out of its old skin, the worm makes a careful review of the operation, with its head feeling the aperture of every spiracle, as well as the tail, probably for the purpose of removing any broken fragment of skin which might have remained in these delicate organs. Not only is the outer skin cast off, but also the lining of the air tubes and intestines, together with all the chewing organs and other appendages of the head. After the moulting, the size of the larva is considerably increased, the head is large compared with the body, but eight or ten days later it will look small, as the body will have increased very much in size. This is a certain indication that the worm is about to moult. Every ten days, the same operation is repeated; from the fourth moulting to the time of beginning the cocoon, the period is about sixteen days.

The worms seem entirely unable to discern objects with their simple eyes, but they can distinguish light from darkness, as a very simple experiment will show. If a worm be put in a box with two holes in it, one of them turned to the light, the other to the dark, the caterpillar will very soon come out through the hole turned to the light. To be continued.

WINTER NOTES OF AN ORNITHOLOGIST.

BY J. A. ALLEN.

The winter birds of the northern and eastern States are few in number. In Massachusetts, away from the sea shore, there are ordinarily but fifty-five to sixty species, which consist mainly of permanent residents and winter visitors from more northern districts. The resident

kinds are either rapacious birds, or such hardy species as Titmice, Jays, Woodpeckers, Nuthatches, Finches and Grouse, whose means of subsistence is about equally sure at all seasons. A few are, more properly, migrant summer species, of which only hardy adventurous individuals linger with us in winter, the majority seeking a milder home farther south: among such are the Meadow Lark, Kingfisher, Cedar Bird and Robin. The winter visitors are all from the north; many of these are irregular in their visits, coming to us only when driven southward by the severity of the weather, or more probably by scarcity of food. Of this whole number the limits of our paper will allow us to notice but a few, and even of the more interesting to give but very brief accounts.

The rapacious or raptorial birds, the Hawks and Owls, though comparatively numerous in species, are not so in individuals. Shy and mistrustful, seeking the retirement of the wilderness or the forest, and the nocturnal kinds active only by night, they form but an inconspicuous feature in our local ornithology. Constantly persecuted by man, they have decreased greatly in numbers since the first settlement of our country, and every year they seem more and more to avoid the cultivated districts, seeking a more congenial home in the less inhabited parts of the continent.

Of the true or typical Falcons, esteemed the "noble" birds of prey in the old days of falconry, we have in winter, as at other seasons, now and then a Duck Hawk or Peregrine Falcon (Falco anatum Bon.), a Pigeon Hawk (Hypotriorchis columbarius Gray), and a Sparrow Hawk (Tinnunculus sparverius Vieill.), but so rare are they that a careful observer will ordinarily see but one or two of each in a winter, or perhaps oftener none at all. The

first of these, the dreaded Duck Hawk, is frequent along the sea border and large open rivers where abound the aquatic birds that form his chief prey. The celebrated White Hawk or Jer-Falcon (Falco candicans Gm.) is larger and more powerful even than the Peregrine, but it comes to us so rarely from its remote arctic home, as to be justly considered but an accidental wanderer.

Of the hawks, properly so called: namely, the short winged and "ignoble" birds of prey, the majority are migratory in the more northern sections of the Union, going south in winter. One, however, the Gos-Hawk (Astur atricapillus Bon.) is a winter visitor, and subsisting upon rabbits, partridges, jays, and such other birds and poultry as fall in his way, is a bird of considerable celebrity for his strength and boldness. Formerly his European ally of the same name, and with which the earlier ornithologists supposed ours to be identical, was held in great esteem in hawking, and according to Pennant, was considered of unequalled value among the short winged hawks for the purposes of falconry. It is, moreover, when mature, of beautiful plumage, the white under surface being elegantly pencilled transversely with waved ashy-brown lines, and with broader longitudinal stripes of a dark ferruginous hue. The young are more plainly colored, and differ for several years so widely from their parents, as to be hardly recognizable as belonging to the same species. I once found a wing of this bird, which had been dropped in the woods by some bird of prey; the flesh had been torn from it, leaving only the bones of the upper and fore arm, and the primary quills, showing that even such tyrants of the air are not exempt from enemies more powerful even than they. Possibly it was the Duck Hawk that in this case was the destroyer, since its representa

tive in Europe, the Peregrine, is known to have a particular relish for the flesh of other hawks, and to hunt the poor Kestril as its most dainty game.

The well known "Red-tail," (Buteo borealis Gm.) from his retreat in the forest, sometimes makes sudden forays on the poultry. Several kinds of large and sluggish hawks silently await in the open meadows the appearance of their minute but favorite game, the field mice, and the Marsh Harrier (Circus Hudsonius Vieill.) anon skims rapidly over the snowy fields in eager quest of food. But the most beautiful, when in mature plumage, as well as the largest of our winter birds of prey, is the historical White-headed, or Bald Eagle (Haliatus leucocephalus Savig.), most inappropriately chosen for our national emblem. The Golden Eagle (Aquila Canadensis Cass.), a far nobler bird, is perhaps almost too uncertain a visitor to warrant enumeration in our list.

The Strigidæ, or Owls, the "mysterious birds of night" are even less common than the preceding group, though in winter the number of species is increased by migrants from the north. The resident kinds of most frequent occurrence are the Mottled Owl, (Scops asio Bon.) perhaps better known as the "Screech Owl", the Great Horned or Cat Owl (Bubo Virginianus Bon.), the Barred Owl (Syrnium nebulosum Gray), the Short-eared Owl (Brachyotus Cassinii Brew.), and the Long-eared Owl (Otus Wilsonianus Less.) Of the migratory species the most common and best known is the Snowy Owl (Nyctea nivea Gray) which visiting us, at times, in considerable numbers, at once attracts attention from its large size and white plumage. Very rarely the Great Grey or Cinereous Owl (Syrnium cinereum Aud.), one of the largest and most handsome of the American Owls, pays us a visit

from his home in the Canadas and sub-arctic regions. In northern New England the semi-diurnal Hawk Owl (Syrnia ulula Bon.) is comparatively common, and lurking near the hunter profits by the pieces of game which he throws away, or now and then captures wounded birds.

Excepting the cruel, selfish and solitary raptorial species, our winter birds mostly associate in groups, not of individuals of a single kind merely, but of species, drawn together chiefly perhaps from similarity of food, and probably also from real love of each other's society.

In the savage Butcher Bird or Northern Shrike (Collyrio borealis Baird), which seems but a hawk in miniature, we have, nevertheless, an exception to the gregarious tendency generally observed in winter among our smaller birds. He is one of our regular, but not very numerous visitors during the colder parts of the year, though less common than in the fall and spring; when those that winter farther south pass us in their migrations. It is, however, bolder, recklessly pouncing on birds in cages exposed near open windows. The song of a Canary will often retain him in the vicinity for a long time, waiting, restless and impatient from hunger, for an opportunity to make it his victim. In the woods he is continually quarrelling with the Jays, which both fear and hate him, and I have seen him in hot pursuit of a Chickadee, which was trembling with fright. The Butcher Bird is reputed to lay up a store of food by suspending or impaling its victims on thorns or twigs.

In winter all our birds seem to possess an unusual interest, perhaps no less from their scarcity than from the cheeriness their presence seems to lend. None, however, are dearer to me than the little woodland group of Titmice, the Nuthatches, the Creepers, the diminutive King