BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 



^55 



Pine Swamp and very frequently in summer in the Maple and Brickyard 

 Swamps as well as under some large willows at the foot of Vassall Lane. 

 Most of the midsummer birds were young, some of which, no doubt, were 

 reared in these swamps although the majority probably came from Arlington, 

 Belmont and Waltham, where Woodcock then bred abundantly, especially in the 

 low ground west of Arlington Heights ; about the edges of Rock Meadow ; and 

 in the densely wooded and well-watered valley which lies to the southwest of 

 Crown Hill and which was known to the local sportsmen of those days as the 

 'Warren Run.' Here the birds were so numerous at times that on July 7, 

 1869, I started between thirty and forty in the course of a few hours, and here, 

 on April 24, 1875, I found my first Woodcock's nest with its set of four beau- 

 tiful eggs. 



The number of breeding birds diminished rapidly in the course of the 

 succeeding ten years, and very few have been reported since 1890, but as lately 

 as May 6, 1902, a nest containing four eggs was found by Mr. James E. Gard- 

 ner, Jr., not far from the eastern end of Rock Meadow. It was afterwards, 

 visited by Mr. Ralph Hoffmann and Mr. William Lyman Underwood, the latter 

 of whom took some fine photographs of the sitting bird. On May 25 she had 

 departed with her young, leaving one unhatched egg in the nest. 



Years ago when Woodcock were really numerous in summer about Cam- 

 bridge they were given to resorting in August to cornfields and vegetable 

 gardens near houses, and on one occasion (in 1868, if I remember rightly) I 

 flushed one in our own garden. Mr. H. A. Purdie and I started another at the 

 edge of the salt marsh behind the Cambridge Cemetery on July 11, 1894. 

 This is the latest instance known to me of the occurrence of the species within 

 our city limits in summer, but on April 7, 1900, a boy brought me a living bird 

 which he said he had caught two days before among some bushes on the edge 

 of Gray's Woods. It had evidently flown against a telegraph wire, for most of 

 the skin of the forehead had been freshly torn away, although the skull was 

 uninjured. During the year last mentioned Mr. E. M. Davis saw a Woodcock 

 in Norton's Woods on April 2 and 6, and on the latter date the bird was also 

 seen by Miss Bertha T. Parker. 



At several localities in the more thinly settled parts of Belmont, Arlington, 

 Lexington, and Waltham, migrating Woodcock continue to occur regularly, if 

 only very sparingly, in spring and autumn. At the former season they are 

 almost invariably found in thickets along the courses of brooks or about the 

 borders of swamps and meadows, where the ground is soft and springy, but in 

 autumn they often frequent rather dry covers, especially such as are composed 

 largely of gray birches and second-growth oaks or maples. 



On December 13, 1871, I shot a Woodcock in Waverley, and in 1901 



