112 SNOW-BIRD. 



they become almost half domesticated. They collect about the barn, 

 stables, and other outhouses, spread over the yard, and even round the 

 steps of the door ; not only in the country and villages, but in the heart 

 of our large cities ; crowding around the threshold early in the morn- 

 ing, gleaning up the crumbs ; appearing very lively ^nd familiar. They 

 have also recourse, at this severe season, when the face of the earth is 

 shut up from them, to the seeds of many kinds of weeds that still rise 

 above the snow, in corners of fields, and low sheltered situations along 

 the borders of creeks and fences, where they associate with several 

 species of Sparrows, particularly those represented on the same plate. 

 They are at this time easily caught with almost any kind of traps ; are 

 generally fat, and, it is said, are excellent eating. 



I cannot but consider this bird as the most numerous of its tribe of 

 any within the United States. From the northern parts of the district 

 of Maine, to the Ogechee river in Georgia, a distance by the circuitous 

 route in which I travelled of more than 1800 miles, I never passed a 

 day, and scarcely a mile, without seeing numbers of these birds, and 

 frequently large flocks of several thousands. Other travellers, with 

 whom I conversed, who had come from Lexington in Kentucky, through 

 Virginia, also declared that they found these birds numerous along the 

 whole road. It should be observed, that the road sides are their favorite 

 haunts, where many rank weeds that grow along the fences furnish them 

 with food, and the road with gravel. In the vicinity of places where 

 they were most numerous, I observed the small Hawk, represented in 

 the same plate, and several others of his tribe, watching their opportu- 

 nity, or hovering cautiously around, making an occasional sweep among 

 them, and retiring to the bare branches of an old cypress to feed on 

 their victim. In the month of April, when the weather begins to be 

 warm, they are observed to retreat to the woods ; and to prefer the 

 shaded sides of hills and thickets ; at which time the males warble out 

 a few very low sweet notes ; and are almost perpetually pursuing and 

 fighting with each other. About the twentieth of April they take their 

 leave of our humble regions, and retire to the north, and to the high 

 ranges of the Alleghany to build their nests, and rear their young. 

 In some of those ranges, in the interior of Virginia, and northward 

 about the waters of the west branch of the Susquehanna, they breed in 

 great numbers. The nest is fixed in the ground or among the grass, 

 sometimes several being within a small distance of each other. Accord- 

 ing to the observations of the gentlemen residing at Hudson's Bay 

 factory, they arrive there about the beginning of June, stay a week or 

 two, and proceed farther north to breed. They return to that settlement 

 in the autumn on their way to the south. 



In some parts of New England I found the opinion pretty general, 

 that the Snow-bird in summer is transformed into the small Chipping 



