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 in an 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 {Ini/^ntifns) 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). Linne's Hummingbird. This South American species 

 was originally attributed to the Cambridge Region by Dr. Allen ^ on tlie strength of a bird 

 found bv him in my possession in 1S69 and still preserved in my collection. The history of 

 this specimen is as follows. Early in August, 1865, I shot a Ilunimingbird 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 tliat I might, without question, 

 have been easily imposed on. With respect to all cases of this kind, however, possibilities, or even 

 probabilities, should not be very seriously considered, provided tiiere arc any grounds for rea- 

 sonable doubts. Hence the above record must be discredited as, indeed, most ornithologists 

 (including Dr. Allen) have long since .agreed.] 



'J. A. Allen, American Naturalist, III, 1870, 645. 



