BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. j^t 



In May, 1868, I heard a Bittern pumping in Rock Meadow, and ever since 

 that time I have never failed to find a pair estabhshed 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 1 5 — August i . 

 August II, 1868, one taken, Fresh Pond Marshes, W. Brewster. 



NESTING DATES. 



June I — 5. 



In Nuttall's time (i.e., 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 and a 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. 



^T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 

 1834,66-67. 



