Birds of The Cambridge region. 



297 



incubating, ^ and in Medford, where Mr. Frank E. Bean found a nest with four 

 fresh eggs on June 9, 1877, and "towards the last" of the same month, "in 

 another locality, a second nest containing four young," which both of the parent 

 birds were seen to feed. " Mr. Bean thinks that more than these two pairs may 

 have raised young in his vicinity, as he has heard other birds in this and previous 

 years." 2 If not actually within the Cambridge Region, the places where Mr. 

 Bean had these interesting experiences are certainly not far distant from its 

 eastern boundaries. 



178. Piranga erythromelas Vieill. 

 Scarlet Tanager. Tanager. 



Rather common summer resident. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



May 8, 1894, one male seen, Cambridge Region, W. Faxon. 



May 12 — October i. 

 October 15, 1873, one male taken, Belmont, W. Brewster. 



NESTING DATES. 



June 7 — 15. 



Although the Scarlet Tanager breeds abundantly in Concord, Lincoln and 

 Weston, there are only a few places in the Cambridge Region where it is — or 

 ever has been within my recollection — found regularly in summer. One or two 

 pairs used to inhabit the old oak woods now included in the grounds of the 

 McLean Asylum at Waverley, and I have seen others near Arlington Heights, 

 on the hills south and west of Rock Meadow, and in the wild and densely 

 wooded region immediately to the northwestward of the Lyman estate in Wal- 

 tham. No doubt the birds continue to frequent nearly, if not quite, all these 

 localities, but they have long since deserted the country just beyond Mount 

 Auburn, where, in a tract of oak and chestnut woods which formerly existed 

 near the Watertown Arsenal, I found them nesting sparingly during the earlier 

 years of my field experience. 



Tanagers sometimes pay brief visits to the more densely populated parts of 



1 C. J. Maynard, Naturalist's Guide, 1870, 120. 



2 H. A. Purdie, Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, III, 1878, 45. 



