A Crested Flycatcher in December at Cambridge, Mass. — On 
December 20, 1911, in the Fresh Pond Reservation, Cambridge, I saw a 
Crested Flycatcher ( Myiarchus crinitus). It was at midday in the warm 
sunshine. The bird was among shrub growth planted on a bank of some 
extent on the northwestern border of the reservation. As I followed along 
at the foot of the ridge, my attention was quickened by hearing call-notes 
which could not be ascribed to any bird that might be expected to be heard 
at this season. When shortly my glasses covered it, it was immediately 
recognized to be a Crested Flycatcher. The pale reddish wing and sul- 
phur-yellow side were plainly presented to view, also the pale margining 
of the wing-coverts. Later the pearl-gray breast was seen and the sulphur- 
yellow of the entire under parts. The bird took short flights from one 
shrub to another and frequently dropped to the ground for an instant, at 
once returning to a near perch. Apparently it was procuring its food from 
the ground, perhaps discerning and obtaining the bodies of dead insects. 
The ground was bare and had been so up to this time. No perch taken was 
more than two or three feet high, and usually they were only a few inches 
above the ground. I followed the flycatcher along the shrubbery for five 
hundred feet or more, while it was thus engaged and remained with it for 
half an hour, often viewing it at a distance of not more than fifty feet. The 
temperature of the early morning had been 22°. The noon day tempera- 
ture in the shade was officially given as 39°. The air at the time, however, 
was soft and warm and calm. Of course there was no insect life in the air, 
and the bird plainly was not looking for it there. In the afternoon of the 
following day an hour was spent searching for the bird, but I could not 
find it. 
The Crested Flycatcher is a rare summer resident of Eastern Massa- 
chusetts, being so characterized by Mr. William Brewster in his “ Birds 
of the Cambridge Region ” and by Dr. C. W. Townsend in his “ Birds of 
Essex County.” The latest record for a bird of the species is given by 
Mr. Brewster as September 26, in 1897, when one was seen in Arlington 
by Dr. Walter Faxon. Messrs. Howe and Allen in their “ Birds of Massa- 
chusetts ” give the limit of the season as September 12 and a record without 
specific data of October 15. Mr. Richard M. Marble has a record of one 
seen by him on October 2, 1910, in the Allendale woods, West Roxbury. 
This Cambridge bird, therefore, so far as I am able to determine from 
records at hand, furnishes the only occurrence of the species later than 
October 15 and was present sixty-six days after that date. The same 
means which had afforded it subsistence in October and November were 
doubtless present in December up to the day it was observed. No snow 
had as yet fallen to cover the ground. The mean temperature of December 
was officially given as 6° above the normal and the highest for twenty years. 
The temperature rose above freezing on all except four days. Ihus this 
flycatcher had had unusually mild weather conditions under which to 
extend its remarkable stay. 
Messrs. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway in their “ History of North Ameri- 
can Land Birds, vol. 2, p. 336, state, “ During the early summer this 
species [Great Crested Flycatcher] feeds . chiefly upon insects of various 
kinds;.:. . .afterwards, as if from choice, it chiefly eats ripe berries of vari- 
ous kinds of shrubs and plants, among which those of the poke-weed and 
the huckleberry are most noticeable.” Many of the shrubs among which 
the bird moved on the day it was observed were berry-laden. — Horace 
W. Wright, Boston, Mass. Afa* /f/H/t-l 
