238 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



tory visits in spring and summer to the farming country lying to the eastward 

 of Fresh Pond. In autumn and winter they assembled, sometimes in consider- 

 able numbers, to feed on the marshes and muddy banks along Charles River 

 between Cambridgeport and Watertown. Throughout most of Arlington, Bel- 

 mont, Watertown, and Waltham they were then — as they are still — numerous 

 and conspicuous at all seasons, but especially so in early spring and late autumn, 

 when the migratory flights were passing. 



When, some twenty-five or thirty years ago, the suburbs of Cambridge 

 began to extend rapidly in the direction of Fresh Pond and Mount Auburn, the 

 Crows at first retreated, but, being shrewd and observing, as well as wary and 

 suspicious birds, they have apparently learned by slow degrees that where houses 

 and ornamental grounds replace orchards and cornfields man practically ceases to 

 molest them. At all events they have not only returned to most of their former 

 haunts, but have even taken up new ones in rather densely populated parts of 

 the city. They now frequent the trees about our house almost as regularly and 

 familiarly as do the Flickers and Downy Woodpeckers, while nests with eggs or 

 young have been found of late in Hubbard Park ; over the driveway leading to 

 the late Dr. Morrill Wyman's house ; in the grounds of the Harvard Observatory ; 

 and at several other places in our immediate neighborhood. In the summer of 

 1900 a pair actually succeeded in rearing three or four young not far from the 

 State House on Beacon Hill, Boston. Their nest was built in a large elm 

 directly behind the Somerset Club house on Beacon Street. The birds were 

 often seen feeding in the Common and Public Garden where they naturally 

 attracted much attention and interest, for they were the first Crows that had 

 appeared in these city parks for very many years. 



130. Corvus ossifragus Wils. 

 Fish Crow. 



Casual visitor ; one record. 



There is but one record,^ I believe, of the occurrence of the Fish Crow in 

 the Cambridge Region, viz., that of a bird which I saw on March 16, 1875^ 

 flying over our garden in a westerly direction, pursued by an e.xcited mob of 

 common Crows. Although the fugitive was identified merely by its peculiar 

 notes (which were repeatedly uttered) and by its equally characteristic manner 



1 W. Brewster, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, I, 1876, 19. 



