never read his writings on the birds. Then it was that I felt uncomfortable in 

 being forced to confess that I had not had the pleasure. Pokagon then told me 

 his legend of the robin, which I have since seen in birch-bark book form, and 

 his story of the days when the chimney swifts dwelt in hollow trees and went 

 in and out like black clouds and with a "roar of wings like the mutter of 

 thunder." 



We left the old Pottawattomie at dusk with a sort of a sadness on our 

 spirits. The drive back to Hartford was under the glittering stars of a cloudless 

 sky. Pokagon had cared for the inner cravings of his guests, both man and 

 beast, and our rested and refreshed horses homeward bound needed neither 

 the urging of voice nor whip. As we sped onward through the darkness, the 

 thought that I was through with the birds for the day came into my mind. No 

 sooner was the thought framed than from a wood by the roadside came the 

 loud hoot of an owl, as if to say, "Day or night, you cannot get away from us." 



The Snow Bunting {PUctrophenax nivalis) 



By W. Leon Dawson 



Length : 6>4 inches. 



Range: Northern parts of the northern hemisphere, breeding in Arctic 

 regions, south in winter to Illinois and northern United States. 



The guests of winter form a distinct category in the bird-man's reckoning. 

 There are loyal hearts which no adversity of winter elements (short of sheer 

 freezing, which is brutal) can drive from our midst — song sparrows, titmice, nut- 

 hatches — and to these we pay appropriate honors. But, after all, these simple- 

 hearted creatures, who refuse to budge from their native heaths and tree-holes, 

 lack not only the culture of travel in foreign parts, but the da=h and wild 

 romance of those who hazard their fortune to the north wind. What treasures 

 of choice spirits are poured out upon us when the winds blow raw and the 

 streams hide their faces ! Hardy Norsemen they, — the redpolls, the longspurs, 

 the horned larks, and the snowflakes. They burst upon us in the wake of the 

 first storm, and set up in our back pastures a wintry Valhalla, where good cheer 

 of a very sturdy sort reigns supreme. 



In spite of striking difference of form and color a strange similarity exists 

 among these northern visitors, so that one may easily contruct a mental genre 

 picture — or, at most, two such — which will fairly represent them all. Thus the 

 snowflakes, the longspurs. the horned larks, — and through them even the daft 

 pipits — have a common fashion of giving themselves to the air to be blown 

 about at hazard : or, when the season advances, of setting their faces also with 

 equal steadfastness against the gainsaying of the blast. Their notes, too (ex- 

 cepting this time the inane yipping of the pipit), have a weird wind-born quality 

 which is inseparable in thought from the shrill piping of the storm. To carry 



360 



