1893
May 18
(No 5)
East Lexington, Mass.
 The pond where we spent most of to-day was
originally a meadow through which a brook flowed. There
were also broad ditches and pond holes where, it is said,
clay was dug. Along these ditches and about the pond
holes button bushes and sweet gale grew in great profusion.
The rest of the meadow was covered with wiry grass.
This was the condition of things – as I remember distinctly -
before the town of Arlington dammed the outlet of the
meadow some 15 or 18 years ago in order to form a
reservoir or storage basin supplementary to a larger
& deeper basin lower down the valley of the brook.
The upper basin now covers 100 acres or more over
most of which area the water varies from one to
four feet in depth according to the season the original
ditches and clay pits being of course much deeper.
The button bushes have flourished and even, I think,
spread considerably under the changed conditions so that
they now cover the greater part of the pond, not
uniformly and densely, but in patches and both with
pools and channels of clear water between. There are
also a good many clusters of cat tails growing among
the button bushes and floating masses or rafts of these
flags mixed with tussock grass and sweet gale
anchored among the stems of the bushes. These
rafts harbor Rails (both Soras & Virginias) and where the
cat tails grow in the greatest profusion we found
a pair of Florida Gallinule & a Least Bittern. Another
bird of the latter species was also heard cooing in
an extensive tract of cat tails bordering the
brook at the place where it enters the pond &
a little further up this brook Faxon has heard a Bittern
[margin]Description 
of Upper
Reservoir Pond[/margin]