4,eQ HISTORY OF THE 



"No. 61302, male; El Paso Co., Colorado, December 11, 1871, C. E. Aiken: 

 Head, neck, jusulum, and entire upper parts, clear ash; the back with a bluish 

 tinge; the lores, quills and tail feathers darker; middle and secondary wing 

 coverts rather broadly tipped with white, forming two conspicuous bands. Lower 

 part of breast, abdomen and crissum pure white; the anterior outline against 

 the ash of the jugulum convex; sides tinged with ash. Three lateral tall feath- 

 ers entirely white, the third, however, with a narrow streak of dusky on the 

 terminal third of the outer web; the next feather mostly plumbeous, with the 

 basal fourth of the outer web and the terminal half of the inner (along the 

 shaft) white. Wing, 3.40; tail, 3.30; culmeu, .50; depth of bill at base, .30; 

 tarsus, .80." 



I have never met with this species, and therefore have no 

 personal knowledge in regard to its habits, etc. 



Its nest and eggs have not been found. It probably does 

 not differ in its breeding habits from its congeners. Mr, T. M. 

 Trippe, in notes published by Dr. Coues, in "Birds of the North- 

 west," says, in regard to the different species and races of this 

 genus, at Idaho Springs, Colorado, that this bird is — - 



"Abundant; does not breed. This race is evidently the most 

 northern of the five, as it arrives latest (in November) and de- 

 parts earliest (in March), ranging higher, also, than any of the 

 others, up to 10,000 feet, and probably still farther. In its 

 notes and habits the White-winged Snowbird (Junco) differs 

 somewhat from its congeners: its song is louder and sweeter; 

 it is less gregarious in its nature; and it frequents brushy hill 

 tops and mountain sides, high up above the valleys and rarely 

 visited by the other species during winter. It is the only Snow- 

 bird at all common during winter, choosing as its favorite haunts 

 the bushy ravines and hollows, as well as the valleys of the 

 larger streams, and wandering thence far up on the mountains, 

 associating in small parties only, more than six or eight being 

 rarely seen together. During the coldest weather only the well- 

 marked, typical birds are seen, among which are both males and 

 females, the former being most numerous; but toward the close 

 of winter the females become more abundant, and among a large 

 series of specimens obvious approaches to both liyeinalis and 

 oregonus may be distinguished, especially toward the former. 

 The intergradation, however, is by no means as perfect as that 

 between the two latter races, and a specimen that cannot be de- 



