BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 289 



It is probable that Fox Sparrows occasionally pass an entire winter in the 

 Cambridge Region, for they have been twice observed in February (on the 4th 

 and 17th of the month) near Boston,' and Mr. H. M. Turner tells me that in 

 1903 a bird spent the greater part of December in the neighborhood of 

 Norton's Woods, where it was last seen by him on the 26th. Another was 

 noted on December 26 of the following year, in the Maple Swamp, by Mr. 

 Arthur C. Comey. 



173. Pipilo erythrophthalmus (Linn.). 

 TowHEE. Chewink. Ground Robin. 



Locally common summer resident. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



April iS, 1S96, one male seen, Cambridge Region, W. Faxon. 

 April 23 — October 15. (Winter?) 



NESTING dates. 



May 20 — 31. 



By reason of its tameness, its large size and its habit of displaying its strik- 

 ingly colored plumage along the borders of country roads and lanes, the Towhee 

 is a peculiarly conspicuous bird. Were it not so, I should hesitate to call it 

 ' common ' in the present connection, for it is not generally distributed, nor 

 anywhere really numerous, in the Cambridge Region. We meet with it often- 

 est along the high ridge that extends from Arlington to Waverley and in the 

 region lying about Rock Meadow. Its favorite haunts are ' cedar pastures,' and 

 thickets of barberry, hazel, and blueberry bushes, growing along stone walls, and 

 on the outskirts of young birch or oak woods. Sandy or rocky tracts, where the 

 soil is too thin and poor to support anything more than a scanty growth of bushy 

 pines or of oak scrub, are also almost sure to be inhabited by the Towhee. 

 Although it invariably nests on high, dry ground, it feeds to some extent in wet 

 places, especially in autumn when it may beWten seen in springy runs and when 

 I have occasionally found it in the Maple Swamp. I have never known it to 

 breed within the limits of Cambridge, nor anywhere in the more eastern parts 

 of Belmont or of Watertown. 



1 H. K. Job, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, VIII, 1883, 150. 



