so 



MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



within a few rods of it on the south, and its northern extremity reaches almost 

 to the main line of the Fitchburg Railroad. It covers a total area of some six or 

 seven acres and is nowhere more than five or six feet in depth. The Tudor Ice 

 Company dug it about 1850. For years afterwards, and indeed up to within 

 my own recollection, it remained nearly rectangular in shape, with straight 

 grassy banks. But the shore lines have since become indented with little coves, 

 — formed by the wash of the water or by the undermining of successive genera- 

 tions of muskrats, — and some of the shallower portions of the pond, especially at 

 its northern extremity, have grown up to cattail flags. Although, as its project- 

 ors foresaw would be the case, the Glacialis freezes over nearly a month earlier 

 than Fresh Pond, its numerous bottom springs prevent the ice from ever attain- 

 ing sufficient thickness to be of much commercial value. For this reason the 

 money expended on its construction and on that of the large icehouses which 

 stood for many years near its northern end, has yielded no returns to the orig- 

 inal investors. Their enterprise, nevertheless, has not been without benefit to 

 others. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Cambridge boys (among whom may 

 be numbered the present writer and most of the friends of his youth) first 

 learned to swim in the shallow tepid waters of the Glacialis, and it has long 

 afforded a safe and convenient resort for skaters of both sexes and all ages. 

 It is visited — although less frequently now than formerly — by various kinds 

 of water-fowl, especially Pied-billed Grebes, Teal and Coots (Fiilicd). Long- 

 billed Marsh Wrens and two species of Bitterns breed in its beds of cattail 

 flags, while Virginia and Carolina Rails, Red-winged Blackbirds and Swamp 

 Sparrows are found commonly throughout the summer in the marshes which 

 border it on the west and north. 



Beech Island or Block Island. 



This was a ' marsh island,' two or three acres in extent, lying to the north 

 of the Pine Swamp near the south bank of Little River. Most of it was high 

 ground, and its center was occupied by a long, narrow ridge evidently of glacial 

 origin. As the ' island ' was everywhere heavily wooded, and in places elevated 

 fifty feet or more above the surrounding marshes, it formed a prominent and 

 very pleasing feature of the otherwise flat and somewhat monotonous landscape. 

 The woods, which harbored Ruffed Grouse and Quail in autumn and squirrels 

 (including a few ' grays ') at nearly every season, were made up wholly of decid- 

 uous trees and very largely of fine, spreading beeches that must have been 

 upwards of one hundred years old. The entire ridge was taken for filling 

 material when the road-bed of the Massachusetts Central Railroad was built 

 across the Fresh Pond Swamps, in 1877, if I remember rightly. 



