The Chipping Sparrow is five inches and a quarter long, and eight inches in extent; frontlet black; chin and line over the eye whitish; crown chestnut; breast and sides of the neck pale ash; bill in winter black, in summer the lower mandible flesh coloured; rump dark ash; belly and vent white; back variegated with black and bright bay; wings black, broadly edged with bright chestnut; tail dusky, forked, and slightly edged with pale ochre; legs and feet a pale flesh colour. The female differs in having less black on the frontlet, and the bay duller. Both lose the black front in moulting.

SNOW-BIRD.

[Plate XVI.-Fig. 6.]

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Fringilla Hudsonia, TURTON, Syst. 1, 568.—Emberiza hyemalis, Id. 531.-LATH. I, 66.-CATESBY, 1, 36.-Arct. Zool. p. 359, No. 223.-Passer nivalis, BARTRAM, p. 291.-PEALE'S Museum, No. 6532.

THIS well known species, small and insignificant as it may appear, is by far the most numerous, as well as the most extensively disseminated, of all the feathered tribes that visit us from the frozen regions of the north. Their migrations extending from the arctic circle, and probably beyond it, to the shores of the gulf of Mexico, sreading over the whole breadth of the United States from the Atlantic ocean to Louisiana; how much farther westward I am unable to say. About the twentieth of October they make their first appearance in those parts of Pennsylvania east of the Alleghany mountains. At first they are most generally seen on the borders of woods among the falling and decayed leaves, in loose flocks of thirty or forty together, always taking to the trees when disturbed. As the weather sets in colder they approach nearer the farm-house and villages; and on the appearance of what is usually called falling weather, assemble in larger flocks, and seem doubly diligent in searching for food. This increased activity is generally a sure prognostic of a storm. When deep snow covers the ground they become almost half domesticated. They collect about the barn, stables, and other outhouses, spread over the yard, and even round the steps of the door; not only in the country and villages, but in the heart of our large cities; crowding around the threshold

* Fringilla hyemalis, LINN. Syst. Ed. 10, 1, p. 183, 30.

early in the morning, gleaning up the crumbs; appearing very lively and familiar. They have also recourse, at this severe season, when the face of the earth is shut up from them, to the seeds of many kinds of weeds that still rise above the snow, in corners of fields, and low sheltered situations along the borders of creeks and fences, where they associate with several species of Sparrows, particularly those represented on the same plate. They are at this time easily caught with almost any kind of traps; are generally fat, and, it is said, are excellent eating.

I cannot but consider this bird as the most numerous of its tribe of any within the United States. From the northern parts of the district of Maine, to the Ogechee river in Georgia, a distance by the circuitous route in which I travelled of more than 1800 miles, I never passed a day, and scarcely a mile, without seeing numbers of these birds, and frequently large flocks of several thousands. Other travellers, with whom I conversed, who had come from Lexington in Kentucky, through Virginia, also declared that they found these birds numerous along the whole road. It should be observed, that the road sides are their favourite haunts, where many rank weeds that grow along the fences furnish them with food, and the road with gravel. In the vicinity of places where they were most numerous, I observed the small Hawk, represented in the same plate, and several others of his tribe, watching their opportunity, or hovering cautiously around, making an occasional sweep among them, and retiring to the bare branches of an old cypress to feed on their victim. In the month of April, when the weather begins to be warm, they are observed to retreat to the woods; and to prefer the shaded sides of hills and thickets; at which time the males warble out a few very low sweet notes; and are almost perpetually pursuing and fighting with each other. About the twentieth of April they take their leave of our humble regions, and retire to the north, and to the high ranges of the Alleghany to build their nests, and rear their young. In some of those ranges, in the interior of Virginia, and northward about the

waters of the west branch of the Susquehanna, they breed in great numbers. The nest is fixed in the ground or among the grass, sometimes several being within a small distance of each other. According to the observations of the gentlemen residing at Hudson's bay factory, they arrive there about the beginning of June, stay a week or two, and proceed farther north to breed. They return to that settlement in the autumn on their way to the south.

In some parts of New England I found the opinion pretty general, that the Snow-bird in summer is transformed into the small Chipping Sparrow, which we find so common in that season, and which is represented in the same plate. I had convinced a gentleman of New York of his mistake in this matter, by taking him to the house of a Mr. Gautier, there, who amuses himself by keeping a great number of native as well as foreign birds. This was in the month of July, and the Snow-bird appeared there in the same coloured plumage he usually has. Several individuals of the Chipping Sparrow were also in the same apartment. The evidence was therefore irresistible; but as I had not the same proofs to offer to the eye in New England, I had not the same success.

There must be something in the temperature of the blood or constitution of this bird which unfits it for residing, during summer, in the lower parts of the United States; as the country here abounds with a great variety of food, of which, during its stay here, it appears to be remarkably fond. Or, perhaps, its habit of associating in such numbers to breed, and building its nest with so little precaution, may, to ensure its safety, require a solitary region, far from the intruding footsteps of man.

The Snow-bird is six inches long, and nine in extent, the head, neck, and upper parts of the breast, body and wings, are of a deep slate colour; the plumage sometimes skirted with brown, which is the colour of the young birds; the lower parts of the breast, the whole belly and vent, are pure white; the three secondary quill feathers next the body are edged with brown, the primaries with white; the tail is dusky slate, a little

forked, the two exterior feathers wholly white, which are flirted out as it flies, and appear then very prominent; the bill and legs are of a reddish flesh colour; the eye bluish black. The female differs from the male in being considerably more brown. In the depth of winter the slate colour of the male becomes more deep and much purer, the brown disappearing nearly altogether.