194 



MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



winter. The Sparrow Hawk seldom alights in the more densely populated parts 

 of the city, but it often passes over them and I see it occasionally, at all seasons, 

 circling at no great height, above our garden. 



92. Pandion haliaetus carolinensis (Gmel.). 

 American Osprey. Fish Hawk. 



Rather common tran.sient visitor in spring and autumn. 

 SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



April 2, 1885, one seen, Watertown, M. A. Frazar. 



April 5 — 25. 

 May 29, 1890, one seen, Cambridge, W. Brewster. 



August 27, 1899, one seen, Lower Mystic Pond, W. Faxon. 



September 15 — October 10. 

 October 21, 1892, one seen, Arlington, W. Faxon. 



At its seasons of migration the Fish Hawk continues to be a regular visitor 

 to most of our larger ponds, and it is occasionally seen along Charles River, also. 

 Of late years it has been observed oftenest in spring, about the Mystic Ponds. 

 It used to occur most numerously in autumn, at Fresh Pond where, during the 

 month of September, thirty or forty years ago, one or two of the big, eagle- 

 like birds were almost constantly present. In those days the imtrimmed woods 

 which came to the water's edge along the shores of the Tudor estate, at Straw- 

 berry Hill, and at Hemlock Point, afforded plenty of dead stubs or branches on 

 which the Fish Hawks and Kingfishers loved to perch. Both birds found food in 

 abundance here, for the pond then swarmed with alewives and other fish. Since 

 the alewives have been shut out by the filling in of the natural outlet, the 

 Fish Hawks have visited Fresh Pond much less often than formerly. I can 

 find no evidence which indicates that they ever bred in the Cambridge Region, 

 although it is not unlikely that they did so in early Colonial days, when the 

 country was covered with primitive forest. Dr. Allen in his ' Rarer Birds of 

 Massachusetts ' ' mentions " a former nesting site near Ipswich " which, in 1 869, 

 was " still remembered by some of the older residents there." The species is 

 a common summer resident of Bristol County, Massachusetts, where it breeds 

 in close proximity to houses and is very generally encouraged and protected by 

 the fishermen and farmers. 



1 J. A. Allen, American Naturalist, III, 1870, 569. 



