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 

 liartly, 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 1 that neither he nor his "scientific friend, and a close observer, 



IT. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Land Birds, 

 1832, 165. 



