294 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



Rock Meadow and elsewhere along the course of Beaver Brook, where its fav- 

 orite nesting haunts are dense birch and maple woods well supplied with under- 

 growth and not far from water. We find it only sparingly and locally on the 

 sides and tops of the hills, where it frequents crowded sprout growths of young 

 deciduous trees and thickets of tall bushes intermingled with scraggy wild apple 

 trees. For pines, cedars and hemlocks it evidently has no great liking and I 

 have never known it to nest in these or other evergreen trees. The usual or 

 typical situation of the nest is among the upper twigs or branches of a slender 

 birch, maple or oak sapling in the woods, but the birds sometimes build in bar- 

 berry or blueberry bushes growing about the edges of neglected pastures. 



176. Cyanospiza cyanea (Linn.). 

 Indigo Bunting. Indigo-bird. 



Common summer resident. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



May 8, 1894, one ad. male seen, Cambridge, W. Brewster. 



May 15 — October i. 

 December 5, 1S71, one taken, Watertown, M. A. Frazar. 



NESTING DATES. 



June 4 — 15. 



The Indigo-bird has practically deserted Cambridge and its suburbs within 

 the past twenty years. Although in some respects a rather shy and retiring 

 species, it formerly bred sparingly throughout most of the city proper, including 

 Cambridgeport. There was always a nest in our garden, sometimes in the rasp- 

 berry or blackberry bushes, but usually in a cluster of spiraeas that stood on the 

 border of a gravelled walk just behind the house. The last pair of Indigo-birds 

 appeared here about 1892 when they chose a most unusual situation for their 

 nest, placing it in a clematis vine trained on a wire treUis which screens the 

 main entrance to my museum. Although no one could enter or leave this build- 

 ing without brushing against the foliage of the vine, the birds completed their 

 nest, but they abandoned it after laying two eggs. 



Indigo-birds used to breed numerously throughout the region lying between 

 Mount Auburn and the Watertown Arsenal. They are still common enough in 

 many parts of Arlington, Belmont, Lexington and Waltham, where they nest in 



