Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored 



*' Nay, Bird ; my griei gainsays the Lord's best right. 

 The Lord was fain, at some late festal time, 

 That Keats should set all heaven's woods in rhyme, 

 And Thou in bird-notes. Lo, this tearful night 

 Methinks I see thee, fresh from Death's despite, 

 Perched in a palm-grove, wild with pantomime 

 O'er blissful companies couched in shady thyme. 

 Methinks I hear thy silver whistlings bright 

 Meet with the mighty discourse of the wise, 

 'Till broad Beethoven, deaf no more, and Keats, 

 'Midst of much talk, uplift their smiling eyes 

 And mark the music of thy wood-conceits, 

 And half-way pause on some large courteous word, 

 And call thee ' Brother,' O thou heavenly Bird ! " 



Junco 



(Junco byemalis) Finch family 



Called also: SNOWBIRD; SLATE-COLORED SNOWBIRD 



Length 5.5 to 6.5 inches. About the size of the English sparrow. 

 Male Upper parts slate-colored; darkest on head and neck, which 



are sometimes almost black and marked like a cowl. Gray 



on breast, like a vest. Underneath white. Several outer tail 



feathers white, conspicuous in flight. 

 female Lighter gray, inclining to brown. 

 Range North America. Not common in warm latitudes. Breeds 



in the Catskills and northern New England. 

 Migrations September. April. Winter resident. 



"Leaden skies above; snow below," is Mr. Parkhurst's sug- 

 gestive description of this rather timid little neighbor, that is only 

 starved into familiarity. When the snow has buried seed and 

 berries, a flock of juncos, mingling sociably with the sparrows 

 and chickadees about the kitchen door, will pick up scraps of 

 food with an intimacy quite touching in a bird naturally rather 

 shy. Here we can readily distinguish these "little gray-robed 

 monks and nuns," as Miss Florence Merriam calls them. 



They are trim, sprightly, sleek, and even natty ; their disposi- 

 tions are genial and vivacious, not quarrelsome, like their sparrow 

 cousins, and what is perhaps best about them, they are birds we 

 may surely depend upon seeing in the winter months. A few 

 come forth in September, migrating at night from the deep 



83 



