q8 memoirs of the nuttall ornithological club. 



not visit our larger fresh-water ponds, as well as the Back Bay Basin, with some 

 frequency and regularity. The two records just given are, however, the only 

 ones known to me which relate to the Cambridge Region. 



13. Sterna hirundo Linn. 

 Common Tern. Wilson's Tern. 



Very rare transient visitor. 



On September 11, 1868, I saw a Tern which I took to be a Wilson's 

 flying about over Spy Pond. Three days later another (or possibly the same) 

 bird was shot at Fresh Pond by one of my friends, who brought it to me for 

 identification. It proved to be an adult Common Tern. The specimen, unfor- 

 tunately, was not preserved. 



A few Wilson's Terns continued to breed, up to within the past twenty-five 

 or thirty years, on some small, rocky islands off Swampscott, but along this and 

 neighboring portions of our seacoast they are now seldom seen excepting at their 

 seasons of migration, when they still occur commonly enough, especially in late 

 August and early September. 



14. Oceanodroma leucorhoa (Vieill.). 

 Leach's Petrel. Mother Carey's Chicken. 



Rare transient visitor in autumn. 



Leach's Petrel occasionally visits our fresh-water ponds and rivers, where it 

 is likely to appear quite as often in fine as in stormy weather, but only, I believe, 

 during the period when it is migrating southward in autumn. On October 8, 

 1870 — a brilliantly clear day — I shot a female in Fresh Pond. It came in at 

 daybreak and, after flying about for a few minutes, alighted well out from shore 

 and began pluming itself and sipping the water, taking, apparently, no heed of 

 the boat in which I approached it within close gun-range. This specimen is still 

 in my collection. I have another — a young male — which was killed by a boy 

 on October 7, 1896, in the Lower Mystic Pond. 



