i886.] Brewster vn the Birds of Westerfi North Carolina. lOQ 



I should hesitate to propose a new race in a group which has already 

 given so much trouble, were it not that the characters just mentioned are 

 remarkably constant in the series of six specimen before me. The bird is 

 much larger than kyemalis, and its general coloring is lighter, clearer, and 

 bluer, as well as more uniform, the crown being perfectly concolor with 

 the back, which is rarely, if ever, the case in hyemalis. The dark color of 

 the bill also is an apparently good point of difference, at least between 

 the bird under consideration and hyemalis of New England and northward, 

 for in a series of some fifty specimens of the latter I do not find one which 

 posesses this character, the bills of all being straw-yellow with sometimes 

 a pinkish suffusion. Among a smaller number taken in early spring at 

 Washington, D. C, however, are several with bills colored precisely as 

 in the North Carolina birds. In other respects, however, these specimens 

 are identical with hyemalis proper. It is probable that they represent the 

 form which breeds on the mountains of Virginia and Pennsylvania and 

 which naturally would be in varying degrees intermediate between the 

 extreme northern and southern types. Linnjeus, it should be mentioned, 

 based his Fringilla hyemalis on the F. nivalis^ of Catesby, but the latter 

 author's description clearly relates to our noi'thern bird, which occurs nu- 

 merously in winter throughout the low country of the Carolinas, while 

 this large form appears to be resident in the mountains. 



This new and interesting race of our northern Junco was found only at 

 Highlands and on the Black Mountains, but it doubtless occurs at other 

 points wherever the country is sufficiently elevated to suit its boreal tem- 

 perament. About Highlands it was seen everj'where ; flitting along the 

 snake fences that border the fields and roads, twittering shyly in the 

 depths of the 'laurel' swamps, flirting unexpectedly Yrom beneath the 

 oaks in the open woodlands, and on the grassy, wind-swept mountain 

 summits, hopping fearlessly among our horses or peering curiously at 

 their riders. 



On the Black Mountains it was decidedly the commonest bird, rang- 

 ing from an elevation of about 4300 feet to the very top of Mitchell's 

 High Peak. It was here found quite as numerously in the hardwood for- 

 ests below 5000 feet as among the spruces and balsams above that altitude. 

 The mountain people call it 'Snowbird,' and say that it spends the winter 

 in the lower and more sheltered valleys, returning to the mountain sides 

 as soon as spring begins. Thus it is doubtless a local and essentially 

 resident form. 



I am indebted to Mr. Boynton for two sets of four eggs each, with the 

 nests, taken at Highlands, respectively June 30 and July 7, 18S5. The eggs 

 are larger than those o{ hyemalis but similar in color and markings. The 

 nests are also larger and composed of coarser material, although both are 

 lined neatly with horse-hair. The one collected July 7 was placed "in a 

 bank by the roadside," a site often chosen by our northern bird, but the 

 other was built in "a berry bush in a garden, four feet above the ground., " 

 and hence in a situation never occupied, I believe, by the nest oi hyemalis. 



* Catesby's Car., I, p. 37. 



