BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 



153 



bringing up quantities of aquatic weeds which they seemed to be eating. When 

 disturbed by the approach of people walking or driving along the park roadway, 

 they would swim out into the pond, returning as soon as the coast was clear 

 again. I do not remember to have ever before seen so many Coots together in 

 the Cambridge Region, and it is unusual for them to occur here at all after the 

 close of October. 



Within the total period covered by my experience less than half a dozen 

 Coots have been observed near Cambridge in spring. Mr. Walter Faxon tells 

 me that on August 16, 1895, he examined one which a gunner had just shot in 

 one of the Mystic Ponds. This date is so very early as to suggest that the 

 bird, which, by the way, was adult, may have passed the summer somewhere in 

 the neighborhood. The species is not known to breed, however, in any part of 

 Massachusetts. 



56. Crymophilus fulicarius (Linn.). 

 Red Phalarope. 



Rare transient visitor in spring. 



Although it is highly probable that the Red Phalarope occasionally visits 

 our fresh-water ponds during its seasons of migration, I have no evidence to 

 offer that such is really the case. Indeed the claim of the species to mention in 

 the present Memoir rests solely, I believe, on the occurrence of a single bird 

 which was shot in August, 1880, in Charles River about opposite where the 

 Cambridge Gas-House once stood. This specimen was examined and identified 

 by Mr. H. M. Spelman, who, however, cannot now recall by whom it was killed 

 or what eventually became of it. 



57. Phalaropus lobatus (Linn.). 

 Northern Phalarope. 



Of rare occurrence in spring. 



On May 21, 1894, Mr. C. J. Smith, a son of the draw-tender at Craigie 

 Bridge, brought three freshly killed Northern Phalaropes to Mr. M. Abbott 



