DECEMBER. So5 



their sweet, but weak song.* Some weeks ago I 



found a mammal, which I cannot find described in Dr. God- 

 man's American Quadrupeds, and which may possibly be 

 unknown. I took it for a species of Arvicola, resembling 

 the common short-tailed field-mouse, but with a shorter tail, 

 and the head much rounder and more bluff; the ears were 

 large ; it was of a dark iron-grey colour. It had probably 

 been caught by a cat, for it was lying dead on the earth, 

 near the house. It may possibly be Arvicola Hudsonius, 

 or perhaps a Geomys. 



C. — I see, at a great distance, at the margin of the 

 forest, a sudden bright gleam of light recurring at regular 

 intervals of two or three seconds. Do you see it ? or do you 

 know what it is ? 



F . — It is a woodman chopping ; he is too far off to be 

 distinguished among the bushes and underbrush ; but every 

 time he lifts his axe above his head, the polished steel re- 

 flects the sun's light, and makes those fitful flashes. It has 

 a singular appearance, unconnected, as it seems, with any 

 apparent cause. 



C. — The insect world I have found to be not altogether 

 so shut up from observation as I had imagined. On Christ- 

 mas-day, I took a walk into the woods ; and examining the 

 stump of an old decayed hemlock, I found in it two minute 

 Ckri/somelidcB, a small black Cantharis, and two specimens 



* At the time of making the observations on which the above remarks 

 are founded, I had no doubt at all that these were Yellow-birds, from their 

 mode of flight, song, colour, and manners. But I have since been induced 

 to believe that they might perhaps have been the Pine Finch (Fringilla 

 Pinus), a winter bird ; and which, I find by reference to Wilson, has a 

 very remarkable resemblance to the yeUow-bird in all these respects, parti- 

 cularly in note and plumage. The same remark will apply to the observa- 

 tion made in XXV. December 1st. page 345. P. H. G. 



