BIRDS OF ESSEX COUNTY. 



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by pigeons, for its top was thickly studded with black cherries, and in the usual 

 afternoon feeding time of these birds a large flock of them alighted in every 

 part of the tree ; and, although evidently surprised to find so great a company of 

 men and women on the ground beneath them, and to hear the general's husky 

 voice sending forth sentences like rattling shot, they made no haste to fly away. 

 Many minutes passed before they returned to their roosts in the tall white-pines 

 of Brier Swamp. The picture of the quiet crowd listening to the orator, the 

 many-colored costumes, the surrounding tall trees and the thick underbrush, the 

 shining waves of Ipswich Bay discerned through a rift of the wood, and the wild 

 pigeons, some with reddish, and some with pale-blue breasts, distributed through- 

 out the cherry-tree's top, is a novel and exceedingly pleasant one in the memory. 

 On the clay following that of the gathering, from a cover of oaks and pines near 

 the cherry-tree, a young sportsman shot fifteen of this flock of pigeons." Leon- 

 ard explains the origin of the name Pigeon Cove as follows : " In the long ago 

 time, when the Cove had no name, immense flocks of pigeons, coming over the 

 sea from New Hampshire and Maine towards the Cape, were enveloped and 

 overwhelmed by a storm, and becoming exhausted fell into the waves ; so that 

 after the storm had ceased, large numbers of the dead birds were brought by 

 the waves into the Cove, and thrown upon the rocks and beach. Hence the 

 little indentation became Pigeon Cove ; and then the height ascending from it 

 Pigeon Hill." 



According to Howe and Allen, 1 the last authentic record of this bird for the 

 State is in 1889 when a pair bred in Plymouth. 2 



The Northern Raven (Corvus corax principalis), now extirpated from Essex 

 County, was formerly common as is attested by several of the early writers. 



A few unclassified ornithological references follow. Capt. John Smith 3 

 says, in 16 16, that in coasting Cape Ann he saw " Eagles, Gripes, divers sorts of 

 Hawkes, Cranes, Geese, Brantz, Cormorants, Ducks, Sheldrakes, Teals, Meawes, 

 Guls, Turkies, Dive-hoppers, etc., and divers sorts of vermin whose names I 

 know not." 



Wood 4 bursts into ornithological rhyme as follows : 



" Th' Eele-murthering Hearne, 5 and greedy Cormorant, 

 That neare the Creekes in morish Marshes haunt. 

 The bellowing Bitterne, with the long-leg'd Crane, 



1 R. H. Howe, Jr., and G. M. Allen: The Birds of Massachusetts, p. 16, 1901. 



2 H. J. Thayer : Forest and Stream, vol. 33, p. 2S8, 1889. 



3 Quoted by F. A. Ober: History of Essex County, by D. H. Hurd, vol. 1, p. 677, 1SS8. 

 1 Wm. Wood: New England's Prospect, 1634; p. 30 of 1S65 reprint. 



s Heron. 



