HARD WICKE' S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



171 



The geological character of the mountains is entirely 

 different to that of the Bernese Oberland : instead of 

 limestone, the prevailing rock is gneiss and mica- 

 schist. A second visit, a month or so later in the 

 season, might be made advantageously, from a 

 botanical point of view, to these elevated regions. 



We stayed on our return for half a day at Sion, 

 noticing in particular the profusion in which Di- 

 plotaxis tenuifoUa grows about the place. On the 

 rocks crowned by the old fort grow AitdroscTimim 

 Iscluvmum, Aspcrula longiflom, Corojiilla varia, 

 Isatis tinctoria, Stipa capillata (panicle hardly 

 emerged). Thymus paiinonicits (a hirsute form of 

 Cka?nicdiys). The custodian of the place assured us 

 that many rarities grew formerly within the precincts 

 of the place, but that they had all been exterminated ; 

 in proof of his assertion he produced a specimen of 

 an Artemisia, not in flower, which looked like spicata. 



My brother of the vasculum brought back as the 

 " finds " of an afternoon walk in the environs of the 

 town, fine specimens of AlVnim spJurroccphahim and 

 aciiiangulum, Delphinium consoUda, Quercuspiibesceiis, 

 and Ephedra helvetica in fruit ; also, but rather passee, 

 oi Adniiis Jlammula, Bupleurum rotuiidifoliiim, and 

 Caucalis daucoidcs. 



SOME WINTER BIRDS OF NEW JERSEY. 

 By Dr. Charles C. Abbott. 



{Continued from p. 146.] 



I REMEMBER some years ago reading in 

 Science-Gossip, a protest against introducing 

 this finch (cardinal grosbeak) into England, because it 

 would prove destructive to fruit. This is nonsense, or 

 you must put a deal more value on wild berries than we 

 do. As to cultivated fruits, they will not disturb them. 

 They are birds that will hold their own wherever 

 they may be, and would not be out of place even in 

 English wild woods. 



In my walk to-day, I chanced upon a vigorous 

 growth of winter-berry, laden with its crimson fruit. 

 Had there been snow upon the ground, it would 

 have made a splendid show ; and when I was within 

 ^rm's reach of the bush, out flew a cardinal that had 

 been lurking among the berries. I have since been 

 wondering if it knew how eff'ectually the red fruit 

 concealed it. Had it been sitting there to avoid 

 detection ? I looked about for a lurking hawk, but 

 saw only one, and at a great distance. Perhaps it 

 was hiding from me only. 



I did not see the pretty purple finches to-day, but 

 have already noticed their arrival from the north. 

 They, too, can sing sweetly. Thoreau in his journal 

 records : " I think it must be the purple finch 

 .... which I hear singing so sweetly. ... It 

 has a little of the marten warble and of the canary 

 bird." Later he describes the song as " a twitter 

 witter, weeter wee, a witter witter wee." As I 



hear it, at the close of winter, it is less elaborate 

 than described above : but that is its summer %ox\<y. 

 Here, in winter, it is practising only, but it is melody 

 for all that. 



It is too early yet for the snow buntings, and, it 

 may be, we shall have none to visit us ; but I always 

 look for at least one goodly flock, after a general 

 snowstorm. As he is one of your winter birds, I will 

 say nothing more, but a comparison of his habits here 

 and with you might be of interest. Here, in New 

 Jersey, as Thoreau has written of them in New 

 England, they "are the true spirits of the snowstorm. 

 They are the animated beings that ride upon it and 

 have their life in it." And elsewhere, in his winter 

 journal, " As I flounder along the corner road against 

 the root fence, a very large flock of snow buntings 

 alight with a wheeling flight amid the weeds rising; 

 above the snow : . . . . they keep up a constant 

 twittering. . , . Besides their rippling note, they 

 have a vibratory twitter, and from the loiterers 

 you have quite a tender peep, as they fly after the 

 vanishing flock." I have heard this many and many 

 a time, and suppose it is nothing new to my English 

 friends, who know the bird at all. 



There are yet others of the great finch family, 

 but I can name but two at this time, — the pine- 

 finch and the common crossbill. The former 

 never fails us ; they are here to-day (December 

 11) in abundance; but the crossbills are not so 

 certain. Both are given to pine and cedar forests, 

 but the pine-finch is less particular, and deciduous 

 trees are freely hunted over, so probably seeds are 

 not its only food. Our text-books of American. 

 Ornithology give the impression that severe cold 

 is necessary to bring these birds as far south as 

 New Jersey. This is not true. They come very often 

 before winter fairly sets in, and, whether cold or 

 mild, it matters little, if any ; here from November 

 to April they are sure to be. 



Their song is not elaborate, certainly, but it gains 

 by concerted utterance, as do so many of our winter 

 birds. To have a hundred or more of these finches 

 settle upon a low pine, and each bird singing as best he 

 can, is to have something more than a lively jingle. 

 It has that suggestiveness which makes us forget that 

 it is winter ; or leaves us in the still better frame of 

 mind, that winter is not a long period of nature 

 paralysed, and of decay and death. 



Crossbills are tantalisingly uncertain, and are often 

 in the Pennsylvania cedar swamps and among the 

 clustered pines there, when here, in New Jersey, not 

 ten miles away, there are none. The thermometrical 

 conditions have something to do with it. Writers 

 do not credit them with marked musical powers, and 

 here they chirp only, but certainly not in an unmusical 

 way. I would that they were more abundant. Less 

 frequently seen are the white-winged species. As 

 you, too, have these birds, I shall say no more, save 

 that when I happen to look out from my study 



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