Descriptio n 
of 0Rer 
Reservoir 
Pond 
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, sup¬ 
plementary to a larger and deeper basin lower down the 
valley of the brook. The upper basin now covers 100 acres 
or more, over most of which area the waiter 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 belts with pools and chan¬ 
nels of clear water between. There are also a good many 
clusters of cat tails groY/ing among the button bushes and 
floating masses or rafts of these flags mixed with tussock 
grass and sweet gale ahchored among the stems of the bushes. 
5 
These rafts harbor Rails (both ^oras and Virginias) and v/here 
the cat tails grow in the greatest profusion we found 
a pair of Florida Gallinules and 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,and a little further up 
this brook Faxon has heard a Bittern, on several occasions, 
both last year and this, but he was not pumping to-day* 
