134 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



have been frequently found within the past five or six years. A few pairs also 

 pass the summer in a swamp at East Lexington, and I have seen one or two 

 birds in May about Rock Meadow. All the Least Bitterns which breed in the 

 Cambridge Region apparently depart for the south before the close of August. 



45. Ardea herodias Linn. 

 Great Blue Heron. 



Uncommon transient visitor in spring and autumn, occasionally seen in winter. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



March 17, 1894, one seen, Cambridge Region, W. Faxon. 



April I — May I . 

 May 5, 1900, one seen. East Lexington, W. Brewster. 



July 30, 1 89 1, two seen, East Lexington, W. Faxon. 

 September i — October 20. (Winter.) 

 December 20, 1886, one im. male 1 taken. Mystic Ponds, a gunner. 



The Great Blue Heron continues to visit us at its seasons of migration. In 

 spring it is seen less often and for shorter periods than in autumn when it 

 sometimes arrives as early as the last week of July and lingers through Novem- 

 ber or even into December. It has never been very common since I can remem- 

 ber, and I am inclined to believe that it occurs quite as regularly and almost as 

 numerously now as it did thirty or forty years ago, at least in places where it 

 still finds congenial feeding grounds. Its favorite resorts at the present time 

 are Rock Meadow, Great Meadow, the shores of the Mystic Ponds, and the 

 marshes north of the Glacialis. It used to be seen rather frequently in the 

 salt marshes bordering Charles River and about the shallow, reedy coves of Fresh 

 Pond, but these localities have become so changed of late as to nearly or quite 

 cease to attract it. So far as I am aware, there are no reasons for believing 

 that it has ever bred in the Cambridge Region, at least within the past fifty or 

 one hundred years. 



I have a young male Great Blue Heron which was killed in Arlington on 

 December 20, 1886. The gunner who shot the bird told me that it had been 

 haunting the Mystic Ponds for two or three weeks previous to this date, spend- 

 ing the day well out on the ice and fishing at morning and evening about some 



1 No. 13,545, collection of William Brewster. 



