BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. ^St; 



or never sing for a week or more after their first appearance ; but from the 15th 

 or 20th of May to nearly the end of July there are few wooded swamps in the 

 Cambridge Region that do not ring at morning and evening — and also more 

 or less frequently throughout the day — with the clear, flute-like voice of the 

 Veery. In the Fresh Pond Swamps and about Rock Meadow one may hear the 

 songs of as many as four or five males coming, in quick succession, from differ- 

 ent parts of the leafy coverts in which the birds are concealed. They love 

 to haunt low, wet places, such as maple swamps, alder runs and the wooded 

 banks of brooks — places which lie buried in deep, cool shade, even at noonday, 

 and from which issue, especially at evening, all manner of subtle and, for the 

 most part, delightful, swampy odors — besides swarms of ravenous mosquitoes. 



Here the Tawny Thrushes build their nests, usually on or very near the 

 ground but occasionally eight or ten feet above it in small trees. The tree nests 

 are easily seen, of course, but those placed on the ground are difficult to find, for 

 most of them are concealed in beds of rank ferns or in the tops of grassy tus- 

 socks, often in very boggy places on the edges of ditches or of shallow, muddy 

 pools. When flushed, the sitting birds sometimes rise under foot, especially if 

 their eggs are near hatching, but, as a rule, they fly up when the intruder is sev- 

 eral rods from the nest and in so natural and careless a manner as not to call 

 attention to its presence. 



I have known Veeries to breed in perfectly dry oak and pine woods, on the 

 sides and summits of hills, in Lincoln and Concord, and in an orchard on the crest 

 of a ridge in Cambridge, not far from the Pine Swamp, Mr. H. A. Purdie and I 

 once found a nest built on the horizontal branch of an apple tree fully ten feet 

 above the ground. It contained eggs, on which the parent bird was sitting. 



Thoreau, referring probably to the period (1833-1837) when he was at 

 Harvard College, says^ of the Veery : " In Cambridge I have heard the college 

 yard ring with its trill." According to Dr. Walter Woodman the species fre- 

 quented Norton's Woods in summer from 1866 to 1874, but it now occurs there 

 only during migration, when it continues to visit our garden with some regular- 

 ity, especially in spring. The return flight southward begins in August and 

 ordinarily ends before the close of the first week of September. At this sea- 

 son the birds are often seen in dry upland woods or in thickets bordering 

 neglected fields and pastures, perhaps feeding in company with Robins and 

 Cedarbirds on the fruit of the rum cherry. 



' H. D. Thoreau, Excursions, 1863, 48, foot-note. 



