238 SNOW-BIRD. 



early in the morning, gleaning up the crumbs; appearing very 

 lively and familiar. They have also recourse, at this severe sea- 

 son, when the face of the earth is shut up from them, to the 

 seeds of many kinds of weeds that still rise above the snow, 

 in corners of fields, and low sheltered situations along the bor- 

 ders of creeks and fences, where they associate with several 

 species of Sparrows, particularly those represented on the same 

 plate. They are at this time easily caught with almost any 

 kind of traps; are generally fat, and, it is said, are excellent 

 eating. 



I cannot but consider this bird as the most numerous of its tribe 

 of any within the United States. From the northern parts of 

 the district of Maine, to the Ogechee river in Georgia, a distance 

 by the circuitous route in which I travelled of more than 1800 

 miles, I never passed a day, and scarcely a mile, without see- 

 ing numbers of these birds, and frequently large flocks of sev- 

 eral thousands. Other travellers, with whom I conversed, who 

 had come from Lexington in Kentucky, through Virginia, also 

 declared that they found these birds numerous along the whole 

 road. It should be observed, that the road sides are their favour- 

 ite haunts, where many rank weeds that grow along the fences 

 furnish them with food, and the road with gravel. In the vi- 

 cinity of places where they were most numerous, I observed 

 the small Hawk, represented in the same plate, and several 

 others of his tribe, watching their opportunity, or hovering 

 cautiously around, making an occasional sweep among them, 

 and retiring to the bare branches of an old cypress to feed on 

 their victim. In the month of April, when the weather begins 

 to be warm, they are observed to retreat to the woods ; and to 

 prefer the shaded sides of hills and thickets; at which time the 

 males warble out a few very low sweet notes; and are almost 

 perpetually pursuing and fighting with each other. About the 

 twentieth of April they take their leave of our humble regions, 

 and retire to the north, and to the high ranges of the Alleghany 

 to build their nests, and rear their young. In some of those 

 ranges, in the interior of Virginia, and northward about the 



