OF NEW ENGLAND. 225 



which he soon afterwards reeled and again fell. After a brief 

 chase, daring which he flew feebly, iisnally alighting on the 

 ground, I again captured him. On being taken to my room, 

 he was for some while listless, but afterwards picked up a few 

 of the grains spread for him on the floor, though he refused 

 water. He soon began to fly about the room, most often 

 against the window-panes, and was finally allowed to escape, 

 when he perched in a bush, where half an hour later he was 

 found, looking rather forlorn, though sufficiently active to es- 

 cape a recapture. 



The Snow-birds, as I have discovered from several observa- 

 tions made in March, though earl}^ risers, are very drowsy at 

 sunrise. They at that season usually passed the night in 

 evergreens, and before six o'clock in the morning gathered at 

 some lilacs and other bushes, where many slept or rather 

 napped, for several minutes, near the ground, though others 

 were actively employed. So great was their drowsiness that I 

 could approach them closely before they made the effort to 

 rouse themselves. Other birds, observed at the same time, 

 such as the "Red-polls," Crows, and Robins, seemed to awake 

 with a desire for immediate activity, except those who sang 

 before leaving their roosts. 



(d). The Snow-birds have a loud cJmck^ and cries of chit, 

 chit-a-sit, or the like, which they utter particularly as they 

 take to flight.*''' They have also in spring a great variety 

 of twitters, trills, and even tinkling sounds, which are often 

 so combined as to form a lively song. The notes which they 

 employ when excited or quarreling strongly resemble the sound 

 produced by the shying of a stone across the ice. Their trills 

 are often so like those of the Pine Warblers, though more 

 open and more like twitters, that it is difficult to distinguish 

 them when the birds are together in the pines. These notes 

 also differ but little from those of the Swamp Sparrow, in 

 whose haunts, however, the Snow-birds rarel}^ occur. 



As the most common and regular of our winter-visitors, and 



6'See§l, I,D. 

 16 



