BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 47 



The Maple Swamp. 



Of the Maple Swamp we may still speak in the present tense, for it has 

 changed but little, either in character or extent, within the period covered by 

 my recollection. The name originated, I believe, with the Cambridge collectors 

 of thirty years or more ago. It is usually applied to the whole of the swampy 

 tract (embracing nearly fifty acres) which extends from Concord Avenue to the 

 main line of the Fitchburg Railroad between the Watertown Branch Railroad 

 and Alewife Brook. Much of this, however, is comparatively open, and either 

 divided up into a number of small, grassy meadows, dotted with clusters of 

 willows and separated from one another by screens of bushes, or thickly set, 

 over considerable areas, with alders, viburnums, elders, and sapling maples, over- 

 run by clematis and thorny with patches of briers. There are also a few small, 

 shallow ponds, filled with white and yellow water lilies and fringed by pickerel 

 weed, besides very many half-obliterated ditches, evidently of ancient origin. 

 The maple woods occupy the central portions of the swamp and stretch almost 

 uninterruptedly from its eastern to its western confines, covering two large 

 islands lying near together and some low, wet land bordering Alewife Brook. 

 Although chiefly composed of red maples, they also contain many swamp white 

 oaks and tupelos as well as a few wild apples, rum cherries and gray birches. 

 Most of the trees are forty or fifty feet in height and apparently at least half a 

 century old.^ 



The islands are nearly flat and but slightly elevated above the surround- 

 ing surface, yet they are never flooded and their rich soil, although moist at 

 every season, is nowhere soft or boggy. It sustains, in addition to the taller 

 trees, a dense growth of underbrush through which well-trodden foot-paths lead 

 in every direction. The thickets which they penetrate are glorified in spring by 

 the snowy blossoms of the shad-bush, filled in summer with the almost oppres- 

 sive perfume of the clethra and white azalea, glowing in autumn and winter with 

 the scarlet berries of the black alder. They also abound in viburnums, andro- 

 medas and high-blueberry bushes. The wetter portions of the woods are com- 

 paratively open underneath, especially near Alewife Brook where there are wide 

 spaces practically barren of lower vegetation save in late summer and early 

 autumn when they are concealed beneath a profusion of rank herbaceous plants. 

 Of these the most flourishing and conspicuous is the touch-me-not {Impatiens 

 biflora) which forms extensive beds in many places. The deadly nightshade also 



' Since the above passage was written, very many of the larger trees in the Maple Swamp have 

 been cut down. 



