BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 329 



No bird-notes of my own, or of my correspondents, fail to 

 embrace this species in localities according with its well-known 

 habits everywhere in the State. It is, however, not a numerous 

 species. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Bill red; crown continuous rufous red. Back somewhat simi- 

 lar, streaked with blackish. Sides of head and neck, including 

 a superciliary stripe, ashy; ear coverts rufous; beneath white, 

 anteriorly tinged with yellowish; tail feathers and quills faintly 

 edged with white. Two white bands across the wing coverts. 



Length, 5,75; wing, 2.35. 



Habitat, Eastern United States and southern Canada, west 

 to the plains. 



JUNCO HIEMALIS (L.). (567.) 



SLATE-COLORED JUNCO. 



The snow-birds are so extensively distributed, and every- 

 where so well known, that any one at all acquainted with 

 them will expect to find them included in our Minnesota 

 birds. They may be listed as permanent residents, at least 

 along our southern borders, where belts of timber between 

 sheltering bluffs and along water-courses afford more favorable 

 quarters during the severest weather. At the locality from 

 which I write they are rarely seen in winter, but come in force 

 variously from the 20th of March to the first of April, when one 

 who "sees birds at all" must be prepared to have them spring 

 up from almost any slightly protected ambush, and almost 

 from under his feet, and simultaneously dash into the nearest 

 thicket or brush-heap, to cautiously slip out of the hastily- 

 chosen covert, one at a time, and flit to a safer distance, if not 

 better hiding place. They usually, as a kind of feathered 

 courtesy, or sort of a courtship, have mingled with them more 

 or less abundantly, some of the other sparrows, amongst which 

 are the White- crowned, Pox- colored. Clay -colored, Song and 

 Tree Sparrows, etc. They have only a chipping note, while 

 thus abundant, that very much resembles the true chippies (spi- 

 zella socialis). By the first week in May the principal part 

 of them have disappeared. They breed extensively in the north 

 part of the State, and exceptionally in many others affording 

 favorable conditions. Their principal food consists of larvae 

 and insects, especially small beetles, but they are quite omniv- 

 orous, devouring many kinds of seeds as well. 



