BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 249 



140. Quiscalus quiscula aeneus (Ridgw.). 

 Bronzed Crackle. Crow Blackbird. 



Abundant summer resident ; occasionally seen in winter. 



SEASONAL occurrence. 



March 2, 1902, one seen, Glacialis, R. S. Eustis. 

 March 10 — November i. (Winter.) 

 November 15, 1869, one seen, Watertown, W. Brewster. 



NESTING DATES. 



May 2 — 20. 



As I have just indicated, the 'Crow Blackbirds' which frequent the Cam- 

 bridge Region are nearly all Bronzed Crackles. They are somewhat irregu- 

 larly or locally distributed, nesting in communities, usually among evergreens 

 and, as a rule, in close proximity to houses or other buildings. Two of their 

 breeding places in Cambridge, viz., Norton's Woods and a belt of mixed pines 

 and spruces just behind the house of the late Mr. Benjamin G. Smith, on Fayer- 

 weather Street, have been occupied continuously for upward of half a century. 

 The colony which annually takes possession of the pines growing on both sides 

 of Follen Street is of somewhat more recent origin, and the overflow from it to 

 the Norway spruces scattered along Berkeley and Craigie Streets began, I 

 believe, only twelve or fifteen years ago. Lowell, writing in 1868,^ says: 

 " Twice have the crow-blackbirds attempted a settlement in my pines [at Elm- 

 wood], and twice have the robins, who claim a right of pre-emption, so success- 

 fully played the part of border ruffians as to drive them away." Later, in a letter 

 to Mrs. Edward Burnett, dated June 5, 1877, he adds: "The crow black- 

 birds, after prospecting two years, have settled in the pines and make the view 

 from the veranda all the livelier." ^ This would imply that they began breeding 

 at Elmwood in 1877, but I do not recall seeing them there regularly or in any 

 numbers, in summer, until 1902 when they formed a colony comprising at least a 

 dozen pairs. A somewhat smaller number formerly nested in the cluster of tall 

 pines on the Worcester (now Smith) estate on Brattle Street. By far the largest 

 colony which has existed anywhere in the Cambridge Region within my recollec- 



' J. R. Lowell, My Garden Acquaintance, Atlantic Almanac for 1869, 1868, 36. 



2 J. R. Lowell, Letters of James Russell Lowell, edited by C. E. Norton, II, 1894, 195. 



