78 Capt. Blakiston on the Birds of the 



visitor ;" but when I reached the bottom of the hill leading down 

 from the plain into the river valley in which the fort is situated, I 

 observed a dull-coloured birdflyacross the track, and ahght among 

 some maple-trees ; I was soon up with him, and bringing him 

 down, I found to my delight that it was a Tree Sparrow {S. monti- 

 cola){' Ibis,' vol. iv. p. 6). In my joy at having killed the first 

 spring bird, I yelled a sort of Indian war-whoop, and went off 

 whistling to the fort. Its crop contained the interior grains of the 

 Snow-berry [Symphoi'icarpus rucemosus), which M. Bourgeau, the 

 botanist, determined for me, and said that he had met with the 

 plant "partout " west of Lake Winipeg, and that it was common as 

 a bush about two feet high in the river valley at Fort Carlton. 

 A fresh south-west wind blew on the 19th, and on the 20th I 

 found another Tree Sparrow, and the next day a party of seven 

 or eight. After this the spring wore slowly on, and it was some 

 time before we received any more additions in the ornithological 

 way ; so that the Tree Sparrow may be considered by far the 

 earliest of the Insessores. The ' Fauna Bor.-Am.' remarks that 

 it leaves the Saskatchawan in the third week in April, and goes 

 farther north to breed. Mr. Murray has received specimens 

 from Hudson's Bay ; and Mr. Ross records it on the Mackenzie ; 

 while I found it from York Factory, on the western coast of the 

 Bay, in August, to Lake Winipeg and up the Saskatchawan till 

 the 14th of October. It was then nearly always in company 

 with Junco hyemalis ; but that bird did not arrive until some time 

 after it in the spring. The Tree Sparrow may always be distin- 

 guished from among the other sparrow- like Buntings, when in a 

 wild state, by the chestnut of the head and the dark spot on the 

 breast. In 1858 1 met with it as late as the 28th of October, on 

 the north branch of the Saskatchawan, and found that its range 

 extended to the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains. 



Spizella socialis. 



Notwithstanding that the Chipping Sparrow ranges across 

 the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it has not been 

 found, until lately, in the interior of British North America, 

 except at Pembina, ^yhere the boundary-line (the 49th parallel) 

 crosses the Red River of the North, from which locality there is 

 a specimen in the Smithsonian Institution. Mr. Ross, however, 



