BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 13 , 



In May, 1868, I heard a Bittern pumping in Rock Meadow, and ever since 

 that time I have never failed to find a pair established there in late spring and 

 early summer whenever I have visited the place at these seasons. One or two 

 pairs have also bred in Great Meadow within recent years. 



44. Ardetta exilis (Gmel.) . 

 Least Bittkrn. 



Summer resident, of local distribution. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



May 12, 1876, one ad. male^ taken, Belmont, W. Brewster. 



May 1 5 — August i . 

 August II, 1868, one taken, Fresh Pond Marshes, W. Brewster. 



NESTING DATES. 



June I — 5. 



In Nuttall's time {i.e., prior to 1834) Least Bitterns were "occasionally 

 started in the interior of the great marshes of Fresh Pond," where this author 

 thought that they probably bred " in the sedgy tussocks ; though we have occa- 

 sionally seen one or two in the society of the Kwa Birds, in the dark woody 

 swamp of their breeding place." ^ The late Mr. J. Elliot Cabot also mentions 

 the species among his Fresh Pond ' Sedge-birds.' It has been a regular sum- 

 mer resident of the Fresh Pond Swamps ever since I began to be interested in 

 them. In the earlier days its favorite haunts were the Brickyard Swamp, where 

 I could always find one or two pairs of old birds in May and June and a few 

 young in July and August, but where I looked in vain for the nests. They 

 must have been concealed among the low bushes which surrounded the shallow 

 pools where I used to start the birds, for there were only a few thin and scat- 

 tered clusters of cattail flags. When the Brickyard Swamp was drained, 

 the Least Bitterns removed to the broad, open meadows lying west of Ale- 

 wife Brook, where they have since bred regularly and in numbers increasing 

 with the increase and dispersion of the cattail flags, among which their nests 



1 No. 326, collection of William Brewster. 



'T. Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada. The Water Birds, 

 1834,66-67. 



