136 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



but twice in this section." In response to my inquiry as to just where his birds 

 were found, Mr. Maynard writes me as follows : " The Little Blue Herons that 

 I saw were in what is known as Purgatory Swamp which lies partly in Newton 

 and partly in Waltham. I started them on the Newton side of the swamp and 

 they crossed into Waltham." Hence it appears that this now somewhat ancient 

 record relates directly to our Cambridge Region. 



A Little Blue Heron in immature plumage was shot at Cohasset, about 

 1852, by a Mr. Morse; ^ another bird, also in the white plumage, and now in the 

 collection of the Boston Society of Natural History, was taken at Ipswich on 

 August 10, 1881;^ and I have a female in full nuptial plumage, which was killed 

 at Roslindale in April, 1896, by Mr. W. R. Zappey. There are still other 

 Massachusetts records relating, however, to localities too far from the Cambridge 

 Region to be worth mentioning in this connection. 



47. Butorides virescens (Linn.). 

 Green Heron. 



Common summer resident, more numerously represented of late than formerly. 



SEASONAL occurrence. 



April 26, 1879, one seen, Belmont, W. Brewster. 



May I — September 30. 

 October 16, 1868, one seen, Fresh Pond Swamps, W. Brewster. 



NESTING DATES. 



May 10 — 25. 



The Green Heron usually arrives late in April and departs for the south 

 before the first of October. It is rather generally distributed in summer through- 

 out most of the Cambridge Region, nesting in dense birch or maple woods, 

 usually near ponds or marshes, or along the courses of brooks, but occa- 

 sionally on high ground at considerable distances from any water. Like the 

 Crow and the Black Duck, it is at once a wary and a venturesome bird, endowed 

 with sufficient intelligence to discriminate between real and imaginary dangers 

 and often making itself quite at home in noisy, thickly settled neighborhoods 



'T. M. Brewer, Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, XIX, 1878, 259. 

 ^ R. H.Howe, Jr., and G. M. Allen, Birds of Massachusetts, 1901, 45. 



