875, one taken, Watertown, M. A. Frazar. ' The Rusty Blackbird comes to us from the south in early spring about the time when Pickering’s hyla begins peeping. The tinkling notes of the Blackbird are, indeed, ever associated in my mind with the bell-like call of the hyla, for at this season the two sounds are usually heard together. Being pitched on nearly the same key, it is not always easy to discriminate them, espe- cially when a score of Blackbirds and several hundred hylas are exercising their vocal organs at once. During its spring visit, which extends over a period considerably longer than that of most northern migrants, the Rusty Blackbird is seldom seen far from water. It occurs most regularly and numerously in the Fresh Pond Swamps and about Rock Meadow, where it haunts half-submerged thickets of willows, alders and button bushes, or dense young growths of maples bordering on pools and ditches. Occasionally, however, it leaves these secure retreats to visit open 1 No. 671, collection of H. M. Spelman, 248 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. grassy fields close at hand or to accompany flocks of Redwings on more distant excursions, perhaps to grain stubbles or even to apple orchards near houses. In autumn Rusty Blackbirds are most numerous in the Cambridge Region during the month of October, when roving flocks may be found quite as often in upland fields and pastures as in the lowlands. Wherever they find a field of ripening corn — whether of the yellow, or the sweet, variety — they are sure to visit it almost daily, from the time of their first arrival to that when the last stalks are harvested by the farmer. Early in the season they puncture the kernels and suck out the pasty contents, and after the corn has hardened they sometimes swallow it whole. During the greater part of October they may be seen associating with Robins in ‘cedar pastures’ or even with Blue Jays in oak and chestnut woods. Indeed there are few places in our country districts which they do not visit occasionally at this season. At evening the scattered flocks all fly to the swamps, sometimes congregating in considerable numbers to spend the night together. In the earlier days the Brickyard Swamp was one of their favorite roosting places. I have seen hundreds of birds enter it between sunset and dark. They came chiefly from the westward, in flocks containing from ten or fifteen to thirty or forty members each. It is unusual to find Rusty Blackbirds in or near Cambridge later than November 1 or earlier than March 10, but Mr. M. Abbott Frazar shot one in Watertown on November 27, 1875. Mr. Walter Faxon saw another in the ‘Fresh Pond Marshes on February 20, 1887; killing it five days later he found that it was in good condition save for the fact that its toes were frozen. The chances are that Mr. Faxon’s bird had passed the winter not far from where it was taken, for migrants of the present species are not known to arrive from the south before the first week of March. 139. Quiscalus quiscula (Linn.). PurPLeE GRACKLE. CRow BLACKBIRD. Rare summer resident. A small proportion — probably not exceeding ten per cent — of the Grackles which occur about Cambridge approach the form guiscula, and occasional speci- mens are nearly or quite typical of it. Such representatives of the Purple Grackle intermingle and apparently interbreed with the Bronzed Grackles. The two birds, when found here, have similar notes and habits, and it is difficult to distinguish them except by the use of the gun, BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 249 140. Quiscalus quiscula zneus (Ridgw.). BRONZED GRACKLE. CROW BLACKBIRD. Abundant summer resident ; occasionally seen in winter. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. March 2, 1902, one seen, Glacialis, R. S. Eustis. March 1o — November 1. (Winter.) November 15, 1869, one seen, Watertown, W. Brewster. NESTING DATES. May 2 — 20. As I have just indicated, the ‘Crow Blackbirds’ which frequent the Cam- bridge Region are nearly all Bronzed Grackles. They are somewhat irregu- larly or locally distributed, nesting in communities, usually among evergreens and, asa rule, in close proximity to houses or other buildings. Two of their breeding places in Cambridge, vzz., Norton’s Woods and a belt of mixed pines and spruces just behind the house of the late Mr. Benjamin G. Smith, on Fayer- weather Street, have been occupied continuously for upward of half a century. The colony which annually takes possession of the pines growing on both sides of Follen Street is of somewhat more recent origin, and the overflow from it to the Norway spruces scattered along Berkeley and Craigie Streets began, I believe, only twelve or fifteen years ago. Lowell, writing in 1868,! says: “Twice have the crow-blackbirds attempted a settlement in my pines [at Elm- wood], and twice have the robins, who claim a right of pre-emption, so success- fully played the part of border ruffians as to drive them away.” Later, in a letter to Mrs. Edward Burnett, dated June 5, 1877, he adds: “ The crow black- birds, after prospecting two years, have settled in the pines and make the view from the veranda all the livelier.” This would imply that they began breeding at Elmwood in 1877, but I do not recall seeing them there regularly or in any numbers, in summer, until 1902 when they formed a colony comprising at least a dozen pairs. A somewhat smaller number formerly nested in the cluster of tall pines on the Worcester (now Smith) estate on Brattle Street. By far the largest colony which has existed anywhere in the Cambridge Region within my recollec- 1J. R. Lowell, My Garden Acquaintance, Atlantic Almanac for 1869, 1868, 36. 2jJ. R. Lowell, Letters of James Russell Lowell, edited by C. E. Norton, II, 1894, 195. 250 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. tion was established in the Fresh Pond Swamps in the spring of 1889. There were only a few birds at first, but they continued to spread and increase until by 1898 there must have been upwards of two hundred of them. Since then the number has fallen off considerably. Most of the Grackles frequenting this locality build their nests in dense thickets of alders and other low bushes, some- times not more than a foot or two above the ground or water; others breed in company with the Redwings in beds of cattail flags well out on the open marshes. Within the past ten years I have found a few nests placed in button bushes or among cattails growing in shallow water, at Great Meadow. This habit of nesting in swamps and marshes is unquestionably of recent origin in our neigh- borhood, for during the earlier years of my experience the birds seldom or never resorted to very wet places excepting in autumn, when they used to assemble in large numbers at evening in the maple woods bordering on Little River, where they roosted in company with Robins and Cowbirds. Dr. Manning K. Rand tells me that a small colony of breeding Grackles which I noticed last summer in the Public Garden, Boston, was started in 1901 by a single pair who built a nest in a thorn tree on the western side of the arti- ficial pond, and reared their young successfully. The Bronzed Grackle has been seen in Cambridge early in December and late in February, while, according to Mr. Shelley W. Denton, one or more birds spent practically the entire winter of 1887-1888 at Wellesley.! [Megaquiscalus major (Vieill.). Boat-ra1LeD GRACKLE. It has been assumed (although the case does not seem to me clear) that Peabody had the Boat-tailed Grackle in mind when, writing in 1839, he said that “the BLAcK ORIOLE, Quzscalus baritus, is seldom seen in this vicinity,” adding “one has been obtained by Mr. Samuel Cabot, jr. in the neighborhood of Boston.””? In his earliest ‘Catalogue of the Birds of Massachusetts,’ published in 1864,3 Dr. Allen includes the Boat-tailed Grackle as an “accidental” visitor, stating that he had “heard of one [perhaps the Cabot bird] that was killed in Cambridge a few years since”’ and that “Mr. E. A. Samuels tells me that a pair bred in Cambridge in 1861.” Mr. Samuels in his ‘ Ornithology of Massachusetts,’ which also appeared in 1864, gives the bird as a rare “summer visitor,’4 but says nothing about its having bred in Cambridge. In his subsequent work on the birds of New England, published in 1867,° he does not mention the species at all. Dr. Allen, however, has referred to it again in the following terms :® “I now seriously question the occurrence of this southern species in Massachusetts, or anywhere in New England, as even an accidental visitor. 1S. W. Denton, Ornithologist and Odlogist, XIII, 1888, 104. 2,W. B. O. Peabody, Storer and Peabody, Reports on the Fishes, Reptiles and Birds of Massa- chusetts, 1839, 285. 3J. A. Allen, Proceedings of the Essex Institute, IV, no. iii, 1864, 85. 4E. A. Samuels, Eleventh Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agri- culture for 1863, 1864, Appendix, xxv. SE. A. Samuels, Omithology and Odlogy of New England, 1867. SJ. A. Allen, American Naturalist, III, 1870, 636. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 251 I gave it as such in my Catalogue, but a reéxamination of the evidence has led me to my present opinion. I think the cases cited by Peabody [1] and Linsley [?] (under 2. baritus) as well as that of Mr. Samuels, refer only to the common Crow Blackbird or Purple Grackle.” This, no doubt, was a sound conclusion, for during the thirty-five years which have elapsed since Dr. Allen reached it, no fresh evidence has come to light indicating that the Boat-tailed Grackle ever visits Massachusetts. ] [Hesperiphona vespertina (W. Cooper). Eveninc GrosBEAK. The year 1890 will be for- ever memorable in the annals of New England ornithology by reason of the incursion of Evening Grosbeaks which it brought. They appeared by hundreds, if not thousands, and were taken or seen in every New England State except (apparently) Rhode Island. The records of this extraordinary eastward migration — published chiefly in the ‘Ornithologist and Odlogist,’ ‘Forest and Stream,’ and ‘ Auk’—are much too numerous to be cited in the present con- nection. They show that the interesting birds reached us from the westward by way of south- ern Canada and of New York State; that they were noted first at South Sudbury, Massachusetts, on January 1, and last at Henniker, New Hampshire, on May 1; that they were present in the greatest numbers during January, February and March; and that most of them, apparently, departed before April, no doubt returning whence they came. The flight extended quite to the seacoast in eastern Massachusetts and nearly to the shores of Long Island Sound in Connecticut. During the months of January, February and March, Evening Grosbeaks appeared at many different places in the eastern part of this State, usually in flocks of from five or six to ten or a dozen members each, although pairs and single birds, also, were noted. Naturally enough — and most fortunately for the interests of our local collections — the strikingly colored birds attracted much attention and many of them were shot and preserved. Although it is not known that they were detected in any part of the Cambridge Region (as limited in the present Memoir), they must have entered or at least passed over it, for they were found on every side of it and at localities no more distant from its borders than Wellesley, West Newton, West Rox- bury, Crescent Beach, Lynn, Melrose and Reading.? One of the records just mentioned has for me a peculiar and somewhat melancholy personal interest. It concerns three Evening Grosbeaks which were killed by a local gunner within a few rods of the railroad station at Crescent Beach on February 11, 1890. I heard the shots as I was approaching the station after a collecting excursion along the beach to the northward. I did not see the birds, however, until the following day, when I found them in the possession of a Boston taxidermist. This was as near as I have ever come to meeting with an Evening Grosbeak in life. The Evening Grosbeak is not known to have visited New England prior to the winter of 1889-1890. Since then it has been met with at Wellfleet, Massachusetts, on December 5, 1903; 4 at Beverly, Massachusetts, on March 23, 1904;° at Litchfield, Connecticut, in February, 1905.°] 1W. B. O. Peabody, Storer and Peabody, Reports on the Fishes, Reptiles and Birds of Massa- chusetts, 1839, 285. 2J. H. Linsley, American Journal of Science’and Arts, XLIV, 1843, 260. 3The statement, on my authority, in Mr. Chapman’s ‘Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America’ (p. 279) to the effect that the Evening Grosbeak appeared in “Cambridge ” during the “win- ter of 1889-90” relates to instances above mentioned of the occurrence of the species at Wellesley, West Newton and Crescent Beach — localities which Mr. Chapman and I decided at the time to include in the region to be covered by the notes that I furnished for his book. 4J. T. Nichols, Auk, XXI, 1904, 81-82. : °C. E. Brown, zbid., 385. 8]. Hutchins, Bird-Lore, VII, 1905, 173-174. 252 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 141. Pinicola enucleator leucura (Miill.). PINE GROSBEAK. Irregular winter visitor, frequently common, sometimes abundant. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 24, 1870, one or two seen, Belmont, W. Brewster. November 1 — March 25. April 4, 1893, two seen, Arlington, R. Hoffmann. April 24, 1896, one seen (Granary Burying Ground, Boston), F. H. Allen. Although a few Pine Grosbeaks are known to breed among the mountains of northern New England, most of the birds which we see in Massachusetts un- questionably come from still further north. It is thought that they migrate southward only when the northern forests fail to yield a sufficient supply of food. Hence they visit us at irregular intervals and in varying numbers. Within the Cambridge Region they are seen oftenest in hilly pastures grown up to Virginia junipers, the berries of which seem to especially attract them. They also fre- quent pine and hemlock woods, and at times they come freely into densely popu- lated parts of our cities and towns to feed on the fruit of the mountain ash, the buds of the Norway spruce, the seeds of the white ash, and the buds or fruit of various other cultivated trees. Although frequently common, they seldom occur in very great numbers, and males in fully mature plumage are not often met with. During the winter of 1892-1893, however, Pine Grosbeaks appeared in multi- tudes, and the rosy red males, although not proportionately more numerous than is usually the case, were seen almost everywhere. The advance guard of this remarkable flight did not reach the Cambridge Region until the first week of December (1892). Before the close of the month the birds had become abundant in the cedar pastures at Arlington Heights, and on the 21st a flock of twenty-seven visited our garden, but I saw no others in Cambridge until the second week of January (1893). On the oth of that month upward of forty-five appeared in some Norway spruces on Brattle Street, and early the following morning I found a still larger number assembling in a white ash tree which overhangs Mount Auburn Street near Elmwood. “This tree was loaded with fruit, and with snow clinging: to the fruit-clusters and to every twig. In a few minutes it also supported more than a hundred Grosbeaks who distributed themselves quite evenly over every part from the drooping lower, to the upright upper, branches and began shelling out and swallowing the seeds, the BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 253 rejected wings of which, floating down in showers, soon gave the surface of the snow beneath the tree a light brownish tinge... The snow clinging to the twigs and branches was also quickly dislodged by the movements of the active, heavy birds and for the first few minutes it was incessantly flashing out in puffs like steam from a dozen different points at once. The finer particles, sifting slowly down, filled the still air and enveloped the entire tree in a veil-like mist of incredible delicacy and beauty, tinted, where the sunbeams pierced it, with rose, salmon, and orange, elsewhere of a soft dead white, — truly a fitting drapery for this winter picture, — the hardy Grosbeaks at their morning meal. They worked in silence when undisturbed and so very busily that at the end of the first hour they had actually eaten or shaken off nearly half the entire crop of seeds. Some men at work near by afterwards told me that this tree was wholly denuded of fruit by three o’clock that afternoon when the birds descended to the ground and attacked the fallen seeds, finishing them before sunset. “The next day (January 11) the city was fairly in possession of the Gros- beaks. The sound of their piping was constantly in my ears whenever I stepped out of doors, and I rarely looked out of the window for a moment without seeing a flock sweeping past in long, undulating curves. Mr. Hoffmann writes under this date: ‘In the afternoon there was a flock of over sixty-five birds in the college yard, feeding in the snow under the ash trees. The birds on the plank walks hardly moved to let the men pass, and one actually lit on my hat as I stood beneath the large ash tree. Numbers were feeding outside the yard between the car-tracks, and on the sidewalks. Many people were watching them.’ “Fully a mile from the college, but very near the trees which the birds had stripped on the previous day, stand two large ash trees in which, shortly after eight o’clock, I found over two hundred Grosbeaks feeding. Both trees were thickly hung with seeds at this hour, but the birds had thinned the clusters on the upper branches and were fast working downward. At half-past three that afternoon, when I visited the place again with Mr. Faxon, not a seed remained on either tree. The snow beneath was completely covered with fallen seeds as with a light brown carpet, and the Grosbeaks were all there eating them. By dividing the flocks into halves and counting quickly, we got a very close approximation to the total number which we made two hundred and twenty-five. There were per- haps twenty-five to forty more scattered about on neighboring spruces and the roofs of houses. ‘““A part of the flock was distributed over the sidewalks for a distance of several rods, feeding on the fallen seeds. As we advanced slowly the Grosbeaks flew between or alighted on the wires of the low fence within arm’s reach. One even attempted to perch on my companion’s shoulder, but he moved at the criti- cal moment and it glanced to one side. Over the fence where most of the flock 254 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. was feeding, the snow was so light and feathery that the birds sank into it deeply and wallowed rather than hopped from place to place. They appeared to enjoy this, and often fluttered their wings in such a way as to scatter the snow above and around them as bathing birds scatter drops of water. Many flying down from the trees above struck the snow with such force as to plump in quite up to their necks, when they stood thus for half a minute or more. “During the same day a flock of fully three hundred Grosbeaks were reported from the Botanic Gardens, equally distant from each of the two flocks described above; if the birds were as numerous in other parts of the city, Cambridge must have harbored several thousands. “The next morning the great flock at the two ash trees had decreased to a hundred birds, who were all on the ground finishing the fallen seeds. They began leaving the place in small parties while I was watching them, and at four o'clock that afternoon only about twenty-five remained. “On the 13th, I spent most of the forenoon in the cedar-grown pastures which encircle the suburbs of Cambridge. I heard a few Grosbeaks piping but could not find them. On examining the cedar trees, I could not discover one that had more than a few scattered berries. A report from Wellesley Hills, under date of January 14, showed a similar departure of the Grosbeaks from that region, and a like explanation, —the stripped condition of the food-bearing trees,’’ 142. Carpodacus purpureus (Gmel.). PurRPLE FINCH. Permanent resident, common from April to October; in winter of irregular but sometimes abundant occurrence. . NESTING DATES. May 25 —June 8. Up to within twenty-five or thirty years the brilliant, ecstatic song of the Purple Finch might be heard through May, June and early July in almost every part of Cambridge,— including even Cambridgeport. Many were the nests of this bird that I used to find in our Norway spruces and other ornamental ever- 1W. Brewster, Auk, 1895, XIJ, 245-247. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 255 greens, but since the English Sparrows became numerous the Purple Finches have abandoned one favorite urban haunt after another, and, excepting at their seasons of migration, I seldom see or hear them now in the older settled parts of Cambridge. Throughout the Arlington-Belmont-Waltham region, they still breed commonly enough, especially in hilly pastures sprinkled with Virginia juni- pers among the dense foliage of which they love to conceal their nests. They also eat the berries (or rather the seeds contained in the berries) of this juniper, and when the trees fruit generously the birds often resort to them through the entire autumn and winter. At the latter season they occur somewhat irregularly and usually only sparingly, but I have known them to be present in immense numbers, and continuously, from December to March. This was the case during the winter of 1883-1884, when flocks containing upwards of fifty, or even as many as seventy-five to one hundred, Purple Finches each, were repeatedly met with in Belmont and Waverley. On January 17 of that winter I saw fully two hundred birds along the roadsides while driving from Belmont to Cambridge. The juniper woods which once covered so much of the country lying between Mount Auburn and the Watertown Arsenal, used to attract Purple Finches at all seasons, and the birds bred there so commonly at times that on June 6, 1869, I found no less than six nests containing eggs or young within a space of half an acre. Mr. H. W. Henshaw tells me that the Purple Finch nested almost if not quite as numerously, at a somewhat earlier period, in a tract of Virginia junipers that formerly existed near the western end of Brookline Street, Cambridgeport. This has been already mentioned on page 27 of the Introduction of the present Memoir. [Passer domesticus (Linn.). House Sparrow. ENGLISH SPARROW. House Sparrows became permanently established in Boston in 1869, and generally and abundantly distributed throughout Cambridge and the neighboring towns only about ten years later. At the present time there is probably no part of the Cambridge Region which they do not occasionally visit, but they are seldom seen at any season in extensive tracts of woodland and, as a rule, they breed only locally and somewhat sparingly in the more thinly settled farming districts, from which most of them remove into the towns at the near approach of winter, returning with the first opening of spring. There are outlying poultry farms, however, which they frequent at all times of the year, and in the Fresh Pond Swamps they assemble in immense numbers during Decem- ber, January and February, to feed on the grain scattered along the railroad embankments by passing freight cars. The birds which inhabit the towns subsist chiefly on undigested oats obtained from horse droppings and on fragments of bread thrown out for them or for the gray squirrels. In average seasons such sources of supply, eked out by seeds and berries of various kinds, suffice to feed the hungry hordes, but during heavy and long-continued snowstorms, especially those accompanied or closely followed by low temperatures, the Sparrows sometimes perish by thousands, of cold and starvation. This has repeatedly happened within the past ten years. I have known dozens of dead or dying birds to be found in the course of a single morning, scattered about on the snow under vine-clad walls or along the city streets. After a 256 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. particularly hard winter our surburban gardens and orchards are so nearly freed from the inces- sant and nerve-wearying clamor of Sparrow voices, and so increasingly blessed by the sweet songs and attractive presence of various kinds of native birds, that, for a brief season, we are reminded of conditions which obtained thirty or more years ago; but the Sparrows, unfortu- nately, are so very prolific that in the course of a single summer they often make good what- ever losses they may have suffered during the previous winter. Indeed it is only too evident that, as a species, if not always individually, they are quite equal to meeting and surviving the extreme vicissitudes of our changeable climate. Nevertheless there are reasons for believing that, they will never again become so inordinately numerous as they were ten or fifteen years ago. Apparently they have already begun to suffer from adverse influences other than those just mentioned, and at present obscure. All this was to have been expected, of course, for Nature’s laws are inexorable and her balance, which, for a time, the alien birds have so violently and generally disturbed in America, must readjust itself sooner or later. The changes in the numbers and local distribution of many of our native birds, which accompanied and, as most of us believe, directly resulted from the introduction of the House Sparrow, have been so fully discussed in the Introduction to the present Memoir that it would be superfluous to reconsider them in this connection. Nor is it the part of wisdom either to dwell unduly on a blunder that is obviously irretrievable, or to regret the past too keenly. Happily, to those of us who have reached middle life, the memory of times when the sweet calm of spring and early summer mornings was never broken by the ceaseless, insistent din of myriad Sparrow voices, and when Bluebirds, House Wrens, Swallows, Purple Finches and Song Sparrows were among our most abundant and familiar city birds, is fast fading; while to the younger genera- tions the tradition that such conditions existed in a not as yet remote past, must of necessity seem shadowy and unreal.] 143. Loxia curvirostra minor (Brehm). AMERICAN CROSSBILL. RED CROSSBILL. Of common but irregular occurrence at all seasons. Red Crossbills are true nomads ; even in the coniferous forests of the North they have no fixed places of abode nor even any regular times for nesting. At least this is true of the northern region with which I am most familiar, namely that about Lake Umbagog, where the birds occur by thousands some years and are nearly or quite absent during others, and where I have known females with eggs or with young just out of the nest to be found at various times from Febru- ary to October. In that region Crossbills seldom appear numerously, — and never, I think, settle down to breed, — excepting when their favorite food trees, the spruces and balsams, are loaded with ripening cones. When not occupied with family cares Red Crossbills indulge their restless natures by roving widely in search of food—or change of scene —and their wanderings extend over practically the whole of southern New England. Thus BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 257 it happens that they visit eastern Massachusetts at irregular intervals and at all seasons. In the neighborhood of Cambridge, where they have been seen during every month of the year, I have repeatedly known them to appear suddenly and rather numerously in May or June, and well-marked migratory inroads some- times take place in August, but the heaviest flights usually occur in October or November and the majority of the birds which compose them ordinarily disappear before the end of December — either passing further southward or returning whence they came. Not infrequently, however, a good many Red Crossbills remain with us through the entire winter. At all seasons their favorite haunts in the Cambridge Region are the pitch pine woods of Arlington (especially to the south and west of Arlington Heights), Belmont and Waltham, while those which once existed just to the westward of Mount Auburn were formerly much frequented. When the birds are very abundant, single individuals or small flocks are likely to occur almost anywhere. I often see them in our garden or in equally densely populated neighborhoods within the city limits, particularly when the Norway spruces are well supplied with cones. 144. Loxia leucoptera Gmel. WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL. Irregular winter visitor, seldom numerously represented but occasionally abundant. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. November 1, 1887, one female seen, near Cambridge, W. Brewster. November 15 — April 1. April 29, 1871, one ad. male! and two ad. females! taken, Belmont, W, Brewster. June 13 ,1866, one taken (Newtonville), C.J. Maynard? Much of what I have just said concerning the Red Crossbill will apply equally well to the White-winged species. The latter, however, has a more northerly general range than its red cousin and it breeds much less numerously in northern New England.2 These facts explain, no doubt, why we see it less frequently in Massachusetts. Its visits to the Cambridge Region do not occur 1 Male, no. 732, females, nos. 733, 2972, collection of William Brewster. 2C, J. Maynard, Naturalist’s Guide, 1870, 111-112. 3It is apparently quite as irregular and erratic as the Red Crossbill in respect to its times and places of nesting. I have twice found it breeding in small numbers at Lake Umbagog in late summer and early autumn, 258 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. oftener, on an average, than once every five or six years. When there is a well- marked flight the birds usually arrive in November, and most of them remain through the winter, while a few sometimes linger into May or even early June, but I have never noted any in July or August. Ordinarily they are not numer- ous, and only twice within my experience have they been really abundant — in the winter of 1870-1871 and in that of 1899-1900. During the latter season they fairly flooded eastern Massachusetts, and in Cambridge or its immediate neighborhood they were seen almost daily from November to March, sometimes in flocks containing as many as forty or fifty birds each. Many of them appeared in densely populated parts of the city, and they were especially numerous in the grounds of the Harvard Observatory. They fed chiefly on the seeds of the Norway spruce which, with those of the hemlock, they seem to prefer to the seeds of any of our pines. For this reason, perhaps, they are found oftener about cultivated grounds than in the pitch pine woods where the Red Crossbills usually occur most numerously. 145. Acanthis hornemannii exilipes (Coues). Hoary REpDPOLL. Rare winter visitor. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. November 15, 1880, one im. male! taken, Cambridge, H. M. Spelman. March 20, 1888, one seen, Waltham, W. Faxon. 146. Acanthis linaria (Linn.). REDPOLL. LESSER REDPOLL. Irregular winter visitor, often very abundant. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. October 16, 1874, one seen, Waltham, W. Brewster. October 25 — April to. April 19, 1879, two ad. males? taken, Cambridge, W. Brewster. 1 No. 423, collection of H. M. Spelman. 2 Nos. 4489, 4490, collection of William Brewster. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 259 147. Acanthis linaria holbcellii (Brehm). HOoLBOLL’s REDPOLL. Very rare winter visitor. 148. Acanthis linaria rostrata (Coues). GREATER REDPOLL. Irregular winter visitor, sometimes rather common. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. November 25, 1889, one female! taken, Belmont, W. Brewster. November 28 — February 15. Redpolls, like Crossbills and Pine Grosbeaks, are conspicuously irregular in respect to their visits to eastern Massachusetts. Sometimes they are nearly or quite absent for several successive years; again they may appear in but limited numbers and perhaps only during January or February; but ordinarily, when they come at all, they are abundant from mid-autumn to well into the following spring, the first flights arriving soon after the middle of October and the last stragglers departing early in April. From November to March they often fre- quent the entire Cambridge Region, where they feed chiefly on the seeds of weeds in neglected fields and on those of birches and alders in the woods, although we see them everywhere on wing, roving restlessly from place to place in flocks containing from half a dozen to more than one hundred birds each. My only local records of Hoary Redpolls are as follows : — On March 5, 1879, a female, now in my collection, was taken in Waltham by Messrs. E. A. and O. Bangs. On November 15, 1880, an immature male? was killed in Cambridge by Mr. H. M. Spelman who still has the specimen in his collection. On March 20, 1888, Mr. Walter Faxon met with a Hoary Redpoll in Waltham. Howe and Allen state’ that this bird was “taken,” but Mr. Faxon writes me that it was merely “seen at close range, a very white one, but I had no gun and so it returned, I suppose, to Greenland.” 1No. 30,285, collection of William Brewster. 2 Originally recorded by W. Brewster, Auk, IV, 1887, 163. ?R. H. Howe, Jr., and G. M. Allen, Birds of Massachusetts, 1901, 130, 260 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. I can cite but one definite record of the occurrence of Holbdll’s Redpoll in the Cambridge Region, that of a specimen in the collection of Dr. Arthur P. Chadbourne, which was taken in Lexington on March 10, 1890, by Mr. Walter Faxon.} All four of the forms above enumerated associate freely with one another, and all, no doubt, are occasionally represented in a single flock; but Holbdll’s Redpoll is of very rare and perhaps only accidental occurrence and the Hoary Redpoll is never common. Some of the larger flocks contain a few Greater Red- polls, but these birds do not seem to be ever very numerous in the Cambridge Region, although they were positively abundant along the Massachusetts seacoast in February, 1883. On the roth of that month Mr. H. M. Spelman and I took thirteen specimens at Revere Beach in about two hours, and on the 22d, at Nantasket Beach, two young collectors, by a few random shots into an excep- tionally large flock of Redpolls, secured forty specimens, of which six proved to be /xaria, and thirty-four vostrata ! As one sees them together in winter the forms just mentioned-do not differ appreciably in notes, habits or general appearance. It is true that vostvata and holbelit may be occasionally recognized by their superior size, and exilipes by its bleached coloring, but Redpolls, as a rule, are so nervous and restless, and when in large flocks are so constantly in motion and so likely to take their depar- ture at any moment, that a prompt use of the gun is usually indispensable to the positive identification of any particular bird, especially if it be a female or an immature male. As a rule, however, it is quite safe to assume that a flock of Redpolls met with in the Cambridge Region is made up chiefly, if not wholly, of representatives of the typical form, “varia. [Acanthis brewsterii (Ridgw.). BREwsTEeR’s LinNer. On the morning of November 1, 1870, as I was looking for Woodcock in the Warren Run, Waltham (about half a mile to the south- westward of the Waverley Oaks), a large number of Redpolls alighted in the top of a gray birch near at hand and began picking the fruiting catkins to pieces to obtain the seeds. After watch- ing them for a few moments I fired into the flock, killing seven birds, six of which proved to be typical A. dinarda. The seventh lacked all traces of red on the crown and of dusky on the chin. As its general coloring was not unlike that of a Pine Linnet I supposed at the time that it was merely an aberrant example of that species, but Mr. Robert Ridgway, on examining it a year or two later, pronounced it to be a variety of the Twite or Mountain Linnet of Europe, and named it Zigiothus (flavirostris var.) Brewstert.2 In his‘ Birds of North and Middle America,’ ? where 1W. Brewster, H. D. Minot, Land-birds and Game-birds of New England, ed. 2, 1895, 472, Appendix. 2R. Ridgway, American Naturalist, VI, 1872, 433-434. 3R. Ridgway, Birds of North and Middle America, pt. I. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, no. 50, 1901, 92-93. N.0.C., MemMorrR B. Meisel lith Boston. IV. i A Rip ous Wo assiz Auerles. 3 05- Acanthis brewsterii (Ridgway), BREWSTER'S LINUET 0 BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 261 he gives it as a full species under the name Acanthis brewsterid, he says that “possibly it is a hybrid of Acanthis lénaria and Spinus pinus.” YT made the same suggestion more than twenty years ago,' and it has since derived added probability from the fact that the bird continues to be ‘known only from the type specimen,” which is still in my collection.] 149. Astragalinus tristis (Linn.). AMERICAN GOLDFINCH. GOLDFINCH. YELLOW-—BIRD. THISTLE-—BIRD. Very common permanent resident. NESTING DATES. July 21— 31. If an accurate census could be taken of the Goldfinches present in the Cambridge Region during the different months of the year, the results would probably show that the birds are most numerous in autumn and early spring, and least so in summer ; they are most conspicuous, however, in July and August, when they are very generally dispersed and when the males attract especial attention by their striking black and gold plumage, sweet songs and galloping love flights. Goldfinches used to breed nearly everywhere in and near Cam- bridge ; in shade trees along our city streets; in orchards throughout the farm- ing country; most abundantly of all in the maple woods and willow thickets which once covered so large a portion of the Fresh Pond Swamps. Within the past fifteen or twenty years they have nearly ceased to nest in localities where English Sparrows have become abundant, but in early summer a few breeding pairs still frequent that now densely populated part of Cambridge lying between Harvard Square and Mount Auburn, and broods of young birds, with their parents, continue to visit our garden in late August and early September, when the seeds of the sunflowers are ripe. Goldfinches are chiefly confined in winter to outlying, thinly settled districts, where one may find them almost anywhere, roving about in flocks containing from eight or ten to forty or fifty birds each. At this season they often associ- ate with Redpolls and Pine Siskins, and all three species may be sometimes seen together, feeding on the seeds of weeds in neglected fields or on those of alders and birches in deciduous woodlands. The Yellow-birds also subsist largely on the seeds of pitch pines, when these trees are well supplied with ripe cones. 1 W. Brewster, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, VI, 1881, 225. 2No. 756, collection of William Brewster. 262 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 150. Spinus pinus (Wils.). Pine Siskin. Pine LINNET. PINE FINCH. Irregular winter visitor, sometimes very abundant. One instance of breeding. SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. September 19, 1870, “numbers seen,” Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Brewster. October 15 — May Io. June 8, 1875, several heard, Waverley, W. Brewster. The Pine Linnet is usually-classed among our ‘irregular winter visitors,’ and not improperly, for it does not occur numerously or conspicuously much oftener than do the Redpolls and Pine Grosbeaks. Nevertheless at least a few straggling Linnets may be found in the Cambridge Region nearly every autumn. The heaviest flights invariably take place at that season, occasionally beginning late in September, but usually not before the middle or last of October. The birds are sometimes present in enormous numbers during November and the first part of December, but most of them disappear before the close of the latter month, no doubt going further southward to spend the winter ; a few, however, often remain with us through January and Feb- ruary and they are sometimes common during these months. The return flight begins in March and continues through April or even well into May. I have never known Pine Siskins to linger here later than the 8th of June (1875), but Dr. Allen has reported? that in 1869 “they were quite common in Cambridge till the last of June, and on two or three occasions” he “ observed them during the first half of July.” It is possible that some of the birds which he saw were breeding, for Dr. Brewer states? that “early in May, 1859, a pair” of Pine Finches “built their nest in the garden of Professor Benjamin Peirce, in Cam- bridge, Mass., near the colleges. It was found on the 9th by Mr. Frederick Ware, and already contained its full complement of four eggs, partly incubated.” One of these eggs — faded, dust-stained and partly broken —is still preserved in the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy. On writing to the late Professor J. M. Peirce, son of Professor Benjamin Peirce, respecting this nest, my assistant, Mr. Walter Deane, received the following reply, dated January 31, 1904:— 1J. A. Allen, American Naturalist, III, 1870, 582. 2? Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, History of North American Birds, I, 1874, 482. BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 263 “ Dear Mr. Deane : — My father, Professor Benjamin Peirce, lived from 1844 to 1872 in one of a line of three houses belonging to the College and in the College Yard. The only house of the three now standing zz sztw is that which is at present occupied by Professor Shaler. My father’s was the one next to that, standing on a line with it and in front of where Sever Hall now is. Two ash trees in front of the northern wing of Sever were just outside my father’s study windows. A group of oaks (now reduced, I think, to two) were at the par- lor end of the house, on the south. The house was, after 1872, tenanted by Professor Lane for a while, and was later removed to Frisbie Place, where it is occupied by Professor Ames. There were many beautiful shrubs and trees on the grounds, set out by my father with his own hands.