26 ON BOSTON COMMON. 



out of my catalogue. No other bird's absence 

 has surprised me so much ; and it is the more 

 remarkable because the comparatively rare yel- 

 low-bellied species is to be met with nearly 

 every season. Cedar-birds show themselves ir- 

 regularly. One March morning, when the 

 ground was covered with snow, a flock of per- 

 haps a hundred collected in one of the taller 

 maples in the Garden, till the tree looked from 

 a distance like an autumn hickory, its leafless 

 branches still thickly dotted with nuts. Four 

 days afterward, what seemed to be the same 

 company made their appearance in the Com- 

 mon. Of the flycatchers, I have noted the 

 kingbird, the least flycatcher, and the phoebe. 

 The two former stay to breed. Twice in the 

 fall I have found a kingfisher about the Frog 

 Pond. Once the fellow sprung his watchman's 

 rattle. He was perhaps my most unexpected 

 caller, and for a minute or so I was not en- 

 tirely sure whether indeed I was in Boston or 

 not. The blue jay and the crow know too 

 much to be caught in such a place, although 

 one may often enough see the latter passing 

 overhead. Every now and then, in the travel- 

 ing season, a stray sandpiper or two will be ob- 

 served teetering round the edge of the Common 

 and Garden ponds ; and one day, when the lat- 

 ter was drained, I saw quite a flock of some 



