BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 



71 



although of this there is no evidence. Without question, however, most of the 

 birds which he met with near Mount WoUaston formerly frequented the Cam- 

 bridge Region also. Hence his testimony regarding them is not without perti- 

 nence to our present subject. Of its general reliability there can be little or no 

 doubt. Indeed he seems to have been an intelligent and accurate observer, and 

 to have confined himself chiefly to writing of matters with which he was familiar 

 from personal observation. Unfortunaiely he took little notice of birds other 

 than those in which sportsmen are more or less directly interested. 



William Wood's ' New Englands Prospect ' was published in London in 

 1634. Its author came to Massachusetts early in 1629 and returned to England 

 in August, 1633. He describes, evidently from personal knowledge and obser- 

 vation, most of the islands in Boston Harbor, " Weffagutus " (= Weymouth), 

 Mount Wollaston, Dorchester (then "the greateft Towne in New England"), 

 Roxbury, Boston, Charlestown, Cambridge (then " New-towne " ), Watertown, 

 "Mifticke" (= Medford), " Saugus " (= Lynn), Nahant, Salem, " Marvill 

 Head" (= Marblehead), "Agowamme" (= Ipswich), and " Merrimacke " (= 

 Newburyport).^ He also mentions making a trip to Plymouth, which he 

 reached by following Indian trails leading through the dense forest. But 

 although he appears to have visited nearly if not quite all of the settlements 

 which then existed in Massachusetts, most of his time was apparently passed 

 at a place which he calls " Saugus," of which he was one of the original 

 founders. Mr. Charles C. Smith, Treasurer of the Massachusetts Historical 

 Society, writes to Mr. Walter Deane, that "when we first hear anything 

 of Saugus it covered all the territory between Boston and Chelsea on the west 

 and Salem and Marblehead on the east ; and this was the case when Wood 

 wrote. So far as I can discover, the few inhabitants were scattered over the 

 whole region, from Swampscott to Chelsea. About three years after Wood 

 wrote, the name was changed from Saugus to Lynn ; and it was not until 1 8 1 5 

 that the present Saugus was incorporated ; it is only a small part of the original 

 Saugus." Wood's map places Saugus at or very near the present location of 

 Lynn, and his text makes it perfectly clear that this was where he lived during 

 the greater part of the four consecutive years that he spent in New England. 

 We may further assume with reasonable safety that most of the wading birds 

 and water-fowl which he mentions were met with in the marshes and shallow 

 bays lying between Lynn and Revere and along the shores of the open ocean 

 between Nahant and Marblehead. 



If, as there are some reasons for inferring, Wood was less of a sportsman 



' William Wood, New-England's Prospect, edited by Charles Deane, 1865, 40-49. 



