SUPPLEMENT TO BIRDS OF ESSEX COUNTY 21 



to the limits marked by the region of brackish vegetation. The dyke had been 

 built to keep out the tides and the marsh thoroughly drained had once, according 

 to tradition, been a region of fresh meadows where bountiful crops of English hay 

 were raised from the fertile soil. With the dyke fallen into neglect and decay the 

 land had reverted to its original brackish condition with the characteristic fauna 

 and flora. It was a region where I was sure to find Acadian Sharp-tailed Spar- 

 rows during the migrations, and the Sharp-tailed Sparrow as a permanent summer 

 resident. Bitterns usually nested there, and shore-birds of the marsh tarried for 

 a while on the mud sloughs, and, for their destruction, gunners had erected blinds. 

 It was a region abounding in stagnant ditches and mosquitoes. Partly on this 

 latter account, and partly because a sheet of water was thought to be more beauti- 

 ful than a marsh, the dyke or dam was repaired in the fall of 1904, and the waters 

 of the springs and the wash from the hills retained. As considerable salt water 

 had been imprisoned in the area, the resulting brackish mixture spreading over 

 the edge of the former area of brackish vegetation killed some of the alders and 

 willows on the borders of the artificial pond. Gradually this water seeped through 

 the dam, and the fresh water that took its place encouraged an active growth of 

 cat-tail rushes on the shallow edges which threatened in time to obliterate the 

 pond itself. The small native fish, among them the pugnacious stickleback, were 

 unable to penetrate into the innumerable pools among the cat-tails. As a conse- 

 quence mosquito larvae flourished and the last state of that region was worse than 

 the first. An active campaign was carried out in /916, as a result of which the 

 cat-tails were largely dug out, the borders of the pond deepened, and its height 

 raised by repairs on the dam and by a more plentiful rain-fall. Muskrats which 

 had become abundant and had built their houses of and among the cat-tails, were 

 largely eliminated, as was also the case with the mosquitoes. The almost constant 

 breezes kept the surface of the pond so agitated that mosquito larvae were dis- 

 couraged ; moreover, fish could penetrate to the edges. 



The area of this artificial sheet of water which I have called Sagamore Pond 

 (but is variously known as Goodale's or Crane's or Rantoul's Pond after its 

 owners) is roughly three-quarters of a mile in its longest diameter by a third of 

 a mile wide. Its shores are irregular; an interesting feature on the western side 

 is a small circular bay surrounded, except at its outlet to the pond, by steep wooded 

 banks forty or fifty feet high, — a typical glacial kettle-hole. 



The bird fauna of this fresh-water pond and its shores is very different from 

 that of the original brackish marsh although many of the same birds visit it. All 

 the herons, — ^the Green, Great Blue, Black-crowned Night, and Bittern visit it 

 now as before, but the Bittern which formerly bred in the marshes is forced to 

 seek a secluded spot on the borders of the pond. In 191 1, two Egrets did honor 



