140 SINGING BIRDS. 



inhabits all the woody districts of the remote fur countries from 

 the 65th parallel to Canada, and now and then in severe win- 

 ters extends his desultory migrations within the northern limits 

 of the United States. Scarcely has the winter traveller in those 

 cold regions chosen a suitable place of repose in the forest, 

 cleared away the snow, lighted his fire, and prepared his tent, 

 when Whiskey Jack insidiously pays him a visit, and boldly 

 descends into the social circle to pick up any crumbs of frozen 

 fish or morsels of dry meat that may have escaped the mouths 

 of the weary and hungry sledge-dogs. This confidence is almost 

 the only recommendation of our familiar intruder. There is 

 nothing pleasing in his voice, plumage, or attitudes. But this 

 dark, sinister dwarf of the North is now the only inhabitant of 

 those silent and trackless forests, and trusting from necessity in 

 the forbearance of man, he fearlessly approaches, and craves 

 his allowed pittance from the wandering stranger who visits his 

 dreary domain. At the fur posts and fishing stations he is also 

 a steady attendant, becoming so tamed in the winter by the 

 terrible inclemency of the climate as to eat tamely from the 

 offered hand ; yet at the same time, wild and indomitable 

 under this garb of humility, he seldom survives long in confine- 

 ment, and pines away with the loss of his accustomed liberty. 

 He hops with activity from branch to branch, but when at rest, 

 sits with his head drawn in, and with his plumage loose. The 

 voice of this inelegant bird is plaintive and squeaking, though 

 he occasionally makes a low chattering, especially when his food 

 appears in view. Like our Blue Jay, he has the habit of hoard- 

 ing berries, morsels of meat, etc., in the hollows of trees or 

 beneath their bark. These magazines prove useful in winter, 

 and enable him to rear his hardy brood even before the disap- 

 pearance of the snow from the ground, and long before any 

 other bird indigenous to those climates. The nest is concealed 

 with such care that but few of the natives have seen it. 



Whiskey Jack has evidently moved somewhat southward since 

 Nuttall made his observations, for the species is now a fairly com- 

 mon resident of the Maritime Provinces of Canada, as well as of 

 the northern portions of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New 



