Birds of The Cambridge region. 287 



bordering streams or ponds, and wet meadows covered with wild grasses. To 

 such places it is very strictly confined during the breeding season, but in 

 spring it sometimes visits our garden, and in autumn it may be often found 

 among rank weeds or in beds of asparagus on farming lands, and occasionally in 

 thickets on the edges of upland woods. During the earlier years of my field 

 experience Swamp Sparrows were not known to occur in midwinter near Cam- 

 bridge, but on January 11, 1883, Mr. Charles R. Lamb met with a flock of 

 seven birds in some dense maple woods on the western side of Pout Pond. 

 Not long after this the cattail flags began to increase and spread in the Fresh 

 Pond Swamps ; since they became widely dispersed over the marshes lying to the 

 north and west of the Glacialis, Swamp Sparrows have been constantly present 

 there in winter. The birds vary considerably in numbers with different years, 

 but one may be reasonably sure of starting at least three or four during a 

 morning walk in December, January or February, and under exceptionally 

 favorable conditions as many as a dozen or fifteen may be seen. Another reg- 

 ularly frequented but less populous wintering ground of theirs is a briery swamp, 

 also abounding in cattails, near the outlet of the Lower Mystic Pond in 

 Arlington. 



In his list of birds which bred in Norton's Woods between 1866 and 1874 

 Dr. Walter Woodman mentions the Swamp Sparrow as of doubtful occurrence 

 (perhaps in the bushy swamp which the Red-winged Blackbirds frequented). 

 For several years later one or two pairs nested every season in a little meadow 

 just to the westward of the Cambridge reservoir on Highland Street, and 

 others on a floating island in the pond at the rear of Mount Auburn. The 

 birds have long since disappeared from these localities, but in the Fresh Pond 

 Swamps and at Rock Meadow they continue to appear as numerously as they 

 have ever done within the period covered by my recollection. 



In the Cambridge Region the Swamp Sparrow breeds habitually in very 

 wet places and frequently where the surface of the ground is covered to a depth 

 of several inches with stagnant water. One may look for its nest with the best 

 prospects of success on the borders of briery thickets and along the edges of 

 pools and ditches where, owing to the presence of tough-stemmed bushes or to 

 the treacherous character of the ground, the mowers seldom or never swing 

 their scythes. In such places, among rank, tangled grass, dead for the most 

 part and perhaps bleached by the snows of several successive winters, the nest 

 is usually built, a foot or two above the ground or water, and very perfectly con- 

 cealed. Another and more conspicuous situation for the nest, often chosen by 

 the Swamp Sparrow, and also much favored by the Red-winged Blackbird, is 

 in the crown of one of those emerald-green mounds that are scattered so pro- 

 fusely over most of our fresh-water meadows. These little excrescences, 

 locally known as 'tussocks,' are formed, by a sedge (Carex stricta). 



