NORTHERN OCEAN 385 



Thrush, and lay four beautiful blue eggs. They have a very 

 loud and pleasing note, which they generally exercise most in 

 the mornings and evenings, when perched on some lofty tree 

 near their nest ; but when the young can fly they are silent, 

 and migrate to the South early in the Fall. They are by no 

 means numerous, and are generally seen in pairs ; they are 

 never sought after as an article of food, but when killed by 

 the Indian boys, are esteemed good eating, though they always 

 feed on worms and insects. 



Grosbeak.^ These gay birds visit Churchill River in Grosbeak. 

 some years so early as the latter end of March, but are by 

 no means plentiful ; they are always seen in pairs, and 

 generally feed on the buds of the poplar and willow. The 

 male is in most parts of its plumage of a beautiful crimson, 

 but the female of a dull dirty green. In form they much 

 resemble the English bullfinch, but are near [419] double 

 their size. They build their nests in trees, sometimes not 

 far from the ground ; lay four white eggs, and always hatch 

 them in June. They are said to have a pleasing note in 

 Spring, though I never heard it, and are known to retire to 

 the South early in the Fall. The English residing in Hudson's 

 Bay generally call this bird the American Red Bird. 



Snow Buntings,^ universally known in Hudson's Bay Snow 

 by the name of the Snow Birds, and in the Isles of Orkney by 

 the name of Snow Flakes, from their visiting those parts 

 in such numbers as to devour the grain as soon as sown, in 

 some years are so destructive as to oblige the farmer to sow 

 his fields a second, and occasionally a third time. These 

 birds make their appearance at the Northern settlements in 

 the Bay about the latter end of May, or beginning of April, 



p Pinicola eniicleator leucura (Miiller). Found throughout the region north 

 to the limit of trees, but, as Hearne intimates, not abundant.] 



[* Plectrophenax nivalis (Linn.). This name was based on a Hudson Bay 

 specimen. The bird is abundant throughout the region in migration, and 

 breeds from the vicinity of Neville Bay (near lat. 62°), northward.] 



2 B 



