144 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
they hang upside down even more than the rubies, 
often flying up from one spray to light upside 
down on the one above. The goldens have a busi- 
ness-like way of getting under a leaf and picking 
off the insects one after another as fast as their 
tiny bills can work. Their song is said to be 
inferior to that of the rubies, which is considered 
a ten-days’ marvel coming from such a tiny bird. 
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AT: 
SNOW BUNTING; SNOWFLAKE. 
Tuts is the true snowbird, and though it be- 
longs in the same pigeon-hole — that of the finches 
and sparrows — it can never be confounded with 
the junco. The monastic juncos are closely 
shrouded in slate- gray robes and cowls, only a 
short under robe of white being marked off below 
their breasts. The snowflakes, on the other hand, 
as their name suggests, are mostly white, although — 
their backs are streaked with dusky and black. 
The juncos come about the house in spring and 
fall, and during the early snows, but the snow- 
birds, timid and strange, fly over the fields and 
are associated with the wonderful white days of a 
country winter, when the sky is white, the earth 
is white, and the white trees bow silently under 
the wand of winter till they stand an enchanted 
snow forest. For, as the flakes drift through the 
