BIRDS OF THE CAMBRIDGE REGION. 



347 



ferring those growing on rocky knolls and along old walls ; but on Prospect Hill 

 they inhabit sprout growths and build their nests in sapling oaks and maples. In 

 both localities they arrive about the 8th or loth of May and remain at or near 

 their breeding grounds through the entire summer, departing for the south late 

 in August or early in September. Ordinarily they do not vary greatly in num- 

 bers from year to year, but they were exceedingly scarce in 1900. 



Many and delightful were the days that I used to spend looking for nests 

 of the Prairie Warbler in the hill pastures of Arlington and Belmont. These 

 breezy uplands are attractive at every season, but most so in early June when 

 the barberry bushes blossom. This is the time when our Prairie Warblers have 

 full sets of fresh eggs. A search for their nests among the handsome, dome- 

 shaped barberry bushes, covered with young foliage of the tenderest green, and 

 with graceful, pendant clusters of golden-yellow flowers that fill the air with 

 fragrance and attract myriads of droning bees, is a fascinating and memorable 

 experience, whatever its material results. When, as often happens, all the more 

 promising gi^ound is covered without success, the searcher is likely to lose heart 

 and to conclude — as indeed may be the case — that the Prairie Warbler which 

 has been singing all the while in the row of tall cedars on the confines of the 

 pasture is unprovided with a mate. Several isolated barberry bushes remain to 

 be examined, however, and one of these — growing, perhaps, in the angle of a 

 stone wall or at the base of some lichen-covered ledge — may prove to contain 

 the prize. It is well worth the seeking, for few New England birds construct 

 nests which compare in beauty and interest with that of the Prairie Warbler. 



I have never met with the Prairie Warbler within the limits of the city 

 of Cambridge, but a female was taken by Mr. Charles R. Lamb among some 

 willows near the Glacialis, on September 14, 1883, and Miss Bertha T. Parker 

 is confident that she saw a male in the grounds of the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology on May 13, 1898. It is perhaps not to be wondered at that the species 

 occurs so seldom within our city limits, for it does not range much to the north- 

 ward of Massachusetts, and most of the birds which enter the Cambridge Region 

 evidently pass the summer there. I believe, moreover, that of the few migrants 

 which go still further north the majority resort to the ' cedar pastures ' of Bel- 

 mont and Arlington whenever they find it desirable to halt for a day or two 

 before continuing on their way. Prairie Warblers are usually more numerous 

 in these pastures for a week or two after their arrival in spring than they ever 

 are later in the season. It is probable, however, that this temporary surplus 

 consists in part of young birds which, after trying to establish themselves in or 

 near the places where they were reared, are forced, by the older birds, to seek 

 other and less congenial breeding haunts at no great distance. 



