Falmouth, Mass.
1895
July 20
  I came here from Cambridge on the 11th but not
feeling at all well I have spent most of my time indoors
and hence have made few observations worth recording.
  On my arrival I found a pair of Red-winged Blackbirds
established in a belt of ornamental shrubbery which separates the
rear & small clothes yard of the house next ours from an
extensive lawn beyond. The gardener employed on the place
told me that they had been there constantly for the past
two or three weeks. On the 13th in company with E.R.S.
I made a careful search for their nest but failed to find it.
We, however, discovered two of their young, barely half-grown
and unable, evidently, (we did not put them to the test) to
fly more than a few yards at a time, perched close together
on the branch of a maple. The old birds fed them at
frquent intervals up to the 17th when the whole family
departed. It was odd to hear the song of the male in
such a place. He sang regularly, each morning as long as
his family stayed.
[margin]Red-wings
breeding in
ornamental
shrubbery[/margin]
  In this piece of shrubbery, only about 80 ft. long and by 15 to 30 ft.
in width, we found two empty Robin's nests, an empty nest
of the Yellow Warbler, & a Song Sparrow's and Chippy's nest
with young. The Chippy's nest was actually on the same branch 
with, and not over three feet from, one of the Robin nests which
although apparently empty (I could not examine it without
injuring the tree, and young English elm) was a this year's nest.
The Song Sparrow's nest was in a syringa bush.
[margin]Other nests
in the 
shrubbery[/margin]
  Although two cats are kept at a house diagonally across
the street the do not appear to cross this slight
barrier possibly because of the numerous dogs which are
constantly traversing it. At all events we have as yet seen
no cats in the shrubbery & I found no tracks there.
[margin]Absence of
cats[/margin]