ioo8 Rural, School Leaflet. 



Not a very good day for birds, we think, as we start across a large 

 open field. Even the tree sparrows seek shelter on such a day. But 

 never is there a winter's day so cold and raw, nor a summer's day so 

 hot and sultry but that there are birds to be found somewhere. As 

 we start across the field, we hear a sound that makes us stop and 

 strain our ears. Away to the north of us, somewhere in the atmos- 

 phere, we hear it again; a short mellow rolling whistle. It is an- 

 swered by another and another until we know that there is a whole 

 flock of them, and they are coming toward us. Yet strain as we may, 

 we cannot see them. Suddenly they are right above us, fully five 

 hundred of them and we no longer wonder that we had not seen them 

 before. For, apparently, almost entirely white, they pass over us 

 like a flurry of snow and we can scarcely believe that they are birds. 

 See with what military precision they wheel first in one direction and 

 then another and at last with a final sweep settle down on the weeds 

 of a neighboring field. At first they are uneasy and many times they 

 rise up as with a single thought, and after circling around, settle 

 back again. 



At last we are enabled to get a good look at them and we find that 

 they are not so white as we had at first supposed. In fact their 

 wings, except for a large white patch, and the middle of their tails 

 are black. Their backs, too, if it were not for a sufi'usion of brown 

 and gray would be black and their heads and breasts which we had sup- 

 posed were pure white, are somewhat tinged with rusty. Neverthe- 

 less, they are much whiter than any of our other small birds and we 

 know that they are Snowflakes. How happy and cheerful they are 

 on this blustering day ! Their gaiety seems almost out of place as 

 they stop their feeding long enough to chase one another over the icy 

 crust or to give that merry call note which had first told us of their 

 arrival. 



The Snowflakes are rather erratic being much more abundant some 

 winters than others, so that in their winter migrations we do not 

 always- see them. Along the seashore they are generally more 

 abundant than inland but scarcely a year passes that some of them 

 do not drift over the interior and visit our grassy fields wherever the 

 wind uncovers the weeds. In New York State, they are truly snow 

 birds for they appear with the first snows of October or November 

 and disappear with the thaws of ]\Iarch or April. It is, however, 

 during January or February, a time when other birds are least abund- 

 ant, that we are most likely to see them. 



