242 



MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



mentioned by Mr. Maynard. He writes me tliat he thinks they were given by 

 him to the Museum of Comparative Zoology, but they cannot be found there 

 now ; nor are they mentioned in any of the record-books of this Museum. 



The Yellow-headed Blackbird is only a chance straggler to New England 

 from its home in the Middle and Far West. In addition to the specimen just 

 considered three others have been taken in Massachusetts, two of them by a 

 Mr. Loud, at Eastham, on September 10, 1877,1 the third, a female, by Mr. 

 W. B. Revere, at Monomoy Island, on September 8, 1897.^ 



134. Agelaius phoeniceus (Linn.). 

 Red-winged Blackbird. Redwing. Swamp Blackbird. 



Abundant summer resident ; also found in winter in one locality. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



February 26, 1 866, a dozen or more males seen, in full song, Watertown, W. Brewster. 



March 10 — August 30. (Winter.) 

 November 17, 189S, large flocks seen, Belmont, W. Faxon. 



nesting dates. 

 May 16 — 28. 



The familiar and conspicuous Redwings have thus far yielded but little of 

 the ground that they occupied in and near Cambridge thirty or forty years ago. 

 It is true there are a few localities well within our city limits — such as that 

 where a bushy swamp once existed on the borders of Norton's Woods and some 

 hollows in the fields just to the westward of the site of the old reservoir on High- 

 land Street — from which they have been driven, within my recollection, by the 

 drainage of land or the building of houses, but they continue to breed in appar- 

 ently undiminished numbers, and really abundantly, in the Fresh Pond Swamps, 

 at Rock Meadow, and at Great Meadow, while there are scores of swampy or 

 marshy places of more limited extent where a few pairs regularly pass the 

 summer. 



For several weeks after their first appearance in early spring Redwings 

 are usually found in flocks composed wholly of males. At this season they 



» J. A. Allen, Bulletin of the Essex Institute, X, 1878, 18. 

 2L. B. Bishop, Auk, XVIII, 1901, 195. 



