FINCHES. 233 



later he was found, looking rather forlorn, though sufficiently 

 active to escape a recapture. 



The Snow-birds, as I have discovered from several observa- 

 tions made in March, though early risers, are very drowsy at 

 sunrise. At that season they usually passed the night in 

 evergreens, and before six o'clock in the morning gathered at 

 some lilacs and other bushes, where many slept or rather 

 napped, for several minutes, near the ground, though others 

 were actively employed. So great was their drowsiness that 

 I could approach them closely before they made the effort to 

 rouse themselves. Other birds, observed at the same time, 

 such as the " Red-polls," Crows, and Robins, seemed to awake 

 with a desire for immediate activity, except those who sang 

 before leaving their roosts. 



d. The Snow-birds have a loud chuck, and cries of chit, 

 chit-a-sit, or the like, which they utter particularly as they 

 take to flight. 91 They have also in spring a great variety of 

 twitters, trills, and even tinkling sounds, which are often so 

 combined as to form a lively song. The notes which they 

 employ when excited or quarreling strongly resemble the 

 sound produced by the shying of a stone across the ice. 

 Their trills are often so like those of the Pine Warblers, 

 though more open and more like twitters, that it is difficult 

 to distinguish them when the birds are together in the pines. 

 These notes also differ but little from those of the Swamp 

 Sparrow, in whose haunts, however, the Snow-birds rarely 

 occur. 



As the most common and regular of our winter visitors, and 

 almost the only ones who ever seek the neighborhood of man, 

 the Snow-birds are certainly entitled to our affection ; and 

 their liveliness cannot but afford pleasure, when brought 

 directly in contrast at our very doors, so to speak, with the 

 cold and storms of midwinter. 



NOTE. According to Mr. William Brewster (Bulletin, 

 Ntittall Ornithological Club, April, 1876, Vol. I, No. 1) a 

 female Oregon Snow-bird (Junco oregonus) was " shot 



91 See 1, I, D. 



