OUR WINTER BIRDS, 29 



( Tetran Canadensis) and the ruffed grouse ( Bonasa umbellusy,which. 

 remain with us all winter. These birds are well protected by a 

 dense coat of feathers, and frequent dense forests, and they also 

 have a habit of darting down from a tree and dashing themselves 

 into the snow for a considerable distance and remaining there 

 during extremely cold weather for the sake of the warmth, as 

 the snow falls lightly down after them, closing the aperture of 

 entrance, and the warmth of their bodies thaws a little chamber 

 around them and the heat generated does not escape. I have 

 been told by lumbermen that when they take out a lunch which 

 they do not wish to get frozen the}' dash it into the snow in the 

 same manner and it v»'ill not freeze ; but if they take extra jjains 

 to pat the snow down around it, it will freeze solid. The part- 

 ridge probably made this discovery before them. If, however, 

 it comes on to rain a little and then freezes suddenly after, so as- 

 to form a crust, sometimes the partridges are unable to get out 

 again. 



The most of our winter birds belong to the sub-class Aves 

 AereiP, or insessores, and are mostly to be found as denizens of 

 the deep woods or forests. 



Among the Falcondte we have the goshawk {Adur atricap- 

 ■illvs)^ and the sharpshinned hawk {Accipitur fuscus). The gos- 

 hawk is a large, powerful and handsome hawk of a dark slate 

 colour, with a black crown. It is not very common but is a ven- 

 turesome hunter, and a story is told of a farmer who was going 

 to have a chicken pie, who, having cut off the head of a chicken, 

 saw a goshawk fly down and take the struggling chicken and 

 fly up into a tree and proceed to take his dinner off' it, but as 

 the farmer had a loaded gun in the house that dinner was never 

 finished. Another goshawk chased a hen right into a house, 

 where an old man and a girl were sitting, and seized it ; but 

 he bade "farewell to hope Avhen he entered there,'' for he never 

 came out. 



Their principal food consists of poultry, ducks, grouse, hares, 

 squirrels and other rodents. The sharpshinned hawk we have 

 also here during the winter, and last winter one domesticated 

 himself in a barn in town where a lot of English sparrows had 

 also taken shelter, and, killing a few each day, he had converted 

 them all except two into hawk when he was killed himself by 



