THE OTTAWA NATURALIST 



VOL. XXV. OTTAWA, DECEMBER, 1911 No. 9 



POPULAR AND PRACTICAL ORNITHOLOGY. 



(I). The Snowflake. 



By Norman Criddle. 



Snowflakes are birds of the Northern Hemisphere, breeding 

 in the far north from Newfoundland, Greenland and Hudson's 

 Ba\\ west to Alaska, and north to about lat. 63. They winter 

 throughout the Canadian Provinces south to the middle United 

 States. 



As we know it, the Snowflake is a whitish bird with partly 

 black wings and tail, and its back washed with brown. In its 

 summer dress it is entirely black and white. lis home, as I have 

 stated, is in the far nordi where the feet of white men seldom 

 tread. Here among the mosses, or hidden by some over-hanging 

 rock or boulder, it builds its nest and rears its young. Here too, 

 it sings its song of love a song that we in the south seldom or 

 never learn to know. This song has been described by some as 

 sweet and pleasing, by others as mere twittering or a short 

 whistle. Personally, I have never had an opportunity of meeting 

 the bird in its breeding grounds, but to judge from a captive 

 that had lost the power of flight, its song is both loud and pleas- 

 ing, being somewhat of the jovial type that distingufshes the 

 Fox Sparrow, in fact there is just a faint resemblance between 

 the two. I can bring it to mind by the following syllables: 

 When will-you meet me, when will-you meet me. This is uttered 

 in a clear, loud voice, and when once heard cannot be confused, 

 so far as I know, with any other song. The song too is often 

 followed bv a number of very shrill notes resembling the first 

 few in the air song of an Oven bird, which would lead one to 

 suspect that our bird is a competitor to be reckoned with for a 

 place among the songsters of the air. 



To most of us, however, the Snowflake is a winter bird, not 

 a summer one. We are apt to herald its return from the north 

 as a harbinger of winter and to associate its presence, in numbers, 

 as an indication of rough weather, or perchance a blizzard. As 



