34 



MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



uses of a cemetery, before i860. At that time, however, and indeed for upwards 

 of twenty years later, the country to the westward, as far as the Watertown 

 Arsenal and beyond, was essentially primitive in character and but sparsely popu- 

 lated, chiefly by farmers of the good old New England type, born on the land 

 which their ancestors had tilled for generations or even from the date of its first 

 settlement. Only the more level and fertile tracts were then under cultivation, 

 and most of the hills, ridges and swampy hollows, as well as occasional stretches 

 of flat but sandy or gravelly land, were heavily wooded. There were also isolated 

 groups of forest trees and very many thickets of limited extent, besides a num- 

 ber of fine old apple orchards. Throughout the more open country the lichen- 

 encrusted walls and fences, that separated the cultivated fields from adjoining 

 mowing, pasture, or brush lands, were very generally bordered and half concealed 

 by rows of stately red cedars or natural hedges of barberry or privet. The woods 

 varied greatly in character and extent. Some of them were nearly or quite free 

 from undergrowth and composed almost wholly of large deciduous trees, such as 

 oaks, maples, hickories and chestnuts, or of tall, slender pitch pines standing so 

 near together that only an occasional shaft of sunlight penetrated through their 

 interlacing tops and upper branches, to flicker for an instant on the smooth carpet 

 of light brown needles that covered the ground beneath. In others of younger 

 growth sturdy bushes of various kinds struggled for light and room with the still 

 more crowded and vigorous oak, maple, and birch saplings by which they had 

 been already overtopped. In still others the trees were irregularly or sparsely 

 distributed, leaving sunny openings of various shapes and sizes, bounded by walls 

 of foliage too dense for the eye to penetrate. This was especially the case where 

 neglected, barren land had been allowed to grow up to red cedars or pitch pines. 

 Both these trees were abundant nearly everywhere and, indeed, eminently char- 

 acteristic of the region. It contained comparatively few white pines and, if I 

 remember rightly, no hemlocks. Of the larger and more conspicuous shrubs 

 the barberry, privet, buckthorn and high blueberry were perhaps the commonest 

 and most generally distributed species. 



As may be gathered from the foregoing description, the region beyond 

 Mount Auburn was rich in picturesque beauty and attractiveness at the time of 

 which I am now writing. Much of it was then so little frequented by man that 

 one might wander for hours through the deep, silent woods, in the broad, smiling 

 fields, or beneath the grateful shade of the low-branching orchards, without meet- 

 ing anyone save, perchance, a farmer owner of the land or some bird lover or 

 sportsman. There was, moreover, an all-pervading atmosphere of serenity, and of 

 remoteness from all worldly noise and bustle, very restful to the senses and dis- 

 turbed by few sounds of human origin more obtrusive than the distant whistle 

 of a locomotive, the report of a gun, or the gruff voice of a ploughman chiding 

 his slow-moving horses. Of the more natural and harmonious sounds, proceed- 



