BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 



113 



have also good reasons for suspecting that during this same season, and perhaps 

 also in 1890, another pair nested in the grove of large oaks and hickories in 

 front of the old mansion house at Payson Park, where both birds were observed 

 feeding in a small, artificial pond. 



From 1887 to 1896 or 1897 Wood Ducks were frequently met with in 

 early summer in the Fresh Pond Swamps, and in 1890 a man living on the 

 shores of Pout Pond assured me that a brood of young had appeared near his 

 house during each of the preceding three years. His son, a bright and truthful- 

 seeming lad whom I afterwards questioned on the subject, confirmed this state- 

 ment, adding that in the spring of 1889 he had found a nest, containing ten 

 eggs, in a hollow stump on the edge of the pond — where, by an odd coinci- 

 dence, a pair of the birds alighted while we were talking about them. Their 

 regular occurrence at this time in a locality bordered by houses and other build- 

 ings, crossed by several lines of steam railway, and situated less than two miles 

 from Harvard Square, is sufficiently surprising, but they have occasionally ven- 

 tured even nearer the heart of our city, for just after a snowstorm in early 

 March, 1891, Mr. Frank Bolles saw one fly low over his house to the grounds 

 of the Episcopal Theological School on Brattle Street, where it alighted in the 

 branches of a large tree. 



Since 1898 the Wood Duck has apparently ceased breeding in the Fresh 

 Pond region, to which, moreover, it is fast becoming an uncommon visitor even 

 at its seasons of migration. It has been seen oftenest, of late years, at Great 

 Meadow, where in 1899, 1900 and 1901, as I am informed by Mr. William 

 P. Hadley, a pair nested in a large, hollow oak that stood on the northern 

 edge of the shallow, brush-grown reservoir. The old tree blew down and the 

 reservoir was drained of its water in 1902; since then the birds have not re- 

 appeared in that neighborhood. 



28. Aythya americana (Eyt.). 

 Redhead. 



Rather rare transient visitor in autumn. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



October 7, 1899, a pair seen, Waltham, H. B. Bigelow. 

 December 21, 1903, one male seen, Fresh Pond, H. Bowditch. 



Not long after sunrise on the morning of October 24, 1868, a flock of eight 



