54 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. 



around our house a few days ago; a plain-coloured^ but 

 pretty little bird. The Tree Sparrow (Fringilla Arbor ea)^ 

 easily known by a brown spot on the breast, is numerous 

 every day, in cattle yards and around bams. I have ob- 

 served some small flocks of the Golden Eye (Alias Clan- 

 gula), swimming in those parts of the Masuippi River, which 

 are unfrozen : it is a pretty little duck, and when it flies its 

 wings make such a loud whirring as to be heard at a consi- 

 derable distance. Mr. Armour of Sherbrooke showed me a 

 fine specimen of that handsome bird, the Snow Owl ( Strix 

 Nyctea)y which had been shot in that neighbourhood. It 

 stands about two feet high ; the plumage is soft and beauti- 

 fully white, with crescent- shaped spots of dark brown all 

 over the body. These, beside the Snow-bunting, the Titmice, 

 Woodpeckers, Blue and Canada Jays, are, I beheve, all that 

 have lately fallen under my observation. 



C. — What is the reason that the Masuippi is not frozen 

 so solid as the Coatacook ? 



F. — I suppose it is owing to its greater rapidity : it is 

 always open much later, and breaks up much earlier, and 

 there are frequently patches of open water through the winter. 



C. — Yonder goes a rabbit. 



F. — More properly the American Hare (Lepus Aineri- 

 canus), the rabbit being unknown on this continent, though 

 it is, with us, universally called by that name. It is found 

 pretty generally over North America, from this province 

 even to the Gulf of Mexico, where it is, more common than 

 it is with us. Here its winter coat is nearly white, as in 

 the one which we have just seen, but in summer it is of a 

 yellowish brown, with a white tail. It makes a nest or bed 

 of moss and leaves in some hollow tree or old log, ^vhence it 

 issues chiefly by night. Though not so much addicted to 

 gnawing as the squirrels, yet as its teeth are formed in the 



