SNOW-BIRD. 



Fringilla Hudsonia. 



PLATE XXXI. THE SNOW-BIRD. 



The Snow-bird is six inches long, and nine in extent ; 

 the head, neck, and upper parts of the breast, body, and 

 wings, are of ^ deep slate color; the plumage sometimes 

 skirted with brovn, which is the color of the young birds ; 

 the lower parts of <he breast, the whole belly and vent, are 

 pure white ; the thret secondary quill feathers next the body 

 are edged with brown the primaries with white ; the tail 

 is dusky slate, a little forked, the two exterior feathers 

 wholly white, which are fiirted out as it flies, and appear 

 then very prominent ; the bill and legs are of a reddish 

 flesh color ; the eye bluish black. The female differs 

 from the male in being considerably more brown. In the 

 depth of winter the slate color of xhe male becomes more 

 deep and much purer, the brown disappearing nearly alto- 

 gether. 



This well-known species, small and insignificant as it 

 may appear, is by far the most numerou;., as well as the 

 most extensively disseminated, of all the feathered tribes 

 that visit us from the frozen regions of the Lorth. Their 

 migrations extending from the arctic circle, and probably 

 bevorid it, to the shores of the gulf of Mexico, spreading 

 over the whole breadth of the United States, from the 

 Atlantic Ocean to Louisiana; how much farther westward " 

 I am unable to say. About the twentieth of October, they 

 make their first appearance in those parts of Pennsylvania 

 east of the Alleghany mountains. At first they are most 

 generally seen on the borders of woods, among the falling 

 and decayed leaves, in loose flocks of thirty or forty toge- 



